Is Dragon Ball creatively bankrupt at this point?

[Robo4900]

And, honestly, I find those people who want Super to “innovate itself” by becoming something Dragon Ball never was, quite ridiculous. You don’t fix what isn’t broken. So what if each story is about Goku having to overcome a new foe? This is Dragon Ball, the theme of the serie is literally “break through walls” and “there’s always someone stronger out there.

Dragon Ball, at all times, up until 2015, had been something that constantly evolved and reinvented itself at every turn.
Super has not, at any point, attempted to even make the tiniest change to its ongoing status quo.

Desiring Super to become something Dragon Ball has never been is, paradoxically, also asking Super to be exactly what Dragon Ball always had been prior to Super.
Super is the first time Dragon Ball has ever had an ongoing status quo, and that's only been to its detriment.

That would be fixed with new stories set after the end of the manga.

Nah. If Toei wanted to change the status quo, they could have destroyed Trunks's timeline and had him join the main cast (maybe have him undergo an arc that culminates in him joining the Time Patrol), have Champa's team win the U6 tournament and move earth to his universe, taking Beers out of the picture until the TOP, had Freeza survive the events of the ResF arc which would have both made the ending of that arc more interesting, and created a far better setup for the TOP (pitting everyone against Freeza), and then they could have let the TOP ending actually have some balls, and destroy all the other universes.

It's easy to think of ways to ultimately have things end up being in a place where the 25th (26th?) Tenkaichi Budoukai could take place as we saw it in the original epilogue while still changing things up from now to then (hell, my way explains away why Beers and Whis aren't around at that point, and it deals with Freeza). Toei and/or Toriyama have just refused to do so.

Similarly, it would be dead-fucking-easy for them to refuse to make any status quo changes after the end of the manga too.

Super having a status quo isn't a constraint of the point in the story they're working within, it's a delibate creative choice that's actively hurting the show.

I am still of the idea that a new anime show, with good schedule and therefore good animation, direction and consistent writing would change people’s perception of Super. The show’s problems left a sour taste in people’s mouth, but the stories weren’t bad, as weren’t the new concepts introduced. There is creativity. It’s just that the presentation sucked.

Yes, a new show could be great, and it could change peoples' minds. I'd love to be wrong in my assumption that Toei/Toriyama don't know how to make a good Dragon Ball series anymore, but I just don't think the current creative team can put out good work.

And yes, the stories were bad. "Trunks comes back because he's being chased by evil Goku but evil Goku is a time travelling god who wants to kill everyone because he's a very bad terrible bad, bad man" is not a good story, it's the fanfic we were all writing as 9-year-olds. "There's a big tournament with parallel universes!" is LITERALLY already a fafic manga that's run for a fucking eternity, and is... Pretty dumb, but exactly what you'd expect out of that kind of thing (i.e. zero substance, but some very fanfic-y, entertaining fights). "There's a big, bad, evil, very bad, bad man who can destroy planets in seconds and Goku and Vegeta have to destroy him!" isn't a good story either.

Naturally, a good presentation can make a thin story good (see: Broly. That wasn't a great story, but it was told brilliantly; the strong character work and generally great moment-to-moment writing made it a great movie), but that doesn't mean Super's stories were good, it just means that they failed to turn a thin, iffy story into something good, so the storytelling failed at every level, rather than just at one level.

[SupremeKai25]

Just because the premise of the story sounds fanfiction-ish doesn't mean it's a bad story. The Goku Black arc was good. The ending is the only thing most people I've seen complain about, and that had nothing to do with the concept of Goku Black.

[Thunderbird]

Obviously.

Moro arc - A copy of the Resurrection F movie which is only a few years old.

Broly - Reused the Minus chapter. Second movie in a row to not feature a new original antagonist. No plot.

Universe Survival arc - Yet another Tournament.

Future Trunks arc - Another story that involved a menace showing up in Trunks timeline.

Universe 6 - Yet another Tournament.

Resurrection F - Frieza coming to Earth for revenge for the second time.

Battle of Gods - Probably the most unique thing because of the two new characters but even still had no plot.


The most creative thing of recent has been the whole Time Patrol thing from Dragon Ball Heroes and the Xeno counterparts and the battles against the Demon Gods. Even then still not that original and it's yet another old decrepit villain wanting the Dragon Balls to regain his youth.

[Planetnamek]

This is a question that’s been in my head lately that I thought was worth making a thread about. After watching several videos of RedLetterMedia talking about Star Trek: Picard, I have come to realize that there is this overwhelming consensus on the Internet that various beloved franchises are seen as having gone down the toilet lately. Despite this, however, Dragon Ball still seems to be doing pretty well for itself. Then again, there hasn’t been much new Dragon Ball content since the Broly movie, but that movie was massively successful.

In all honesty, it kind of seems like these forums are the only real place where you see people saying less than enthusiastic things about Super, and even then, that’s hardly the universal consensus on Kanzenshuu. Still, when you look at the current state of the franchise, would you say that the franchise has become a creatively bankrupt and soulless cash grab, or is there still some value to be had in modern Dragon Ball?

Eh I always found RLM extremely overrated, unfunny and overly full of themselves so I take whatever they say with a huge mountain of salt. Their videos on the Star Wars prequels(which I will happily defend on my deathbed) in particular have aged VERY badly with all of the cringe-inducing "gay" jokes that absolutely would not fly in this day and age, not to mention their reviews of the new trilogy more or less regurgitated the same asinine nonsensical "criticisms" lobbed at the films by Gamergaters and Comicsgaters, so yeah their opinion on Picard(which I think is quite possibly the best Trek series to date) is completely and utterly worthless to me. Also definitely wouldn't say there's an overwhelming consensus in the least, Picard definitely is loved by a lot of Trek fans new and old(same with Discovery).

As for DB itself, I don't feel like it's bankrupt, but I can see why they are taking a hiatus before doing another anime series.

Like Julie I think the phrase "creatively bankrupt" has become massively overrused to the point where it hardly means anything anymore and I can't help but roll my eyes whenever I see it used.

[ABED]

Obviously.

Moro arc - A copy of the Resurrection F movie which is only a few years old.

Broly - Reused the Minus chapter. Second movie in a row to not feature a new original antagonist. No plot.

Universe Survival arc - Yet another Tournament.

Future Trunks arc - Another story that involved a menace showing up in Trunks timeline.

Universe 6 - Yet another Tournament.

Resurrection F - Frieza coming to Earth for revenge for the second time.

Battle of Gods - Probably the most unique thing because of the two new characters but even still had no plot.


The most creative thing of recent has been the whole Time Patrol thing from Dragon Ball Heroes and the Xeno counterparts and the battles against the Demon Gods. Even then still not that original and it's yet another old decrepit villain wanting the Dragon Balls to regain his youth.

It's a martial arts story, having another tournament doesn't equal lack of creativity. Hell, if that were the case, it would be like saying sports movies that end in a big game are creatively bankrupt.

and then they could have let the TOP ending actually have some balls, and destroy all the other universes.

Maybe that would have "balls" even though like any death in DB, it would be an easy fix - it's thematically off. Returning the other universes as the reward for mortals proving their worth drives home the point the whole series was heading towards.

i.e. zero substance, but some very fanfic-y, entertaining fights

You overestimate the quality of fanfiction.

Naturally, a good presentation can make a thin story good (see: Broly. That wasn't a great story, but it was told brilliantly; the strong character work and generally great moment-to-moment writing made it a great movie),

Completely disagree. It wasn't told brilliantly at all. Not remotely, not moment to moment, not larger picture, not ANYTHING. It had nice animation, that's it. Super has some interesting ideas in search of a good story (the hopes of all mortals contributing to defeating Zamasu), and some great moments that don't amount to much in the overall picture.

[SupremeKai25]

Future Trunks arc - Another story that involved a menace showing up in Trunks timeline.

Following that logic, most arcs of Z are not original either because they all involve a new threat showing up on Earth. Zamasu is a completely different villain from the Androids.

[Grimlock]

If Toei wanted to change the status quo, they could have destroyed Trunks's timeline and had him join the main cast (maybe have him undergo an arc that culminates in him joining the Time Patrol)

That arc should have been Future Trunks saga. We even see Trunks wearing a green pullover which seems to be the same one he wears underneath the black coat as Time Patroller. Makes me wonder if at some point they planned Trunks to become a Time Patroller by the end of the saga (which should've been the way the saga should have ended anyway) but dropped the balls later on. Not in that utterly nonsensical idiotic way of making him living with himself.

The most creative thing of recent has been the whole Time Patrol thing from Dragon Ball Heroes and the Xeno counterparts and the battles against the Demon Gods. Even then still not that original and it's yet another old decrepit villain wanting the Dragon Balls to regain his youth.

You talk as if Mechikabura died just after he regains his youth. This whole story made up the SDBH missions, but there's more about him later on, so you can't really sum him up as just "an old decrepit villain wanting the Dragon Balls to regain his youth".

[emperior]

(...) have Champa's team win the U6 tournament and move earth to his universe, taking Beers out of the picture until the TOP, had Freeza survive the events of the ResF arc which would have both made the ending of that arc more interesting, and created a far better setup for the TOP (pitting everyone against Freeza), and then they could have let the TOP ending actually have some balls, and destroy all the other universes.

If Champa won the tournament the status quo would have been unchanged. Moving Earth to another universe is hardly a big change, they even said it in-universe.
Freeza surviving RoF would have been good, luckily he was revived and survived Broly so that’s a shake of the status quo right there for you.
The Tournament of Power ending with the universes getting erased wouldn’t have changed the status quo from Buu arc or the end of the manga. Introducing stuff to destroy it is the best way to keep that status quo, so I am glad that in-universe Jiren and company are still alive and can still appear in future stories.

[Thunderbird]

It's a martial arts story, having another tournament doesn't equal lack of creativity. Hell, if that were the case, it would be like saying sports movies that end in a big game are creatively bankrupt.

Lol no it's nothing at all like that. Not even a little.

Following that logic, most arcs of Z are not original either because they all involve a new threat showing up on Earth. Zamasu is a completely different villain from the Androids.

It's not the villain, it's the ground it covers. The Saiyan arc covered an alien invasion. The Frieza arc had the characters going on a space ship to another world and taking on the aliens there. The Android arc involved enemies from the future and the Buu arc involved enemies from the past along with god's from another realm.

The Goku Black arc offered new nothing. The same idea except with a different villain.

[ABED]

It's a martial arts story, having another tournament doesn't equal lack of creativity. Hell, if that were the case, it would be like saying sports movies that end in a big game are creatively bankrupt.

Lol no it's nothing at all like that. Not even a little.

Following that logic, most arcs of Z are not original either because they all involve a new threat showing up on Earth. Zamasu is a completely different villain from the Androids.

It's not the villain, it's the ground it covers. The Saiyan arc covered an alien invasion. The Frieza arc had the characters going on a space ship to another world and taking on the aliens there. The Android arc involved enemies from the future and the Buu arc involved enemies from the past along with god's from another realm.

The Goku Black arc offered new nothing. The same idea except with a different villain.

Um yes, it is exactly like that, it's a lot like that. How about maybe next time explaining your point instead of just saying "you're wrong"? Genres come with certain conventions and themes. It's natural for a martial artist whose greatest desire is to test his limits would participate in tournaments. The problem isn't the idea (in this case, multiple tournaments), it's the execution.

The Tournament of Power ending with the universes getting erased wouldn’t have changed the status quo from Buu arc or the end of the manga.

Can't believe I didn't think of that point. Good one.

It's not the villain, it's the ground it covers.

That's window dressing. It's nice, but those stories are fundamentally the same. It's the big bad threatening our characters' lives, they fight the underlings until the final confrontation with the big bad, which usually involves a number of transformations.

[SupremeKai25]

It's a martial arts story, having another tournament doesn't equal lack of creativity. Hell, if that were the case, it would be like saying sports movies that end in a big game are creatively bankrupt.

Lol no it's nothing at all like that. Not even a little.

Following that logic, most arcs of Z are not original either because they all involve a new threat showing up on Earth. Zamasu is a completely different villain from the Androids.

It's not the villain, it's the ground it covers. The Saiyan arc covered an alien invasion. The Frieza arc had the characters going on a space ship to another world and taking on the aliens there. The Android arc involved enemies from the future and the Buu arc involved enemies from the past along with god's from another realm.

The Goku Black arc offered new nothing. The same idea except with a different villain.

It offered a vast battle across time and space. That never actually happened with the Androids and Cell arc, cause all the main battles were located in the Present timeline and on the planet Earth. Instead in the Future Trunks arc there's this constant switch between timelines to deal with both Goku Black in the future and Present Zamasu in the main timeline (Present Zamasu being in U10, so they have to travel between universes as well). The ending of the arc is also very different. If in Z Trunks had a happy ending after destroying 17, 18, and Cell, here Trunks is deprived of a happy ending, because Zamasu took the entire multiverse down with him.

Also this arc introduced the first Potara villain in Fused Zamasu, which was very cool to see. We never saw two villains merging with one another in the past (unless you count things like Cell absorbing the androids to become Perfect, which isn't really the same thing). It's not just the character that is unique, it's the whole idea of the villains using Potara (a weapon traditionally belonging to the good guys) to win.

[Thunderbird]

How about maybe next time explaining your point instead of just saying "you're wrong"?

Common sense alone should have been enough.

A movie about a specific sport will naturally need to involve said sport being played at the end of the movie.

Dragon Ball is not specifically about a Tournament. There's no necessity to have Tournaments as Dragon Ball Z already showed seeing as it didn't have one that played out in full. There is a lot of storylines they can do without involving Tournaments.

So obviously no it's not the slightest bit like a sports movie involving it's sport...

That's window dressing.

No that's the plot. That's the thing that separates the arcs from all being the exact same thing over and over and over again.

[Thunderbird]

It offered a vast battle across time and space. That never actually happened with the Androids and Cell arc, cause all the main battles were located in the Present timeline and on the planet Earth.

It still boils down to largely the same thing. A villain shows up in Trunks' timeline should he travels back to get help from Goku. Yes the big difference being that this time he travels into the future but alone doesn't stop it from covering the same ground once again.

That type of story had already been told. Just like Moro coming to Earth with a bunch of goons while the Dragon Team defend it while waiting for Goku and Vegeta. There's different specifics but it's still the same core story from a few years ago with Resurrection F.

Also this arc introduced the first Potara villain in Fused Zamasu, which was very cool to see.

Then immediately after that the next arc had another significant potara fused fighting antagonist.

[ABED]

A movie about a specific sport will naturally need to involve said sport being played at the end of the movie.

Not necessarily, nor obviously. Bull Durham wasn't that film. Dragon Ball may not be about tournaments, but they aren't in every arc. They're prevalent, but it's a staple of the genre and the story that Goku wants to test his skills against strong opponents. So yes, there are a lot of stories that they can do that don't involve tournaments, exactly like they did, but they shouldn't be excluded just because they've been done before. In this case, the structures were very different and the outcomes weren't all the same. DB showed that having several can be a lot of fun.

No that's the plot.

Plot can also be window dressing. Plot can be what separates them, but the stories you're talking about are at their core still VERY similar. Big bad threatens our heroes, Goku gets taken out early, they go through underlings, and win the day with martial arts. What ultimately makes the arcs interesting is their execution.

[Thunderbird]

[Not necessarily, nor obviously. Bull Durham wasn't that film. Dragon Ball may not be about tournaments, but they aren't in every arc.

Bull Durham was never that kind of movie in the first place. Dragon Ball has already had its Tournaments, an over abundance of them. Four in the span of the relatively short Dragon Ball. Parts of four others across Z and GT. Then another two in Super.

It's repetitive, boring and a copout. When they can't be bothered to think up a story a Tournament is the easy copout

DB showed that having several can be a lot of fun.

Dragon Ball was repetitive because it repeated the same story formula three times in a row. What was fun once is not when they keep doing it.

Dragon Ball Super was made up of five arcs, the first two being retreads of the movies, the third being a Tournament, the fourth being a retread of the Android arc and the fifth being another Tournament.

It has no ideas left.

Plot can also be window dressing. Plot can be what separates them, but the stories you're talking about are at their core still VERY similar. Big bad threatens our heroes, Goku gets taken out early, they go through underlings, and win the day with martial arts. What ultimately makes the arcs interesting is their execution.

No it's not the execution. No matter how well you may tell a Tournament arc, if you did them back to back it still becomes boring. Dragon Ball has a very basic formula that was wrapped up in very different scenarios that allowed it to stay interesting.

Starting with them introducing aliens, then interstellar travel and other worlds and then Time Travel. It allowed that same basic story to stay interesting because it introduced new concepts.

Dragon Ball Super does not have this. The only thing like it at all is having Goku and Vegeta join the Galactic Patrol to hunt down a criminal but that lead to nothing and just turned into another Resurrection F.

It doesn't matter how much better this Moro arc might end up being compared to Resurrection F, it's still the same thing yet again.

[Robo4900]

If Champa won the tournament the status quo would have been unchanged. Moving Earth to another universe is hardly a big change, they even said it in-universe.

Taking Beers, Whis, Kaio, Kaioshin, and Elder Kaioshin out of the picture, as well as cutting off earth's connection to Namek (which is also one more get-out-of-jail-free card taken off the board, with the Namek balls no longer accessible), while putting them in the proximity of a thriving Saiyan planet, and giving them an entirely new cosmology.

Saying it wouldn't change things is utterly ignorant and foolish.

Freeza surviving RoF would have been good, luckily he was revived and survived Broly so that’s a shake of the status quo right there for you.

Yep. Hopefully they actually do something with Broly and Freeza's presence. Moro arc so far suggests they're just ignoring that for now, and just continuing to act as if the status quo is unchanged... So for all intents and purposes, it kinda is unchanged in the Super series. Just like the Black arc before it, you could completely skip the Broly movie, and miss nothing; not because the Broly movie didn't change things enough, but because Toei/Toriyama/Toyotaro are too chicken to actually do anything beyond spinning their wheels and running in place, things that Dragon Ball never did before Super.

The Tournament of Power ending with the universes getting erased wouldn’t have changed the status quo from Buu arc or the end of the manga. Introducing stuff to destroy it is the best way to keep that status quo, so I am glad that in-universe Jiren and company are still alive and can still appear in future stories.

The TOP ending with the universes getting erased changes Super's status quo. It is a big change to how things are from one arc to the next. And if paired with earth going to U6, it would be an iron-clad doubling-down on that shake-up too. And it would wipe out the Namekians, giving potential soulsearching and growth for Piccolo, Broly would be gone, which would be a big deal for Goku and Vegeta, Trunks would have failed -- yet again -- to save huge numbers of people from being brutally annihilated by vengeful gods, the Super Dragon Balls would presumably cease to function, since there's no Universe 7...

It would have been a pretty interesting and ballsy turn. And it would force Geran's (Jiren's) story to be told in the TOP, rather than just hinting at cool stuff and then leaving it on the shelf. And, most importantly, it wouldn't be wiping out potential for more stories, it would instead up the stakes for when our universe ends up inevitably in conflict with the four universes that didn't take part in the TOP. We'll know that Toei aren't pulling punches, and it'd up the stakes for the protagonists.

Instead, Toei took the easy way out, and reversed all the stakes and tension at the end, bringing Super back to its default reset state that it's had since it began. Which Toei have done at the end of every single arc that shows even a hint of any kind of status quo change. And as they did in ResF.
The last time the status quo actually changed was Battle Of Gods, seven fucking years ago. Toei have either prevented change (every arc of Super) or ignored it (Moro arc is ignoring Broly and Freeza) since then.

[ABED]

[Not necessarily, nor obviously. Bull Durham wasn't that film. Dragon Ball may not be about tournaments, but they aren't in every arc.

Bull Durham was never that kind of movie in the first place. Dragon Ball has already had its Tournaments, an over abundance of them. Four in the span of the relatively short Dragon Ball. Parts of four others across Z and GT. Then another two in Super.

It's repetitive, boring and a copout. When they can't be bothered to think up a story a Tournament is the easy copout

DB showed that having several can be a lot of fun.

Dragon Ball was repetitive because it repeated the same story formula three times in a row. What was fun once is not when they keep doing it.

Dragon Ball Super was made up of five arcs, the first two being retreads of the movies, the third being a Tournament, the fourth being a retread of the Android arc and the fifth being another Tournament.

It has no ideas left.

Plot can also be window dressing. Plot can be what separates them, but the stories you're talking about are at their core still VERY similar. Big bad threatens our heroes, Goku gets taken out early, they go through underlings, and win the day with martial arts. What ultimately makes the arcs interesting is their execution.

No it's not the execution. No matter how well you may tell a Tournament arc, if you did them back to back it still becomes boring. Dragon Ball has a very basic formula that was wrapped up in very different scenarios that allowed it to stay interesting.

Starting with them introducing aliens, then interstellar travel and other worlds and then Time Travel. It allowed that same basic story to stay interesting because it introduced new concepts.

Dragon Ball Super does not have this. The only thing like it at all is having Goku and Vegeta join the Galactic Patrol to hunt down a criminal but that lead to nothing and just turned into another Resurrection F.

It doesn't matter how much better this Moro arc might end up being compared to Resurrection F, it's still the same thing yet again.

Bull Durham is a sports film. It absolutely applies. How doesn't it? Or do you just not like that I came up with a counterexample so you can't condescendingly laugh at my point? Yet again, you tell me I'm incorrect without giving a reason why.

Sure, DB has had plenty of tournaments, but the last full one was literally hundreds of episodes ago. It's nice to remind people that it's a story about martial artists.

It's ALWAYS the execution. The scenarios you're talking about are great and they provide a nice different setting and different plot, but remain the same fundamental forumula since more or less the first Piccolo arc. Introducing aliens into the mix was a nice flavor, but it's still martial artists having world threatening battles. They were the same fundamental structure and pattern. Interstellar travel just takes them to another place. It's not the setting that makes Namek special. The new concepts are NOT ever what makes the story. We don't fall in love with concepts, we fall in love with stories and characters.

Yes, Super has some problems, but execution is always paramount else GT would've been a classic.

All that sounds great in theory, but since we know Goku and friends are on U7's Earth in the end of DBZ, all your scenarios don't make sense. At some point they have to get U7 back.

[WittyUsername]

I’m not really sure why we’re blaming Toei for how the Universe Survival arc ended. I’d assume that the outlines Toriyama gave them specifically said that all the erased universes would get brought back.

[Robo4900]

I’m not really sure why we’re blaming Toei for how the Universe Survival arc ended. I’d assume that the outlines Toriyama gave them specifically said that all the erased universes would get brought back.

Sure, and Toriyama's initial ideas for the Cell arc didn't involve Cell, or #17, or #18, or #16.

Toriyama's work in the original run was often helped along MASSIVELY by people around him making suggestions, and editing his stupider ideas. In Super, that's not happening; everyone seems to take everything he writes as holy text that cannot be changed.

If Toei had the balls to say "This is a bad idea; if we do it a different way, it'd make a much better story, with far greater stakes", Super would be a much better show.

[ABED]

Also, we can't drop context of the entirety of DB. Yes, I know in Super there's a multiverse, but it's only been there in the audience's mind for a short time, so in effect, erasing the other universes we don't know and don't give a damn about wouldn't really big a big deal. It only ups the stakes if we care about the characters.

I also don't see how seeing much more of Jiren's story would've made it any more compelling. I found it interesting because it was so brief.

The few great things Super gave us is new interesting characters like Beerus, Whis, Cabba (more his relationship with Vegeta), the ToP, Ultra Instinct (minus the hair recoloring). Ultra instinct is great because it's an idea rooted in character.