Toyotaro Is Not the Right Successor. To Me, Dragon Ball Ends with Daima

[Vegeta th3 4th]

While you feel Battle of Gods and Daim were great, the old movies had a lot of fans. I for one would prefer a Movie 5 or M8 for example over Daima any day.

I find the old movies very enjoyable actually. I may not think they're particularly good, but I do enjoy watching them whenever I r-watch Z. GT, although extremely flawed, is something I'd re-watch any day over Super. Battle of Gods and Daima however managed to capture the spirit of the original manga in a way that other products in the series simply didn't.

[Zephyr]

I think Vegeta can grow as a warrior on his own, beyond his rivalry with Goku.

Same, just like all of his other rivals (aside from, like, Kuririn and Yamcha in the Boo arc). Doesn't mean he should reach Super Saiyan 3, at all necessarily but especially in the span of a few months.

To many fans, for whatever reason, Vegeta must either completely give up training or be obsessed with Goku.

Well I'm not one of them, so it's unclear why that's being brought up.

Maybe you guys are getting hung up on my wording of "retiring from the race, just like every rival before him", which would be fair if I didn't also say "just like every rival before him", which includes Tenshinhan and Piccolo, who never stopped training to better themselves. They are simply no longer interested in trying to keep up with Goku and possibly win a rematch. Daima, however, begins with Vegeta sparring with Goku, and ends with him complaining that Goku reached a new level that he hadn't.

He is still in direct competition with Goku, it's simply not driven by malice and contempt for the man. The notion that he is not in competition with Goku is at odds with the text.

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Vegeta is his own man and has come to understand why Goku stayed ahead for so long. The turtle school philosophy pretty much. Now that he applies that to his own training, catching up to Goku feels completely fair.

How true is this really? I'm curious.

First: what is the "Turtle School philosophy"?

Spoiler:

In Chapter 30, the Turtle Hermit says: "One does not study martial arts in order to win a fight, or have girls say, 'ooo, you're so strong!!' One masters those arts for health in mind and body, for the ability to live one's life as courageously, uniquely, and energetically as one wishes! But! If there are any who seek to terrorize you or any other decent people with undeserved power, you must defeat such enemies with one mighty blast!!" When Goku says he didn't get a word of that, Roshi replies: "Just 'train hard and enjoy life'...can you get that?"

In Chapter 31, Roshi says: "No martial artist becomes a master by strengthening the body alone. You must train the mind too!" Later, he says: "Move well, study well, play well, eat well, rest well--that is the Turtle Master way!" At the end of the chapter, once they've finally done all of their many exercises, he tells Goku and Kuririn to repeat them daily for 8 months...while wearing a 20-kilo turtle shell on their backs.

In Chapter 32, Roshi says: "On the path of budo one does not strive for victory over an opponent...one strives to avoid defeat by one's own self. To do that you must train yourselves on the foundation of what you have learned until now. In the Tenkaichi Budokai, do not be seduced by the improbable dream of winning. Take it as an opportunity to test your ability and further your focus and training." Then, he doubles the weight of the turtle shell.

In Chapter 46, Roshi tells Namu why he entered the tournament in disguise: "If one of those little kids won the Tenkaichi Budokai, it would go straight to his head. He'd think he had nothing left to learn. But with a little humility and determination...I could turn them both into the greatest fighters ever! So I decided to enter as well, in disguise, to teach them that no matter how great you are, there is always someone even better."

In summation: Don't focus on winning fights or impressing girls. Focus on having a healthy body and mind. Live with courage and protect the weak. Train hard and with heavy weights, but make sure you rest. Be humble and accept that there is always a bigger fish. Aim to defeat yourself by testing yourself against powerful opponents.

Before his concession speech to Goku at the end of the Boo arc, Vegeta does do some of these things. He does courageous things. He has people to protect. He trains hard (normally using gravity rather than with weights, but those are effectively the same thing here). He certainly likes to test himself against powerful opponents. So he is certainly already following the "Turtle School philosophy" to an extent. One area in which he is definitely not, though, is "rest well"; his attempt to dunk on Goku for not taking a second trip into the Room of Spirit and Time before the Cell Games is a testament to that.

That said...

In Chapter 510 (Viz 316), Vegeta says: "I think I see at last...why I could never beat you. I thought it was because you had people to protect...I thought that desire created some unfathomable power in you. But I have the same desire now. I have others to protect, and yet...I still fight to win...to enjoy it...to kill enemies...to puff up my pride. Not you. You've never fought to win. You fight to better yourself! To push your limits! That's why you never killed your enemies...why you refused to kill me. As if you knew all along I would learn to have a soul...I should hate you! A Saiyan who lives to fight--and is kind?!"

This speech does represent an acknowledgement of his own shortcomings. He's been fighting to win, to defeat his opponents rather than to defeat himself. He gets two facts wrong in the speech, though: he has beaten Goku before, and he is not correctly remembering Goku's stated reason for sparing his life. But that's beside the point: Vegeta definitely recognized the importance of some additional pieces of the Turtle School philosophy that he wasn't previously, namely fighting to defeat himself, rather than his opponent.

I understand that you guys are inferring that he was able to acquire Super Saiyan 3 because he is now aiming to defeat himself, but that's hardly text. You could argue that it's subtext, but subtext in Dragon Ball is often an inkblot test, where we see what we want to see. In Super, for instance, the Moro arc and Super Hero show him actually explicitly applying what we might call that "Turtle School philosophy" of having a healthy and trained mind. Does Vegeta pay any lipservice to his new outlook of aiming to defeat himself, rather than his opponent, in Daima, though? I don't mean "does he mention that explicitly in reference to 3", I mean "does he mention it at all"? Not that I saw!

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Either way, an important factor being neglected here is where Goku and Vegeta's respective priorities ultimately lie. They both love to fight and to test themselves and to push their limits, just like Goku's other rivals. Vegeta, however, is also a family man at the end of the day, in a way Goku is not. Super has Vegeta initially decide not to participate in the Tournament of Power, as seeing the birth of his second child is more important. Daima has Vegeta relent and eschew finishing a great match so that he can continue having intimate moments with his wife. Goku has a family, and I'm sure he loves them, but these are not the sorts of things that he would put before an exciting bout.

Vegeta is simply not as dedicated to that martial arts game as Goku is. Nobody is. That is the point. You can internalize the Turtle School philosophy of humility and try to be the best version of yourself that you can be, and you can be so dedicated to the craft that it comes first the overwhelming majority of the time, but few do both. Vegeta does not do both. Pretty much only Goku does both.

If Vegeta wasn't the kind of person to put family first, I would still find it sus that he got Super Saiyan 3 in a few months. Yes, he's developed as a person and is no doubt a better martial artist for it, but Goku was gone for 7 years training in a special place before coming back with that. But given that Vegeta is the kind of person to put family first, reaching that form in that short of a time makes it feel even less believable.

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So, to really sum things up:
• Vegeta is now a better martial artist than he was before he watched Goku fight Boo.
• But: he is still not as dedicated to the martial life as Goku is.
• And: he had access to neither of the peculiar conditions in which Goku acquired Super Saiyan 3 (the afterlife, and 7 years to kill on nothing but training and fighting).
• Thus: Vegeta acquiring Super Saiyan by merely training on Earth, in the span of a few months, even having internalized the goal of "defeat myself", does not feel like a natural and organic development.
• Thus: Vegeta is getting thrown a bone, and in turn extending his rival shelf life, with questionable narrative justification.

Further:
• Vegeta is still in a rivalry with Goku, unlike those before him (ie: Tenshinhan and Piccolo).
• And: he is getting thrown a narratively-questionable bone in service of that continued rivalry.
• Thus: it makes less sense for Goku to move onto the latest newly-reformed enemy as a means to test and defeat himself: Evil Boo, via reincarnation.
-- This isn't a problem unique to Daima, but it is one that Daima saw fit to reproduce.

I can buy that Vegeta becoming a better martial artist would be necessary for him to reach Super Saiyan 3. But I cannot buy that it would be sufficient. Am I making any sense here?

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Tying this into the intended purpose of the thread so it's not just a pointless derailment: again, having Vegeta stay close to Goku but gradually falling to the wayside tracks well enough with the original story and its ending. But Vegeta getting Super Saiyan 3 in Daima, under the circumstances that he did, is emblematic of a problem that I think Toyotaro also suffers from.

This helps to further put into perspective why I don't particularly care for his handling of Vegeta's character (specifically his martial prowess in relation to Goku's); he's hardly the only stinker in this regard (unless it's somehow his fault and not Toriyama's that Goku thought meditation was stupid in Super Hero), but he is a stinker in this regard. So, I don't like him as "the successor".

Frankly, if all of these stories were taking place after the epilogue where Evil Boo's reincarnation (and not Vegeta) is Goku's obvious means of testing his limits now, I don't know if I'd have much issue with it, if any. Sure, have Vegeta defy the odds and climb back into that #2 rival spot! Just, god, would it have killed you guys to wait until after Goku was done with Oob? That original ending barely managed to stick its landing, to the extent that it even did.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

I don't like the idea of a single successor, personally.

We need to go the Lupin the Third route. Many different creators across different companies giving their own interpretations, styles, and tones without the continuity mattering. If we have a single "heir," it's regressive, limits the continuation to a single unfulfilling voice, and limits others from pouring their hearts into this series.

As a guy who used to actively read superhero comics this is a far better idea than having a rotating cast of writers/editors all trying to keep one continuity going with a similar tone to when it was created. Eventually It devolves into a really bad never ending improv session.
Batman and Spider-Man both outlasted their respective creators, but neither of their original comics have been relevant for decades in the face of the movie and cartoon adaptations.