Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.
Zephyr wrote:I'm liking how much this film is looking to be shaking things up. Hope it does more than what we've seen.
RandomGuy96 wrote:Oh, and Goku didn't go from 8,000 to 90,000 with training BTW. He did it with near-death healing boosts. He got five of them.
He abused aspects of his physiology during training. That's still training.
Repeatedly shooting yourself and taking senzus isn't really "training" in the conventional sense.
I firmly believe that someone would get laughed at/criticized if they wrote a fan fiction with this premise and execution.
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote:
Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.
A being is born into a Naraka as a direct result of his or her accumulated karma and resides there for a finite period of time until that karma has achieved its full result. After his or her karma is used up, he or she will be reborn in one of the higher worlds as the result of karma that had not yet ripened.
Despite the variations across the manga, anime, and other parts of the anime, DB Hell has pretty consistently been a cartoon version of Buddhist Hell. It's similar to how cartoon depictions of Hell in western countries are usually recognizably a cartoon version of the standard Christian version of Hell, even if the cartoonist doesn't have any particular theological axe to grind. These ideas are just part of the background culture.
most legends claim that sinners are subjected to gruesome tortures until their "deaths", after which they are restored to their original state for the torture to be repeated.
Which might tie in to speculation that Freeza keeps getting sliced and diced in Hell, and that that's what those remarkably intact pieces of him on the ground beneath a dark sky are supposed to be. Maybe.
Tyro wrote:Count me in the group that has a problem with Freeza training for 4 months and getting to Super Saiyan God tier. That said, I'm going to hope against hope that it's something more than regular punching-bag-and-pushups training.
Chuquita wrote:Gokû and Vegeta!! ... We've never seen them train/live together. I have wanted that since I first saw the Room of Spirit and Time episodes on Toonami ages ago. OuO This would grant a very old DB-related wish of mine. Please let it be so.
Despite how obvious this may be, I never really thought about how cool it would be if we got to see them spar for a few minutes. I hope they don't waste that opportunity.
Herms wrote:Which might tie in to speculation that Freeza keeps getting sliced and diced in Hell, and that that's what those remarkably intact pieces of him on the ground beneath a dark sky are supposed to be. Maybe.
According to the ShonenGameZ translations with book in hand, that's from Tagoma and Sorbet wishing his body back from being ashes... despite the whole scenario not making sense with his Buu Arc revivals.
It turns out Shenlon is summoned by Pilaf! As this happens Sorbet jumps in and says “I want you to revive Freeza!!”. Shenron then announces that it is possible to revive Freeza but his body has been scattered so his soul cannot return.
Sorbet says that he wants the body to return and so Shenlong grants his wish. This is where Freeza's body disappears from his cocoon in hell and appears in pieces around Sorbet. Meanwhile Piccolo and Teen Gohan can feel his Ki.
Sorbet and Tagoma gather the pieces of Freeza and Sorbet announces that he plans to revive the Freeza army. He then begins to revive Freeza in a revival chamber. As this happens, Freeza begins to remember his battle against Goku on Namek.
Last edited by TheDevilsCorpse on Thu Feb 19, 2015 12:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
Direct translations of the Korean DB Online timeline and guidebook.
My personal "canon" and BP list. (Coming Soon)
A being is born into a Naraka as a direct result of his or her accumulated karma and resides there for a finite period of time until that karma has achieved its full result. After his or her karma is used up, he or she will be reborn in one of the higher worlds as the result of karma that had not yet ripened.
Despite the variations across the manga, anime, and other parts of the anime, DB Hell has pretty consistently been a cartoon version of Buddhist Hell. It's similar to how cartoon depictions of Hell in western countries are usually recognizably a cartoon version of the standard Christian version of Hell, even if the cartoonist doesn't have any particular theological axe to grind. These ideas are just part of the background culture.
most legends claim that sinners are subjected to gruesome tortures until their "deaths", after which they are restored to their original state for the torture to be repeated.
Which might tie in to speculation that Freeza keeps getting sliced and diced in Hell, and that that's what those remarkably intact pieces of him on the ground beneath a dark sky are supposed to be. Maybe.
Very interesting stuff.
So essentially bother with the torture if they'll forget all about it once reincarnation happens? It's like beating a lesson into someone, only to remove the lesson they learned.
Though going by the manga, no one can torture Freeza if he has his body. He's too powerful for anyone. No one in the afterlife is there to beat him. Unless we're supposed to believe hell's angels are super strong somehow and came out of nowhere. If he's a soul how does he even experience pain?
Why Dragon Ball Consistency in something such as power levels matter!
Spoiler:
Doctor. wrote:I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.
Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.
If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.
An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.
dbzfan7 wrote:Though going by the manga, no one can torture Freeza if he has his body. He's too powerful for anyone. No one in the afterlife is there to beat him. Unless we're supposed to believe hell's angels are super strong somehow and came out of nowhere. If he's a soul how does he even experience pain?
Not everything has to boil down to power levels. There could be magical beings in the afterlife with this specific purpose in mind, capable of restraining and harming even the most powerful of beings. Alternatively, he could have been provided a weaker version of his body.
Hellspawn28 wrote:If #17 and #18 can die as cyborgs and be brought back cyborgs then Freeza should be no different.
At first I didn't like the idea of Mecha Freeza being in Hell (Always thought it was a horrible design anyway, and could have been so much cooler... DOH!!), but you sir make and excellent point, about the androids staying androids.
dbzfan7 wrote:So essentially bother with the torture if they'll forget all about it once reincarnation happens? It's like beating a lesson into someone, only to remove the lesson they learned.
Not sure what the answer would be for the DB version, but with Buddhist Hell the idea generally seems to be that the torture is a natural process which the soul must go through before it's able to be reincarnated. This bit explains that a little (whether or not this makes any sense is up to you):
Though the term is often translated as "hell", unlike the Abrahamic hells Naraka is not eternal, though when a timescale is given, it is suggested to be extraordinarily long. In this sense, it is similar to purgatory, but unlike both Abrahamic hell and purgatory, there is no divine force involved in determining a being's entry and exit to and from the realm and no soul is involved. Rather, the being is brought here—as is the case with all the other realms in the Buddhist cosmology—by natural law: the law of karma, and they remain until the negative karma that brought them there has been used up.
So maybe the natural law of the DB universe entails that Freeza can't be reincarnated until his soul has been tied to a tree and made to watch angels and teddy bears frolic for a millennia or two. Because of natural law.
Black Hawk wrote:I'm honestly surprised at the level of my-hype-is-killed I'm seeing. Call me strange, but what we've seen of the manga has me more hyped than before and has strengthened my belief that Toriyama-sensei has something absolutely incredible going here. He's doing one of the things he does best: betraying the readers' expectations with something more-than-likely even better than our expectations. At least, that's what I wholeheartedly believe.
Ditto.
Same here. At the very least, after what we've seen so far, I'm even more curious as to how Toriyama is gonna make all this play out.
Rocketman(In response to a post about Pandora's Box) wrote:
I sat here for ten damn minutes wondering what the hell God of War had to do with any of this.
Insertclevername wrote:I plan to lose my virginity to Dragon Box 2.
dbzfan7 wrote:Though going by the manga, no one can torture Freeza if he has his body. He's too powerful for anyone. No one in the afterlife is there to beat him. Unless we're supposed to believe hell's angels are super strong somehow and came out of nowhere. If he's a soul how does he even experience pain?
Not everything has to boil down to power levels. There could be magical beings in the afterlife with this specific purpose in mind, capable of restraining and harming even the most powerful of beings. Alternatively, he could have been provided a weaker version of his body.
And they wouldn't use these beings to save the universe because? They'll send a dead guy like Vegeta back to earth and break the rules, but not these so called creatures.
And that does not sound like a total ass pull to justify gags? Why not just reincarnate the SOB asap since he was a danger to several worlds? Boo got priority right away and he's caused far more trouble than Freeza has.
You're telling if this project came from a small time writer on a place like fanfiction.net, you'd still say everything sounds great? It sounds like since Toriyama's name is on it, we should ignore how things do follow a fanfiction like set up. I personally don't have as much faith in him since I don't think Battle of Gods was that amazing (Enjoyable, but not really special to me), and Minus imo was garbage. In Toriyama I do not trust. I desperately hope he restores my faith. So far I'm prepared for another possible Boom fiasco where plenty of people around me were oh so hyped...and it bombed really hard. Doubt it'll happen here that badly, but I don't really just want to be wowed by fighting.
Herms wrote:Not sure what the answer would be for the DB version, but with Buddhist Hell the idea generally seems to be that the torture is a natural process which the soul must go through before it's able to be reincarnated. This bit explains that a little (whether or not this makes any sense is up to you):
Though the term is often translated as "hell", unlike the Abrahamic hells Naraka is not eternal, though when a timescale is given, it is suggested to be extraordinarily long. In this sense, it is similar to purgatory, but unlike both Abrahamic hell and purgatory, there is no divine force involved in determining a being's entry and exit to and from the realm and no soul is involved. Rather, the being is brought here—as is the case with all the other realms in the Buddhist cosmology—by natural law: the law of karma, and they remain until the negative karma that brought them there has been used up.
So maybe the natural law of the DB universe entails that Freeza can't be reincarnated until his soul has been tied to a tree and made to watch angels and teddy bears frolic for millennia or two. Because of natural law.
But Boo was reincarnated right away. Goku's request or not, that guy caused far more destruction and terror than Freeza. Why does Freeza deserve a "worse" punishment than someone who did worse than Freeza? Why would Freeza not be dealt with by now?
Last edited by dbzfan7 on Thu Feb 19, 2015 1:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
Why Dragon Ball Consistency in something such as power levels matter!
Spoiler:
Doctor. wrote:I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.
Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.
If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.
An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.
There's a good chance that the Kanzenshuu staff or kei17 already got a magazine in hand. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that someone almost ignore Fukkatsu no F manga and prefer to look at some darn boring stuff like Yu-Gi-OH!. Someone should have posted the entire chapter by now already...
fadeddreams5 wrote:So what do people mean when they say something looks "fanfiction"? Are you saying it looks generally bad? Or the plot is full of illogical asspulls? Or does reusing a character or villain automatically make something fanfictiony? I ask the last question cause people have been saying this since Freeza was announced to be revived. >_>
The thing that seems the most fanfictiony element to most people is the idea that through training Freeza can become more powerful than SSJ God Goku. YMMV on that regard, because while people view it as an asspull of epic proportions, others, including myself, see it as something plausible because, as shown with the Saiyans on many occasions, if you find the right method of training, your power level can skyrocket in just the span of a few days or weeks.
Except that it is kind of an asspull. In 4 months, Freeza not only catches up with Goku who has been training for what...15 years since he beat Freeza? Sorry I don't have the timeline fully down in my head but let's say 15. So in 4 months Freeza catches up with 15 years of training and surpasses him. Now if he trained for maybe a year in special conditions and Goku didn't train at all. I would believe Freeza could catch up and at least match SSJG Goku but the thing is that Goku is still training, in fact he is now training with Whis! So yeah It's really hard to imagine Freeza closing such a large power gap in such a short period of time. Prodigy or not.
It's not that hard to believe really. Freeza never bothered to unlock any of his potential really. He was born with immense power and seemed to be just fine controlling pretty much everyone he came into contact with through that power. It wasn't until someone was able to challenge him that he met his doom. He is often too arrogant, spur of the moment, hastey and irrational to put any concentrated effort into training to better himself. His character is that of someone who feels they just should HAVE that power to begin with. Perhaps all the time in Hell has made him a bit smarter and he has discovered he is a prodigy through training.
You want unbelievable? How about the fact that Goku only ever was challenged by an enemey ever so slightly more powerful then he was at the time to ensure that he could be stronger in time to defeat that enemy. What if Majin Boo had been released during the saiyan saga? Or when Piccolo first came into the scene? Get my drift? Pretty hard to believe.
dbzfan7 wrote:And they wouldn't use these beings to save the universe because? They'll send a dead guy like Vegeta back to earth and break the rules, but not these so called creatures.
And that does not sound like a total ass pull to justify gags? Why not just reincarnate the SOB asap since he was a danger to several worlds? Boo got priority right away and he's caused far more trouble than Freeza has.
Maybe the beings don't care, maybe they're bound to a specific part of the afterlife, maybe their abilities only work on dead souls with bodies, etc. We don't have to know every little detail about how or why they do what they do, but the fact of the matter is that they didn't help against Buu and they're able to subdue and torture Freeza. Fill in the blanks, it's not at all difficult. Again, this is commonplace for Dragon Ball, the manga is filled with "asspulls" at every turn. Why did Popo not have Goku use his carpet? How did Trunks' future even happen when there are so many things that could have prevented it? I understand that there exist for some people a hope that they won't have to do this for Dragon Ball stories anymore, and thus the revelation that they still need to may be disappointing, but I don't understand where the expectation of no longer needing to even comes from.
dbzfan7 wrote:And they wouldn't use these beings to save the universe because? They'll send a dead guy like Vegeta back to earth and break the rules, but not these so called creatures.
And that does not sound like a total ass pull to justify gags? Why not just reincarnate the SOB asap since he was a danger to several worlds? Boo got priority right away and he's caused far more trouble than Freeza has.
Maybe the beings don't care, maybe they're bound to a specific part of the afterlife, maybe their abilities only work on dead souls with bodies, etc. We don't have to know every little detail about how or why they do what they do, but the fact of the matter is that they didn't help against Buu and they're able to subdue and torture Freeza. Fill in the blanks, it's not at all difficult. Again, this is commonplace for Dragon Ball, the manga is filled with "asspulls" at every turn. Why did Popo not have Goku use his carpet? How did Trunks' future even happen when there are so many things that could have prevented it? I understand that there exist for some people a hope that they won't have to do this for Dragon Ball stories anymore, and thus the revelation that they still need to may be disappointing, but I don't understand where the expectation of no longer needing to even comes from.
It's not like I accept those either. I hate the asspulls that were in the manga, and I don't like them coming back. Those that you listed are contrived restrictions for the sake of a gag. It's like the god thing all over again, except this time just so a cutesy gag joke can work.
Still doesn't cover why Freeza for some reason is given ample time to sit around, but Boo the horrible monster who's caused more pain than Freeza himself, is let off the hook. Boo caused far more destruction, and yet he just gets instantly reincarnated without any punishment like this. Boo still knows what fear and pain is, so he could be subjected to the same thing.
This whole scenario is reminding me of all the justifications for the Boom hype back before Novemeber. Everyone made these similar excuses, until finally they saw for themselves just how shitty it was. I desperately want to be proven wrong. I desperately want Toriyama to make me eat my words. However I'm not gonna try and rationalize something til they state their case. I'm not doing their work for them. These explanations I doubt would ruin the entire plot ahead of time.
Why Dragon Ball Consistency in something such as power levels matter!
Spoiler:
Doctor. wrote:I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.
Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.
If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.
An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.
It's not that hard to believe really. Freeza never bothered to unlock any of his potential really. He was born with immense power and seemed to be just fine controlling pretty much everyone he came into contact with through that power. It wasn't until someone was able to challenge him that he met his doom. He is often too arrogant, spur of the moment, hastey and irrational to put any concentrated effort into training to better himself. His character is that of someone who feels they just should HAVE that power to begin with. Perhaps all the time in Hell has made him a bit smarter and he has discovered he is a prodigy through training.
If he had that potential from the get go, and acknowledged it like he does now, it goes against his character, which seemed driven by the fear of someone stronger than him (SSJ legend). Why be so scared when you can just train and become thousands upon thousands of times stronger than you are now? Why not train for, I dunno, a day or week to fight Goku before he landed on Earth? If 4 months is enough for him to catapult to SSJG or SSJ3 level, a day or week should suffice for this task. Why stare in absolute fear at the sight of Trunks becoming a SSJ? How can he just discover out of thin air that he's this prodigy when he's been in a cocoon for years?
Last edited by fadeddreams5 on Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:18 am, edited 4 times in total.
"Dragon Ball once became a thing of the past to me, but after that, I got angry about the live action movie, re-wrote an entire movie script, and now I'm complaining about the quality of the new TV anime. It seems Dragon Ball has grown on me so much that I can't leave it alone." - Akira Toriyama on Dragon Ball Super
fadeddreams5 wrote:If he had that potential from the get go, and acknowledged it like he does now, it goes against his character, which seemed driven by the fear of someone stronger than him (SSJ legend). Why be so scared when you can just train and become thousands upon thousands of times stronger than you are now? Why not train for, I dunno, a day or week to fight Goku before he landed on Earth? If 4 months is enough for him to catapult to SSJG or SSJ3 level, a day or week should suffice for this task. Why stare in absolute fear at the sight of Trunks becoming a SSJ? How can he just discover out of thin air that he's this prodigy when he's been in a cocoon for years?
He was more Machine than Organic by the time he came to Earth. I don't think he even could train all that much or all that well.
And it's probably a psychological fear. Same transformation as the one that let Goku wreck him? Plenty of reason to be afraid. That was unexpected, having a new enemy with that power.
dbzfan7 wrote:Still doesn't cover why Freeza for some reason is given ample time to sit around, but Boo the horrible monster who's caused more pain than Freeza himself, is let off the hook. Boo caused far more destruction, and yet he just gets instantly reincarnated without any punishment like this. Boo still knows what fear and pain is, so he could be subjected to the same thing.
This whole scenario is reminding me of all the justifications for the Boom hype back before Novemeber. Everyone made these similar excuses, until finally they saw for themselves just how shitty it was.
Based on what Toriyama has recently said, Buu was a special case. That sounds to me like he's so evil that he's way above Freeza, and got more intense and expedited punishment.
This is hardly comparable to Sonic Boom. Asspulls in a Dragon Ball story are common and don't significantly impact the several other good things about the work itself. Sonic Boom's various problems significantly dwarf any redeemable factors.
At first I didn't like the idea of Mecha Freeza being in Hell (Always thought it was a horrible design anyway, and could have been so much 
