Which character and/or plotline in the franchise is the biggest waste of potential?

[MasenkoHA]

If Pokemon can be enjoyable and fresh after 23 years--arguably becoming increasingly better since 2006--then Dragon Ball can also become better. Heck, ace Pokemon writer Tomioka Atsuhiro is literally working on Dragon Ball and his episodes have easily been some of the best scripts.

As someone who has sampled a handful episodes from the Diamond and Pearl era, and Black and White, and 1 episode a piece from Sun and Moon and the current series on Netflix I can safely say no it’s not enjoyable and fresh it’s just as obnoxiously corporate pandering and overtly saccharine as ever. If not more so.

[JulieYBM]

I wouldn't know, I haven't watched Pokemon in 20 years, but DB is not Pokemon. It's a story where characters grow and change. Pokemon is all about keeping the status quo and the plots are all interchangeable.

Dragon Ball is about maintaining the status quo now. Furthermore, that a staff can make a series with the same two leads increasingly more entertaining while never aging them is very impressive and to show they can also create interesting work without that condition.

Additionally, Pokemon does have growth. Characters develop, overcome their weaknesses and flaws and get closer to their goals.

[Dbzfan94]

I wouldn't know, I haven't watched Pokemon in 20 years, but DB is not Pokemon. It's a story where characters grow and change. Pokemon is all about keeping the status quo and the plots are all interchangeable.

Dragon Ball is about maintaining the status quo now. Furthermore, that a staff can make a series with the same two leads increasingly more entertaining while never aging them is very impressive and to show they can also create interesting work without that condition.

Additionally, Pokemon does have growth. Characters develop, overcome their weaknesses and flaws and get closer to their goals.

Not physical growth, which is likely what ABED means. Ash has been 10 for over 20 years now.
AT the end of Alola, there was a pregnancy. In the most recent episode, it was shown a baby was born. And that baby was definitely not a newborn. So it's been at least a year since the Alola arc conclusion, yet Ash is still 10 years old.

[ABED]

I wouldn't know, I haven't watched Pokemon in 20 years, but DB is not Pokemon. It's a story where characters grow and change. Pokemon is all about keeping the status quo and the plots are all interchangeable.

Dragon Ball is about maintaining the status quo now. Furthermore, that a staff can make a series with the same two leads increasingly more entertaining while never aging them is very impressive and to show they can also create interesting work without that condition.

Additionally, Pokemon does have growth. Characters develop, overcome their weaknesses and flaws and get closer to their goals.

And it's the worse for it retaining the status quo. At its best, Super is pizza. I like pizza, even bad pizza is still mostly enjoyable. It's no longer what it used to be though.

That's not growth. It's the appearance of growth. It's all interchangable. The characters don't really matter. It's like Power Rangers. Each season has its own story and the characters change and grow but the franchise as a whole does it over and over and over again, and after a while, there's no need to see any more of them as it all becomes the same.

Not physical growth, which is likely what ABED means.

It's both.

[Skar]

I'll leave hashing out an entire plot to our hypothetical writers, suffice it to say original DB was brought up for this very reason. One thing that complicates it is that everyone has a family now, they're not rationally free to go cavorting around the literal multiverse.

That's what I was worried about. Most of the cast has settled down so they no interest in leaving the Earth unless they have to like in the ToP so I wouldn't want it to feel forced and only happening for the sake of fan service. Well more fan service than what we've gotten already. It's easy for us fans to come up with suggestions and expect the writers to make it work but it's likely Toriyama and Toei have already considered these ideas.

If Pokemon can be enjoyable and fresh after 23 years--arguably becoming increasingly better since 2006--then Dragon Ball can also become better. Heck, ace Pokemon writer Tomioka Atsuhiro is literally working on Dragon Ball and his episodes have easily been some of the best scripts.

Based on the few episodes I've watched as a kid, I remember Pokemon having the same structure almost every episode. Ash and friends visit a new town, Team Rocket attempts to kidnap Pikachu and/or the Pokemon of a new friend they've made, Team Rocket is defeated and blast off again.

It's almost impossible for any series to continue for so long without becoming repetitive. There might occasionally be a surprise like Ash finally winning a league recently but the show is mainly dragging its feet with very little development or growth from what I've heard. Ash's goal was to become the Pokemon Master and catch 'em all but he has caught less than 100 out of the almost 900 Pokemon after over 1000 episodes.

[JulieYBM]

I'll leave hashing out an entire plot to our hypothetical writers, suffice it to say original DB was brought up for this very reason. One thing that complicates it is that everyone has a family now, they're not rationally free to go cavorting around the literal multiverse.

That's what I was worried about. Most of the cast has settled down so they no interest in leaving the Earth unless they have to like in the ToP so I wouldn't want it to feel forced and only happening for the sake of fan service. Well more fan service than what we've gotten already. It's easy for us fans to come up with suggestions and expect the writers to make it work but it's likely Toriyama and Toei have already considered these ideas.

If Pokemon can be enjoyable and fresh after 23 years--arguably becoming increasingly better since 2006--then Dragon Ball can also become better. Heck, ace Pokemon writer Tomioka Atsuhiro is literally working on Dragon Ball and his episodes have easily been some of the best scripts.

Based on the few episodes I've watched as a kid, I remember Pokemon having the same structure almost every episode. Ash and friends visit a new town, Team Rocket attempts to kidnap Pikachu and/or the Pokemon of a new friend they've made, Team Rocket is defeated and blast off again.

It's almost impossible for any series to continue for so long without becoming repetitive. There might occasionally be a surprise like Ash finally winning a league recently but the show is mainly dragging its feet with very little development or growth from what I've heard. Ash's goal was to become the Pokemon Master and catch 'em all but he has caught less than 100 out of the almost 900 Pokemon after over 1000 episodes.

His goal was never to catch every Pokemon. Furthermore, there's no definition given for what 'Pokemon Master' even means. It's always been left intentionally vague. The premise is simple: Satoshi travels with Pikachuu and meets new friends. The format has been changing with each new series, though. DP introduced more complex battles and arcs with its heated rivalry between Satoshi and Shinji. It also saw Iwane Masa'aki being allowed to bend over backwards to work on certain episodes. Best Wishes tried to do a big Rocket and Plasma Gang overarching story but things were changed due to the 2011 Earthquake and the series subsequently played it safe outside of introducing the Don battles for fun rival-centric episodes.

XY revamped how the battles looked, brought new skilled animators other than Iwane and also had an overarching story during its third year. It definitely still suffered from too many character of the day episodes, though.

Sun & Moon completely revamps the series. New designs focused on animation, Satoshi goes to school with five classmates with their own arcs, Pokemon get their own arcs, Kukui and Burnett get married and basically become Satoshi's secondary family, we get episodes about death, just about every episode is pure fun and there's a fucking sixteen episode tournament arc that feels like a big culmination of the series.

The 2019 series returns Satoshi to traveling around the world but instead it's a mixture of Sun and Moon's style (staying in one town) and visiting a different region. His companion this time is Gou and Gou's goal is to capture every Pokemon.

Like, y'all, maybe actually watch Pokemon before you try to have an opinion on it? It's an infinite cour series but it does still develop characters and have staff who aren't jaded or cynical but actually still care about making the series cool and fun. Heck, Tomioka Atsuhiro is the oldest serving writer for the franchise having written the 1997 series' Episode #3 and most recently the 2019 series' Episode #34 and the upcoming rematch in #39. Tomioka's scripts practically revolutionized Pokemon during Diamond & Pearl and we saw this same dedication in how much of Super he wrote by himself.

[MasenkoHA]

Like, y'all, maybe actually watch Pokemon before you try to have an opinion on it?

I have and I stand by my opinion.

[LoganForkHands73]

We all have a need to justify why our preferred thing is better than all those other things. If my life went a different way and I became a Pokemon anime guy instead of a Dragon Ball guy, I would probably be on some Pokemon forum explaining why my favourite show is infinitely better than that Dragon Ball trash. I mean, pfft, it's nothing but poop and sex gags, roided-out aliens screaming blowing up planets and characters standing around staring at each other menacingly for episodes at a time! Pokemon, though, now that's the real stuff.

I'm being kind of facetious but there's a certain lack of irony in comparing one corporate lowest-common-denominator franchise's merits to another, and concluding that one is repetitive juvenile garbage while the other is somehow better/maturer despite being having similar flaws.

I've noticed this more often with American sitcom fans, myself included. Everyone has their preferred sitcoms but feel the need to argue that their favoured show is secretly the most brilliant and subversive one.

I think we just need to accept that, in the words of Mr. World from American Gods, we're all being fed the same salsa. Doesn't really matter that much if it's chunky or spicy. And it's okay to prefer chunky.

[Skar]

I'm being kind of facetious but there's a certain lack of irony in comparing one corporate lowest-common-denominator franchise's merits to another, and concluding that one is repetitive juvenile garbage while the other is somehow better/maturer despite being having similar flaws.

I mean was anyone discussing that? Pokemon was given as an example of a series could be fresh after 1000 episodes. I think everyone was agreeing that DB will become more like Pokemon the longer it continues and the merits were about the original series. I would say that DB is still a different type of franchise than Pokemon since DB relies on Toriyama and he already gave it an ending while Pokemon will likely continue until the games are no longer successful. I'm not judging anyone who likes Pokemon and I was only giving my opinion about series that continue for too long in general including DB.

[DragonBallFoodie]

After Freeza, his brother Cooler and father King Cold really deserved more time. The family of the most feared tyrant in the DB main universe would have been a great insight into Freeza's background.

[ABED]

After Freeza, his brother Cooler and father King Cold really deserved more time. The family of the most feared tyrant in the DB main universe would have been a great insight into Freeza's background.

I don't see the point. Freeza was defeated already so why does it matter what his backstory is?

[DragonBallFoodie]

I don't see the point. Freeza was defeated already so why does it matter what his backstory is?

I was referring to seeing more of the characters Cooler and Cold.

[WittyUsername]

Since Freeza is now a recurring character, I think there could be some potential in Cooler being introduced to the story. I’ve said before that if that were to happen, Cooler could be portrayed as the black sheep of the family empire, who always struggled to measure up to his younger brother, and was ultimately rejected by Cold for being weak.

[ABED]

I don't see the point. Freeza was defeated already so why does it matter what his backstory is?

I was referring to seeing more of the characters Cooler and Cold.

You talked about his background but why should we care after he's been defeated in the previous arc? It feels beside the point and anti-climactic.

[LoganForkHands73]

While a good movie script or manga arc could salvage Cooler for the modern era, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of him or any more Z movie villains being brought back or reinvented. I'd rather see new villains. I can deal with Broly but I hope that was a one-time deal, purely to capitalise on the original character's insane brandname recognition -- it was a shrewd marketing move to introduce someone who is, for all intents, a totally new, unrelated character with certain similarities carried over. Compared to how easily distinguishable Old and New Broly are thanks to their differing origins, they'd have to carry Cooler's ties with Freeza over wholesale.

And to be frank, that premise has never really been that interesting. So Freeza has a brother named Cooler, who has a bit of an inferiority complex. Cool? (ha) I've never really gotten the hype. Yeah, he looks cool n'all (haaa), siblings to main characters are always a safe bet. But if there's gonna be a hypothetical Cooler reboot, I want him to be given a much more distinct role from Freeza. Even when he had the whole Big Gete Star gimmick, he still imitated Freeza to the letter. The most memorable scene involving Cooler is the Meta-Cooler Army reveal scene in Z Movie 6, it's breathtaking, but it didn't really have anything to do with him being Cooler -- anyone could have substituted him. The idea of Cooler being a prisoner somewhere and having to make uneasy alliances was actually a quite interesting premise in Heroes but it was totally wasted there. Similar to how Cabba has replaced Tarble, I feel that Frost fulfils the same role for Cooler.

While Cooler is fairly popular and iconic, he really doesn't have a scratch on Broly's sheer ubiquity in Toei's Dragon Ball marketing. Old Broly was still appearing in 4D cinematic rides at Universal Studios theme parks not long before Super: Broly was announced. The fact that Cooler will always be 2nd-most-popular movie villain is impressive in and of itself, but I can't see Dragon Ball Super: Cooler movie posters with his masked purple mug all over the posters anytime soon.

[ABED]

I feel about the issue of bringing back movie villains but now into canon the way I do about bringing back old Rocky villains into the Creed franchise. It worked once (in DB's case not even then except popularity wise), don't push your luck.

[WittyUsername]

While a good movie script or manga arc could salvage Cooler for the modern era, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of him or any more Z movie villains being brought back or reinvented. I'd rather see new villains. I can deal with Broly but I hope that was a one-time deal, purely to capitalise on the original character's insane brandname recognition -- it was a shrewd marketing move to introduce someone who is, for all intents, a totally new, unrelated character with certain similarities carried over. Compared to how easily distinguishable Old and New Broly are thanks to their differing origins, they'd have to carry Cooler's ties with Freeza over wholesale.

And to be frank, that premise has never really been that interesting. So Freeza has a brother named Cooler, who has a bit of an inferiority complex. Cool? (ha) I've never really gotten the hype. Yeah, he looks cool n'all (haaa), siblings to main characters are always a safe bet. But if there's gonna be a hypothetical Cooler reboot, I want him to be given a much more distinct role from Freeza. Even when he had the whole Big Gete Star gimmick, he still imitated Freeza to the letter. The most memorable scene involving Cooler is the Meta-Cooler Army reveal scene in Z Movie 6, it's breathtaking, but it didn't really have anything to do with him being Cooler -- anyone could have substituted him. The idea of Cooler being a prisoner somewhere and having to make uneasy alliances was actually a quite interesting premise in Heroes but it was totally wasted there. Similar to how Cabba has replaced Tarble, I feel that Frost fulfils the same role for Cooler.

While Cooler is fairly popular and iconic, he really doesn't have a scratch on Broly's sheer ubiquity in Toei's Dragon Ball marketing. Old Broly was still appearing in 4D cinematic rides at Universal Studios theme parks not long before Super: Broly was announced. The fact that Cooler will always be 2nd-most-popular movie villain is impressive in and of itself, but I can't see Dragon Ball Super: Cooler movie posters with his masked purple mug all over the posters anytime soon.

There’s not really even anything in the movies to suggest that Cooler has an inferiority complex. He’s pretty much just presented as Freeza’s big bad older brother, who’s superior to him in every way.

[MyVisionity]

Yeah, a revamped Coola seems logical. Maybe even have him resurrect King Cold or something.

Garlic Junior can also return. Maybe he revives his father and they team up. Or maybe he had a son/daughter (Garlic III) and they team up.

A rebooted Slug might work, and they can lean into the Namekian mythology some more. A new power-up for Piccolo maybe?

And then maybe Hirudegān returns and the gang is forced to fight him as giants.

[Skar]

Resurrecting a previous villain like Cell or rebooting other movies were likely already suggested to Toriyama since they're some of the more obvious ideas. Freeza was the most popular manga villain and Broly was the most popular from the movies so Toriyama might've decided that's enough or that other attempts wouldn't differ much from RoF and DBS: Broly. Many of the other movie villains have appeared in the Heroes anime recently bur they might've held off on using them if Toriyama showed interest in rebooting them.

And then maybe Hirudegān returns and the gang is forced to fight him as giants.

I thought it would've been cool if Toei saved Wrath of the Dragon for GT since it was the final movie. That way we could've seen a Kaiju battle between Hirudegarn and Golden Oozaru .

[ABED]

Why? Just why?