Is Dragon Ball/Z an objectively bad series?

[ShinRogafuken]

Anyone who is trying to use the term "objective" in relation to this series or art clearly doesn't know what objectivity is.

[Dalesy]

Anyone who is trying to use the term "objective" in relation to this series or art clearly doesn't know what objectivity is.

By your standards, there is no such thing as objectivity. Everything we experience in life comes through our senses. If our collective perception is subjective no matter what, then throw away everything you've ever held to be fact.

[Insertclevername]

There are aspects of the series up for objective analysis such as it's quality, which even then has to be looked at on it's own merit.

I mean, there's no denying that this shot of Gokuu is of objectively poor quality:



He's stiff. His hair is not the usual shape or style. His face especially lacks detail. This clearly doesn't hold up to the normal standards set with in the franchise's anime adaptions.

So, yes, you can say that a series or art is objectively bad, with in appropriate standards of course.

[DynasticHunter]

That looks like something I drew in first grade. Gross.

[Cursed Lemon]

It's not that Dragonball isn't "good", but it's absolutely the kind of show that you have to turn your brain off to watch.

Which isn't bad, per se, but its influence comes from the notoriety of being a trope codifier for a thousand cliches.

[dbzfan7]

I'd say it can be objectively bad depending on how you analyze the whole thing.

[kei17]

*snip*

In-between frames are supposed to be bad in every anime.

*Edit: Uh, don't mind. I hadn't read the the whole thread and I mistakenly thought he was trying to use the shot as an example of how the series is poorly animated.

[KaiserNeko]

*snip*

In-between frames are supposed to be bad in every anime.

Actually, if you take a look at that scene again... it sticks out -really- badly. It's not a matter of it being an in-between frame.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Ignoring the eternal question of "who's judging", thus entering the eternal slippery slope from which there is no escape, I have a different question. What is Dragon Ball trying to accomplish? Whose expectations is it trying to meet? It's much easier to judge something based on what it wants to do rather than what the literary and critical collective might want it to do.

In which case nothing is answered because Toriyama just wanted an entertaining story.

Return of Cooler had a lot of wonky bits. That's just part of the movie.

[90sDBZ]

To me it's still the greatest anime/manga ever made. It has it's issues but overall there are just too many great things about it to call it bad. I say let the haters hate and just enjoy Dragonball for the flawed masterpiece that it is.

[TrunksTrevelyan0064]

Story-wise, it's definitely not the deepest or most intricate, but it has this charm about it that makes it stand out. Having attempted to write a story of my own, I really admire how Toriyama managed to keep DragonBall going for as long as he did while making everything up as he went. I have to plan the entire thing in advance before I can even think about drawing my actual comic.