Unpopular DB opinions

[Kenji]

Power Rangers 2017 failed for the same reason the 1993 Mario Movie failed:
Because no adult ever looked at a Mario game and went "You know what would make this appeal to me? Dark and edgy shit!"

People liked Power Rangers because it was silly, it was dumb, and it was fun Saved by the Bell combined with fighting cheap-looking giant monsters dressed in rubber while listening to Rita screech about having a headache. Even more "serious" seasons like In Space still retained the silly, dumb and fun aspect. Nobody wants to watch "serious" Power Rangers, just like nobody wants to watch a "serious" Mario adaptation.

[JulieYBM]

If we’re comparing Dragon Ball to something like Power Rangers, I’d put Power Rangers on a lower caliber compared to Dragon Ball. Much of Power Rangers is honestly something that appeals to 5 or 6 year olds, while Dragon Ball always seemed much closer to the pre-teen demographic.

Side note, but I think a major reason the 2017 Power Rangers movie failed was because it tried to be a PG-13 superhero movie that’s full of teen angst right out of a John Hughes movie. It should’ve gone for a tone closer to what the Sonic movies have been doing.

Eh, it depends on the Power Rangers season. MMPR and the Judd Lynn era (the second half of Turbo through Time Force) was continually aiming to do character-based writing and involved story arcs that carried over between the seasons. We see this culminate in in Space, where there's a big intergalactic union of evil as well as continual callbacks to prior seasons. That and the fact that they committed to doing a space opera for kids feels a lot more intentional than Toriyama's haphazard style of just making shit up and actively antagonizing audience expectations.

Like, it's kind of easier to aim for a higher standard than Dragon Ball when one is written by a guy who goes out of his way to not aim for an involved storyline and character development and the other is a series put together by multiple writers who and showrunnersover multiple seasons. Said writers actually entering an industry to intentionally work in said industry on various projects, too.

As for that 2017 film, I think the focus on character would have worked if the Ranger stuff hadn't tried to recreate the usual Hollywood shit. People will say Power Rangers looks awful all the time but all of the Japanese directors and stunt people brought onto the series over the years absolutely proved that they could outshine a $100-200 million production simply with good cinematography, good stunt direction and good, easy-to-move in costumes with simple designs. You can still pop open any important episode directed by Sakamoto and be treated to a really fun fight scene that he choreographed and shot all on the same day.

[WittyUsername]

If we’re comparing Dragon Ball to something like Power Rangers, I’d put Power Rangers on a lower caliber compared to Dragon Ball. Much of Power Rangers is honestly something that appeals to 5 or 6 year olds, while Dragon Ball always seemed much closer to the pre-teen demographic.

Side note, but I think a major reason the 2017 Power Rangers movie failed was because it tried to be a PG-13 superhero movie that’s full of teen angst right out of a John Hughes movie. It should’ve gone for a tone closer to what the Sonic movies have been doing.

Eh, it depends on the Power Rangers season. MMPR and the Judd Lynn era (the second half of Turbo through Time Force) was continually aiming to do character-based writing and involved story arcs that carried over between the seasons. We see this culminate in in Space, where there's a big intergalactic union of evil as well as continual callbacks to prior seasons. That and the fact that they committed to doing a space opera for kids feels a lot more intentional than Toriyama's haphazard style of just making shit up and actively antagonizing audience expectations.

Like, it's kind of easier to aim for a higher standard than Dragon Ball when one is written by a guy who goes out of his way to not aim for an involved storyline and character development and the other is a series put together by multiple writers who and showrunnersover multiple seasons. Said writers actually entering an industry to intentionally work in said industry on various projects, too.

As for that 2017 film, I think the focus on character would have worked if the Ranger stuff hadn't tried to recreate the usual Hollywood shit. People will say Power Rangers looks awful all the time but all of the Japanese directors and stunt people brought onto the series over the years absolutely proved that they could outshine a $100-200 million production simply with good cinematography, good stunt direction and good, easy-to-move in costumes with simple designs. You can still pop open any important episode directed by Sakamoto and be treated to a really fun fight scene that he choreographed and shot all on the same day.

I do agree that Power Rangers went through a period during the Judd Lynn era and even parts of the Disney era where it attempted to aim a bit higher, but almost all of it was still pretty simplistic, even compared to a lot of other children’s programming.

To give an example, a lot of Power Rangers fans like to talk about Time Force, as if it has morally complex villains and tackles the subject of systemic racism, but it really doesn’t. The one episode where the show addresses racism in any meaningful way, the most it has to say is “don’t judge someone just because they’re different from you,” while also raising some disturbing implications about the police force that the Rangers are apart of, which I’m pretty sure never gets addressed.

Mind you, Dragon Ball doesn’t exactly have deep writing either, but it generally comes across as less juvenile than Power Rangers and the anime in particular did like to deal in some heavy subject matter, most notably with the Bardock and Trunks specials.

[ABED]

I can see similarities but ultimately I feel the shows are quite different. I prefer the fight scenes in DB, but feel YYH's characters were more redefined.

I'm not saying they were the same. Obviously they're quite different but the emphasis on action while having lots of silly humor makes them fun to watch back to back.

[JulieYBM]

To give an example, a lot of Power Rangers fans like to talk about Time Force, as if it has morally complex villains and tackles the subject of systemic racism, but it really doesn’t. The one episode where the show addresses racism in any meaningful way, the most it has to say is “don’t judge someone just because they’re different from you,” while also raising some disturbing implications about the police force that the Rangers are apart of, which I’m pretty sure never gets addressed.

Yeah, I would not be surprised if that happened. I haven't looked at Time Force in twenty-five years, so I wouldn't be surprised if it fucked up pretty badly on stuff.

Mind you, Dragon Ball doesn’t exactly have deep writing either, but it generally comes across as less juvenile than Power Rangers and the anime in particular did like to deal in some heavy subject matter, most notably with the Bardock and Trunks specials.

I mean, PR deals with people being displaced by war and the trauma of children being kidnapped and raised by said kidnappers, all of which is kind of really horrifying—especially the latter, since it happens so much closer to home.

The Trunks special also deals with a child's point-of-view during a time of war, which is something that I think the series in general would have benefitted from dealing with more. That being said, it was a pretty one-off example and was something the series actively tried to avoid doing or keeping firm to, even in the anime.

Both titles are really inconsistent and I wasn't exactly trying to argue that either is even particularly great at what they do. I do think it's patting ourselves on the back to really try putting Dragon Ball over, say, something like PRiS when looking at the themes being covered in much more obvious terms. Dragon Ball might have had a more readily recognizable older teen and adult audience because of its obvious use of blood and nudity, whereas now as a full grown adult I'd call all of the themes and the hoops the story of PR jumped through to be far more impressive than the writing that Dragon Ball relied on.

I dunno. The longer we sit here extrapolating, the more it just seems like it doesn't add up to much to be constantly asking back-and-forth which cobbled together live action/comic/cartoon series made for kids is less cobbled together than the other.

[Civic]

I like Daima. (Weird to think that's unpopular)

It's better than GT in almost every way (Baby was a more interesting villain). It's the most beautiful the series has ever looked. After getting a small teaser of the existence of the Demon Realm in the Buu saga, we get to see it in its entirety and how it all works. We get backstory on the Namekians and the Glinds which was cool. The comedic moments are a lot of fun (the giant bull that wants to eat the gang and then sees Goku's strength and wimps out might be my favourite, plus Vegeta's 'bath' reaction is fucking gold). Vegeta going SSJ3 and beating one of the threats was fantastic fan service. Gomah being a little shrill shrimp was enjoyable, and the English VA did a great job with both his regular and beefed-up form. The battle against Gomah was fun and the action was great. Kuu becoming Supreme Demon King was a great idea, and the fact that the Third Eye was just a thing you could buy at the local shop is perfect Toriyama humour.

It had its problems as well. Panzy and Degesu seemed superfluous. For a short series, it did feel a little thin and stretched out at times. A few more battles would've been good, and the battles we did get could've gone longer (especially Goku's fight against Tamagami 3).

But overall, its strengths overshadow its weaknesses.

[Kenji]

To me, Daima mostly failed due to having no story or arc of its own.

- The environments are repetitive and uninspiring wastelands (per usual)
- The characters feel flat and have no personal development (there's Glorio, Koo and Arinsu at least, but they're very undercooked)
- The Demon Realm and its lore dumps really don't add anything meaningful to the story itself or the franchise at large, in fact, they only serve to muddle things even further (to the point we now have debates on how the continuity fits, if it's even meant to fit at all, etc.)
- The pacing is horrendously bad. As Torishima puts it, the entire first episode is a worthless recap

That it was conceived as GT nostalgia pandering doesn't help matters.
But even taking GT out of the equation, watching Daima was a struggle to keep my interest alive.

I feel people should ditch the "it's better than GT" half-praise and analyze Daima for its own merits instead. Whether it can stand on its own two legs as a good show or not. Because I'll be honest, "It's better than GT" seems like the only praise I ever see people give this show, and it's really not a good argument in its favor.

I don't particularly care for the nebulous Toriyama Charm, how good the animation is, or the pure fanservice fight scenes and flashy transformations either. It does have its strengths, such as the relationship between Arinsu and her Boo clones. But it's not enough to save it as a standalone story, IMO.

Not trying to shame people if that's what they come to Dragon Ball for, just my two cents on the topic of why Daima is not all that popular.

[ABED]

I don't skip anything during rewatches. I'm someone who has grown to enjoy filler. l even like GT. That said, I enjoy the idea of it more than the actual show. I like the throwback to early DB adventures (I do consider the greedy planet creative and disagree with anyone who says it isn't). I like the Luud arc minus the uncomfortable Dolltaki stuff. I like the Baby arc, especially the episodes that take place on Planet M2. I don't like the Super 17 arc. But I like the shadow dragon arc and not just the ending. I like the gradual build of the dragons. The ending is an all timer. That said, the fight scenes are really boring.

[JulieYBM]

I think the most offensive part of Dragon Ball Daima Episode #1 isn't even the recap scenes. Those are least flesh out Gomah and his cast of characters while providing fun little segments that re-adapt the Majin Buu arc's highlights. The primary issue is the Son Goku and Vegeta fight is meaningless and just a repeat of the same thing we see all the time throughout modern Dragon Ball and Trunks' birthday party is just totally phoned in. It's Trunks' birthday but he basically has no prescence in the episode. Shin and Kibito appear just to explain why they are not combined anymore. There's nothing organic going on here.

General criticism of Dragon Ball is so fraught largely because a lot of the people who will say, "Well, at least it's better than Dragon Ball GT" do not actually understand what makes good television. They do not understand basic storytelling structure and they do not understand why things are done the way that they are done. Perhaps they have some inclinatio from instinct, but they aren't exactly studying how episodes are written and structured and how dialogue is written to be friendly to an audience of children or their parents who might not keep up with every single episode. In that regard, Dragon Ball Daima is not written like a typical animated television series from Japan and that is perhaps its biggest weakness. The series is a collection of scenes where information gets dumped, a fight scene happens for the sake of having a fight scene, rather than as a result of genuine conflict arising, and then episodes just end.

While every episode of Dragon Ball Daima is written by an experienced television anime writer—Kakihara Yuuko—we know that Dragon Ball Daima had the most involvement from Toriyama ever before. Furthermore, we know that Director Yashima Yoshitaka does not have prior series director or episode director experience, which makes it difficult for there to be an assertive authorial voice to the project, like you can at least get from Dragon Ball Super or Dragon Ball Super: Broly, where Nagamine's hand as director at least mitigates the unrefined nature of Toriyama's screenplays.

When you compare how Daima's episodes are written to how an episode of Dragon Ball Super is written, you can see that Dragon Ball Super at least structures its scripts to include new parts of lore as a part of the story being told, rather than just making episodes feel like they're reading off a bullet list of new Dragon Ball facts. What is the biggest, most major different between Super (2015) and Daima? Toriyama and Iyoku Akio are heavily involved in Daima, whereas Dragon Ball Super simply allows its skilled and experienced staff to use their skills and experience to more naturally figure out the nuances of how the story outlines from Toriyama are adapted into scripts. Even when the Dragon Ball Super staff faced challenges, they at least understood the various ways of writing television animation and could draw on that to make things works.

I've suspected since Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and now with Dragon Ball Daima, that Iyoku was meddling to make sure that whoever was put in charge of Dragon Ball animated projects was basically just a yesman without any real desire to push back against him or Toriyama. It would explain why Yashima was made the Director of Dragon Ball Daima despite not having prior experience and it would explain why Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was designed to match the look of Toriyama's as closely as it was. Admittedly, we also saw this with Dragon Ball Super: Broly but I don't think it got in the way of Nagamine still basically just doing his own thing. Then again, his very next project was the Wano-kuni arc of ONE PIECE, where he had even more creative freedom to do whatever he wanted with the visual look of the series, so I could very easily be missing the forest for the trees here.

This is kind of a messy and unfocsed post already but before I end it, I'd like to sum up my sentiment real quick: Toriyama should not have been involved in the scripts. Bring on Tomioka Atsuhiro and King Ryuu and let them do their things with the scripts, send them to Toriyama for approval if it's that big a deal, but be willing to sit down and explain why their way is the best way. Don't just throw anime workers under the bus and ask someone who doesn't work in the industry to blindly re-write or demand that their ideas be followed exactly like that.

Dragon Ball Daima is one of those really frustrating projects where, when it's good it's going to be memorable for a long, long time, but when it's bad, it's so obviously bad and fixable that it's frustrating to watch it unfold the way it does.

I was rewatching the scene where Goku shows off all of his transformations to Gomah at the end of Episode #19 and it's so wild how despite being, like, the third or fourth time Goku has done this since the Majin Buu arc back in the early 1990s, it's a scene that still hits hard thanks to the directing, the animation, and the sound direction. Goku stripping to show all the girls and the gays his sexy-fuckin'-abs? Thank you, Takahashi Yuuya for your contributions to my mental image of Son Goku. The echo effect on Nozawa's voice as she does that final scream? Brilliant. The sexy, pink gay monkey man that appears once the smoke clears? Don't mind if I do!

But then, I think back to just a few episodes prior, with Gomah's elite guard just showing up and everyone fighting them with zero emotional investment in those scenes, or I think about how Panty and Glorio's character arcs don't really get satisfying development, despite having the perfect opportunity to be the main focus of the story.

It's really frustrating to watch Daima because it would have absolutely benefited from just letting a series director and writers take the bits of lore and general ideas for the new characters and then let them come up with their own stories based on them. That episodic hobby anime formula works for a reason!

Gah, I wanna rewatch the Dragon Ball Super now so I can re-experience the Black arc and the Tournament of Power (especially those first twelve-ish episodes).

Okay, this post is a mess and I don't have the spoons to clean it up, sorry to anyone who reads it lol

[Civic]

I feel people should ditch the "it's better than GT" half-praise and analyze Daima for its own merits instead. Whether it can stand on its own two legs as a good show or not. Because I'll be honest, "It's better than GT" seems like the only praise I ever see people give this show, and it's really not a good argument in its favor.

I just did that. I started with 'it's better than GT' because it is and Daima is often conflated with GT, and then I analysed it on its merits. You don't have to like Daima - this is in the unpopular DB opinions thread for a reason - but it's like... I literally just did all of what you said people don't do.

[The Dark Knight]

I'm going to say what may end up being the most unpopular opinion in these 780 pages: Toriyama's return to the franchise, from a creative point of view, was far more harmful than beneficial. I'll go a step further and say that GT greatly benefited from him stepping aside and leaving it to Toei.

Before I get banned , let me explain what I mean: When Toriyama was fully committed to the franchise, he was all hands on deck; we had him working on the original manga week to week, helping the anime's staff with filler material, designing villains and locations for the movies, etc. Fast forward 15 years, and he's back to working on the franchise, but he's not fully committed this time around, instead limiting his involvement to bare-bones story drafts and very simplistic character designs. The problem was, everyone working around him were too afraid to deviate or alter his vision, which resulted in Super and Daima feeling like half-cooked meals.

The team that worked on GT didn't have to worry about that; they were able to freely explore different aspects of the world and characters without thinking about whether it lined up with a half-assed draft. Toriyama however did make one giant contribution to GT: he suggested they set it after Z, as they initially wanted to set it during the 10 year time gap, but he advised against it because he felt it would hinder their creativity. As we've seen with both Super and Daima, he was absolutely right about this, as setting stories within a time-skip indeed hinder one's creativity. GT may not have been seasoned properly, but at least it was cooked all the way through.

I think an alternate reality where Toriyama's drafts and designs were viewed as suggestions, rather than a Bible, would have resulted in better products. Daima is being discussed, so I'll use that as an example. They could have kept Toriyama's Ssj4 design as is, but discarded its backstory in favor of something closer to GT's connection to the great ape. They could've kept Toriyama's idea of introducing U6, but instead of it being limited to a low stakes tournament, we instead get to visit U6 proper. They could've thrown out Resurrection F in its entirety and made their own movie from the ground up with an original premise and new antagonist.

Dragon Ball is my favorite Shonen, by far, so I'll never downplay the importance Toriyama played in getting this series off the ground and sustaining it for the decade that its original run lasted. However, I simply can't overlook the negative impacts his involvement has had on its revival era, as despite Super and Daima lasting for a combine 150 episodes, it really didn't feel like much happened. To use another food analogy, the revival era felt like fast food, we got a lot of it, but none of it was really filling. GT, despite being a far smaller plate, felt more nutritious, despite the cooks messing up the seasonings.

[JulieYBM]

Any creator who has the slightest bit of curiosity and investment in other mediums and the adaption of their work would have worked more hands-on with the production staff and either used their authority to allow the staff to do their own thing or advocated for them to receive better production circumstances from the studio itself.

I think the biggest issue with Toriyama is that the guy probably just did all of his work from his home studio and never really bothered to think very hard about how to work with the rest of the crew on the various projects he was contributing to.

If you're in Toriyama's position, even if you don't want to be coming up with stories yourself, you'd at least do the groundwork of getting to know the people who would be adapting your original work, their various skills and how you can best support them to do their best work. Don't support them playing things safely, inspire them to swing for the fences. I just think that's common sense, though.

[The Dark Knight]

I think the biggest issue with Toriyama is that the guy probably just did all of his work from his home studio and never really bothered to think very hard about how to work with the rest of the crew on the various projects he was contributing to.

I agree with everything you said, but I want to focus on this part in particular because this is actually correct, he never spoke to anyone on the production side of things, much less met with them and got to know them on a personal level. In fact, he was only communicating with Iyoko via E-mail and according to one of the staffers, once they got whatever it was he provided them with (draft, designs, etc.), they weren't allowed to ask for clarifications or changes. I don't care how creative of a staff you are, that's just not something you can realistically work with and expect good results from. If Toriyama was going to be so hands off and provide the staff with so little to work with, they would have been better off without him. Daima actually started as a Toei-only project; Toriyama was never intended to get involved with it, so I can't help but wonder how it would've turned out if they maintained that creative freedom they initially started out with.

[angeldreamZ004]

While I generally agree about the revival era being very Toriyama-centric not a good thing and how this negatively affected the creative process and teams. I think there's one modern arc that shows how not following that formula leads to something that feels unique, more authorial, more natural, which is the Moro arc.
You had Toyotaro writing his own story and creating his own character designs in a way very akin to that old days Torayma, and it helps me realize how a lot of things that made me actually enjoy Super were thanks to Toei and Toyo putting their fingers on the project, so there are things such as Toei UI, or Toyo UI, explained in detail by himself for WDBN. Very similar if not same reasons I enjoy Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z filler (which makes me dislike Kai), the old 17 movies, GT and even the more peripheral stuff such as Playdia Gaiden.

Something really bothers me in Fukkatsu no ‘F’, Super Hero and Daima is that the way they were handled has a very protocol nature when you compare to other arcs. If I analyse Super Hero especially, it becomes evident, as I recall how disappointed I was back then during the serialization of the arc in manga, sure, it could be just my expectation, but I really thought we would be seeing a Toyotaro version of that story, that he would be allowed to show his view of that arc.

In the end what we got was almost entire 1:1 manga retelling of the movie, absolutely no space for Toyo to throw his own alternative ideas, possible changes to designs, etc, only extras.
Oh come on, I prefer watching the movie then, I won't be interested in the manga adaptation for any other reason than the extra scenes and Toyo's art. As far as I know, the manga declined in sales during that time, which I think was deserved, I consider it a waste of Toyo's time and talent (though in case he disagrees, I'm happy for him)

I hope it will be different from now on and he'll be allowed to craft his own stories and characters regardless if Toriyama left something for the next arc. I've been excited and very curious about the manga return for more than a year now because of that reason, it will be different with him having more freedom just like he did with Moro, and not doing only 50% or lower like Toei does with the creative part, and they'll be busy for the next 6-7 years with Super 2.0, the unadapted manga arcs, and Super Hero - Version 3, so I can sleep very well without expecting anything from the animation part.

Anyway, I was going to make a much larger post (as I often do) to talk about the creative path I personally think would've been more interesting to be taken in this modern era and I think can still take after Tori's passing. But I got too lazy and impatient all of a sudden to do it and think is unnecessary to write more.
So I'll just leave it there and say that it would still have Toriyama around (opposed to what I saw some saying, that they think he should've retired, an opinion that I respect, but I don't see it that way) as I think having him as just being a part of it instead of the center would've already helped a lot (specially in debates regarding canon) with him doing his own thing instead of just essentially stopping after the Jaco manga in 2013, and blessing projects from Toei, Bandai and many different authors, with Toyotaro, Naho Ooishi, Nagayama being amongst them with smaller involvement from him or none at all. Basically a summary of my idea. amen.

[SupremeKai25]

While I generally agree about the revival era being very Toriyama-centric not a good thing and how this negatively affected the creative process and teams. I think there's one modern arc that shows how not following that formula leads to something that feels unique, more authorial, more natural, which is the Moro arc.
You had Toyotaro writing his own story and creating his own character designs in a way very akin to that old days Torayma, and it helps me realize how a lot of things that made me actually enjoy Super were thanks to Toei and Toyo putting their fingers on the project, so there are things such as Toei UI, or Toyo UI, explained in detail by himself for WDBN. Very similar if not same reasons I enjoy Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z filler (which makes me dislike Kai), the old 17 movies, GT and even the more peripheral stuff such as Playdia Gaiden.

It's always been a team effort, and most of all, Toriyama always gave credit to Toei and Toyotaro. For example, in the Future Trunks saga, he gave credit to Toyotaro for fleshing out Zamasu's psychology on the page. Toriyama described Zamasu as a very challenging villain, very psychologically complex, and so he was thankful to Toyotaro for actually fleshing out the character following the conceptual plotline by Toriyama.

Another thing I liked about Toriyama is that he gave credit to the voice actors of the anime, especially concerning Beerus, Whis, and Goku Black. Yes, he often voiced his criticism of the Toei scripts, but he also praised the voice actors. He upgraded Beerus and Whis to main characters because he loved their voice actors so much, and praised Nozawa's creepy Goku Black.

I believe (hot take) that voice acting is actually the most important aspect of any medium with voice acting, a voice actor makes or breaks a character, and a particularly skilled and talented voice actor can truly enrich a character, like the voice actors of Black and Zamasu did with their creepy voice and haughty British accent in the dub.

So what I love the most about Modern Dragon Ball's production is not that it comes from Toriyama (which it does), but that it was a truly joint effort between Toriyama, Toei, and Toyotaro, and I liked how humble Toriyama was in interviews about Super and praised things made by Toyotaro and Toei.

And when the Moro saga gets adapted, I do hope this joint effort continues. I hope Toyotaro gives his input to Toei and they work together on the adapted Moro saga. And get a wonderful voice actor for Moro because voice acting is so important.

Like, seriously, half the reason why I glaze Zamasu so much is because I love the voice acting. Even Jiren kind of gets redeemed as a character because his voice actors in both the sub and dub did a wonderful job. Sometimes, a voice actor does more to flesh out a character than the writers.

[Koitsukai]

I don't skip anything during rewatches. I'm someone who has grown to enjoy filler. l even like GT. That said, I enjoy the idea of it more than the actual show. I like the throwback to early DB adventures (I do consider the greedy planet creative and disagree with anyone who says it isn't). I like the Luud arc minus the uncomfortable Dolltaki stuff. I like the Baby arc, especially the episodes that take place on Planet M2. I don't like the Super 17 arc. But I like the shadow dragon arc and not just the ending. I like the gradual build of the dragons. The ending is an all timer. That said, the fight scenes are really boring.

This basically sums up how I feel about GT. It's more of a feel, a vibe what I enjoy about GT the most. A sensation Daima was never able to reproduce for me.

[PhantomSaiyan]

This basically sums up how I feel about GT. It's more of a feel, a vibe what I enjoy about GT the most. A sensation Daima was never able to reproduce for me.

GT's vibe and aesthetic is great

[JulieYBM]

In fact, he was only communicating with Iyoko via E-mail and according to one of the staffers, once they got whatever it was he provided them with (draft, designs, etc.), they weren't allowed to ask for clarifications or changes. I don't care how creative of a staff you are, that's just not something you can realistically work with and expect good results from.

lol wut?

wut?

wut?
Wut?

Jesus Fucking Christ on a pogostick.

Just let the staff of these projects do whatever they want at that point. Let series directors go ham.

The Iyoku bit is even funnier because this man is clearly fashioning himself the face of Dragon Ball and yet even he only ever talked to Toriyama via fucking email. lmao come the fuck on girls

[The Dark Knight]

Just let the staff of these projects do whatever they want at that point. Let series directors go ham. The Iyoku bit is even funnier because this man is clearly fashioning himself the face of Dragon Ball and yet even he only ever talked to Toriyama via fucking email.

I can look past the e-mail bit (even though I would've preferred if he actually talked to them in-person or using Zoom) if he was actually interacting with them on a regular basis, but he wasn't. Even Iyoko hinted at his interactions with him being limited, despite being the main go-between for Toriyama, the staff, and the officials at Jump and Toei. I can't imagine being part of the staff with such constraints placed on my work and creativity. I know his involvement was a major plus for the marketing department, but for the actual people working on these projects day in and day out, it must've been a real handicap. Toriyama should've either gotten involved for real, where he was interacting with these people and guiding them through things, or he should've stepped aside; this "I'm involved, but not really" nonsense just hurt both Super and Daima, as well as make things unnecessarily difficult for the people who worked on them.

[kemuri07]

As someone who is a staunch “you should probably fucking read Dragonball before you talk shit” guy,

Yeah I think it’s the coldest take to suggest that Toriyama’s involvement wasn’t the best in regards to the revival-era of Dragonball.

WITH THAT SAID.

I also don’t think it’s fair to hold him entirely accountable for how the revival era turned out either. Even if Toriyama wasn’t involved, it would have probably turned out similar likely do to how Super originated anyways: quickly slapped together as a response to the immense popularity of the first two films of the modern era. Toriyama is a name they could use to “legitimize” any future projects, and that likely would have happened regardless of Toriyama’s input. So basically, I’ll blame Toei way more than I’ll ever blame Toriyama.