They should have kept elements of GT for Super

[ekrolo2]

The ideas for 4 should've been incorporated for the God forms. 4 requiring you to turn into an insane, extremely powerful rage monster then find the last sliver of your sanity in all of it is both emotionally stronger and a better way to excuse why the kids don't do it than "LOL LETS HOLD HANDS!" or "LAWL LEAKING KI *smashes Beerus' fuck off Ki dragon back into the closet* LAWL!"

[fadeddreams5]

When they held hands and transferred their ki to Goku during the SSJG ritual, he should have shrunk down to Kid Goku.

[trick007z]

Super Saiyan 4 is the complete antithesis of Toriyama's style. Super Saiyan God is pretty much in lockstep with his MO. The most powerful form is the least imposing and most streamlined.

The new canon really needed to break away from GT anyways.

[fadeddreams5]

Super Saiyan 4 is the complete antithesis of Toriyama's style. Super Saiyan God is pretty much in lockstep with his MO. The most powerful form is the least imposing and most streamlined.

The new canon really needed to break away from GT anyways.

All the SSJ designs were imposing, especially SSJ3 and LSSJ (also designed by Toriyama). =P

[Basaku]

Super Saiyan 4 is the complete antithesis of Toriyama's style. Super Saiyan God is pretty much in lockstep with his MO. The most powerful form is the least imposing and most streamlined.

The new canon really needed to break away from GT anyways.

All the SSJ designs were imposing, especially SSJ3 and LSSJ (also designed by Toriyama). =P

Not to mention that at this point, weak and non-imposing form is what's expected and not a surprise anymore. The roles have reversed because Toriyama used this "surprise weak-lloking design!" trick multiple times already

[ekrolo2]

Super Saiyan 4 is the complete antithesis of Toriyama's style. Super Saiyan God is pretty much in lockstep with his MO. The most powerful form is the least imposing and most streamlined.

The new canon really needed to break away from GT anyways.

As Basaku already said, Toriyama's whole "Surprise! The strongest guy looks like a total pushover!" thing isn't a surprise anymore. A twist stops being the twist once it's become its own antithesis: the standard. It's why the OMG shock moments in CoD games aren't shocking after the nuke from 4 or why Shyamalan's twists are predictable. At this point, him going for the opposite of his own established rule would work better as a surprise than any more simple stuff.

Besides, I never said the design for 4 should've been carried over even if I vastly prefer to basically all the others. 4s emotional weight and difficulty to attain is what should've been carried over, to make the God forms a cut above just more Super Saiyan forms. Even though I like the new ones design wise, they way they're attained is really, really badly thought out and does nothing for the characters.

[trick007z]

Super Saiyan 4 is the complete antithesis of Toriyama's style. Super Saiyan God is pretty much in lockstep with his MO. The most powerful form is the least imposing and most streamlined.

The new canon really needed to break away from GT anyways.

As Basaku already said, Toriyama's whole "Surprise! The strongest guy looks like a total pushover!" thing isn't a surprise anymore. A twist stops being the twist once it's become its own antithesis: the standard. It's why the OMG shock moments in CoD games aren't shocking after the nuke from 4 or why Shyamalan's twists are predictable. At this point, him going for the opposite of his own established rule would work better as a surprise than any more simple stuff.

Besides, I never said the design for 4 should've been carried over even if I vastly prefer to basically all the others. 4s emotional weight and difficulty to attain is what should've been carried over, to make the God forms a cut above just more Super Saiyan forms. Even though I like the new ones design wise, they way they're attained is really, really badly thought out and does nothing for the characters.

It's not about being a "twist" though. That's not the point. It's about power coming from within and not being defined by superficial qualities like size.

It's the same reason tiny Kid Goku was beating monsters that dwarfed him.

SSJ4 is what you would expect from some run of the mill anime. A busy design that amps the characters physical attributes and transforms them beyond recognition for the sake of looking cool. It's not very Dragon Ball.

[Basaku]

SSJ4 is what you would expect from some run of the mill anime. A busy design that amps the characters physical attributes and transforms them beyond recognition for the sake of looking cool. It's not very Dragon Ball.

It makes the Saiyan characters look like monkey-human hybrid which can't possibly get more Dragon Ball.

[Cipher]

Eh, there's a lot I like about Super Saiyan 4 -- As the series enters its final chapters, we get a callback to and repurposing of both the Saiyan and Sun Wukong elements the series had forgotten. (And on that level, I think both its design and origins really work.) It's a form with a cruel edge, both visually and in terms of what it does to the user (Goku even talks about the personality change it gives him while facing San Xing-Long), so, if it's not very Toriyama-like, it's at least Toriyama-like in how unexpected it is (and this is something I think is true of GT as a whole, though it's not often discussed).

The Super Saiyan God forms lack roots in previous material, but they work fine for the series' sense of expansion. GT feels like an epilogue, and makes all sorts of un-Toriyama-like gestures toward nostalgia and closure (which in a way I love). The newer material is all about looking forward and picking up where the series left off. The previous arc pushed the scope of the universe into the realm of the highest gods -- the new transformations pick up on that and enter new, uncharted territory in terms of power and training. If their origins aren't rooted in the pre-existing narrative, they at least fit its direction. There's a sense of returning to basics in this new plane of power as well, so their stripped down designs work well. Super Saiyan 3 and Super Saiyan 4 are the series going big, in various ways, at its end. The Super Saiyan God forms are it finding something sustainable, whether or not it continues on into many future adventures (Toriyama leaves the door open).

Now, elements of GT they might have kept for new material?

I enjoyed what GT did in bringing characters into the main cast who didn't have to be able to hang in in terms of Goku's power. For all the talk of GT being more Goku-centric (and, sure, when it gets climactic, it is), the series begins by putting him in a spaceship with Pan, Trunks and a little robot. It's not a main cast based on power, and many of the situations they get into don't rely directly on their strength at all. I like that, and wish some element of it were carried over.

I do like some of the moves GT made toward bringing elements of the series together, bringing the Dragon Balls back into focus and, again, returning to some of the forgotten Saiyan/Monkey King elements. Seems Super will at least do the first. This is more something I could take or leave; it's not really obligated to do the latter.

Finally, I like how comfortable GT was in showing characters had settled down, though that's a benefit of the fifteen-years-later timeframe. Super, taking place less than ten years after Boo, feels occasionally like it's in a spot where it's not quite comfortable either using tertiary characters as fighters nor bringing them completely out of that role. I like Trunks and Goten much more when they're older and prioritizing things other than fighting, for example (if they're not going to be fun centerpieces like they are in the Boo arc).

That said, don't get me wrong -- There's a lot I prefer about what Super's giving us. In terms of progression, the step into godhood makes sense, and actually manages to make GT feel a little small-scale in comparison. We get to see a bit more of Gohan and Videl, even if the execution is awful (at least you know what they do). It's much kinder to Vegeta, and feels like a more natural progression for him, even if he gets his due at the end of GT (becoming a full-time, humbled rival to Goku after the Boo arc just feels like the right choice, as opposed to GT's more settled version). It actually details the aftermath of Freeza's empire, which -- holy hell, was that a missing, low-hanging fruit during GT's space arc.

I'll be excited to see where Super ends, if nothing else. The introduction of Champa and Vados feels like it sets the stage for a bombastic final chapter, of the kind that GT, with its look-backward approach, was never going to go for.