What is your opinion of Super?

[SaiyanGod117]

What do you think of it? Or what would you rate it as 6/10, 4/10, or 8/10? Do you consinder it to be a good successor to Z and do you like how Toei is handling it. Just your general opinions of it.

[Boo Machine]

I'm probably just going to say what I always say about it when I answer this question.

First of all. I give it a 6/10. Now before anyone assumes that's bad. It's not. To me, 6/10 is still good. Nothing gets into bad territory until you hit 3 maybe 4.

I look for 4 things when it comes to my dragonball.

-interesting new characters
-awesome fights
-great character moments
- expanded lore

Super has given me all this with varying degrees of success among the fanbase. But most importantly I'm not bored. I still have fun with this show and that's the deciding factor for whether or not a stick with anything. If there is too much time where I have no interest in something then I pretty much forget about it.

Do I consider it to be a good successor to the original? I'm going to go ahead and give this question a hesitant yes. It's different in so many ways and that's because of many different reasons. The age, how long it's been dead and just who and how it's being produced and worked on. The show doesn't even have the same sound effects it used to. But at the same time it's still Dragonball. I don't question that. And not just because of the title. It's still the same characters (mostly) with some great fights (mostly). And it still has that same style of sense of humor, with new characters.

Do I like how Toei is handling it? It goes up and down for me and it usually depends on what we know at the time. I'll just say, things could be going better.

In short. I like Super. I enjoy it. I think it's good.

[DrakenballP]

I absolutely adore Super, I think it's a unique and interesting take on Dragon Ball and it's very fun to observe. I do think there's too much involvement with Whis and Beerus, however.

I do not like the new Saiyan's and sort of question why they have no tail.

[GodKaio-Ken]

Honestly if Super had the exact same story but the art style of Z Id give it a 9

Yes the story makes no sense in terms of power scaling sometimes but most shows have issues if you look deep enough.

I dislike some of the animation and character designs (Like the U6 Saiyans look half chibi almost) so probably a 6.5 or 7 overall.

[Chuquita]

Super's a mixed bag, but it's better than GT, imo.

[PsionicWarrior]

The main problem is it had an awful start but now I think it's pretty awesome lol
Yeah power scaling makes no sense but it doesn't ruin the show, it's annoying, but its other qualities makes up for it to me.

A rating? Currently I give it a solid 8 lol

[Akyon]

RoF and BoG felt pointless to a Dragonball fan, but I get why they had to be shown to newcomers who may have missed the movies. RoF at least attempted to make some changes to the main film, but all of them were bad choices really; Piccolo dying, Ginyu coming back just so Vegeta can complete his full set of Ginyu Force kills, etc.

Universe 6 tournament arc was a bit meh to me honestly, although Piccolo getting to do a thing was a highlight. Felt like there were no stakes at all, and I didn't really care for the U6 fighters outside Magetta; Hit's personality was dull, Cabba is the most bland character introduced(pretty much just Gohan but without the years of watching him grow up to get attached), Botamo gets taken out waaay too quick and Frost could have been interesting but they hastily made him into a discount store version of Frieza instead. Had it not been for the Zamasu/Black arc I probably would have dropped the series.

Black/Zamasu introduced the feeling of jeopardy which was missing prior to it. The antagonists are far better than they have any right to be, and rank amongst my favourites at this point.

ToP arc is finally addressing two of my big bugbears; the end of the tired Goku and Vegeta Super Saiyan show, and tactics and skill meaning something outside hitting things harder and harder.
Super is far from perfect but I'd rate everything from the start of the Zamasu arc to now as at least good and/or entertaining bar the odd episode. As dumb as I find Frieza being chosen as a team mate, I can't deny I'm intrigued to see what's going to happen next.

[Generico Garbagio]

I do not like the new Saiyan's and sort of question why they have no tail.

That's also something I was curious about. We could probably assume they cut it off way back but nothing officially adresses the matter.

I really like Super anyway. I guess I'm a fanboy. I see how a lot of stuff doesn't make sense but I don't feel like it needs to. If anything, I would've been glad if the Potafeu "Superhuman water" thing made Krillin stronger than SSBKKx10 Goku.

I guess I just like how the show is light hearted. I don't like taking things very seriously outside of my job.

Oh and I give it 5 balls out of 7.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

It's an interesting, but misguided follow-up to the successful movie continuations of the series. It provides interesting lore expansions, fun new characters, and fantastic character interactions, but ultimately lacks the necessary momentum, narrative cohesion, and interesting visuals to keep itself afloat. In my opinion, Dragon Ball would be in a much better place if it were to go back to the movie formula.

[MaskedRider]

To me, Dragon Ball Super isn't the show itself but the stories. We have three different versions of enjoying Battle of Gods, Resurrection F (to a point with the promotional manga) with two ways of experiencing the U6 tournament / Future Trunks / Universe Survival arcs. Its clear these are whats meant to happen after Majin Buu. I am aware of Super's flaws and not just the animation but also in the writing but I love what we got out of it such as Whis, my now favorite Dragon Ball character. I love every bit of filler although I could really do without the mini-arc about purple Vegeta and Beerus dressing up as Monaka and fighting Goku.

I love Battle of Gods and the introduction of Beerus and Whis and watching Goku transform into a super saiyan god and having his fight with Beerus. I love the form with how its designed and what it symbolizes. I love Resurrection of F because I love Frieza and I like that he was able to go beyond since he was naturally gifted to being already strong with Goku and Vegeta achieving their new aesthetically pleasing super saiyan blue form and watching the three of these fight it out. It was like one big movie / arc for them to train in their new form and understand it.

The tournament with Universe 6 was so hype. A small glimpse to what another universe is like with all these cool characters (Botamo is the poorest of these in my opinion) but everyone else is just so YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO It was a nice little cool down from BoG/RoF until you got serious with the Future Trunks arc. I love the Future Trunks arc, I enjoyed Black, Zamasu, Gowasu, super saiyan ikari, merged Zamasu, Vegito, final hope slash. The ending wasn't my cup of tea to be honest, I would have preferred if it ended right after Trunks slashes Merged Zamasu a new one. I'm really digging the Universal Survival arc and loved every episode to come out of it.

Call me easily entertained but I love Super , I watched GT too but it felt more of a chore to get through and the ideas didn't hook me in as much save for Baby.

[Bullza]

Pretty sure there's threads like this already and I've probably given my opinion before so I'll make it quick.

I'm really enjoying the show, no it's not perfect but I look forward to seeing it every week. I'm glad it's a thing and I get to talk about it with people and see the reactions to the new material that's coming out of it.

The show has improved a lot since the Resurrection F saga. It's probably not that far off from being as good as Z to be honest. Dragon Ball Z was better at some things and Super has been better at other things so I think they're on par with each other. Thats something you could never say for GT which was terrible.

Comparing the first 93 episodes of Z to Super, I probably do prefer Super.

[Bansho64]

It's decent. I try really hard to like it as some of y'all here do, but I ultimately end up bored. It's definitely not up to par with the first two series, and I prefer GT over it by a considerable margin.

[Zephyr]

I think it's still a bit too early for anyone to really have any definitive or fully appropriately informed opinions on Super, seeing as it's still going, but I'll throw out my current thoughts. There are really 3 different dimensions to Super that I feel warrant somewhat distinct appraisal.

The broad, overarching story beats and plot points; that which has come from Toriyama's mind and hands themselves:
I think that, when viewing each arc's draft/outline as an individual chapter, Toriyama's overarching "story arc" here is pretty cool. I enjoy the personality that a lot of these characters have, and the accompanying worldbuilding. The only problem I have with this dimension of Super is the time frame. It's an interquel. At best, it can only complement the already-existing ending that Toriyama seems deathly afraid of moving past. I think these bits of worldbuilding would make infinitely more sense in a post-GT timeframe. In GT, we explored our entire universe. In Super, we move beyond our universe. It makes sense from an out-of-universe perspective that we've increased the scales as such, but in-universe, it just seems odd to go from something incredibly large in scope, to something so much smaller in scope. All that being said, I won't hold that over Toriyama's head with too much severity, as since this new material is all created and published after GT, I believe it is also rightfully consumed after GT as well. So from the viewer's perspective, things increase in scale in a reasonable order, despite the in-universe details.

Toei's episodic TV anime adaptations of these story beats and plot points:
I wholly believe that this dimension in particular is Super's greatest weak spot. I have nothing but disdain for Yamamuro as a character designer; the artstyle he has for the characters makes them look bloated, glossy, plastic, and covered in oil...and I can't stand the way he draws his noses. While these last two arcs have featured some improvement, I'm still overall unimpressed by Sumitomo's musical score for the series; it doesn't sound wholly wuxia enough. Or I don't know, maybe the people placing the tracks are just doing that poor of a job that consistently. Maeda and Kikuchi they are not. Several voice actors have passed away, and others still are now in too poor of health to continue on with the show. How many things can you remove from the equation before it's no longer Dragon Ball? Also, is it weird that I think there's something in the "feel" of the show that's lost without the film grain? Because it was very much so intentionally done, and I think it added to Dragon Ball's atmosphere in the original run. Might just be me, who knows.

Ironically, this is also supposed to be the main attraction. This is the primary product. This is the version that video games seem to be basing their stories on, and the version that all of the merchandise (namely toys) appear to be rooted in. I do believe that this is a double edged sword. By virtue of this being the main product, and being the main source of inspiration for merchandise (not enough emphasis can be put on those two terms), I think that creating something with greater artistic merit is obviously under-prioritized, and all the same, made inherently more difficult. There's no need to put as much care into something, if it's going to do well regardless. And I think it shows. Like, a lot. The sloppiness of the anime's execution for a lot of things is made really obvious from the sheer volume of complaints and concerns that fans have every episode. Granted, there's also a large, vocal group of folks who are lacking in perspective enough that they'd be complaining regardless, but still. I'm shocked that it continues to stir up controversy with each botched attempt at doing something, given how consistent of a pattern it's become. Like, what are people expecting?

The animation seemingly took a tremendous hit at the beginning due to poor (or non-existent) pre-production. Character writing is often entertainingly horrendous, with the same bits of character development needlessly occurring, and being subsequently forgotten, several times. Frequent, and well made, complaints over how poorly characters in general tend to be, almost to the point of caricatures. It can't be helped when there's so much desperation to churn out products and merchandise, that there's either not a dedicated team of writers trying to at least keep things consistent (just within Super itself), or there is such a team, and none of them care or have the time, because they're either too focused on churning out the products or are being rushed for the same reason. Lots of speculation and conjecture there, but it's clear that consistent character writing is not a priority.

The first 27 episodes are spent retelling the two recent films, the latter of which had just come out that very same year. Was this done to maintain a steady stream of hype so people wouldn't somehow forget Dragon Ball existed while they got the Champa arc stuff ready? The plots of the films weren't done any favors by being dragged out to roughly 4.5 hours and 4 hours respectively. And no, it's not enough that one can just skip those episodes. Those are episodes of Super. They spent the time to produce and air and release them on home video. They're part of Toei's TV anime version of Super. If it takes 30 episodes for a show to "get good", then that's a really large blight on the show overall, no matter how much better it gets.

Furthermore, the way the story is drawn, as it corresponds to the way it is thought up in Toriyama's mind, is horribly incongruent. When drawing the original manga, Toriyama wouldn't really plan chapters in advance, thinking up the broad strokes of an entire story arc, and then drawing that outline bit by bit each week. He thought it up as he drew it. The films managed to capture this approach to "writing -> drawing" reasonably well. Again, thinking of each film as its own "chapter", they both play out pretty well. But when you take those individual "chapters", and spread them out into 12-14 episodes? It becomes awkward. It becomes laborious to consume a single "chapter". This continues past the retelling arcs, when we get into "Super proper", with the Champa arc (14 episodes), Future Trunks arc (21 episodes), and Universe Survival arc (17+ episodes). Toriyama's five "chapters" for Super now take 4.5 hours, 4 hours, 4.5 hours, 7 hours, and at least 5.5 hours respectively to consume. Without Toriyama telling the story organically as he makes it up, we're left with Toei's writers trying to pad what basically amount to film outlines into a series of awkwardly-written and needlessly-long story arcs.

They're hardly ever taking advantage of this by padding the "chapters" out with meaningful and well-written enhancements to the story, and they don't even seem to be capable of making the plot threads within these arcs, for which they have all of the details from the get-go, internally consistent. The most glaring example is how Goku Black acquires his grudge against Goku. The way the anime presents it, it creates an unexplainable grandfather paradox. If this were made up as it went along, I could understand how that might happen. But it's not. They know it all from the getgo, or at least they should. They should have had every opportunity not to walk into that pitfall, and they found a way regardless.

This version isn't without its highs, however. Many of the voice actors are still giving stellar performances. And when the animation is good, it's really good. That said, I don't think the highs are frequent, fundamental, or pervasive enough to justify slogging through 90+ episodes of Yamamuro and Sumitomo, nearly 30 episodes dedicated to inferior versions of recently released and already perfectly fine films, entertainingly inconsistent character writing, etc.

I still tune in every week. It's still enjoyable. It's a fun ride, one I at this point enjoy laughing at. However, I can't in any good faith recommend someone take the large amount of time required to get through it all. I can't defend largely any of its own unique creative decisions (there are some, but they're few and far between). It's quite clearly a mess behind the scenes, likely in large part due to how soullessly merchandise driven it is, and how blindly by-committee its poorly planned out assembly-line production is. Ultimately, the best thing Toei's dimension of Super brings to the table is the occasional good moment in a vacuum, that we can then view in a vacuum on places like YouTube, and that folks like Ajay and co. can then later rearrange and edit into something more worthwhile.

ALSO: My negative words on the process behind the anime's production aren't meant to be an attack on the quality of character of the writers, or animators, or anything like that. I'm merely trying to explain why I think that any sincere creative drive they may have is being stunted and wasted and prevented from truly flourishing in a good way as a result of how product-and-merch-driven this whole thing is.

Toyotaro's monthly manga adaptation of these story beats and plot points:
A revelation that I'm sure is such a shocker by this point: I greatly prefer Toyotaro's approach to adapting Toriyama's outlines. To start things off, a manga doesn't require all of the same things that an anime does, and as such there aren't as many different groups involved in the production that can each individually fail to live up to previous work in the franchise. You don't need voice actors, so the loss, and necessary retirement, of some really big names isn't going to significantly impact the quality of the manga. You don't need a musical score, so a composer who makes largely bland and genre-inappropriate tracks which then get placed in really odd spots very frequently isn't going have the opportunity to bring the manga down. Toyotaro is the only one drawing and writing the thing (to our knowledge, barring Toriyama's occasional assistance), so we don't have to worry about a dozen different writers causing inconsistent characterization between episodes within the same arc. Likewise, he's not bound to Yamamuro's character designs. The original run of the anime got all of those aspects right; solid character designer, solid composer and music placement, voice actors were still largely in their primes. It was like capturing lightning in a bottle. That's not an easy thing to do again, and so it's no surprise that they've failed to do so. There are just so many of the pitfalls inherent to the anime are simply non-factors in a manga. It doesn't bite off more than it can chew.

It's worth pointing out that this is indeed the secondary product. It's a promotional manga, intended to be a supplement to the main product. The merchandise isn't coming from this version. While I normally see that fact trotted around as a form of derision for the manga, I think it's actually a blessing in disguise. Remember how much of a double edged sword that the anime's existence as the main product and merch pusher truly is. The main merch pusher isn't being given as much care or thoughtful planning, because it doesn't need that. It's designed to move units, and they can assembly-line by-committee that shit. Since they can do that, they're going to do that, and they clearly are doing that. Toyotaro is left with the secondary product, for which he's pretty much the sole creative force. The manga's much better for wear as a result. The manga's purpose certainly is still to help push that merch, but its creative process isn't being nearly as constrained by that motive as the anime is. As such, characterization is far more consistent.

Like the anime, the manga did indeed retell some already-known material. However, unlike the anime, it only wasted time doing this for one of the films. Unlike the anime, it spent much less time retelling said film. And, unlike the anime, it spent a much larger percentage of this retelling actually foreshadowing the Champa arc. The difference in approach is then between an extended retelling and an abridged recap filled with foreshadowing.

My last major singing of praise for the manga comes into how consumable it is. Like the anime, it has the same problem of being thought out in one chunk, but being drawn over a long period of time. However, where it diverges is that it can still at least be consumed in one sitting. The manga's arcs don't take anywhere between 4 to 7 hours (though, we'll see how the FT arc finishes, and the US arc plays out...again, it's still too early to really fully judge Super in any capacity) to read in one sitting. As such, they likewise seem to work like long chapters. In this way, they serve as perfect continuations of what the films were doing, in that they are more congruent in their approach to how Toriyama's ideas play out visually. There are certainly more pedantic, in-universe nitpicks to be had if one takes that approach, but I think that's relatively small-potatoes compared to the sacrifices one has to make with Toei's TV anime (in that every single issue is also present there, as well as a cavalcade of exclusive ones, all pervading far more material).

It's not without its problems, though. It lacks the incredible sense of mystery surrounding Goku Black's true identity that the anime had. The finale of the Champa arc was needlessly rushed. Toyotaro does do a sometimes gratingly frequent number of 'callbacks' to Toriyama's manga panels. However, in great contrast to the anime, where its good points are horribly drowned out by its flaws, the manga's flaws are conversely drowned out by its graceful relative inoffensiveness.

----

In summation, I think Toriyama's thinking up some interesting new Dragon Ball stories, awkward timeline placement aside. Toei's TV anime adaptation of his ideas are less than gracefully executed, I'd argue due to a combination of how many different mediums need to be carefully worked in and subsequently brought together, how focused on netting merchandise sales the larger enterprise is, and how poorly the latter bodes for the former. Whereas in contrast, Toyotaro offers a much more safe, but as a result much more gracefully executed manga adaptation of Toriyama's new story ideas.

If we look at Super as "Toei's two films plus Toyotaro's manga", I'd comfortably put "Super" on par with GT. Needless, excessive, not perfectly executed, but a nice supplement to Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball. Or, at least, based on what we do have, and where I'm expecting it to continue going, I'm ready to comfortably put it on par with GT.

[Yedis]

I absolutely adore Super, I think it's a unique and interesting take on Dragon Ball and it's very fun to observe. I do think there's too much involvement with Whis and Beerus, however.

I do not like the new Saiyan's and sort of question why they have no tail.

Probably an Artistic decision not to give them tails because having a tail at this point is not really necessary, because of the SSJ transformations

[HybridSaiyan]

An enjoyable clusterfuck. (Anime version)

A worthy sequel to Z. (Manga version)

[sintzu]

What do you think of it ?

What would you rate it as 6/10, 4/10, or 8/10?

Do you consinder it to be a good successor to Z ?

Do you like how Toei is handling it ?

I think it's a fun show.

As a DB show I'd give it a 6 but as an anime a 4. I'd give the manga an 8.

It could be a lot better but I've seen how it could be worse in GT so I'd say it's an OK to decent sequel. The manga is a lot better and what I'd expect a sequel to DB to be like.

Not really, the writing isn't that good and the pacing is still off.

[MajinMan]

I remember that in an old thread I gave it like a 6.4/10. I think the series would be a solid 7.5 overall if it wasn't for the movie retellings. The BoG arc wasn't THAT bad, but the RF arc was god awful. They make up for 27 of Super's current 92 episodes, which is a decent chunk. But other than those first two arcs, I have enjoyed Super. It's not better than the original manga and animes, not even close, but I do enjoy it more than most of GT.

[BlueBasilisk]

I love it. I started watching right at the beginning of the U6 arc and it's kept me entertained consistently week after week ever since. Yeah it has problems but that's what I expect from a series that runs weekly year-round and not in cours. Now that I've seen all three series, I find it to be somewhat more enjoyable than Z due to its lighter tone, brisk pacing and the more episodic structure of things, but night quite as fun or enjoyable as OG Dragon Ball.

I've tried reading the manga and it just doesn't do anything for me. Toyotaro's art is nice but I'm not terribly engaged by the writing.

[DrakenballP]

I absolutely adore Super, I think it's a unique and interesting take on Dragon Ball and it's very fun to observe. I do think there's too much involvement with Whis and Beerus, however.

I do not like the new Saiyan's and sort of question why they have no tail.

Probably an Artistic decision not to give them tails because having a tail at this point is not really necessary, because of the SSJ transformations

But a Saiyan is born with a tail. This is disgraceful.

[GodKaio-Ken]

I absolutely adore Super, I think it's a unique and interesting take on Dragon Ball and it's very fun to observe. I do think there's too much involvement with Whis and Beerus, however.

I do not like the new Saiyan's and sort of question why they have no tail.

Probably an Artistic decision not to give them tails because having a tail at this point is not really necessary, because of the SSJ transformations

But a Saiyan is born with a tail. This is disgraceful.

I'm pretty sure Vegeta and company only had tails because Goku did and his own race had to have them too.

I loved the tail though and wish it would come back. I always wanted a tail like kid goku.