Would you be okay if someone else took over Dragon Ball?

[ImmaDeker]

Boondocks is a thoughtful, biting, and unrelenting satire about one man's perception of his ethnicity's culture and all its facets.

Dragonball is Journey to the West with poop added to it, and then eventually Superman II happens and then a Terminator fucks my dad. It's basically Journey to the West Evolution, with added, bizarre Judeo-Christian subtleties accidentally integrated into it at certain intervals.

These two things are not like the other. These two things do not belong together in a comparison, no matter how surface level.

It wouldn't be especially hard for someone to continue it, or even improve upon it. I actually take back my Marty Isenberg suggestion and would propose Michael Jelenic, whose Thundercats reboot had the benefit of both adapting iconic Thundercats material and having a staff that created a wealth of material that fit the aesthetic of the brand and made it feel as open and boundless as ever. And I'd argue Dragonball and Thundercats have about the same literary merit (...such as it is), making it a fair comparison.

It wouldn't really be difficult to continue Dragonball, whether directly or via further adaptation. The problem comes in that preconception that it IS a legacy or some big auteur tapestry. It really isn't. GT fails because it's ultimately a WRITER'S show, not an artist's show (or comic) like DB/Z, and attempts to do everything it can to aggressively craft coherency in a universe created out of a weekly serialization grind. The Black Star Dragonballs, Hell's revolving door, etc. are an attempt to present a thematic ending and weird meta commentary played entirely straight.

At the same time, stuff like Episode of Bardock are again written with legacy in mind or the idea that Dragonball is some great tapestry that MUST be epic. It's not. It's a poop comic for children that is an insane, pop cultural hodgepodge of random iconography. That's why it's fun.

You want to continue Dragonball? Get some random hack writer who isn't familiar with it, but thinks it's kinda neat, but can also make up what he wants about it. Will it be Toriyama? Not really.

But it wouldn't be too far off.

[DarkPrince_92]

Remember when I said the Boondocks was like Dragon Ball? Because I don't.

Anyway, I only used that as an example because the writer was absent in the production of Season 4. And it bombed.

[ImmaDeker]

Remember when I said the Boondock was like Dragon Ball? Because I don't.

Anyway, I only used that as an example because the writer was absent in the production of Season 4. And it bombed.

Right, but my point is that the two aren't the same and thus the repercussions would be less severe, thus I feel the comparison is invalid. Thus my point.

Dragonball and GT don't really have different levels of quality. Episode of Bardock and Dragonball Minus don't, either.

A better comparison would be Star Wars, if anything. Or some other really accessible modern monomyth.

(And not to be snarky, but way to ignore my actual point that made up the bulk of my post just because you don't like my dismissal of your comparison.)

[Doctor.]

Dragonball and GT don't really have different levels of quality. Episode of Bardock and Dragonball Minus don't, either.

Not quite sure if we're watching the same series here.

[ImmaDeker]

Dragonball and GT don't really have different levels of quality. Episode of Bardock and Dragonball Minus don't, either.

Not quite sure if we're watching the same series here.

Dragonball/Z is an artist's story, with broad characterization and emotional catharsis amidst a series of interesting set pieces, visual iconography, and distinct personality.

Dragonball GT is very much a writer's show, and thus is a weird Frankenstein of an obsession with past continuity, hindsight implications, and the need for thematic resonance to make the whole journey worth it.

They're very different things, but really, neither is better or worse at what their respective goals are. They're about the same to me in quality, though I like GT a little more because I have more of a verbal/writer brain and thus am fascinated by GT's futile attempt at giving Toriyama's work a monomythic endgame.

And Episode of Bardock and Dragonball Minus are basically the same in quality and need for LEGACY, so whatevs.

Get some guy off the street who doesn't care what a Super Saiyan is or why it's a big deal that there are three or four or eleventy stages of it, sit him at his word processor, and have him write continuation scripts to be drawn by the chick who drew Episode of Bardock. That's your ideal staff for a sequel manga.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

I don't think it'll have the same appeal that attracted us to it in the first place. Sure we got things like Dragon Ball Multiverse, which I think is great, but it still isn't the Dragon Ball Toriyama wrote, even if it was a just "a job" to him.

The fans dont have any standards for this series beyond their favourite characters just getting something to do equally to Goku. Most fans don't care enough to set any so long as that need is fufilled. GT would have been a masterpiece if that happened at the most for them. DB isnt science, but after reading crap like Episode of Bardock, shows that not any joe can write it.

Then theres also the charm, there IS no charm in western fanfics. Its all nothing but sue-simple villains, and SSJ5/6/7. There isnt anything that made it what it was, nothing cheeky, funny nor innocently charming. GT at the least was better written than most fanwork and did know how to be funny.

[ImmaDeker]

DB isnt science, but after reading crap like Episode of Bardock, shows that not any joe can write it.

That's not an entirely fair assessment. Episode of Bardock is a tie-in that presumably had specific parameters ('this much space, make Bardock Super Saiyan, make him look heroic for the brand, etc.") that we can assume but are not entirely privy to. I've worked on creative shit as a writer for producers: you can't assess something in a vacuum like that unless you're honing in on a really specific flaw beyond "This is bad."

You're crazy if you think something like Episode of Bardock was entirely someone's creative passion project and not someone making the best out of the assignment.

[Mr.Judge]

Boondocks is a thoughtful, biting, and unrelenting satire about one man's perception of his ethnicity's culture and all its facets.

bizarre Judeo-Christian subtleties accidentally integrated into it at certain intervals.

Can you elaborate further over this?

[ImmaDeker]

Boondocks is a thoughtful, biting, and unrelenting satire about one man's perception of his ethnicity's culture and all its facets.

bizarre Judeo-Christian subtleties accidentally integrated into it at certain intervals.

Can you elaborate further over this?

When Goku rips off Superman's backstory during the Saiyan Saga, there's a bit of thematic baggage that comes with that. It's well known that Superman was based on the basic story of Moses (being sent down the river from his dying village/sent through space from his dying planet), with "Kal-El" meant to reflect the naming convention of angels, so when you give Goku that "sent from his dying planet" with Zod-esque Kryptonian criminals in the form of alien Saiyan survivors, copying that iconography means certain concepts will, intentionally or not, carry over.

Goku becoming a Super Saiyan superficially mirrors the fact Sun Wukong becomes a Buddha, but the difference between the two is that Goku ascends to "Buddha" in a context where he must bring down wrath against a slave driving tyrant (sound familiar)? The battle on Namek as the world falls apart is more or less the anime plagues of Exodus in the abstract, and Goku's version of Wukong's enlightenment that only comes from him being pure of heart or whatever shit allowing him to bring down the plagues of wrath against Freeza represents a weird fusion of Old Testament and Buddhist concepts.

Not to say this makes Dragonball DEEP, just that this recognizable iconography got all jumbled together because, again, Dragonball is a pop cultural hodgepodge that doesn't really have much of an original bone in its body (but it's okay, because the way it combines its derivative elements is interesting). But it's probably why most shonen afterward associate personal, spiritual ascension with getting BIGGERERER super powers, because in shonen land the ascension to Buddha means purity allows you to bring down frogs onto the Pharaoh.

Incidentally, this is probably why the most blatant Goku analogues among the villain cast tend to have ties to godhood. Turles is evil Goku right down to his salvation and ascension to godhood coming from eating. I always loved the audacity of that, even if most of Z-era fiction bores me to utter tears. Beerus is just purple cat Goku right down to the script copping to it by him offering Goku a God of Destruction job. Because being Goku means having the purity of a Buddha and the fury of YHWH at the same time.

This is probably why Battle of Gods is my favorite Dragonball anything, because it takes Toriyama's lazily applied and haphazard combination of the thematic biblical baggage of superhero comics and Journey to the West to its logical, most casual and comedic conclusion. And why Dragonball Evolution is the most faithful possible Dragonball movie, as its just Journey to the West as applied to completely different, modern American hero myths (read: Spider-Man instead of Superman).