The Schedule's Effect On The Writing

[ekrolo2]

A lot of Super discussion is centered around the production side of things and the many ways its screwed up and how it continues to affect the final product. But it's always from an animation point of view and never about how the various people scripting the show are affected by this. As a guy who frequently complains about wasted opportunities and dropped concepts, I've started questioning just how much of this comes from bad writers or potentially good writers who can't align their ideas properly.

As we've seen from GT, the Toei staff doesn't lack people who can come up with cool ideas and if you look at things such as the Bardock and Trunks specials, can execute said ideas pretty spectacularly. So my question is this for people who know the ins and outs of anime production: how much of Super's various writing issues are the fault of the production rush job?

[dbs fanboy]

A lot of Super discussion is centered around the production side of things and the many ways its screwed up and how it continues to affect the final product. But it's always from an animation point of view and never about how the various people scripting the show are affected by this. As a guy who frequently complains about wasted opportunities and dropped concepts, I've started questioning just how much of this comes from bad writers or potentially good writers who can't align their ideas properly.

As we've seen from GT, the Toei staff doesn't lack people who can come up with cool ideas and if you look at things such as the Bardock and Trunks specials, can execute said ideas pretty spectacularly. So my question is this for people who know the ins and outs of anime production: how much of Super's various writing issues are the fault of the production rush job?

I can't help here But i'm sure that Goku's bad portrayal in Toshio's episodes is the writer's fault, not the schedule. I could be wrong thought

[ChronoTwigger]

Coming up with a COMPLETE episode ( a script is not just fanfiction) that try to get the correct pace and mood, have correct dialogues and follow directives it's time consuming and quite hard.
So, the answer is: yes, to a degree, More time will benefit any production.


But the larger part of the issue, if any (I like the show) it's writing itself.
Writers are less free than we think.
They get very strict borders to work with, stated by the higher levels of the production.
So, for example, as a writer you can't decline to have Potafeu arc, or strip out the retellings. You get paid to write what the production call for.
Production needs ("A filler please!"), the broad concept ("Goku must fight gods, but be carefull, it's not a fantasy show"), directives ("New character for the videogame, please!"), franchise dogma ("Goku can't cheat!!" ), silly stuff ("Tori-sama want Trunks to have blue hair!") and other stuff you, as a writer, must take into account.
When something goes wrong with a script, I feel like I was when scripting: frustrated by limits, not by time.

I think more about show directors, to find someone in need of more time.

[Sodhi]

Writing is the thing least affected by production. Writers are given an idea of how much material to cover in an episode by the series director. They just have to write the dialogue,or present information in there way for the specific episode they are working on. 2 weeks is good enough to do a script of an episode.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

Dragon Ball Super was announced April 2015 and aired on July 2015. That means the series had no time to assemble together into the pre-production stage. The writing committee is a very important part of the early process and as such the scenarios were such a rush job for them that the good ideas and executions were absolutely terrible. It stinks that some of the concepts established in the first arc has the ball dropped.

Things are better now, though, largely thanks to Tomioka Atsuhiro's ability to write several scripts in advance at the very beginning of the Black arc. I imagine the schedule is getting better for writers now. It's still not on the level of comfort zone for them, but it gets by fine.

[LightBing]

Have they been that effected by it?
The first arc is a copy-paste from the BoG movie, their only new completely new episodes are the first two. That should have given them enough time to catch up if necessary. That first arc shouldn't have been that much work. RoF is different because they tried to actively change some thing in the first half of it, although they stopped doing it, when Goku and Vegeta arrived.

Besides they feed off Mr.Toriyama outline, that takes a huge load from them. I think the problems are more with lack of coordination between writers and/or a lack of understating of the characters.

[JulieYBM]

The series director and producer work with the series kousei (series composition, basically head writer) to decide the plot and how to distribute it. Super has no head writer credited, so the series director and producer probably do the heavy lifting. From there scripts are assigned to whoever is available to write. A single script usually takes two weeks, but some are much faster than that, like Tomioka Atsuhiro. Scripts are approved by the series director before being assigned to a storyboard artist to translate into a storyboard. The series director must then approve it.

Scripts aren't the issue here, because scripts are not the actual blue print of an episode.

[SaiyanGod117]

The series director and producer work with the series kousei (series composition, basically head writer) to decide the plot and how to distribute it. Super has no head writer credited, so the series director and producer probably do the heavy lifting. From there scripts are assigned to whoever is available to write. A single script usually takes two weeks, but some are much faster than that, like Tomioka Atsuhiro. Scripts are approved by the series director before being assigned to a storyboard artist to translate into a storyboard. The series director must then approve it.

Scripts aren't the issue here, because scripts are not the actual blue print of an episode.

Why doesn't Super have a series director?

[JulieYBM]

Why doesn't Super have a series director?

It has had two, Hatano Morio is the current series director. There's probably no series composer to maintain the sense that Toriyama is in charge, even though he really isn't.

[Cipher]

That first arc shouldn't have been that much work.

It was enough work that the explanation for the Pilaf gang's youth didn't make it into anyone's script. To say nothing of their hardly playing a role in the arc.

I don't know how much time Super's scriptwriters and series composers are working with in comparison to the standard weekly anime, or what they were working with in earlier portions of the series, but more time will always benefit the writing. Especially with a tight serialization employing all sorts of fantasy logic like Dragon Ball employs. I think the biggest impact we've seen on the series are things that might have been fixed if there were more time to coordinate and request revisions -- character inconsistencies, side characters with B-plots that build toward nothing (Pilaf gang in the first arc), etc.

Without fully scripted source material to adapt a la the original two anime series, you'd want to see Super's writing be given more time. It's likely being given less.