Doctor. wrote:Let's not kid ourselves, Toyotaro is drawing a sequel to the most popular anime franchise of all time and one of the most popular media franchises period. He shouldn't be making the kind of amateurish mistakes he makes on a monthly basis, because Toriyama most certainly didn't on a tighter schedule. You can argue that we should go easy on him, but you can't have it both ways: either the manga is promotional material for the anime, the main product, and so, Toyotaro's mistakes should be overlooked since they're not that important to begin with, or the manga is its own standalone story and he should be held up to scrutiny since he was chosen to be Toriyama's successor.
In terms of artistic talent, Toyotaro and Toriyama are not even in the same universe. I will not argue that. I think a lot of criticism towards his artistic abilities is justified, but at the same time, I feel like a significant amount is not. In my mind, if Toriyama is not going to draw the manga himself, as long as the art is at least serviceable, the art is almost irrelevant to me. While I think that Toyotaro is an excellent emulator of Toriyama's visual style (regardless of his fundamental weaknesses as an artist), I'm such a big fan of Toyotaro because of his understanding of Dragon Ball's sensibilities and characters. I believe he handles these things significantly better than anyone aside from Toriyama. From a storytelling perspective, the anime's version disappointed me at every turn. Toyotaro's take feels true to the original Dragon Ball by surprising me in the same ways. When I daydream about Dragon Ball Super, I'm thinking about the story above all. The anime's occasional amazing animation cuts don't make up for the story's shortcomings in the least.
Doctor. wrote:We could have taken the use of homages as innocent callbacks to the previous series (albeit misplaced) before the whole tracing fiasco. After that, you read his manga in an entirely different light.
How does this fiasco portray the manga in a different light? The traced image does not appear in the manga, and we've known about Toyotaro's shortcomings as an artist since the beginning. Before this, I doubt you saw Toyotaro as an excellent artist. This is one comment from the most recent Kanzenshuu podcast episode that I just couldn't get behind. Toyotaro has always been transparent about how he has never had formal art training, as well as how closely he references when he draws. I think it would be great if Toyotaro took a break from the manga in order to attend art school for a year or so, but regardless, we haven't learned anything new here. That doesn't excuse the tracing, but let's not pretend it's a game-changing shock.
Doctor. wrote:Nothing really, not at a surface level nor in the subtext. It's a pointless, needless callback that takes away an opportunity for him to draw one memorable drawing of Frost's defeat that could stand on its own.
I agree that the homages are unnecessary, and can hardly even bee considered homages by how unrelated they are. The inconsequential nature of these references are why I called them largely inoffensive. I've gone into this at length in the past, but by replicating specific panels from the original manga, the reader's brain is tricked into recognizing it as the Dragon Ball you're familiar with. It's a technique more than it is a crutch. Honestly, I'd prefer if it weren't done, but it doesn't turn me off from the product in the slightest.
Doctor. wrote:The resolution of the U6 arc was settled in a few pages with speech bubbles
The ending of the manga's Universe 6 arc tells you everything you need to know in a snippy and fun way. When the anime drew out those scenes, nothing significant was gained. This sort of quick ending isn't something that's totally unfamiliar to the original manga, either.
Doctor. wrote:that argument doesn't really work when you consider that we've moved beyond "chaotic" scenarios after the first chapter and we're back to the usual 1v1/2v2/1v2 scenarios with few characters to work with in the last couple of chapters.
In Chapter 36 we had: a 3v1, multiple characters being eliminated by enemies they weren't actively engaging with, characters interrupting the fights of others...things you'd expect in a battle royale. It's hardly what you've described.
Doctor. wrote:I wish it gets better. I'm not here to kill anyone's buzz, I just wish you people wouldn't settle for such garbage when the previous series has shown you can have much better.
I genuinely hope you find more enjoyment from the series moving forward.
TKA wrote:Today I had a random flashback to Vegeta's repeated kicks to Toppo.
That is a good character moment. That's Vegeta in a nutshell. "Oh, you blocked my kick? Let's see how long you can keep that up," and then he nonchalantly adds more. It's like a better version of when he let 19 drain his energy (since letting 19 drain his energy was massive character stupidity).
That was good writing on Toyotaro's part, and conveyed without a single word. Just the action itself and a smirk.
I totally agree, and this relates to a thought I had today. I think the moment where Hit takes off his kilt is an excellent bit of storytelling that doesn't require words, either. Here's everything we get from it:
-We learn that it wasn't a trench coat all along. Well, that's what's conveyed here, anyway. It's an unexpected surprise that fits in line with Toriyama's method of constantly retconning things for progressing the story and for sheer novelty.
-By losing the kilt, Hit is making a non-verbal statement (in addition to his explicit verbal one) that he doesn't need to rely on gimmicks to contend with Jiren. This is a blatant callback to the manga's telling of the Universe 6 arc, where Goku figured out that Hit was using his skirt to mask his movements. Hit has nothing to hide here.
-The look of Hit without a skirt is very jarring. The skirt was practically his defining feature! Dropping it conveys the weight of the change Hit went through to reinvent himself as a combatant. Where before he relied on Time-skip and limited movement, his fighting style is now much more dynamic.
-The kilt makes a "thud" sound when it lands on the ground. One interpretation is that Hit was using weighted clothing as part of his training since the Universe 6 tournament, similar to Goku and Piccolo. However, I think it's entirely likely that Hit's kilt was weighted all along. Because Hit is so strong and moves at such quick speeds, in order for his skirt to better conceal his movements, it would have to be move heavily weighted than the average cloth. It's not something I had thought about before, but it makes sense and has a similar appeal to my first point.
I know that Dragon Ball is a series that's intentionally written so children can easily understand it, but that doesn't mean there isn't more going on than what characters explicitly state. I despise that whenever something is inferred from the art - rather than quoted directly from speech - it's referred to as head-canon. I think that comes off as so artistically illiterate...like when some audiences thought the theater's sound was broken in that one scene from The Last Jedi. Manga is a visual medium; if only speech were relevant, Dragon Ball might as well just be a light novel.
For example, by observing what's happening on the page, we can tell that No. 17's unlimited energy has been a huge benefit for him in the ToP so far. We know this because:
1) We know that No. 17 has unlimited energy.
2) He has not shown any signs of restraint or fatigue.
3) Frost went all out in the beginning of the tournament, but quickly ran out of energy, so we know this is something that one would otherwise be concerned with.
4) Fighters stronger than No. 17 are making decisions that conserve energy, so it's not just about strength.
Has this been explicitly stated? Not yet, but that doesn't make it head-cannon. Rather than assume that Toyotaro is incompetent, put a half-second of thought into it yourself. If we consider ourselves fans of Dragon Ball (manga AND anime), we should approach things like this with an attitude that gives the work the benefit of the doubt. That's why I find it difficult to discuss the manga with people who hate it; they're not arguing good faith. If you approach a work of fiction with the attitude that the author is stupid - and to some extent, you could do it better - you're setting yourself up for failure. Despite my countless problems with the DBS anime, I still enjoy it for what it is. I WANT to enjoy it.
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