Has Dragonball aged well?

[Hades]

I find that Dragonball's plot (good for its time) is somewhat (frankly speaking) puerile, and wouldn't really hold up in today's environment, with shows like Evangelion, Madoka Magica and Berserk all taking very critical looks at their genre in varying ways partially accounting for their success.

For a show to work nowadays it has to be "serious business" (in its plot) like the ones you mentioned...?

Dragon Ball works and it will always work because it never thought of itself as "serious business" and doesn't really try to be "serious business", unlike various other series which try and fail.

Its very nature is different from the series you mentioned. Its, basically, good old fun and its great at that.

To Quote Yahtzee's review of Spec Ops The Line:

http://zeropunctuation.wikia.com/wiki/S ... :_The_Line

Perhaps this is an inevitable part of gaming growing up, as our childish fantasies are torn from us and we are forced to confront consequences in an unfair, uncaring, and unavoidable world of hatred, misery, and death.

ETA: I mean, when Ed Elric makes a bad decision, it comes back to bite him because he made a bad decision. When Goku makes a bad decision, we are expected to go along with it, because he's pure of heart. That's what I mean by good storywriting rather than puerile fiction.

[TonyTheTiger]

Considering that the most popular cartoon on TV today is about six technicolor ponies, the so-called "Dark Age" is probably officially behind us. In fact, a lot of current media is actually all about rejecting the deconstructor fleet that spent the better part of the 90s trying to tell us how horrible life is and why our heroes aren't really heroes. The New Sincerity Movement, as it were. That's probably why Dragon Ball is seeing the resurgence that it is. People are ready for a return of values like friendship, hope, unequivocally good natured heroes, etc. in their entertainment. Because of that I think Dragon Ball is thematically timeless. It's a story that, in broad strokes, can be retold to multiple generations and still "stick."

[rereboy]

I find that Dragonball's plot (good for its time) is somewhat (frankly speaking) puerile, and wouldn't really hold up in today's environment, with shows like Evangelion, Madoka Magica and Berserk all taking very critical looks at their genre in varying ways partially accounting for their success.

For a show to work nowadays it has to be "serious business" (in its plot) like the ones you mentioned...?

Dragon Ball works and it will always work because it never thought of itself as "serious business" and doesn't really try to be "serious business", unlike various other series which try and fail.

Its very nature is different from the series you mentioned. Its, basically, good old fun and its great at that.

To Quote Yahtzee's review of Spec Ops The Line:

http://zeropunctuation.wikia.com/wiki/S ... :_The_Line

Perhaps this is an inevitable part of gaming growing up, as our childish fantasies are torn from us and we are forced to confront consequences in an unfair, uncaring, and unavoidable world of hatred, misery, and death.

ETA: I mean, when Ed Elric makes a bad decision, it comes back to bite him because he made a bad decision. When Goku makes a bad decision, we are expected to go along with it, because he's pure of heart. That's what I mean by good storywriting rather than puerile fiction.

Personally, I don't get why growing up or liking very mature shows means that we can't appreciate or like anything other than mature shows. I love shows like Breaking Bad, House and Game of Thrones and serious manga and anime. But I also love shows that are more simple and cartoons and comics and a bunch of other stuff which aren't nearly as mature.

In short, I love quality. Period.

Dragon Ball is pretty good at what it does, in my opinion. Like I said, its imaginative and just good old fun with great and entertaining ideas and characters. Sure, its not mature in any way compared to other shows or even serious, but that's not what I look for in it and why I like it. In fact, Dragon Ball doesn't even try to be something like that. They have different purposes and are different animals. I simply don't watch Dragon Ball with the same mind set that I watch Breaking Bad and I don't understand who does it. And my age is closer to 30 years old than it is of 20 years old, so I hardly believe that I've yet to "change" regarding that.

Regarding your example, the reader gets why Goku makes certain decisions. It only starts to fall apart when we start to scrutinize it with a excessively mature and real life point of view. That's what I mean when I say "I simply don't watch Dragon Ball with the same mind set that I watch Breaking Bad". Its not meant to be regarded in that light. And that's not bad at all. I don't stop to think about all those turtles who probably had families that Super Mario killed just to save his princess and to make more points, when he could actually had avoided most of them and not kill them. So why should I regard Dragon Ball in that kind of light?

Regarding gaming specifically, I like a mature game just like any other guy, but that doesn't mean I can no longer have fun and appreciate quality games which simply aren't that mature. I probably have more fun playing any silly old school 2D cartoon platform game than most mature shooters (with mature storylines).

[TonyTheTiger]

Regarding gaming specifically, I like a mature game just like any other guy, but that doesn't mean I can no longer have fun an appreciate quality games which simply aren't that mature. I probably have more fun playing any silly old school 2D cartoon platform game than most mature shooters (with mature storylines).

Interestingly enough, despite Mass Effect being a pretty "mature" game, one of the main reasons people were universally pissed at the ending(s) was because of the lack of a completely happy one.

[Bejiita]

I think animation quality is unrelated to whether or not it has aged well. A lot of earlier animations were very fluid (Disney, Loony Tunes), but a lot of Hanna Barbera shows of the 60s and 70s (like Johnny Quest or Space Ghost) are choppier than Dragon Ball. Then you have Adult Swim original cartoons that are also poorly animated. Animation quality is more a question of budget than timelessness.

Sorry if I'm just restating what I already said, but I wasn't sure if i was as clear as I wanted to be.

I wasn't completely sure on where the OP was heading, but when he mentioned the animation quality my response related to that.

I guess questioning how well DB has aged can relate to a number of things, but if we were to talk about the storyline alone, then I'd think it's not too relevant, it's fiction in the end of the day, and no matter what... things get pear-shaped eventually, and you have to just accept it for what it is, even stories like Harry Potter are about wizardry and magic, it's a a fairly recent thing and people don't really think nothing of it, DBZ is just in animated form.

And as for comparing it to other anime alone I'd have to stop myself, since I don't watch any other anime, but like all things, as time goes on they look more flash and updated and so on, but the basis is still the same.

Let me add that, like watching any film, what makes DB so great is the performance of the original VA's, fair enough it's the same story in any form of dub, but the original version blows the dub away, and it's the VA's, they have complete emotion in what they do, they become the character, and don't feel any resentment, whereas on the dub it's more like the VA thinks 'hold on, this is just a fucking kids show, I ain't really gonna laugh like I mean it, I just want my money', only during the later half of Z and towards the end do Funi start to feel more for the show and perform a lot better.

Don't forget most stuff form the past is better than recent things, look at how good the animation is in Disney films like the Jungle Book, really good animation, now people do it the easy way and use computers as much as they do and we end up with something static and un-life-like, compare the Simpsons the the old series and you'll see what I mean.

[Attitudefan]

Wait many years and see people talk about how dated the digital animation was in the 2000s!

[Saiga]

I believe the manga has aged well, but that the anime hasn't. Mainly due to the padding and filler more than anything else.