Post
by Cipher » Thu Oct 13, 2016 2:51 pm
I'm going to nuance my earlier answer a bit and try to lay out why I actually do like some franchise fiction, but wouldn't be excited for Dragon Ball to join hem. I'm a huge fan of giant monster movies, and Godzilla in particular, finding something interesting in even the worst entries (though without the good ones, I wouldn't be interested in the first place). Depending on who's writing or drawing, I enjoy a handful of American superhero comics as well, and they certainly aren't tied to a particular creator, even if they started with a distinct team.
I think part of why I feel differently about those, other than being, in most cases, more committee-based projects from the start, is that they're high-concept. They're preloaded, and exist more on the strength of a simple idea than a particular kind of execution; they're malleable, even somewhat political, storytelling templates for any individual to come in and use in an interesting, sometimes urgent, way.
Deagon Ball isn't high-concept (or, to the extent it is, it's already the work of an individual putting his spin on the high concept of fantasy martial arts). It isn't a big metaphor or simple core idea that asks to be reinterpreted. It's tied solely to its execution under Toriyama. The series doesn't exist any other way; there's nothing to separate from its author without imitation of his style.
That's why I'm not really on board for a glut of post-Toriyama Dragon Ball material. I don't particularly need imitative works that both lack his weird quirks and exist solely for the most cynical reasons. That world doesn't need to be host to more stories. I'd rather, in a kind of idealistic way, that creative energy be spent elsewhere. And I'd rather the original series not be tied to anything that becomes so transparently an IP farm or marketing franchise. One of the things I like about it is that it's a whimsical series that's distinctly not that. While it was something JUMP editorial encouraged, Toriyama was still very much doing what personally amused him, and fought against commercially-minded editorial suggestions for the right to age Goku into an adult (which, lo and behold, turned out to be the more commercially successful route by far).
Last edited by
Cipher on Thu Oct 13, 2016 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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worse part about that is that it had so much potential and the power scaling would still be at reasonable levels.
