Everything Wrong with Dragon Ball Super

[Magnificent Ponta]

I seriously don't get people's problems with Tournament arcs.

In the franchise that gave you the 21st Budokai, Baba's Challenge, the 22nd Budokai, the 23rd Budokai, the Cell Game and the 25th Budokai, how are the two most imaginative Tournament arcs we get in the whole damn thing suddenly the problem here?

What kind of story do y'all think you've been reading all this time?

[Grimlock]

Know what? If Super continues, I'd honestly be OK if it takes Dragon Ball Online's timeline and goes to town with it. Toriyama better tell Toyotaro "ドラゴンボールオンラインの話をめちゃくちゃにしないでください。さもないと解雇されます" (that means [Don't fuck up the Dragon Ball Online story or you're fired] in Japanese)

It's the only thing now that can move this series forward (literally and figuratively) while causing some overall impact. Especially if they also adapt the ending that Dragon Ball Online establishes.

And modern Dragon Ball needs just that. A depart from the safe zone to look for new horizons.

[Matches Malone]

I seriously don't get people's problems with Tournament arcs.

In the franchise that gave you the 21st Budokai, Baba's Challenge, the 22nd Budokai, the 23rd Budokai, the Cell Game and the 25th Budokai, how are the two most imaginative Tournament arcs we get in the whole damn thing suddenly the problem here?

What kind of story do y'all think you've been reading all this time?

The issue isn't the concept of a tournament, but rather the fact that they didn't have the same impact they once did.

[FPSSJ4_Goku]

I mean you could've said "a 131-episode anime has only one actual plot arc that isn't a movie rehash, filler, or Yet Another God Damn Fucking Tournament Arc" and that would've sufficed.

You can literally break this franchise down into

1. Find Dragon Balls (Shen Long arc, Red Ribbon, Black Star)

2. Stop most powerful villain yet (Piccolo Daimao, Saiyans, Freeza, Cyborgs, Boo, Baby, Super 17, Shadow Dragons, Beerus, Golden Freeza, Zamasu)

3. Tournament! (21st Tenkaichi, 22nd Tenkaichi, 23rd Tenkaichi, Fortune Teller Baba, Otherworld Budokai, Great Saiyaman, Champa, Universe Survival)

But there's more (and don't come for me saying It'S a MoViE aNd HeRoEs ExClUsIvE sO iT dOeSn'T cOuNt, if you say that, STFU):

4: Stop a bad guy from making a really big tree (Universe Creation and Tree of Might)

5: Big scary portal (Dead Zone)

6: The show Supernatural happens in the afterlife while The Walking Dead happens on Earth (Fusion Reborn)

7: Evil Super Saiyan (Broly movies and Prison Planet)

8: Fight a giant bug with the help of a guy with a sword (Cell Games and Wrath of the Dragon)


That's about all I could come up with.

[Magnificent Ponta]

The issue isn't the concept of a tournament, but rather the fact that they didn't have the same impact they once did.

Fact?

Also, even if we were to grant the opinion of some fans that there's a law of diminishing returns standing behind those arcs, they still deserve to be treated on merit. You know, like all the ones before them were.

[Cursed Lemon]

I seriously don't get people's problems with Tournament arcs.

In the franchise that gave you the 21st Budokai, Baba's Challenge, the 22nd Budokai, the 23rd Budokai, the Cell Game and the 25th Budokai, how are the two most imaginative Tournament arcs we get in the whole damn thing suddenly the problem here?

What kind of story do y'all think you've been reading all this time?

It's not just Dragon Ball.

When One Punch Man did a tournament arc, I yawned. When My Hero Academia did a tournament arc, I yawned. I rewatched Yu Yu Hakusho recently and I was incredibly tempted to just skip the entire tournament arc. Same thing with Flame of Recca. I never, EVER want to watch another anime tournament arc ever again. I want the entire concept to die a horrible death and be forgotten for all of time.

[Grimlock]

Do those animes have more to offer than tournament? If so, then yeah. I'd skip too because tournaments are boring in general, but would check them out eventually, probably.

The major problem in Dragon Ball Super is that it has five sagas (two of them are crap retellings, so they don't count), well technically three sagas and two of them are boring tournaments. 2/3 of the anime is tournament. It's fairly easy to understand what is the issue here, Dragon Ball Super doesn't offer much more than that.

[FPSSJ4_Goku]

I seriously don't get people's problems with Tournament arcs.

In the franchise that gave you the 21st Budokai, Baba's Challenge, the 22nd Budokai, the 23rd Budokai, the Cell Game and the 25th Budokai, how are the two most imaginative Tournament arcs we get in the whole damn thing suddenly the problem here?

What kind of story do y'all think you've been reading all this time?

It's not just Dragon Ball.

When One Punch Man did a tournament arc, I yawned. When My Hero Academia did a tournament arc, I yawned. I rewatched Yu Yu Hakusho recently and I was incredibly tempted to just skip the entire tournament arc. Same thing with Flame of Recca. I never, EVER want to watch another anime tournament arc ever again. I want the entire concept to die a horrible death and be forgotten for all of time.

I mean....my fan series Dragon Ball GB just went through a World Tournament arc for its first 2 episodes. I don't know if you'll like the series considering you said you never want to see another tournament arc in anime again...

[Magnificent Ponta]

I never, EVER want to watch another anime tournament arc ever again. I want the entire concept to die a horrible death and be forgotten for all of time.

Your preference is your preference, but again I have to ask, "What kind of story do y'all think you've been reading all this time?" Unless you hate all the Tournament arcs in all of Dragon Ball on principle (in which case, fair enough - I'll give you the strength of your convictions), it seems like a double standard to me.

The major problem in Dragon Ball Super is that it has five sagas (two of them are crap retellings, so they don't count), well technically three sagas and two of them are boring tournaments. 2/3 of the anime is tournament. It's fairly easy to understand what is the issue here, Dragon Ball Super doesn't offer much more than that.

The tournaments constitute about 950 pages out of about 2500 in the Dragon Ball Super Manga so far (a little more than a third), and are arguably the best arcs in the whole thing to date. Why is the anime the default reference point here?

[Grimlock]

I doubt Toyotaro managed to make the tournaments better. They have to be a lot different, basically another tournaments altogether, to achieve that. Which I don't think he did. And if he didn't manage it, I can't possibly think how the tournaments can be the best sagas. Which in turn is also a problem, the best thing out of modern Dragon Ball are tournaments? Something is wrong, very wrong...

The default references here are Avatar, Dragon Quest, Attack on Titan, Naruto/Boruto (to some extent) and One Piece. I'd include Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Heroes too. Not Dragon Ball because despite offering three sagas with a plot, it also had three tournaments, which by today's standards, it wouldn't be good too. Ideally, if Dragon Ball were released today, it'd have to have a maximum of two tournaments against four other sagas with a story.

[Koitsukai]

Let's be honest...

4. There are too many fucking plotholes that can be explained, but never did get explained. How did Vegeta gain Super Saiyan God and Blue? When and how did the Universe 6 Saiyans get so strong? Why are Universe 6 Saiyans thin wimps? Just how powerful is Whis? Is Grand Priest good or evil? Is Grand Zeno good or evil? Will any of these questions get answered? Probably not, and that's the problem. More questions rise than there are answers.

These aren't really plotholes and some have been explained, too.
-BoG ends with Goku "promising" Vegeta to help him do the ritual, by RoF they both unlocked SSB, implying they have done the ritual for Vegeta. And SSB was unlocked on-screen in the anime, IIRC.
-U6 saiyans got as strong doing whatever they do, fighting crime or doing Jedi-like stuff, also the missing tail hints at an evolutionary divergence from U7, and without SS they have grown stronger base forms. They are skinny looking because of an artistic decision.
-Whis' full power is none of our business, he is a neutral angel, all we need to know is that we'll never encounter a mortal stronger than him, and that he is not allowed to use that power.
-Daishinkan and Zeno aren't good nor evil, they are gods, but there have been hints at them being pretty decent, with Zeno not minding 17's wish overriding his erasure of 7 universes -which went against their desire of keeping only 4 universes, and Daishinkan sparing Merus and Shin as well, he could've accepted Shin's deal. But anyway, nothing even remotely close to them being villains at all. Or part of the Z senshi.

[Magnificent Ponta]

I doubt Toyotaro managed to make the tournaments better. They have to be a lot different, basically another tournaments altogether, to achieve that. Which I don't think he did. And if he didn't manage it, I can't possibly think how the tournaments can be the best sagas. Which in turn is also a problem, the best thing out of modern Dragon Ball are tournaments? Something is wrong, very wrong...

Ah, well, as long as you doubt it and can't imagine them being better, what more evidence could you possibly need..? Next, we'll be asking you to read them with an open mind, or something.

Also, why would Tournaments running high in estimation be a priori a bad thing? The recent 'Kanzenshuu's favourite arcs' thread has the 23rd Budokai coming 3rd out of all the arcs in Dragon Ball. And you know, not once did I see sentiments of the order of 'ugh this would've been like the 4th Dragon Ball tournament or whatever, laaaaame' or 'there's no way it can be that good, it's a tournament'. Nope, it's regarded according to its merits, which are considerable.

[Grimlock]

Will I find anything resembling a story? I don't think so. I did get to see people commenting and images when the tournaments were going on, it didn't really seem all that different from the anime.

Oh by the way, I read your question as "what" is instead of "why", sorry. The anime is the reference because it's the continuity/medium I watched. I didn't read the manga, since, again, it's not that much different from the anime. Details like "oh, Cabba doesn't use Super Saiyan 2 in the manga, therefore the power level here are better" are useless to me, these details aren't enough for me to check the manga. The problems I have with the anime pretty much applies to the manga, too. Since it's basically the same thing.

[SupremeKai25]

Do you think we should've just stuck with GT ?

Personally speaking, I would've been more than happy with BOG being the only product to come out of this revival. It gave me everything I wanted from a modern, post Buu arc Toriyama story and then some. I never felt the need for them to continue further.

I wrote these in another topic, so I'll just post them here. I'm sure there's more but this should be enough for now.

Congratulations, you managed to encapsulate in one post all of the most cliché, boring, generic, and meme-worthy complaints used against Super. My personal favourites are these ones:

- SsjB, Rose, & MUI

- Caulifla being a Mary Sue.

- Ssj being reduced to "feeling something in your back".

- Jiren being the worst antagonist in the franchise's history.

- Vegetto's "time limit".

- Zamasu's entire motivation revolving around mindless beasts attacking him.

(this has got to be the "best" one, people just don't want to listen to the story^)

Be careful though, I'm afraid you missed the "S-cells!!!" complaint.

[Magnificent Ponta]

Will I find anything resembling a story? I don't think so. I did get to see people commenting and images when the tournaments were going on, it didn't really seem all that different from the anime.

The Universe 6 arc story is pretty similar overall, but more compact and pacy, and the means by which Goku overcomes Hit is strikingly different; the tone aims for something more like the Baba segment of Dragon Ball, too, rather than really pretending toward seriousness, and is pretty successful for all that. The story of the Tournament of Power as it turns out is...rather different to the anime telling, yes. And I regard it to be a story well planned and told, myself (that isn't a comment on the anime version, which I'm not interested in venturing here - just my opinion on the manga).

[Yuji]

Will I find anything resembling a story? I don't think so.

In the manga's Tournament of Power? Quite possibly one of the most well-structured and thematically coherent stories in Dragon Ball (which isn't necessarily indicative of its quality or potential enjoyment, but in terms of "telling a story," it does tell one pretty explicitly).

[MasenkoHA]

I’m not saying it’s a wrong opinion but hating tournament arcs in a martial arts show just seems...odd to me.

[Matches Malone]

Congratulations, you managed to encapsulate in one post all of the most cliché, boring, generic, and meme-worthy complaints used against Super.

They couldn't have been that boring if you took the time to read all of them.

[SupremeKai25]

Congratulations, you managed to encapsulate in one post all of the most cliché, boring, generic, and meme-worthy complaints used against Super.

They couldn't have been that boring if you took the time to read all of them.

No, they were that boring. Trust me.

But, on the plus side, they were presented in a... less boring way, if you want... than OP's points.

Ultimately though, still boring. Like, come on, it's been, what, 4 years? And you people still complain about Caulifla being "a Mary Sue" (is there a more overused buzzword on the internet?), or the God forms being "recolours" (that's literally the point thematically)? So boring, because these complaints have all been debunked so many times already.

[ABED]

is there a more overused buzzword on the internet?

Yes, and it's "canon". Both are dumb terms and ones that get misused as if they had any real meaning in the scheme of things.

Super has its issues but I see no need to list reasons that are wrong with it or anything else I enjoy. Just why?