"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[Zephyr]

Indeed, but that's already the case for most media franchises and, sadly, also Dragon Ball, based on the character trajectories of, say, Chichi, Android 17, and Videl, not to mention the entire persona that is Bulma.

I think Bulma's a pretty great character who happens to be female. Thus, I find her to be a great female character. Buu arc Videl is my favorite female character in the franchise. 28th Tenkaichi Budokai Pan was fun as well.

Were the three of these characters consistently flawless, 10/10 characters for the entire run of the franchise, from their introduction to the present material? No, but none of the male characters are either.

It has, literally, zero good female characters. To even make that claim borders on the inexplicable, and soemthing tells me not even you believe what you wrote, since, if you did, this would have surely been the place to make it known which characters you are talking about. Yet, you do not. So indeed we all remain unacquinted with the good female characters of Dragon Ball, just as always.

Aww c'mon, this isn't a very civil way to foster discussion. Just precluding the validity of someone else's opinion like that is unnecessary.

[irreality]

I actually think the series has great female characters, but it does send the message that once you are married or older, you cannot be a fighter and female. That is a problematic message to send in a universe where fighting is literally the most important thing you can do-- it allows you to meet gods and attain a higher level of heaven. Even if Vados is the strongest person in this universe, I can't see her actually fighting. Given you can count the number of fights a woman has fought on the side of good in one hand, this is an issue. It isn't about equal representation or feminism, but *any* representation.

[dbzfan7]

I actually think the series has great female characters, but it does send the message that once you are married or older, you cannot be a fighter and female. That is a problematic message to send in a universe where fighting is literally the most important thing you can do-- it allows you to meet gods and attain a higher level of heaven. Even if Vados is the strongest person in this universe, I can't see her actually fighting. Given you can count the number of fights a woman has fought on the side of good in one hand, this is an issue. It isn't about equal representation or feminism, but *any* representation.

You can be married and still be a fighter...you just can't treat your family as too important or you end up like Gohan and Krillin. If you don't treat them as gravely important, then you get to be awesome like Goku and Vegeta. For females.....well yeah Chi Chi and 18 pretty much became nothing after getting married.

[precita]

This is why both Pan and Bra should have been fighters and be the next "Goten and Trunks." I always thought it was ridiculous that Bra didn't fight in GT, so hopefully Super can fix them.

[Usingnero]

Seeing all this new material in the characters and all has really got me speculating, and came up with 2 idea's, one regarding the Freeza like dude, and the other regarding the Saiyan.
What if the Freeza race guy isn't simply of Freeza's race, but Freeza himself? Think about it, unlike with Saiyan's and Human's which require couples to reproduce, Freeza's race is asexual, so the chances that Freeza would be born in both universes stands a lot higher since it doesn't require 2 particular individuals to do the deed, just that every member makes sure to produce an heir. Perhaps in Universe 6, Cold was never born a mutant, or at the very least, Freeza wasn't born a mutant, both cases would work out fine, but easier to explain if Cold also wasn't a mutant. This could very well be an un-mutated Freeza, a pure member of his race, Cold's mutation more then likely wasn't too drastic, just slight alterations to the body's natural color/design and a lot of height, which would explain why this "race" design looks so much like first form Freeza, it's the closest thing to the natural design of his species! This Freeza probably got strong through hard work and training, possibly even a hero among his people, perhaps through Champa/Vados, U6 Freeza learned of his U7 counterpart and was disgusted by him, could explain his reaction at the end. Of course, this also means it's wholly possible the "Planet Trade Organization" never began since Cold?Freeza weren't OP mutants in this universe, which leads into..
What if the Saiyan is the son/daughter of another known Saiyan? Actually, how about another 2 known Saiyan's? This one is much more far-fetched and more-so for entertainment/laughs, but what if this Saiyan child(?) is actually the offspring of Goku and Vegeta?! Yes, I know, one of them would have to be female, so take your pick, Queen Vegeta or Queen Kakoretta, but I do have my reasons, mainly the hair and height of this character, but also just Toriyama's humor. Who better to breed the ultimate Saiyan then the 2 ultimate Saiyan's!? Anyway, the hair easily could be a sign of Goku's heritage, while the height comes from Vegeta. Personally, if Vegeta's the woman, i'd expect her to have some crazy eye's, so obviously that trait would carry over to her offspring, who's more then likely a female Saiyan. Obviously, the armour showcases that Saiyan's are not part of Freeza's group, which works with my previous theory, but it also show's that if counterparts did develop on Vegeta or Saiya or Plant for King Vegeta/Bardock/Gine, ect, then without Freeza's influence, Bardock would have zero need to send Kakarot away to Earth, allowing him to grow up as a Saiyan and perhaps catch the attention of the feisty princess of all Saiyan's along the way. This obviously requires that both universes share the exact same family line's for at least those 2 families, but i'm sure Toriyama/Toei wouldn't care enough as long as it's humorous and fitting at the same time. This also free's up Earth to be ruled over by either Pilaf (less likely) or the Red Ribbon Army, leading to humanity being wiped out thanks to a stupid war!
I think Chuquita will like that second "theory".
Anyway, I just came up with all that for fun, certainly looking forward to what comes next!

[Pannaliciour]

Thats why I like Toriyama, he doesn't give a .... about love and girls. Just Goku and the LOVE to fight strong characters.

What in the world does a strong, female character have to do with "love"??

In our current world of weak princesses and superficial Barbie dolls, I think it'd be amazing for there to be a proper female character in a show like Super, to give the little kids something better to look up to. I used to think Videl was a fantastic addition back then, but now she's just another useless filler character with no role other than 'nice, obedient kitchen wife'. Shame.

I think you don't understand what a opinion means in this world. Akira doesn't spend that much time in female characters and I like that style. Its a shame that you don't like it but i don't care.

[Chuquita]

Re: The idea of mystery-saiyan being Uni 6 Gokû and Vegeta's kid.

I may have theorized about their kid pages and pages and pages back (way before Chapter 7 came out pages back), but I don't have the gumption to search through my posts for it. ^^;

EDIT: I found my gumption. The post where I said I hoped to get to see their son was from back in October.
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... n#p1005416

Anyway!

Points in favor:
-That does look a lot like Gogeta's hair; he's got the widow's peak, the bang is on the same side as Gogeta's
-he is wearing blue and orange
-he's also wearing wristbands
-know who's facial features look like that? Gine's. Maybe Kakarrotto's female in Uni 6 and has similar facial features to her mom and passed those on to her own kid.
-he looks like he's in-between Gohan and Goten's age
-that Vegeta height; outside of Vegeta and his brother, most of the saiyans we've seen are tall.

Points not in favor:
-That haircut also looks a lot like Gohan's, and Tarble's; the hair could mean nothing and just be a generic haircut that Toriyama likes.


It would make up for them not showing Uni 6 Gokû or Vegeta if Mystery Saiyan does turn out to be their offspring, but I can't get my hopes up too high after how badly they crashed from last weekend's episode.

[Sakura]

Buu arc Videl is my favorite female character in the franchise. 28th Tenkaichi Budokai Pan was fun as well.

You are merely proving my point. Buu arc Videl. 28th Tenkaichi Budokai Pan. What do we have now?

In regards to Bulma, I maintain my position that she's a predictive, boring, and not to mention utterly annoying character, but agree to disgree.

Were the three of these characters consistently flawless, 10/10 characters for the entire run of the franchise, from their introduction to the present material? No, but none of the male characters are either.

What are you talking about? Who said anything about being consistently flawless, 10/10 character? Well done with the strawman argument there, friend.

Just precluding the validity of someone else's opinion like that is unnecessary.

Then I apologize, but I insist: there are very few, if any, good or "great" female characters on Dragon Ball Super, and I again insist, there's no reason it should be that way.

I think you don't understand what a opinion means in this world. Akira doesn't spend that much time in female characters and I like that style.

I do have little respect for unsubstantiated opinions, you are right about that. As an example, you have now twice claimed that you like this "non-female character" style of Toriyama's... yet not once have you explained to us why you feel that way. Do you dislike women? Would it bother you if some little girl watching Super had a strong, female character she could identify with? Do you think females are only good for love stories like you indicated in your earlier post?

It's one thing to be not overly bothered by the lack of strong, female characters in Super, that's a position I can perfectly understand. But it's a different story when you actively oppose such an addition to the series, especially when you are not even capable of arguing for why you think that's an issue.

Its a shame that you don't like it but i don't care.

Then why are you writing to me?

[FortuneSSJ]

The Purple guy from Champa's team should have another body color. Purple everywhere in Super.
So far I'm no interested in Pooh but I love his colors, since its something new. We didn't have any canon character with yellow skin.

It has, literally, zero good female characters. To even make that claim borders on the inexplicable, and soemthing tells me not even you believe what you wrote, since, if you did, this would have surely been the place to make it known which characters you are talking about. Yet, you do not. So indeed we all remain unacquinted with the good female characters of Dragon Ball, just as always.

There's still Bulma.
C18 and Videl were great too, but lost their touch. And Lunch disappeared.

[VegettoEX]

Well done with the strawman argument there, friend.

While I find myself agreeing with all of your points, I can't sit idly by and allow responses like this to fly. You have good points. Please make them in a manner that respects the spirit of our community guidelines.

[Zephyr]

Buu arc Videl is my favorite female character in the franchise. 28th Tenkaichi Budokai Pan was fun as well.

You are merely proving my point. Buu arc Videl. 28th Tenkaichi Budokai Pan. What do we have now?

Were the three of these characters consistently flawless, 10/10 characters for the entire run of the franchise, from their introduction to the present material? No, but none of the male characters are either.

What are you talking about? Who said anything about being consistently flawless, 10/10 character? Well done with the strawman argument there, friend.

You being upset over the characterization of the female characters, when it appears that you also enjoy at least two of them for at least some portion of the story, says, to me at least, that you are upset over them not being consistently enjoyable. "Flawless, 10/10" was hyperbole on my part, apologies if that made things confusing. My point was that the male characters are arguably not special in this regard. Huge swaths of people have been expressing disdain for how Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan are being handled ever since Battle of Gods. Male characters. And yet, their current depictions do not erase their great moments from existence. My point is that a character not being consistently enjoyable doesn't mean that they're not in any way good characters.

Now, this was all in response to your assertion that the series has "literally zero good female characters" and that claiming the contrary is "inexplicable". Which, taken with you acknowledging that Videl and Pan, at least, were at some points were enjoyable (my intuiting your acknowledgement of such is due to you not disagreeing with my praise for them in those moments as you did with Bulma), seems to be to indicate that a character not being consistently enjoyable makes them "bad".

Thus, I'm fairly confused. I mean, that's a perfectly valid perspective to have, but I feel you'd then be forced to concede that no characters in Dragon Ball are "good" (unless you enjoy any character 100% of the time, which is also possible, but that seems to be an incredibly rare case), given that the criterion that I've read as being your indicator of "bad" can arguably be extended to pretty much every character in the series.

Lobbing around "ha ha! you just committed a logical fallacy!" immediately upon a slight error in communication, is incredibly hostile, and it's really unnecessary. We're here to have a discussion, not a debate. We're not here to "win" anything. Although, you might be. If you are, I'm not sure if this is the ideal community for that sort of thing. Although I suppose you could make a thread for more formal debate stuff, where bemoaning perceived logical fallacies would be more relevant.

[Sakura]

You being upset over the characterization of the female characters, when it appears that you also enjoy at least two of them for at least some portion of the story, says, to me at least, that you are upset over them not being consistently enjoyable.

But this is not correct, and I apologize if I have not made it clear enough. The issue is not that sometimes, I like Videl, and sometimes, I don't. The issue is that I believe I will never anymore like Videl, because her .... 'transformation' seems rather permanent (unless you think next episode, she'll suddenly drop the apron and return to being the person she was in DBZ, or if you think Android 17 will suddenly smack Krillin on the head, tell him to babysit Marron, and head out to fight like we know she can)*.

It's not about specific scenes or certain moments that we all have some sort of opinion on, it's about the overall character development (or lack thereof) of females, and certainly of other characters as well (Gohan, which I have already talked about before, or Piccolo), but that's not that big of an issue, since anybody who has a problem with the roles played by Piccolo or Gohan still kind of has adequate "replacements" in Vegeta and Goku, respectively, by which I mean that there's a certain degree of "balance" when it comes to the representation of male characters with certain traits: if some are sacrificed, it is balanced out by the rise of others (in Super: Vegeta). But does that happen to the female characters, who aren't that important in the plot to begin with? The answer should be a clear no, and so we ask another question: is that an issue? Again, my answer is a clear yes, for reasons already stated. If your answer is no, then that's okay too, but what I can't understand is how somebody can claim that this is not only not an issue, but actually the right thing to do (whatever "right" means) and we should "love" Toriyama for it .

* Note: There is absolutely nothing wrong with the characters of Videl and A17 in and of themselves (apart from obvious consistency issues), my issue is with the lack of diversity in portrayal and importance of the female ensemblé of DBS in general.

[batistabus]

In regards to Bulma, I maintain my position that she's a predictive, boring, and not to mention utterly annoying character, but agree to disgree.

The same could be said about Goku. I personally really like Bulma, and it seems likely that she will continue to have a(n important) role in the series.

or if you think Android 17 will suddenly smack Krillin on the head, tell him to babysit Marron, and head out to fight like we know she can.

I think it's plausible that she will have some kind of temporary combat role again depending on where the story goes. She charged Beerus with Tenshinhan and Piccolo at Bulma's birthday party, which is something at least.

(Also you keep saying 17...we all know who you're talking about, but it's 18.)

[fadeddreams5]

I called it. I knew the universe 7 guy would be an unassuming cute alien, with the way Super is and all...

Pleasantly surprised by the saiyan, purple guy, and Frieza-looking guy though. <3

[Lord Beerus]

I called it. I knew the universe 7 guy would be an unassuming cute alien, with the way Super is and all...

Those giant nipples are far from cute.

[EXBadguy]

I'm very late, but man oh man, after seeing that Monaca, I'm starting to despise Toriyama's style now. Especially those nipples! Like really? How am I supposed to have good dreams? I only like those kind of nipples for the women, not males. Ah fiction, fiction, fiction. I hate to say it, but thank goodness I'm slowly outgrowing fiction in general.

It has, literally, zero good female characters. To even make that claim borders on the inexplicable, and soemthing tells me not even you believe what you wrote, since, if you did, this would have surely been the place to make it known which characters you are talking about. Yet, you do not. So indeed we all remain unacquinted with the good female characters of Dragon Ball, just as always.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with what you're saying, but how about when the female characters were at their best (i.e 18 vs Vegeta or Videl in general)?

[Noah]

gohan is cleary planning a plot against toriyama.

Oh, I would dig that

The Saiyan will probably have Ssjb, The Freeza guy will probably have his 4th form and hopefully Monaca will have something other then his current state.

That's impossible, this would make SSJ God-tier forms be like SSJ transformations back then: a bargain sale. I like the concept of SSJG and SSGSS because they're somewhat special, you have requirements to achieve it.

I prefer the Saiyan Kid to have some unique SSJ transformation

[ArchedThunder]

I called it. I knew the universe 7 guy would be an unassuming cute alien, with the way Super is and all...

Those giant nipples are far from cute.

Those nipples are kawaii as fuck.

[FortuneSSJ]

That's impossible, this would make SSJ God-tier forms be like SSJ transformations back then: a bargain sale. I like the concept of SSJG and SSGSS because they're somewhat special, you have requirements to achieve it.

I prefer the Saiyan Kid to have some unique SSJ transformation

That Mini Gohan should have a tail and go next level...

[DBZ_Lee]

Do you guys think the manga could ever go weekly?. If Toriyama Sensei is happy to continue for as long as Toei/Shueisha want him to, and Toyotarō can illustrate, surely it's possible?.
I'd love to see it, as Viz would likely include it in their localized version of WSJ. If they continue with the monthly format, they will fall behind the anime rather quickly.