The Super Re-Read

Discussion specifically regarding the "Dragon Ball Super" TV series premiering July 2015 in Japan, including individual threads for each episode.

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Re: The Super Re-Read, #1 (Chs. 1-4 & Bonus Ch. 1)

Post by Aim » Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:04 am

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 9:58 am
Aim wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 9:25 am
Matches Malone wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:20 am I think going with a shorter version was the right call, as the movie remains the superior version, so trying to retell the whole story would be pointless. It's a shame the anime didn't take this road as well. The downside to this though is that it doesn't function as a full story, but rather a recap to get people ready for what's to come. I am happy they skipped the following 2 movies though.
What happened to matches malone?
He was acting salty in another thread and eventually degenerated into transphobia. I would say I'll miss his incessant "BOG is the only good piece of modern Dragon Ball" spiel... but I won't.

Anywho, wow... can't believe this thread's over. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were on the Hakaishin Beerus arc, now we're already done with the Moro arc. It's been a hell of a ride. Ponta, as always, fantastic work mate, looking forward to seeing what's in store for the future. I have to admit though, the analysis on the Moro arc has been so thorough and holistic it's become a little overwhelming for me to contribute much to the conversation (I've forgotten where the whole 'Level 1-3 structural reference' thing began, but that's on my lack of paid attention :lol: ), but I have been staying tuned the whole time, trust.

In any case, to keep it brief, the last few chapters of the Moro arc, in isolation, represent Toyotaro's absolute peak in my opinion. I say "in isolation", because I'm never going to deny that the rest of the arc was waffy at best. I know many consider his zenith to have came around the Tournament of Power arc, but the art and overall direction just went to the next level.
What the fuck is up with this fandom and homophobia, sexism, transphobia, etc?

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Re: The Super Re-Read, #1 (Chs. 1-4 & Bonus Ch. 1)

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:11 am

Aim wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:04 am What the fuck is up with this fandom and homophobia, sexism, transphobia, etc?
I dunno man, it's just fucked.

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Sat Mar 27, 2021 2:58 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 9:58 am(I've forgotten where the whole 'Level 1-3 structural reference' thing began, but that's on my lack of paid attention :lol: )
The first programmatic statement of 'what I think the Moro arc is trying to do structurally' came in this post, just after I'd started on the Moro arc properly, as a sort of 'talking point..whereupon a number of people promptly 'noped' out :lol:

But the idea itself was really something I came upon thanks to various exchanges on the forum about Moro and what his character, and the things the arc seemed to be doing, at least in its climax - this includes the discussion I had with yourself and The Undying about Moro's design features and any indebtedness they may or may not have (the discussion started here), and the discussions I had with Yuji and Cipher about Moro's character in this thread.

Basically, I came increasingly around to the idea that fans noticing apparent allusions to Dragon Ball as a whole in the Moro arc weren't just because they were looking for them and pressing general similarities too hard (though they certainly did do that sometimes), but that (in at least some instances) they were legitimately there, and sometimes very on-the-nose (for instance, the clearest things seemed to be the #16-Gohan type exchange between Merus and Goku in Chapter 63, and the wealth of Buu arc allusions in the ki-gifting parts of Chapter 66). I've mentioned before that as a fan-turned-creator, Toyotarou seems to me to be keener to reference narrative moments in Dragon Ball rather than anything else (even considering Moro's conceptual derivation from Piccolo Daimao, most of the similarities between them come in the things Moro does rather than anything integral to him). So finding the narrative of Dragon Ball guiding the direction of the late arc seemed satisfying to me.

Additionally, I thought more on what the arc might be trying to do with Goku and his specific character arc, considering fan comment that Vegeta seemed to be the more natural foe to Moro, given what the story elected to do early on with his character. At some point I came increasingly to consider that Moro's derivations from Piccolo linked directly to Goku and his character arc (which I concluded was one of 'surpassing the Gods', which was as concise an expression of the connection as I could make), and that the narrative elements of the arc, if anything, played just as much on these features in the later parts of the arc as it had in the earlier parts, and at certain points, those elements and the 'broader Dragon Ball' elements seemed to have further interplay (again, Chapter 66 is the paradigmatic example - things that initially baffled the fandom seemed much more intelligible when read in this light).

Though of course these things weren't generally in the surface-reading of the arc (hence my calling them 'sub-structural), these things nevertheless seemed deliberate in their deployment to me, and when I incorporated them into my reading of the arc, I found I enjoyed it a lot more, so I thought I'd share. It may not have convinced everyone (hopefully it convinced someone...), but I certainly felt there was enough to sustain the reading when I actually engaged with it.

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:46 pm

The Super Re-Read...Re-Read!

...No, not really. But I guess I can't leave this thread completely alone just yet.

I wanted to drop a more general observation in with regard to the Universe 6 Tournament arc, having reflected on it some more, and this is still probably the topic for doing things like that, I guess, even though it has been a few weeks.

Basically, I'd given thematic summaries for just about every other arc that the Dragon Ball Super Manga has to offer (on which more below), but not this arc - partly that was because the nature of the Re-Read was more 'pick out little details and say what I enjoyed' in character than what it eventually became, but also I don't see a lot of discussion about any themes that might be running in this arc generally: it's seen as a light-hearted gag arc with little else behind it, and whatever happens is just meant to serve its comic tone. While it certainly is (as Toriyama put it) "relatively simple and cheerful", I think it still has a little bit more sophistication than just being about the lulz, and I wanted to highlight its principal theme to do it the justice of having been discussed in this topic. My original posts can be found here:

Chapters 5-8
Chapters 9-12
Chapter 13

Overall, I think that the place to look in finding the theme of the arc is in the constant refrain of surprise that continually pops up throughout the story. Naturally, the mechanics of the comic twist are most prevalent, and might be thought to simply add to the basic sense of levity in this arc (and it certainly does do that), but even when the arc is being relatively serious (particularly 超 #12-13), it plays with this idea of surprise and the unexpected, not only in resolving its encounters to comic effect and in general plot points, but also in the scenario concept, the dynamics of the encounters themselves, and in a host of smaller details that are planted throughout the arc. If I had to summarise this work in a phrase, it would be "More than meets the eye". In fact, I'd say this theme is so pervasive that it ends up creating a very natural lead-in to the Future Trunks arc, at least in 超 #14-18, where the fake 'Goku Black' is the focus of attention and the idea of the Kaioshin observing rightly is fundamental to the arc concept. But that's getting a little ahead of myself.

To take the basic scenario of the arc: it's an encounter between two twin Universes, but most on show about them is the things that are unexpectedly different about them (e.g., Frost's cheery howdy-doody-ness when compared with Freeza, or the virtuousness of the Universe 6 Saiyans and how placid Cabbe is in particular); it's also a 'comedy of errors' that is mostly born from faulty assumptions made from incomplete observations, which are duly overturned to comic effect in the encounters themselves. A lot of the dynamics of the encounters turn on the idea of something hidden or unexpected (even if, in hindsight, extremely obvious) being the key to victory, or of some sort of pose bringing forth what was previously unseen.
  • The idea of "more than meets the eye", in a sense of faulty observation, emerges immediately in the arc (超 #5) during Goku's sparring match with Vegeta, when Goku uses his speed to misdirect Vegeta into falling for a feint where he expects to find Goku, but ends up hitting a log instead. Whis's punishment for the pair having gone SSjB also partially stands behind Champa's boldness in challenging Beerus for the fate of Earth, as in the heavy suits the two seem unimpressive ("You saw those guys fight. This is gonna be a piece of cake!), which is a more critically important instance of a faulty observation: Champa assumes the pair will be pathetic, but come 超 #8, it's clear Goku's really a lot better than anyone Champa can field (and conversely, his misplaced confidence leads the observant Vegeta to suppose that Universe 6 must have plenty of great warriors, in 超 #7 - which is logical, but generally not the case, in the end). And in 超 #6, Champa is also led by his observations to mirror Beerus in picking Saiyans for the Tournament, unaware that Goku and Vegeta have a great deal more power than the Saiyans of Universe 6.
  • Goku and Vegeta can tell Champa and Vados look like Beerus and Whis by sight ("You look like a fat version of Beerus!"), and Vados also claims that one could tell who was stronger "just by looking" (which fat-shames Champa for a cheap gag), but as Whis explains, there is a great deal more to things than that: not only is Champa Beerus's twin, and a God of Destruction, but the very Universes they represent are twins, and a good deal of the coming arc plays with this sense of familiar-but-different - most particularly in the use of Frost in 超 #9-11 and Cabbe in 超 #12. Despite their twinning, Beerus and Champa are antagonistic to each other, so Goku expects a fight...but gets a 'cuisine-off' instead (and even this subverts expectation based on observation: Champa mocks the Ramen Beerus produces, saying "Ha ha ha! What's this?! You just poured hot water into a cup!", but unexpectedly, the mundane cuisine of Earth beats out Champa's fancy offering) - as 超 #6 shows us, even the 'cuisine-off' came from a sly manoeuvre from Vados to get the pair to lay off the actual fighting they had engaged in hitherto.
  • Beerus nominates "the strongest" fighter to join the team - Monaka - who, it turns out, is a feint to motivate Goku and Vegeta. He's surrounded by impressive-seeming flim-flam like "The Magnificent Ponta" (which ultimately just means he has huge nipples), and while he doesn't look impressive, as Vegeta notes, Piccolo sagaciously replies that "It's that type of fighter you can't let down your guard around". But, of course, it turns out that he's actually as weak as he looks (in a fake-out subversion of the theme), and his victory over Hit in 超 #13 is only because Hit pretends to lose (which Champa sees through immediately). Of course, Beerus hasn't thought it through, because Goku will throw the match against Hit when he has things won, because he wants to see Monaka demonstrate his abilities (exactly the opposite of how Beerus thinks he would act).
  • As another comic subversion of the "More than meets the eye" theme, there's the whole Zuno thing in 超 #6-7 (who is introduced as a man so knowledgeable that "He even knows the pattern on a lady's panties without seeing them"), where he knows everything without even having to see it, but ends up telling Bulma and Jaco a great deal less than they wish to know thanks to their incapability, wasting most of their questions on things that are in plain sight (such as Bulma's bust). But ideas of truth beneath the surface are evident even in Bulma and Jaco's exchange about him getting dumped ("She told me that I just haven't found the right person yet!" "Ha ha! That's what girls always say when they want to break up.")
  • The idea of stealth action by Champa to take the Super Dragon Balls unseen comes out in 超 #7: in 超 #5, he merely says he collected them, without saying where from, though we saw him messing around in Universe 7 in 超 #4. And despite the abortive attempt to try to find the seventh of the Super Dragon Balls, 超 #13 will reveal that it is the 'planet' everybody appeared to be fighting on, all appearances to the contrary.
  • In 超 #8, Cabbe reveals he is a Saiyan, and Vegeta points to his armour as resembling antique Universe 7 Saiyan armour, and Goku notices the absence of a tail, but Cabbe reveals more in that the ancestral planet Sadla exists in Universe 6, and the Saiyans of Universe 6 fight unexpectedly as peacekeepers. Vegeta finds more unexpected things in 超 #12, where he learns Cabbe can't use SSj, and more particularly he is shocked and angered to receive a submissive request, and an acknowledgement of defeat from Cabbe, in a way that offends his conception of Saiyan pride. Cabbe is a Saiyan, but not one who conforms to Vegeta's expectations.
  • The fight between Goku and Botamo in 超 #8-9 gives us a series of surprises of the 'more-than-meets-the-eye' variety. Unsurprisingly to us, Goku is much more capable than the Universe 6 deities thought he would be from sight ("He's really good! That was unexpected."; this amazement at Goku's increasingly-revealed power moves all the way to the end, of course), as he moves too quickly for Botamo to touch, and then too quickly even to be seen (which will be repeated a number of times throughout the arc). But then, despite appearances, Goku isn't actually winning as he's not affecting Botamo at all, and soon enough the spectators start talking about Goku possibly expending all his energy to win - until Goku pauses, pushes Botamo over, and flings him out of the ring for an unexpectedly easy win.
  • The fight between Goku and Frost is a crux of the unseen and unexpected in this arc - when introduced, it is speculated whether he is the "Freeza from Universe 6", and Goku clearly expects him to be - but he immediately subverts this with a genial greeting that takes everyone by surprise ("What's this...? He's nothing like the Freeza from our side." "He's really gentlemanly. That's good."). After this, there's a stretch where the fight turns on the fact that "They're both trying to hide their skills", particularly Frost, who dissembles when Goku challenges him on this ("No way! How could I possibly do that?") and uses his third form when Goku tells him to transform to his final form - his attempt to deceive the Universe 7 team is thematically fitting, as is the fact that the members of his own Universe have no idea that he can transform - as is the fact that Goku appears to struggle against this third form, before revealing that he has seen through Frost's ploy, and he has a further transformation of his own (SSj - "You're so sneaky....You're just like me") - thus finally provoking Frost to reveal the anticipated final form. The fight ends with the surprise paralysis and ring-out of the dominant Goku, who admits "I don't even know what hit me" - though Jaco thinks he's seen something.
  • The fight between Piccolo and Frost in 超 #10 continues this line, as Goku tells Piccolo he has no chance, and while Piccolo accepts this, he takes up Vados's speculation that "he might be a little more than just (a Namekian)" by insisting that he is, in fact, the reincarnation of the Demon King, and while he can't win, he can also (contrary to what we've been told) avoid defeat: which he makes good on by using his surprising abilities for the first time in ages (he last used his stretchy limbs in DB #173) and fighting smart - until Frost resorts to "that bizarre technique he's hiding" to win. But Jaco now challenges Frost for using a hidden weapon, which is confirmed. So, the theme of 'More than meets the eye' redoubles for Frost, who was expected to be like Freeza, but turned out to be polite and gentlemanly, but in fact is "a sneaky jerk". I commented at the time that I like the fact that Frost isn't a copy of Freeza or a reverse-image of Freeza, but something else, and I think the extent to which he hews to the arc theme is responsible for this.
  • The fight between Vegeta and Autto Magetta is a cornucopia of the unexpected. Fundamentally, the way in which Magetta is other than what meets the eye is that his extremely formidable exterior - invulnerable to attacks of all sorts, heavier than 1000 tons, capable of spitting ki blasts out of the air - hides a "very delicate" sensibility, susceptible to insults that incapacitate this "mentally fragile" fighter. But there are other aspects of the unexpected: Goku speculated that Magetta might be a robot in 超 #7, and the Elder Kaioshin asks this again - surprisingly, a Metal Man is an ordinary species of being, despite the robotic aesthetic and the fact that he guzzles a canister of lava at the outset. Additionally, Vegeta's plan to ring out Magetta by destroying the platform comes as a surprise, as it looks like an ordinary attack at first, but his intention can only be seen after the attack has done its damage.
  • I already mentioned aspects of the unexpected in 超 #12 between Cabbe and Vegeta, as Vegeta expects to encounter a Saiyan whose sensibilities are similar to his own, only to be surprised (and outraged) by Cabbe's meek, "prideless" response. But there's another 'More than meets the eye' aspect to Vegeta's actions, as his "cruel" demeanour is ultimately revealed as a pose to provoke Cabbe to reveal Super Saiyan power (and in the course of events, prefigures Goku's approach to Uub in the same fashion in DB #519, several years later). Vegeta's pose is revealed as both an attempt at teaching Cabbe and as an interaction with a fellow Saiyan in a genuine, "nostalgic" fashion. There are other, small 'beats' that speak to the idea of the unseen in the fight, as Cabbe uses the Sun "to mask his movements". And then, of course, Vegeta shows all that he has been hiding, giving Cabbe a glimpse of SSjB before he takes him out.
  • And of course Hit is the embodiment of the idea of "more than meets the eye", as his movements are completely hidden while Time-Skipping (though it is not initially known what he is doing or how he might be countered). And while Vegeta appears to be using his strongest form to fight Hit, it transpires that he has used so much energy that it is, unexpectedly, weaker than even Goku in SSjG - so Goku, despite his access to the same transformations, deliberately keeps them back during this fight. In his interactions with Goku, Hit chides Goku for "revealing your strategy", and as I mentioned in the Re-Read itself, Goku is deliberately open with Hit as to what he intends to do, constantly tells Hit how he's doing things and what allows him to fight the way he does, but when he does it, it is always a surprise, whereas Hit inadvertently reveals what he will do despite not intending to at first, and so Goku is able to formulate his counters by looking past the obvious to figure out what Hit will do, until Hit finally starts revealing his strategy just like Goku...but Goku has the final surprise, in SSjB, to end Hit's resistance. But then Goku perceives that there's even more to Hit than meets the eye, in his killing techniques, as he throws the match (see above).
  • And finally, we get the first appearance of Zeno-Sama, who is childlike and adorable, but who likewise embodies "more than meets the eye" as he rules all 12 Universes, and is actually terrifying, as he could destroy anything and everything. Meanwhile, Beerus unexpectedly wishes Champa's Earth back, but insists that there's more to it than just doing a nice turn for his brother...
So, I think that enumerating the prevalence of the idea of "More than meets the eye" in this arc, and demonstrating its constant recourse to the hidden and unexpected, has proved sufficient to establish that there is more than simply 'twist-and-turn' storytelling mechanics at play in the deployment of these surprises, but rather this should be accounted as a theme of this arc.

Themes of Dragon Ball Super
So, having addressed what I regard to be the principal theme of the Universe 6 arc at length, it's worth giving a (briefer) summary of what I think the themes of the Dragon Ball Super Manga as a whole are, taken by arc:

Battle of Gods arc - "No matter how strong you are, there's always someone stronger", and "Surpassing the Gods". Goku starts the arc incurably bored in a time of peace, at the (assumed) peak of his own power, but comes to know the realm of Godly Power that Beerus, the God of Destruction, propels him towards - and he learns not only that Beerus remains beyond his reach, but also that he himself can become stronger still.
The first theme is a guiding theme of Dragon Ball as a whole, and the second is a guiding theme of Dragon Ball Super, as it finds further fulfilments in the completion of SSjB and the introduction of Ultra Instinct.

Universe 6 Tournament arc - "More than meets the Eye". The encounters of this arc take place between two similar and familiar Universes, but by means of unexpected and hidden powers and choices on the part of the heroes and their opponents, the progress of the arc works itself out by means of surprise twists, until the final (serious) fight trades on the conflict between what is apparently obvious (because directly telegraphed) but still comes as a surprise in the execution, against what is apparently hidden but can nevertheless be perceived (because unexpectedly, inadvertently expressive).

Future Trunks arc - "Holding on to Hope". Trunks's own personal theme throughout this arc, and tied directly to the Time Machine and the possibilities it holds: as long as Trunks remains a man of the future, dedicated to establishing a Future of Peace, there is Hope, even when things seem bleak - this theme of hope goes where the Time Machine goes, tellingly, as Trunks begins by escaping a future where "there will be no hope", Goku escapes with Vegeta after formulating a plan based on a similarly hopeless situation in the past, and the possibility of creating a new and hopeful future exists at the end, as Trunks uses the Time Machine once more.
"More than meets the eye". The arc carries over this theme from the prior arc, as it begins with the focus on a villain who appears to be Son Goku, but whose true identity remains a mystery at first. At the same time, it focuses on a young trainee Kaioshin whose job is to observe and to see beyond what is immediately apparent in order to perceive the truth, achieve balance, and foster peace, but who eschews this principle due to his own superficiality.
"Genuine and False". Once the connection between Goku Black - the "False Goku" - and Zamas is made explicit, the arc trades a lot on the difference between the genuine article and the False, pretentious attempt to appropriate what does not belong to the villain - both in Godly and Mortal terms, as Zamas manages to become a false Goku, a false student, a false Kaioshin, a false fusion, and a false supreme ruler of Creation. Each of his false claims are exposed by the encounter with the heroes, who demonstrate the truth of their power and their intent.
"Teamwork". One of those pervasive themes in Dragon Ball Super, it is particularly strong here as Zamas demonstrates the strength of truly united action between himselves - the plan relies on a unity between two individuals, which manages to overcome the resistance of the heroes at every point, exposing their reluctance to truly work together - and the only times Zamas is truly faced with loss is when his capacity for united action is threatened, whereas the heroic high points come from times of concerted action (a pale imitation though they are).

Tournament of Power arc - "True Strength". The heroes are faced with the problem of overwhelming conventional strength, and attempt to meet it by various designs, but all of them fail: ultimately, Goku learns that true strength is not in conventional combat power, but in the increasing perfectibility of movement and the way that power is used, whereas a greater kind of strength even than this is encountered in...
"Teamwork". The second strong showing of a pervasive theme, the heroes only manage to pull out the win by working as a team. This being Dragon Ball, they don't do it straightforwardly, but they do, and achieve a true team win where (almost) everybody plays their part. Conversely the main antagonist eschews and undermines the ideas of teamwork and joint action, being a solitary (and utterly self-sufficient) presence throughout the arc; finally his conception of 'true strength' is undone by the team action that enables a true challenge to his worldview, and ultimately which allows victory for Universe 7.

Galactic Patrol Prisoner arc - "Stealing, Earning, and Giving". A ki-stealing thief is opposed by heroic attempts to earn true power, but which is only truly overcome at points when the earning of one's power is allied to the free gift of something that completes the attempt (e.g., Merus giving his life to afford Goku the opportunity to wield True Ultra Instinct, which he has also Earned by his hard work). All the clashes in this arc rely on the diametric opposition between Moro's thefts and the heroes' earning/giving dynamic, which eventually enables Moro's defeat when Uub's Divine Power is given to Goku to end the battle.
"Facing the Past, Forging the Future". Goku and Vegeta (and Merus) face and draw strength and resolve from their pasts to find victory - Goku's arc faces the past by being structured on his own personal story - the story of Dragon Ball - to fashion a pattern that enables him to encounter a Demonic evil and Surpass the Gods, in a similar way to how he did once upon a time, and to link this pattern up with the coming future, where he will have a new encounter with Divine Power in Uub (at once part of his past and his future). Vegeta's arc faces his past sins to seek atonement by deliberate heroism, linking up with giving a gift of life by taking it back from Moro, the thief, so that Vegeta can wipe the slate clean and bring himself back into balance. Merus faces his past as an Angel and a Galactic Patrolman, and overcomes the dilemma by an act of giving that results in him receiving the gift of a life where he is free to act.
"Change and Changelessness". All of the characters encounter this theme - Moro and Goku by not actually changing, no matter what happens and no matter how much they may seem to, whereas both Merus and Vegeta change actually, and their own change is influenced directly by the unchanging Goku.

I think that'll do for now - if you've got any insights on Dragon Ball Super's theme-work, I'd love to hear them!

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Sun Dec 25, 2022 4:37 am

The Super Re-Read: Chapters 67 (Continued) – 70
Part 1 (Chapters 67 and 68)

Image

Well. Why not. It is Christmas, after all.

Welcome back to The Super Re-Read, one and all. Apologies for what is technically a necropost in this topic, but the Dragon Ball Super manga rolls on to new arcs, which means the Re-Read isn't over. And, well, ‘Tis the Season, so the Re-Read is back, covering the span between Volumes 15 and 16 of the Dragon Ball Super manga and the beginning of the Granolah the Survivor arc, and of course I’m here to give the gift of unnecessary verbosity once more in picking apart a children’s comic and seeing what makes it tick.

And it’ll be a gift to me if y’all enjoy it.

As ever, thanks and credit is due to Kanzenshuu and its staff and contributors for a lot of the information that goes into the Re-Read – particularly the Manga Guide and the Translations Archive. Check those out! Also, since the Super Re-Read went on hiatus, we now have the benefit of the Dragon Ball Official Site in English, particularly for access to interviews with Toyotarou, which are very useful, and for the Official Plot Summaries that were released throughout the publication of this arc (You can find the Final Summary here, but there is fairly significant variation between summaries).

Alright, then – for the first time in a long time, let’s get Re-Reading!

Chapter 67 - The Grand Finale, And Then…/Happy Endings…And Then… (Part 2)
21 December 2020

Chapter Notes
  • Okay, so picking this back up from where we ended it (the full Chapter summary for 超 #67 is in the previous instalment, so see above) – the end of the Moro arc dovetails smoothly with the beginning of the Granolah arc “a few months later”, by continuing to play with motifs of stealing, earning, and giving in the recovery of OG73-I from Earth in the first instance, and from his ‘rightful owner’ in the second: we saw in the earlier part of this Chapter that Zauyogi makes the argument that OG73-I is only what it has become thanks to the “hard work” of the Bandit Brigade, despite the fact that they stole it from its creator. Now, the creators gain the gift of a greatly powered-up OG73-I (which they did nothing to earn and have effectively lucked into), only to have it promptly stolen out from under them in an audacious heist by the central character of the arc. All neatly done, combined as it is with an entertaining encounter that begins to give the reader a sense of what Granolah’s all about.
  • However, in retrospect, it’s also worth considering that along with making neat connections back to the previous arc, this episode also foreshadows what’s coming in this arc by giving us what is basically the whole thing in microcosm:
    • First, Goichi and his crew show up – he’s a mid-tier threat who wants, incongruously, to be the Universe’s head honcho, and thinks “The time has come”. His name, while most probably a pun on ‘Strawberry’ (Ichigo – appropriately, he’s a mid-tone pink), could also be seen to pun on “Number 1” – Ichi-Gō – which would state his current position (in a small way, as chief of his group) and his pretensions clearly enough, resonating strongly in an arc where the desire to be “#1 in the Universe” (宇宙一の戦士, “Uchū Ichi no Senshi”, or “#1 Warrior in the Universe”) is repeatedly stated. Looking at this from the other side of 超 #87, Goichi and Elec are similar: faintly pathetic wannabes rashly grasping at their shot at the Big Time, having been irresistibly tempted by seeming good fortune. It just takes the reader rather longer to clearly see Elec for what he is.
    • It’s noteworthy that the spur to action for both Goichi and Elec is the receipt of key data that changes their situation: for Goichi, the data that OG73-I has acquired means he has been powered up, and the replication of that data means his OG Soldiers are powerful enough (supposedly) to conquer the Universe; for Elec, the intel he extracts from OG73-I informs him of both Zuno’s location (which he exploits to gain yet more intel – implicitly, enough to come out on top of any conceivable confrontation) and, unexpectedly, of the existence of the Dragon Balls, which he plans to exploit to power up his brother, Gas – thus usurping Freeza’s place at the head of his army, thereby becoming the “supreme force in the Universe”. So, additionally, both these examples have the exploitation of data at their heart to make their plans for domination ‘work’: Goichi effectively employs a ‘copy-paste’; Elec employs more of a ‘hack’ to continually escalate his brother’s power.
    • In both instances, however, their plans are abruptly wrecked before they can be properly implemented. This is at least partly because the very thing they think will fast-track their ambitions to reality is also the thing that makes them a target. In Goichi’s case, his OG Soldiers are apparently his route to domination, but OG73-I’s data is also highly desirable in itself – hence the Heeters putting out an APB to all their bounty hunters to retrieve it, which they duly do, thus thwarting Goichi. In Elec’s case, using the Dragon Balls to make his brother the mightiest warrior in the Universe makes Gas an unavoidable opponent for Goku and Vegeta (as Monaito foresees in 超 #70 when Granolah starts the whole thing off: “There’s no better way to make new enemies pop outta the woodwork than by brandishing that sort of power”), whose drive to challenge the strongest thwarts Elec’s plan by repeatedly delaying its (time-critical) implementation.
    • Moreover, their pretensions are suddenly, cruelly exposed by the intrusion of a key character. In Goichi’s case, Granolah swoops in, wrecks practically his whole OG Soldier army by sniping them at their key (and, for Granolah, easily exploitable) weak points, and makes off with OG73-I (so casually he’s already napping at the start of the next Chapter), thus robbing Goichi of his power to act. In Elec’s case, Freeza shows up on his invitation, and promptly dispatches both Gas and Elec with power they had never anticipated, reducing the Heeters and their plans to nothing by taking out the brains and the brawn at a stroke – all the while mocking their long-cherished schemes by being casually stronger than their strong-man, and better-informed than their intel-guy-cum-planner-in-chief.
    Goichi and Elec are portrayed in a strangely similar fashion, looked at one way: hewing to a sort of ‘threat’ that the DB-revival era has taken as a stock-in-trade, “sad evildoers who, though fearsome by Earth standards, appeared just a little too late and, not being recognised as formidable foes, left no impression in people’s memories” (from Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return!, referring to Avo and Cado). Dragon Ball Super in particular has routinely blended the trope of antagonists who, while strong in their own right, are dwarfed by the heights of power that the heroes have already attained, with that of antagonists who represent unbelievable new heights for the heroes to confront (usually – but not always – by means of an escalation touched off by the confrontation itself). The Granolah arc follows this ‘blended’ trend, and with its heavy use of the Dragon Balls as the operative element by which this blending occurs, also resembles the Future Trunks arc in its deployment of this aspect of its story (and, strangely, in some other features – but that’s for later).
  • Goichi’s ship is a little peculiar, and shares almost no design features with the smaller scout ship that we saw his goons use earlier in the Chapter. The vessel has a very boxy aesthetic with two fins up top, a protruding bridge module that gives it a slightly chelonian vibe (specifically, it reminds me of a tortoise’s head emerging from its shell), and two propulsion units on the lower sides (redolent of Star Trek warp drive nacelles). A particularly strange feature, given that this is an advanced spaceship, is the stone-effect(?) flooring throughout the interior – at least in the bridge and the OG Soldier storage room. Looking at the targeting in his approach, and the damage pattern Granolah inflicts on the vessel (see 超 #68), it seems he enters after firing on the port-aft quarter and having made a hull breach there, proceeds amidships dispatching guards and OG soldiers alike, seizes OG73-I, and then exits via the ventral hull plating (thereby causing damage there) in the return to his ship.
  • Goichi sends the guards to confront Granolah – his stooges are all clearly supposed to belong to the same species, what with their identical skin tone (in the colour version, a dusky yellow) and their uniforms (complete with implicit rank detailing – the grunts who retrieve OG73-I have no chevrons on their tabards; the guards dispatched by Granolah all have one downward-pointing chevron; Goichi’s henchman has 5 downward-pointing chevrons; only Goichi himself has one upward-pointing chevron), which seem to be a lightly ‘alien-ised’ take on a Sengoku-period Matchlock Ashigaru (compare the guards with, say, this modern artist’s take on an Ashigaru). This species apparently has significant variety in its eye placement and number: Goichi’s henchman has just one eye; most of the other stooges have two arranged in the ‘conventional’ fashion, but one has two arranged vertically down the centre of his face, and yet another has 3 eyes. This sort of peculiarity within a single species would be highly unusual in the real world, but not so much in Dragon World, where even Earthlings have such distinctive morphology that they can come in ‘Human-variety’, ‘Animal-variety’ (e.g. Oolong, DB #5, whose interest in ‘Human-variety’ girls is…notable) or ‘Monster-variety’ (e.g., Pilaf, DB #18), in proportions 75:17:7 (Daizenshuu #4), and certainly seem to interact as though members of the same species. Even within the ‘Human-variety’ of Earthling alone, we have distinct specimens like the nose-less Kuririn (DB #36), or the three-eyed Tenshinhan (DB #136 – though the Daizenshuu infamously suggested a diffuse alien heritage to explain this, it hasn’t been taken up by any in-Universe material as yet), and physically different sub-clades like the Kinme (from Kintoki, whose Golden eyes, lack of eyebrows, fantastic powers and rapid ageing mark them out from other ‘Human-variety’ Earthlings – I’m counting this as part of ‘Dragon World’ since the character Merlusa ‘the Venusian’ appears in East City in Jaco #5). Earthlings can also interbreed with aliens like the Saiyans and express only mild apparent physical variation as a result (DB #199); specific Earthling specimens can switch between broader morphological varieties (such as Man-Wolf, DB #119, an Animal-type Earthling who becomes a Human-type Earthling by the light of the Full Moon; or Tsun Tsuku-Tsun of Dr. Slump, who transforms into a Tiger when touched by Women). Earthlings are so varied that even aliens like Piccolo and Jaco manage to pass through Dragon World almost without comment (though Jaco’s face is mistaken for a mask in Jaco #1, #4, and #6, and his appearance is sometimes explained as that of a foreigner, as in #6, or a robot, as in #10; and a well-meaning Budokai attendant enquires whether Piccolo is ill since he is green, in DB #431). Similarly, Super just recently treated us to another example of significant intra-species variation with the Yardrat-jin, where Toyotarou elected to use both the Dragon Ball Z anime designs and the Dragon Ball Online designs for different members of the species (超 #52, which establishes that the Yardrat-jin “come in multiple types”). So, the differences among Goichi’s henchmen aren’t so striking after all.
  • So, to Granolah himself. We know for a fact that he’s a Toyotarou-original concept and design (Timestamps: 00:56 and 03:53), but this was disputed among fans when the character first appeared, many of whom thought this might be a Toriyama design. This isn’t entirely surprising, as there are some Toriyama staples in the design, and further design features that call back to characters from other Toriyama works.
    • As an example of a well-established Toriyama clothing detail™, take the Jodhpurs with the knee-high boots – Toriyama, particularly influenced by World War II designs in clothing and machinery as he is, has used these before in the (obviously Nazi-inspired) Red Ribbon Army uniforms, Dabura’s clothes (e.g., DB #446), the clothing of the Shin-jin (e.g., DB #437, or even more clearly DB #472 where it can be seen on Gohan), latterly the clothing of Goku Black (e.g., in 超 #19 - as both a Kaioshin’s apprentice and a genocidal zealot, the choice seems doubly fitting there), and Toriyama has even dressed his protagonists in full Nazi regalia before (see Go! Go! Ackman #4, where the titular character is dressed as an Untersturmführer of the Götz von Berlichingen Division of the Waffen-SS).
    • Additionally, Granolah bears more than a few design similarities to Toki, the central character of the Toriyama-penned one-shot Kintoki: Toki of the Kinme Clan, which focuses on a young member of an extinct clan of preternaturally-gifted warriors and one of his misadventures out in the wilderness (Kanzenshuu has a full Wiki entry for this work!). Toki’s design similarities with Granolah include his unusual upright-and-wavy hairstyle (also shared with Beelzebub, the young Prince of Demons and central character of the Toriyama miniseries Sandland), his green tunic with undershirt combination, and his long wind-around scarf (which Granolah also uses as a combat item akin to a grappling line, in 超 #70, 73, and 75, until Goku destroys it in 超 #76) – though Toyotarou is aware that this garment, and the styling around it, “comes up a lot in manga these days” (Timestamp: 11:40 to 11:55).
    • Conceptual similarities between Toki and Granolah are also evident – for starters, both belong to extinct tribes with amazing eyesight and resultant combat accuracy. Toki is a Kinme (a member of the “Golden-Eyed Tribe”), capable of hitting the small weak spot of even a fast-moving (“Those things are crazy fast. Even a gun is useless”) giant Thundra Lizard at distance, whereas Granolah is a Cerealian, whose right eyes are “especially adapted to sniping” – and these abilities express in their respective designs; Toki is “Golden-Eyed”, and Granolah’s right eye is a solid red, evoking the idea of a laser sight as one might find on a precision firearm. Additionally, both Toki and Granolah have lifespan issues – for Toki, this is natural to the Kinme (and why they are apparently extinct, though this is revealed to be not quite true by the story’s end), whereas for Granolah, it is the impact of his wish made in 超 #70 (taken so he can avenge himself on his already-extinct tribe). The pair are both survivors, using their remarkable innate gifts to scratch a living off what they can hunt in an unforgiving world – Toki in a more pure and literal sense than the hard-bitten Bounty Hunter Granolah.
    • Looking beyond strictly ‘Toriyama-esque’ features of his design to more general elements of note, Granolah has various “Steampunk” touches to him (for the uninitiated, a type of retro-futurism that draws from steam-powered machinery and, by extension, generally riffs on vintage design associated with Victoriana) – note the prevalence of leather straps and brass buckles and studs in his design, the old-school bracers under his tunic (see 超 #79 onwards), and most particularly the strapped goggle over his right eye, which houses his A.I./robot ally Oatmeel and fairly screams “Steampunk” (and all of which must chafe like Hell when he sweats – speaking somewhat from experience, as a bracers-wearer). Toyotarou addresses these old-timey design features in the Volume 16 release interview (Timestamp: 04:48 to 05:27):
      Toyotarou: With the clothing, since this race went extinct 50 years ago, even though they’re aliens, I wanted a slightly old-fashioned feel. I also wanted some steampunk elements. That’s how the clothing was designed.
      Uchida: Definitely, it’s like a mix of old-fashioned and futuristic. It’s all made with natural materials like leather and some cotton-like material. It feels like there’s nothing artificial.
      Toyotarou: Yeah, I wanted the race to feel kind of old-timey.
      Uchida: Like a race from the past.
    If nothing else, he’s a gift to the Dragon Ball fandom’s cosplayer set, who no doubt have a surfeit of leather gauntlets to repurpose, but it’s interesting to reflect on how cohesively these elements all hang together when considered in light of Granolah’s characterisation as a survivor from ‘out of the past’ – the combination of retro-futuristic tech (not just the worn goggle-cum-companion, but also the big honking stun laser he totes in this Chapter), the old-fashioned clothes evoking a bygone age and the race that went with it, and the visual and conceptual character similarities Granolah bears with another survivor-hunter from an apparently extinct race in another Toriyama story. Even the colour scheme in Granolah’s design seems in some ways to evoke a figure tarnished by the passage of time – his hair, for instance, is the green of Copper Oxide, such as might be found on an old and weathered Bronze statue (compare with Goku’s new, bright Silver sheen in Ultra Instinct). It’s all a really strong combination of features in a pretty memorable introduction for the arc’s central character.
  • Another thing that makes Granolah’s introduction so memorable, I think, is just how spare it is. He blows in talking perfunctorily to a doohickie on his ear, promptly stuns a handful of guards, kills a bunch of OG soldiers with precision shots, walks down a corridor, and enters a room. That’s it. Compare with, say, Jiren, who gets his introduction flying across his Universe to shove a monster through a planet’s crust in 超 #30, or Moro, who casually tosses comets at his Universes’ Highest God while sucking a nearby planet dry of life to snack on the residue, in 超 #43. Next to these over-the-top outings, Granolah’s introduction is very ‘small-potatoes’. And yet, it does as good a job of selling what the character is about as these other, more grandiose examples – just like we get a sense of Jiren as an uber-powerful intergalactic superhero who stands above and apart from his peers, or of Moro as a demonic, universal Apex Predator, we get a sense of Granolah as a no-nonsense loner with a pinpoint-focus (in both ability and manner) and a hard edge, with some darkness lurking beneath it. He blasts in with deft gunplay against the guards, moves relentlessly on, and doesn’t scruple at immediately killing the OG Soldiers who aren’t his target – he hardly reacts to their presence (except to check whether any of them are his target), and barely breaks step while he kills them, intuitively hitting their fatal weak spots with the precision that is his gimmick as he proceeds toward his target; only the encounter with the target itself actually provokes an emotional response – a beat of surprise, followed by a darkly triumphant smirk. Obviously we’ll be looking at Granolah’s character more deeply in future instalments, but I think these beats are noteworthy for being a little more ‘personal’ than just ‘functional’, for all their stark efficiency.
  • Goichi sends out the OG Soldiers. In all, Granolah kills at least 13 of them (11 that confront him initially – though he only is shown killing 8 on-panel, they are all dead after the encounter – followed by the 2 OGs guarding the door to OG73-I’s chamber), but he likely kills another 6 at least to get away with OG73-I, given that they block Granolah’s path at the end of this Chapter (and at least 3 corpses are shown around the area in 超 #68) – as Goichi orders all of them activated, this implies he has 20 such soldiers on hand (including OG73-I himself). They are all supposed to be functionally “identical” to OG73-I now having received his combat data, but are also visibly different, particularly in the armouring of their torsos. In 超 #54 and 超 #61, OG73-I has armoured sections covering his shoulders, lower ribcage, the area under his sternum, and his upper back, in addition to the wrist, ankle, and pelvic armouring that these OG soldiers share with him. In his partially-reconstructed state in this Chapter, he too lacks these extras – however, the fact that he ever had them points to some intrinsic superiority in OG73-I’s design. Goichi’s henchman likewise seems to imply OG73-I is somehow special among the other OG soldiers when he says “All seemed lost when Saganbo and his goons stole that one”, so perhaps he was the latest model with the best intrinsic abilities. This is (uncertainly) supported by the numbering of the other soldiers Granolah kills, which all have lower designation numbering:
    • OG72-I
    • OG51
    • OG31
    • OG20
    • OG1-WI
    If OG73-I is the latest-designated model in the production batch, then we might infer there have been at least 73 OG Soldiers (potentially many more, depending on whether the latter elements of some of these designations differentiate soldiers with the same numbering). No doubt some were defective or have become obsolete and were scrapped, or have perhaps been destroyed by hostile action. As Granolah demonstrates, all the OG soldiers have the same weakness pointed out to us by Whis in 超 #66 – destruction of the central forehead jewel is an insta-kill, which fact Granolah exploits with brutal effectiveness. Consequently, we are still left with no clear idea as to their innate (non-copied) strength.
  • On which note, the return of the Favourite Art nomination goes to the panel where Granolah takes out the group of OG Soldiers – a real sense of momentum and dynamism in a rapid-fire take with good composition, the OG Soldiers tumbling in a pleasing radial pattern around the centre occupied by Granolah.
Chapter 68 – Granolah the Survivor/Granolah the Survivor
21 January 2021
Chapter Notes
  • The opening to this Chapter is probably the clearest and starkest ‘on the ground’ view we’ve seen in manga of the Saiyan devastation of target planets in Freeza’s ‘Land Shark’ Planet Trade. The first glimpse shown us was in DB #204, where the destruction is incomplete and shown mostly at a distance (besides Vegeta munching on the corpse of a denizen, that is). That’s all the manga has to show us of a ‘business-as-usual’ scene of destruction until Dragon Ball Minus comes along, which shows us Bardock and Leek assaulting some unknown planet, followed by a quick shot of Vegeta and Raditz on another planet (Vegeta again enjoying a quick meal among the slain). Like Vegeta, Bardock has been drawn munching on the unfortunates that he kills, in an instalment of ’Toyotarou Drew It!’ – despite the carnage shown here, there’s no sign of that, at least. Beyond the manga, the Saiyans were more recently shown doing their thing in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which expanded on DBMinus in a few ways – in this case, by showing us a little more of the scenery surrounding the aforementioned shot of Vegeta and Raditz, and showing us the rest of Nappa’s squad on site. Nappa and Vegeta each give us a further taste of Saiyan methods in DB #213 (Nappa blows up East City) and #259 (Vegeta slaughters a Namekian village). The most thoroughgoing look at the destruction wrought by the Saiyans probably comes from the Bardock Special, A Solitary Final Battle, where the Saiyans in Bardock’s squad are shown destroying the Planet Kanassa, followed later by a scene of devastation after the fact on Planet Meat, and yet another Kid Vegeta slaughter picnic at the end. Toyotarou notes that he has been heavily influenced by A Solitary Final Battle since he first watched it, and mentions that he has used it to imagine stories around Planet Vegeta and the character of Bardock before. Obviously, this observation is particularly relevant to this arc, but no doubt Toyotarou also has in mind his own one-shot (well, one-and-a-bit) fan manga, DB Zero, which he drew as ‘Toyble’ in 2009-2010. In this ‘Order 66’-style tale surrounding 7 year-old Raditz, his comrades (Tullece – yes, that Tullece – and ‘Rycelo’), and the Saiyans in the last few days leading up to their destruction, Toyble briefly depicts the destruction of another civilisation on ‘Planet Oodoburu’ by the weak Saiyan castaway ‘Cabberoge’, the destruction of another world by the 3-man squad ‘Caulif’, ‘Jirhuba’, and ‘Zuchini’ (apparently Bardock’s cousin), and the unsuccessful assault on ‘Planet Desset’ (which is inhabited by the Toriyama GT Planet Sketch Monsters) by Raditz’s squad – which is preliminary to them being picked off by other Freeza soldiers on site. Some very minor details from this work (particularly some of the designs of the unnamed Saiyans) seem to make it over into this arc, particularly in 超 #77, which lingers over the details of the assault on the Planet Cereal – though naturally, DBMinus is privileged as source material here.
  • The linkage between Granolah and motifs of sight is both natural and interesting, particularly for its inverse correlation. Granolah is a Cerealian, famed for his enhanced vision and pinpoint accuracy, but in this arc it seems to work itself out as a distorting ‘tunnel vision’ that only sees his target clearly and nothing else, and this only gets worse as Granolah’s vision gets better (see, for instance, 超 #75, where Granolah’s vision evolves to be enhanced in both eyes, but where he is wilfully blind to the truth about Freeza and the Saiyans, ignoring what Vegeta says and casting aside his ally, Oatmeel), and conversely his sight of the truth gets better as his vision gets worse (see 超 #76, where he loses his enhanced vision, but gains insight into how he is seen by others – which is just like how he himself sees the Saiyans – and he recalls something more about that day; but then he resolves that he won’t move past his fixation, again wilfully blinding himself to a fuller truth: and, voila, his second red eye promptly returns – it vanishes again when Goku knocks sense into him, preparing him to see the truth that Monaito is about to reveal at the Chapter’s climax). Often enough, Granolah’s greatest clarity of sight comes when his eyes are closed – what we see here is the first example of such; he mentions that he “knows” the Saiyans are all destroyed and so he has no opportunity to avenge himself upon them, but he doesn’t know why he keeps seeing them in his dreams. This is, of course, because the truth is that they aren’t gone, and his dreams are an omen of his coming encounter with them. Similarly, in 超 #81, Granolah loses his sight completely (in response to one last attempt at avenging himself on a target – this time, at least, the ultimate author of his woes), and is unconscious for the revelations of 超 #82-83 – but in 超 #86, he reveals that he now knows the whole truth, and is no longer interested in the target-seeking vengeance that drives him through much of this arc. I enjoy reading Granolah’s see-sawing progression from a man who can see everything except the truth, to a partially-sighted man who has awakened to true clarity of vision.
  • It’s also worth noting, though, that since this is the first, incomplete instance of such ‘vision’, there is also one clear omission of detail, and one (slight, but crucial) distortion of perception, here: in the nightmare of 超 #68, Granolah appears to be alone (which aligns well with his loner character as we first see him) and simply running for shelter (the building looks somewhat like a church, which would fit the idea of running for a place that conveys the general idea of ‘sanctuary’ without more precise motivation) – but 超 #76 will reveal the detail that Granolah was never actually alone, but rather his compatriots “helped me get away”, and he was actually running directly back to his mother, Muezli – a much more ‘relational’ set of images that help throw that ‘loner’ sensibility into sharp relief. Moreover, the nightmare only shows the Oozaru (obviously Bardock, from his distinctive facial scarring) as aggressive and menacing, but 超 #77 reveals Oozaru Bardock to be (for his state) mostly thoughtful, pensive, hesitant – features that are central to his motivations and to the unfolding of the encounter as it actually occurs. Significantly, Bardock’s expression in 超 #68 is not replicated anywhere in 超 #77. But given that Granolah only knows the Saiyans as “barbarous apes…who slaughtered my fellow Cerealians” (true enough, as far as that goes), it is unsurprising that his dreams of the encounter should be coloured this way.
  • I enjoy the ‘fake-out’ transition from Granolah describing the Saiyans as “barbarous” to Goku’s aggressive lunge at Oracle Fish (revealed to be for the Fish’s own good). Goku also, quite improbably, threatens to eat him if he doesn’t stop squirming. Oracle Fish is based on a Lungfish (beside his one-shot manga, Mahimahi the Lungfish, this could be another instance of Toriyama creating characters at least vaguely based on his pets – likewise, both Neko Majin and Beerus are based on Toriyama’s Cornish Rex cat, and Karin was based on Toriyama’s old cat Koge, as noted in DB #150), which are apparently edible enough, but only really African Lungfish species tend to be eaten in any notable quantity, given their size and ubiquity – and they don’t exactly taste like Chicken – the related fish, Coelacanth, apparently requires salting and drying before cooking, or else it is a less-than-pleasant eating experience.
  • Favourite Art: I really like the general choreography around Whis in his sparring session with Goku – the succession of wide, sweeping movements at the far edges of each figure conveying the sharpness of his strikes, with a poised stillness at the centre of his figure work (e.g., the spinning overhead kick – a wide arc of movement, but with his arms tidily tucked behind his back as though he’s standing still) works really well; I mentioned in the comments around 超 #41 that Goku’s movements in Ultra Instinct sell the rapidly-improvised nature of bodily-led movement, and that his movements in 超 #64 were much stiller and more precise (albeit slightly perfunctory), in keeping with his greater mastery of the technique and his dominance in the fight, but here we see another way of selling the stillness and the sharpness of Ultra Instinct in Whis’s choreography, which is really nice to see. Honourable mention goes to the revelation of Granolah’s sniper eye near the end of the Chapter: the two panels, mid-range and close-up, of the un-goggled Granolah taking aim with his fingers are undeniably cool.
  • Whis calls Goku’s ploy at spawning illusions of himself to disguise his movement (or lack thereof) “Copying me” – we’ve never actually seen Goku and Whis fight before in the main run of the Dragon Ball Super manga (though we have seen it in Revival of F #2), but the idea of Whis masking his movement in the same way has been seen before, when he uses it against Vegeta in their sparring session in 超 #27 (Vegeta sees through it also, earning praise for his progress). Of course, these tricks will be pulled out twice more by Granolah to dupe Goku and Gas in 超 #73 and 超 #80 respectively, each time giving Granolah the opening he needs to land a decisive strike. In the context of the whole arc, of course, the things that will turn out to matter are Whis instructing Goku that “You must develop your own style”, alongside Beerus’s observation that Angels, at least, are “always in the Instinct state”. Toyotarou unites these observations in Goku’s direction for the arc when he says “Honestly, I think that Goku is getting used to Ultra Instinct and is able to use it more freely. For example, Whis is able to constantly use Ultra Instinct without any special transformation, so if you can stay in the Ultra Instinct state at all times, whether you’re asleep or awake, that would be optimal, and I want fans to see that Goku is getting closer to that level. Goku’s special silver-haired form looks totally different, and his power and personality change. That isn’t normal, so Goku’s new form is supposed to show that he’s getting used to UI. So Goku seems more like his usual self” (Volume 19 Interview, Part 2, Timestamp: 13:30 to 14:25). The next step along these lines will come in 超 #71 for Goku, when he begins to train to integrate Ultra Instinct into his ordinary states.
  • However, with Whis talking about there being different levels of “accuracy” to Ultra Instinct that Goku can progress towards, and Beerus bringing up a competing Divine technique for Gods of Destruction that Vegeta can pick up and use if Ultra Instinct doesn’t suit him (much as I like the further cleavage between Goku’s path to power and Vegeta’s), there is a tendency in the front half of the arc to talk about Goku and Vegeta’s Divine Power techniques in isolation and almost without clear reference to either the story’s themes or their respective character arcs, starting in this Chapter – as though gaining greater technical facility with them is what the arc posits as the issue to be overcome, at least until the back half of the arc – e.g., Goku’s claim in 超 #73 that “Ultra Instinct should have no weaknesses. If anything’s lacking, it’s gotta be my training…I’m still not totally used to using Ultra Instinct as a Super Saiyan. So I’m still vulnerable”, or even Vegeta’s (more character-based) admission in 超 #76 that “I couldn’t revert to the callous, unfeeling man I once was. That God of Destruction power was beyond the scope of a novice like me” – and this all poses a problem for the reader, who is tempted into thinking perhaps that Goku becoming yet more like an Angel, or Vegeta becoming more like a God of Destruction, or both of them simply grinding away at ‘doing the thing’, might be the answer to become better at these techniques. But the arc will flip this to focus squarely on the people who are wielding the techniques rather than the techniques as such, and will reveal that all the above sort of thinking is totally counterproductive, and the real answer is to be more like themselves – evolving by integrating the techniques into who they really are and how (and why) they fight, rather than trying to change themselves to fit rigid preconceptions of how their techniques must always work. The way the shift is unveiled may have some benefits in surprising the reader, but I’m not sure this half of the arc does quite enough, early enough, to wean the reader off the narrow technical focus and onto the broader thematic/character focus that would make the change really intuitive when the story actually hits us with it (on which there is more to say when we get there).
  • There’s another neat transition on the beat of Beerus offering Vegeta the opportunity to “steal” anything he wants to have, with Granolah delivering the stolen OG73-I to the Heeter base. The base is essentially a castle slapped on an asteroid – there are some possible echoes of Star Wars here: the fungoid, multi-turreted structure bears a vague resemblance to Jabba the Hutt’s palace. This isn’t surprising, as the Heeters, like the Hutts, are crime bosses running rackets of Bounty Hunters, Assassins, etc. They even have scantily-clad alien dancing girls for their pleasure (超 #70). But the similarities end there, as the Hutt Palace is a lightly-adapted Hookah Den (dungeon-adjacent), whereas the Heeter base trades on much more classically genteel features evocative of a wealthy manor house: patterned ceilings (超 #70); flooring made of different coloured stone – particularly on the dais where Elec sits, which is a fetching rose colour (超 #68); rugs and runners adorn the interior (超 #70); colonnades line the palace, inside and out (when outside, they appear to be ‘engaged’: embedded in the walls) – the columns are fluted, with simple, vaguely Doric-order capitals (超 #68); interior doorways are separated by rich curtains, and some rooms have elegant dark wood mantelpieces with mirror fixings and long dining tables are festooned with delicacies, floral arrangements and candelabra (超 #70); there are also French-style grilled casement doors leading out onto balconies with a grand view of deep space, on which Elec can take his morning beverage (超 #71). Even the signs of neglect bespeak a kind of old-world, storied charm from out of a Disney tale – the creeping vines that run through the palace, inside and out, might be found in Sleeping Beauty’s castle, or Beauty and the Beast (both Early Modern French tales – at least, so far as their classic adaptations by Disney are concerned); Elec’s own dandified attire likewise evokes this provenance – the cravat and ruffles, the high-collared and deep-cuffed long coat with gold trim, akin to a justaucorps or early frock coat, and the buckled boots are all garments one might expect from this sort of setting (though not so much the bare torso, Obi, or loose-fitting trousers, which are more characteristically ‘Dragon Ball’ touches, or the talisman, which is a uniquely Heeter article). That’s to say nothing of the staff who attend them – liveried footmen at the doors (超 #68) and porters in the hangar bay (超 #71), costumed workers running their data-crunching errands (超 #69), and the trio of uniformed waiting staff and sommeliers in waistcoats and tall hats (超 #70); the whole conveys conspicuous wealth, obviously, but under a classy, ‘respectable’ façade.
  • Emerging from the Base, Granolah’s Bounty Hunter colleague Soshiru sulkily flicks a bar of currency in the air, calling it “pocket change” and “a cruddy haul”. This is no doubt the common currency of the wider Universe, which we have seen once before, in Dragon Ball Super: Broly: Freeza gives Cheelai and Lemo a fistful of these each (around 13, judging from the shot) as a reward for finding Paragus and Broly, and the two are suitably grateful. 超 #77 establishes that the currency is called “Pol”. While the specie handled in Broly was all silver, the Pol splashed about by the Heeters is golden, and so plentiful that they keep a dispenser (with a handy bag attachment) on hand in their palace; actually, Berryblue’s character sheet for Broly shows us that Pol come in three colours: golden, silver, and a deep sort of iron grey. Presumably their value is ranked accordingly, in which case the several dozen golden Pol dispensed to Granolah (at least 60, judging from how much goes flying when Gas flattens him) is no doubt a huge payout: compare Granolah’s large bag with the 5 heavy cases the Sugarians hand off to the Heeters to buy Planet Cereal in 超 #69, which Elec mentions in 超 #77 is being sold for 100 billion Pol.
  • Of course, we’re not just introduced to the Heeters’ Base and their money, but also to the Heeters themselves. As we know, the Heeters were an addition to the arc by Toriyama (Timestamp: 01:59 to 02:07), but the designs were from Toyotarou, having gone through 3 or 4 misery-inducing redesigns to get there: “After the third rejection, I felt like begging Toriyama to do it” (Timestamp: 06:39 to 07:29). Given that we’re talking about a small crew of alien scumbags, fans’ minds have run most readily to Dragon Ball Z Movie 9, The Galaxy at the Brink!! The Super Incredible Guy and Bojack’s group (all Toriyama-original designs) for influence. There are some possibilities here – the pointy ears and the blue skin the crew begin with, for instance (the original designs are more properly green-skinned) – though these are ubiquitous and generic ‘non-Human’ design features across Toriyama’s oeuvre – a vaguely similar variety of builds across the group, and more surprisingly, a slight similarity between the pendant necklaces of the Bojack crew and the Heeter talismans (though more in their ubiquity across the group than any strict visual similarity). The shirtlessness also stands out, and Bido and Oil in particular sport similar ensembles incorporating open waistcoats and Mawashi-like garments. That’s something, though pretty nebulous. But it’s also worth considering the possible (similarly nebulous) design influence of the antagonist group that appears in Kintoki, around “Lord Berry”, a disruptive noble who inserts himself into the story. This group also has a suggestive variety of builds (particularly the enormous Huckle, whose build is much closer to Oil than Bido’s is), clothing that follows a uniform design pattern (Raz, Huckle, and Kuina all wear a uniform smock with identical neck detailing – probably meant to be gold trim, as on the Heeter garments – and matching belts, boots and gloves), and monogrammed jewellery (belt buckles with a ‘B’, which correspond exactly to the monogrammed Heeter ‘H’ badges-cum-communicators). Additionally, the two groups share conceptual groupings of their names – the Berry group are, unsurprisingly, named after berries (Lord Berry, Kran, Raz, and Huckle – Kuina bucks this trend because he is revealed to be a Kinme, who have their own naming conventions), whereas the Heeters are, equally unsurprisingly, named after varieties of heater (Elec[tric], Gas, Oil, and Macki [Firewood]). Other Heeter features, however, are unique so far as I know (e.g., the dreadlock hairstyles, the talismans as a significant design feature per se), and the ways the features of their designs come together seem pretty unique – Toyotarou certainly finds them so, as he has mentioned that it’s tricky to keep the balance of Elec’s design in particular when drawing his eyes and nose, which he finds “unfamiliar” (Timestamp: 05:18 to 06:33).
  • We get our first look at what the Heeters are all about, too: money and “intel”. We’ve covered the Heeter’s conspicuous wealthiness already, but intel in particular is Elec’s constant preoccupation as his Route to The Top, along with plotting and manipulating others with the information he has acquired – he’s very much a Calculating, Controlling Intelligence in the arc, and this also fits his role in his own family unit (compared with, say, Gas’s role as the muscle, which is equally clear in 超 #68; we’ll have more occasion to discuss the Heeters and their individual roles within their broader ‘unit’ later), but also betrays the limitations of his schtick. The selective control and exploitation of information flow runs through the arc and makes things happen, but often not quite as Elec intends – usually because he misjudges the ‘Human’ element in his plans by subordinating it to his calculation, and this in turn leads to a succession of intel failures and loss of control over the flow of information: in 超 #68, he reveals Freeza is back to spur Granolah into rashly challenging him, but doesn’t count on Granolah’s convictions running deep enough to sacrifice his life ahead of time for the assurance of killing Freeza (Elec knows about Namekians, but not the Dragon Balls, and even he is shocked to learn of Granolah’s actions in 超 #70); for damage control, he sets Goku and Vegeta in opposition to Granolah with doctored information in 超 #70-71, but he assumes that they will logically attack together to assure victory and so won’t have an opportunity to hit on the truth; predictably, his plan is undone by Goku and Vegeta’s natural tendency to fight alone, in 超 #72, which gives them the opening to find out more about the Cerealians and reveal some truths of their own to Granolah (for instance, that the Saiyans were destroyed by Freeza too, as in 超 #75: “That contradicts what you were told!”), all of which helps grind combat to a halt by undermining the convictions of all concerned – Elec also doesn’t count on Monaito finally plucking up the courage to tell Granolah the whole truth, in 超 #76-78. He also tidily imagines Gas simply becoming the strongest and killing everyone, including Freeza, just as planned, but he doesn’t count on other sources of intel appearing (Bardock’s Scouter, 超 #82-83) to spur the next stage of Goku and Vegeta’s personal development, or on the tension between the tidy plan and the messiness that Gas’s nature and convictions add to the situation (or the way in which past Heeter actions have given our heroes crucial intel that opens the way for resistance in the present; Elec ignores all this as ), causing crucial difficulty and delay to implementation; of course, having assumed Freeza’s status as an inert ‘given’, and not gathered crucial intel on his development (spurred, moreover, by his personal conviction that “I couldn’t very well keep losing to Saiyans my whole life”), or the leaking of his own plans to Freeza, Elec’s plan collapses on a critical intel failure: what he doesn’t know, and doesn’t trouble to account for, kills him.
  • Elec launches into temperature-talk in the English localisation (“cash to burn”, “they ain’t fired up to make deals”, “you’d be playing with fire”, “You’re such a hothead”, “revenge is best served cold…so chill out”, “Put this whole thing on the back burner”, “cool that head”, “Freeza’s name seriously lit a fire under Granolah” [that one’s from Macki], “We’d be in hot water”, “Freeza’s gonna ice the guy”, “I’m just fired up to see what we find”) – these aren’t in the original Japanese; it’s just a case of translator Caleb Cook having some pun fun. It’s nice to see some scope for a little creativity (even play) in what is still basically faithful translation, for a franchise whose fans have historically been extremely anal about precise wording because of the implications for power level discussion (I certainly don’t exempt myself). That said, I’m glad this is something of a one-shot deal, as Cook contriving puns for Elec across the whole arc would have become tiresome.
  • The scenes with Granolah and the Heeters, and the follow-up among themselves, do a good job of conveying a couple of things about the taciturn Gas: firstly, his power and the role it plays in the Heeter unit (which is shown us as he casually restrains the impressive Granolah, and confirmed in dialogue thereafter), and secondly, his hostility to Granolah – he fixes him with a hostile glare on entry, fists balled throughout; his restraint of Granolah is almost petulant in how he humiliates him, scattering his earnings and putting him face down at the foot of the dais; and his dismissive response to Elec’s suggestion that Granolah might catch him one day. This animus will be gradually developed across 超 #70, 71, 78, and 79, and of course Gas’s power and its role in Heeter unit and Elec’s plans will be at the forefront through the second half of the arc.
  • I mentioned the Heeters’ surroundings and Elec’s appearance being a façade of wealthy respectability for a ruthless criminal family: really, 超 #68 gives us the first set of a number of such “poses” that the main characters will engage in throughout the arc. On Granolah’s way in, his colleague Soshiru confronts him with an overly chummy pose (“If it ain’t my good buddy Granolah”; “I mean, wow! Great job!”; “C’mon…please? We’ve known each other forever!”; “J-just joking, pal”) to inveigle a share of Granolah’s Bounty by pretending to have helped (the pally mask slips later when he makes his move – trying to rob and threatening to kill Granolah), but he elicits Granolah’s “implacable executioner” pose and gets a (frankly disproportionate) threat to blow his head off. The Heeters, for their part, dissemble about their plans: Elec makes out that Intel and Money are all they need to rule the Universe, and makes light of the idea that they need “Might” in general (“We’ve got no need for troops. We Heeters ain’t running an army here.”)…but as we’ll see in 超 #70, that’s exactly their goal: oust Freeza and take his army so that they can continue their business. Moreover, the group pretends friendship with Granolah so long as they can use his skills, Elec offering him (slightly condescending) praise and offering help for some future day when they’ll work together to oust the revived Freeza – but Elec reveals to his siblings that this is all just a ploy to get Granolah killed by Freeza. Further, 超 #68 will give us a couple more ‘poses’ in the neat little encounter between Soshiru’s gang and Granolah: Oatmeel will pretend to be Granolah to lure in (the rather less friendly than he seemed) Soshiru, and Granolah reveals a longstanding pose of his own: he doesn’t need Oatmeel to snipe; he can do it all himself and Oatmeel is just support. Of course, every really convincing pose needs an element of truth: Soshiru and Granolah really have known each other a long time; Granolah’s convictions (we have seen, and will see) really do run relentlessly towards execution of vengeance; the Heeters do rely on Granolah, up to a point, and do want rid of Freeza; Oatmeel is support for Granolah (even down to aim assist: 超 #75, 超 #79, and #86). But we’ll see a lot more of this with Goku, Vegeta, Granolah, Elec, Gas, and Monaito – all the key players in the arc hide their true natures behind a series of ‘poses’ that, despite whatever small truths they may embody, fundamentally limit and inhibit the characters. We’ll return to this constantly throughout the arc, because in my opinion it’s key to how their character arcs latch onto and express the arc’s main themes, but I thought I’d give these small first expressions of this point an airing now.
  • The encounter with Soshiru’s gang gives us a view of Granolah’s ship. It’s a two-decker, with the loading ramp leading into a large cargo compartment (Gas cuts a liquid storage drum when he bisects the ship in 超 #78) – presumably the interior-mounted tractor beam from 超 #75 is meant to help with loading heavy items; there are two doors leading to rooms aft – one of them is the bathroom (where Granolah cuts his hair in 超 #70), but since Granolah can enter ‘Cold Sleep’ in the cockpit, one assumes that no bedroom is required; the Cockpit is the whole upper deck (so, a mezzanine), reached by a ladder and with a small amount of extra floor space for storage. The carapace of the cockpit also flips up for entry and exit (which is how Granolah gets out unseen, and has a clear shot to stun Soshiru’s goons), and the on-board circuitry for ship systems is stored in the bow (including automatic pilot, as Oatmeel engages in 超 #75), along with a forward-mounted laser cannon. There is a large propulsion unit mounted aft, and two wings that fold up on landing (reminiscent of folding wing systems on carrier-based aircraft), with hydraulic landing struts (超 #69). The ship bears a passing (albeit heavily modified) resemblance to such craft, but also perhaps to Granolah’s eyepiece, when looked at from the rear (the engine resembling the goggle, and the cockpit the ear-mounted A.I. housing).
Okay, so that’s all for Part 1 – it's good to be back. As is typical for the Re-Read, I aim to post my comments on 4 Chapters of the manga across the span of each fortnight, so stay tuned for Part 2 (Chapters 69 and 70), coming at the beginning of 2023!

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Mr Baggins
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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Mr Baggins » Tue Dec 27, 2022 6:40 am

Big props to your analysis of Granolah's character design. You mention that even his color scheme evokes the image of a bygone era, and I'd add that's especially owed to his muted clothing.

Easily Toyotaro's best design to date.

I wish I had more to say about this arc, and it actually pains me to look back upon because I enjoyed the first half and the climax of Vegeta's main fight in particular. I'll remain fairly fond of Granolah as a character, if nothing else, even if I'm completely let down by how he's handled later on.

Curious to read your thoughts about the Namekians' origins in the next update. That was a pretty wild (yet hilariously brief, as is DB's wont) revelation with some interesting implications.
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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Cipher » Tue Dec 27, 2022 1:25 pm

I hadn’t spotted the parallels between Goichi and Elec until you pointed them out! Well-noticed!

I also hadn’t caught Freeza undermining the Heatas’ pretenses on both the strength and intel fronts in his appearance.

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by batistabus » Tue Dec 27, 2022 4:29 pm

I like the Goichi-ichigo connection. I always thought his ship looked like a sandwich, so with your suggestion, it brings Japanese strawberry sandwiches to mind.

I thought the most straightforward name pun was 51, which aligns with 73 (although Seven-three has the English pronunciation). I guess it could be both.

And then there's the top Japanese FighterZ player (GO1), who may or may not be getting a nod here.

I have more to say, but I'm on vacation, so I'll try to jump back in when I have a chance.

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Wed Dec 28, 2022 9:19 am

Thanks for the comments, y'all! I really appreciate it.

I'm just going to take the opportunity to drop the Official Site resources (both Storyboard scans and Official Synopses) for the Granolah arc here - I referenced these in a general way in the intro to my last post, but thought it might be worthwhile to have them here as a full itemised listing at an early point in the Re-Read for this arc, so anyone else who would like convenient access to them can have it. It seemed it might be nice to have them all together in any case, just for its own sake; particularly since the Storyboard scans (low-res though they are) are now only accessible through web archiving resources. The Synopses appear only to have begun prior to the release of Chapter 72 - at least, so far as I could make out.

The Storyboard scans and Japanese Synopses in particular have been useful in clarifying some things here and there while I've been drafting the Re-Read (the English Synopses are also useful and obviously easier to look at, but do not always appear to be a totally literal translation), particularly points of basic wording in an arc where the consistent use of certain grouped words and concepts seems unusually significant. Of course, Japanese isn't a language I either speak or read, so translation and online dictionary resources have necessarily been used, with caution, for the Re-Read (though no doubt also with the occasional user error, though I've done my best - no doubt a responsible and better-informed individual will pick up on any goofs I make going forward); in any case, much of the reference has been from here.

Anyhoo, here they are. Hope they're useful!:

Chapter 68
Storyboards

Chapter 69
Storyboards

Chapter 70
Storyboards

Chapter 71
Storyboards

Chapter 72
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 73
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 74
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 75
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 76
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 77
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 78
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 79
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 80
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 81
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 82
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 83
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 84
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 85
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 86
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

Chapter 87
Storyboards
Pre-Chapter Story Synopsis (ENG) (JP)

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Re: The Super Re-Read, #1 (Chs. 1-4 & Bonus Ch. 1)

Post by AbelCat » Thu Dec 29, 2022 4:39 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 9:58 am
Aim wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 9:25 am
Matches Malone wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:20 am I think going with a shorter version was the right call, as the movie remains the superior version, so trying to retell the whole story would be pointless. It's a shame the anime didn't take this road as well. The downside to this though is that it doesn't function as a full story, but rather a recap to get people ready for what's to come. I am happy they skipped the following 2 movies though.
What happened to matches malone?
He was acting salty in another thread and eventually degenerated into transphobia. I would say I'll miss his incessant "BOG is the only good piece of modern Dragon Ball" spiel... but I won't.

Anywho, wow... can't believe this thread's over. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were on the Hakaishin Beerus arc, now we're already done with the Moro arc. It's been a hell of a ride. Ponta, as always, fantastic work mate, looking forward to seeing what's in store for the future. I have to admit though, the analysis on the Moro arc has been so thorough and holistic it's become a little overwhelming for me to contribute much to the conversation (I've forgotten where the whole 'Level 1-3 structural reference' thing began, but that's on my lack of paid attention :lol: ), but I have been staying tuned the whole time, trust.

In any case, to keep it brief, the last few chapters of the Moro arc, in isolation, represent Toyotaro's absolute peak in my opinion. I say "in isolation", because I'm never going to deny that the rest of the arc was waffy at best. I know many consider his zenith to have came around the Tournament of Power arc, but the art and overall direction just went to the next level.
Oof this looks messy.

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Re: The Super Re-Read, #1 (Chs. 1-4 & Bonus Ch. 1)

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Fri Dec 30, 2022 11:28 am

Ayy, glad this is back. I'm also going back over bits and pieces of the early Granolah arc, so it'll be fun to explore some different observations on the parts I may have been more hostile towards during the monthly serialisation, as well as see all the obscure hidden details.

Interesting that Toyotaro still harkens back to some of his pre-official doujin works like DB Zero with his design choices. Funny, I also had a sudden fascination with wearing braces, maybe I was unconsciously inspired by Granolah's style? Punch me if I also dye my hair mint green :lol:

It's definitely satisfying to see the various masks that the characters wear get slowly pealed back as the arc progresses. Diving into Vegeta's bundle of identity issues would take up a page alone so I'll hold off on that until we cross that bridge.

Goku also has his own subtler issues that I'm looking forward to dissecting. This arc gives a cool take that Goku is really torn between several identities that he has struggled to reconcile. Broadly, I see them as the Saiyan, the Angel and the Earthling (similar to the chapter title dichotomy of "Son Goku, Galactic Patrol Agent" and "Son Goku, Earthling"). In learning about Bardock, Goku tries to embrace his father's stubborn, pragmatic drive to win at all costs, something that he's always found hard given that he is not as cold-blooded as a real Saiyan should be. The Galactic Patrol way, i.e. the "superhero" mould that Goku usually goes against, is ironically very similar as they advocate taking the most decisive actions against enemies. There's no doubt in my mind that Goku never thought much about his parents (or much else outside of his narrow field of vision), but the arc goes against the prevailing notion that he wouldn't have the slightest curiosity about them when presented with this new information. In an impossible situation, Bardock found a way to win through his own innate power -- no wonder Goku's opinion of him improved after hearing that!

Goku's Angelic teachings brought him to the table, but he forgets that he and Whis are very different lifeforms and therefore must approach things in ways tailored to themselves. Whis gives him that exact advice.

Finally, you have the Earthling side, which represents most of who Goku is as a person: his passion, his mercy, his selfishness. More often than not, all of these traits tend to work against his best interests whenever the stakes are high, hence why he's always taking stupid risks for the sake of a good fight, but here, he manages to use them to his advantage. While it was a bit awkwardly presented, Goku finding a path to reconcile all of these sides of himself is good development to see. In the end, I have a feeling that Freeza reminded Goku of the most important recurring message of Dragon Ball: the best way to improve is through plain, honest hard work.
AbelCat wrote: Thu Dec 29, 2022 4:39 pm Oof this looks messy.
Don't quite know what you mean, guessing you mean the part about Matches Malone. You know, I really didn't mind the guy aside from his aforementioned outburst, though he was one of those "broken record" types. It's just unfortunate to see someone insist on dying on a bad hill, so to speak. Best case scenario, he just got caught in a very bad mood that day and said some dumb offensive stuff out of anger rather than malice.

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by GreatSaiyaman123 » Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:28 pm

I came across this when the post got bumped and ended up reading your reviews, up to the end of the Future Trunks Saga. Not that I disagree with all the flack Toyotaro gets, but it's definitely good to see him get some praise every once in a while.

The way you described Frost as a "underhanded" version of Freeza could also apply to Black's characterization as well: He's just a petty jerk as opposed to the unbeatable, truly god-like anime version, and it's inevitable that his ego would eventually conflict with his future self's (getting into the power scaling side, this could explain why Merged Zamasu felt so weak in AT's drafts - they're at conflict rather than completing each other like their TV counterparts).

The manga as a whole feels like a much smaller-scale story than the anime dating back to the compressed version of BoGs through the more laid-back tournament. In the tournament, I think the comedy is more or less the same as the anime + the test gag, which is infinitely better than repeating the "Boo fell asleep again!" gag. The action is much more stripped down though, with no climatic scenes like the Kaio-Ken or the Final Flash and none of Black or Zamasu's pompous techniques. I think they feel more raw this way, specially because long epic power ups was always a thing of the anime.

Toyotaro's rendition of the FT Saga is pretty fascinating. While his fights are often lacking (Did Vegeta vs 1st Zenkai SSJ Black get skipped or were they just worn out within a panel? Why no Goku vs Goku Black?) and he grants Trunks, Shin and Mai so much plot armor it becomes a plot hole (Black and Zamasu already agreed to hurry up before Zeno gets word of them, so why are they taking time torturing poor Shin?), his attention to detail is insane with the references to both Super and the original series. There's even a payoff to Gowasu's random "U12 has time traveled too" comment!

I particularly like how much more involved Shin and Gowasu became in the plot, and how the Future Boo Saga caused all this instead of Black choosing Trunks' timeline at random. I think Toyotaro's one true slip, however, was the addition of Vegetto - it was a completely self-serving inclusion (he said that he wanted to please the fans, but I'm sure he just wanted to draw Vegetto), and only servers as filler of the most pointless degree other than to introduce the Potara retcon.

Like other people, I'm also unsure about how SSJB was portrayed. In one hand, why does it cost so much energy if it's supposed to balance "strength and tranquility"? How bad was Golden Freeza's own stamina if Blue lost power just by transforming? On the other hand, SSJG does get to be more than just the door to god level, although UI was introduced so soon that SSJB itself never had a chance to beat anyone.
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LoganForkHands73
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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:55 pm

GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:28 pm Toyotaro's rendition of the FT Saga is pretty fascinating. While his fights are often lacking (Did Vegeta vs 1st Zenkai SSJ Black get skipped or were they just worn out within a panel? Why no Goku vs Goku Black?) and he grants Trunks, Shin and Mai so much plot armor it becomes a plot hole (Black and Zamasu already agreed to hurry up before Zeno gets word of them, so why are they taking time torturing poor Shin?), his attention to detail is insane with the references to both Super and the original series. There's even a payoff to Gowasu's random "U12 has time traveled too" comment!
Yeah, the start of that fight was amazing but the ending was a little underwhelming. I was always confused how Future Zamasu was able to suddenly beat Goku so badly between panels with just telekinesis/paralysis.
I particularly like how much more involved Shin and Gowasu became in the plot, and how the Future Boo Saga caused all this instead of Black choosing Trunks' timeline at random. I think Toyotaro's one true slip, however, was the addition of Vegetto - it was a completely self-serving inclusion (he said that he wanted to please the fans, but I'm sure he just wanted to draw Vegetto), and only servers as filler of the most pointless degree other than to introduce the Potara retcon.
It's true that Vegetto's return is total unapologetic fanservice (tbf, I think Toyotaro was correct that everyone would have complained if we didn't get a Potara vs. Potara fusion match at some point in that arc), but it does serve an incidental yet important purpose in the plot: Vegeta sees inside Goku's mind while they are merged and discovers his true final trump card, the completed Super Saiyan Blue. I guess Vegetto's only real purpose in the anime is figuring out Zamasu's weakness as only a half-immortal. In both mediums, it isn't much, but I like that Vegetto gives Vegeta the chance to show some great character development again -- he relinquishes the honours to Goku without even needing to be convinced.
Like other people, I'm also unsure about how SSJB was portrayed. In one hand, why does it cost so much energy if it's supposed to balance "strength and tranquility"? How bad was Golden Freeza's own stamina if Blue lost power just by transforming? On the other hand, SSJG does get to be more than just the door to god level, although UI was introduced so soon that SSJB itself never had a chance to beat anyone.
I've always found the Super Saiyan Blue stamina weakness quite funny, because in retrospect it makes Goku and Vegeta total hypocrites in their jeering at Freeza's failure to master his new transformation. In the manga continuity, they must have made the exact same mistake of rushing to Earth without properly mastering Blue. I do wonder how a full Toyotaro version of the Golden Freeza arc would have gone down, knowing that even a single quick transformation into incomplete SS Blue cripples its effectiveness. :think: Perhaps his version of the arc would have featured a surprise SS God appearance, just like the later arcs.

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Sat Dec 31, 2022 3:19 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 11:28 amIt's definitely satisfying to see the various masks that the characters wear get slowly pealed back as the arc progresses. Diving into Vegeta's bundle of identity issues would take up a page alone so I'll hold off on that until we cross that bridge.

Goku also has his own subtler issues that I'm looking forward to dissecting. This arc gives a cool take that Goku is really torn between several identities that he has struggled to reconcile.
Thanks for your comments! I really do like the way you touch on this part in particular, for Goku especially. While I have a slightly different focus of some of the specifics here, I think I agree overall, and really enjoyed your insights (not quoted, for brevity). Thanks again for the contribution, I appreciate it!

While you'll see more of what I think when my next instalment drops tomorrow, I think it's fair to say that a huge part of what this arc is about is in the (apparently surprisingly difficult) attempt to always be true to yourself, however you can, and even though the arc will have some pervasive issues and pretty prominent fumbles (even when this subject is in view), overall I think the way it explores this subject through the journeys and depictions of Granolah, Vegeta, and especially Goku and his personal reintegration through the story is one of the really big successes of this arc, for me.
GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:28 pmI came across this when the post got bumped and ended up reading your reviews, up to the end of the Future Trunks Saga.
Hey, GreatSaiyaman123! Welcome aboard; I hope you enjoyed what you read! I did consider revisiting and re-doing some the earlier Super content before moving on to the Granolah arc, but I decided pretty quickly that I'd bitten off all I could chew there :lol:

If you carry on, hopefully you'll enjoy the coverage of the Tournament of Power arc - it's still my favourite, I think, and hopefully you'll see why.
GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:28 pm(getting into the power scaling side, this could explain why Merged Zamasu felt so weak in AT's drafts - they're at conflict rather than completing each other like their TV counterparts).
That's an interesting perspective on things, though I'm not sure I'd think of them as exactly at conflict with each other as a matter of principle: when he fuses, Zamas2 emphasises the unity between his two selves as key to how he can perform like he does, and their unity of will seems to be at the heart of how they're able to keep themselves together in 超 #25.

True, they are set against each other briefly in 超 #22, but I feel like this is partly a way in which their superficiality is betrayed here: Zamas thinks it's all going to be pretty simple and is confronted with the idea that he's not equal to the task after all when he thinks about it, however Black made things seem; Black is likewise superficial, and takes Zamas's sympathies and compliance for granted (to be fair, he is him, after all), which slips into taking him for granted, so he's doubly irked when he looks like he's about to throw in the towel. But it passes.

If I had to guess at the Outline reasons for Zamas2 being so "weak", I'd say it's simply because the constituent parts aren't 'all that' (like when Shin and Kibito fuse): Zamas is arguably weaker than Base Goku, and Black is weaker than SSjB Vegeta even in Rose, when all is said and done. Even with a fair-sized fusion boost, the de facto power-up that Completed SSjB represents makes sense as a match for Zamas2, as far as I can make out.
GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:28 pmI particularly like how much more involved Shin and Gowasu became in the plot
I really like Shin's involvement in this arc too (and in the Super manga more generally, but much of it is in the Future Trunks arc - it single-handedly changed my perspective on Shin from thinking of him as a bit of a well-intentioned loser nonentity to a character who I actually really like); in this arc in particular, he's such a good example of a weaker character stepping up no matter what.

As a Kaioshin he's not a fighter, and he needs to study a bit more, but this arc shows he's clearly the right guy for the job: though he's totally outmatched, he does nothing in this arc but constantly put himself on the line for others and be true to his convictions...which neatly leads me back around to the Granolah arc, I guess, where that sort of thing is pivotal.

Always good to have more insights to think with. Thanks again for your comments!

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Sun Jan 01, 2023 7:23 am

The Super Re-Read: Chapters 67 (Continued) – 70
Part 2 (Chapters 69 and 70)

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...Oh Gawd, I forgot I used to do intros for Part 2 as well; that's a character limits predicament right there. How sparely can I do this?

Erm

Hey y'all! 2023! Super Re-Read covering first half Volume 16 now! Granolah stuff! Themes, training, etc.! Thanks, Kanzenshuu! Check out their info!

Re-Read with me!

(Nailed it.)

Chapter 69 – The Succession of Planet Cereal/The Evolution of Planet Cereal
20 February 2021
Chapter Notes
  • Favourite Art: Watch me go ahead and cheat like a bastard, but I can’t not nominate the cover for Volume 16 here; it’s a great piece – a sharper, more detailed figure shot of Granolah from his introduction in 超 #67, superimposed over a scene of Cerealian devastation, with a strong and detailed profile shot of Vegeta, and an even better view of Goku taking an intricate stance. Small wonder the drawing of Goku was selected for inclusion in the Jump Festa 2023 key art. But there’s plenty of fine work within the Chapter proper – Beerus having a little stomp on Vegeta’s back is nicely impactful; Granolah somehow looks even cooler with his face wrapped up in his scarf; and Toronbo’s emergence and overall design is really striking.
  • We come back to Planet Cereal, to find somebody’s put sugar on it (which people used to do, back in the day when cereals were mostly briquettes of sawdust): the ultra-cute, Toriyama-designed, pink Axolotl-ish midget Sugarians, buyers and latter-day inhabitants of Granolah’s world. It’s clear they’re an advanced civilisation, with interstellar travel and technical knowledge, sufficient affluence to indulge hobbies (and, y’know, buy planets), sophisticated trading and mercantile networks, organised law enforcement, scientific institutions, vehicular transport, and even television networks with inane broadcasting. It’s unclear why their huge, sinuous cities, which dwarf the nearby Cerealian ruins, need to sit in semi-permeable habitation domes – the fact that the second Dragon Ball is found out in the wild by a bug-hunting Sugarian kid shows they’re able to exist outside. Yet they mostly stay within, even when fleeing (超 #74), so perhaps Cereal lacks optimal living conditions for the Sugarians and they thrive best under environmental control. We see, for instance, that their habitation domes are lit so even night seems like day within, and the denizens go about their daily business as though the natural day-night cycle of Cereal is immaterial to them (which it may well be). This would fit pretty well for a story where the nature of the characters is so often scrutinised, and underscores the vague sense that the Sugarians, however benign, don’t ‘really’ belong on Granolah’s planet.
  • Granolah splashes his cash at the spaceport, handing off one of his golden Pol to fix the battle damage on his extremely advanced spaceship, and another 4 for…a modest bag of basic foodstuffs, including water (Cost of Living Crisis Bites; Interstellar Capitalism Has Gone Too Far This Time). 超 #78 reveals that the house Granolah and Monaito live in now was likewise paid for by money earned doing Bounty Hunting for the Heeters. Unlike Monaito’s “rickety old shack” which sat in a wooded glade deep in the mountains, furnished with only a bare bed, a table and stool, and some storage jars, the house the pair live in now is on top of a mountain overlooking Granolah’s home town, and is rather better-appointed – not only with more than one room (with doors! But apparently not exterior doors; just two holes in the wall at the front and side of the building, which takes the shine off life on the mountaintop), at least one (comfier-looking) bed, a dining table with seats, easy-chairs, windows, electric light, television, a book collection, decorative plants and other items, including a Dragon Ball that’s frankly making a big deal of its ornamental value… and, yes, storage jars (but more of them – Disposable Income at Work; Invest in Storage Options Today!). Presumably there’s also a food prep area, for Granolah’s sake, though of course Monaito as a Namekian only needs water (DB #259).
  • Granolah gives Oatmeel a potted history of events following the destruction of the Cerealians. Leaving to one side for a moment that Oatmeel should already be aware of all this (given that he spends 90% of his life strapped around Granolah’s face – perhaps he’s just not a particularly inquisitive intelligence), he’s been a strong presence in the earliest part of the arc. A lot of this, obviously, is functional – it allows the reader to find things out about Granolah and the story premise in a natural way, while still allowing him to retain the ‘loner’ vibe that helps mark him out as a hard-edged survivor character in this early part of the story – and as such is a neat twist on the Toriyama staple of introducing characters in pairs so they can bounce off each other. Toyotarou is familiar with this idea (Timestamp: 05:30 to 06:05):
    Uchida: I mean, I really didn’t expect the goggles to talk!
    Toyotarou: Yeah. He’s a lone warrior, so he essentially doesn’t talk, but Toriyama used to say that “if there aren’t 2 characters moving together, we never know what they’re thinking”.
    Uchida: I guess it forces the characters to talk.
    Toyotarou: And so for Kaioshin there’s Kibito, for Beerus there’s Whis. If there aren’t two characters, whatever they do is just them talking to themselves. So this fixes that. Having the characters move through the story while communicating makes it easier for the audience to follow. And so Oatmeel was born.
    Beyond the ‘someone-to-talk-to-but-not-quite-as-usual’ aspect, I like the implications of Oatmeel, particularly considering the relevance of motifs of sight to Granolah in this story: we see in 超 #82 that Oatmeel is actually a whole robot, and the goggle seems to be his eye. In which case, when Granolah wears Oatmeel over his eye, he and Oatmeel both look, as it were, through the same eye, seeing precisely the same things (we as readers look through the goggle just twice, in 超 #67 and again in 超 #86; it gives a readout much like a Scouter). But they become increasingly at variance in the first half of the arc (particularly 超 #74-75) over what they perceive about the truth, and this is because of Granolah’s wilful, vengeful blindness. Oatmeel’s more objective asides increasingly take the character of not simply a partner and ally in combat, but of the angel on Granolah’s shoulder and of an eye that sees more keenly even than “the Sharpest in the Universe”. Even at this stage of the arc, we see Granolah deliberately holding his (perfectly justified) grievances before his eyes so that he’ll always see them, and always renew his vengeful convictions (“It’s a reminder of what they did to my planet. That way, I’ll never forget.”)
  • I really like the way Toyotarou manages transitions between key scenes in the early arc – it’s very slick, often keying into a particular line or idea and beginning the next scene from a related premise, rather than simply talking about a character to signal a shift in focus or just proceeding in simple narrative sequence (though it will do this more as the strands of the story are drawn together). For instance, in 超 #68 Granolah and Oatmeel talk about the “barbarous apes” who destroyed Planet Cereal; cue Son Goku in faux-aggressive mode. Beerus invites Vegeta to follow him and “steal” what he wants; cut to Granolah dropping off his stolen Bounty in a den of thieves. In this Chapter, we get Granolah and Oatmeel talking about the Saiyan destruction of Cereal, complete with the ghosts of his memory; cut to Beerus asking Vegeta just how many planets the Saiyans have destroyed. Dragon Ball Super often follows the main characters en bloc through the story and they’re rarely meaningfully split up to follow independently-unfolding story strands (the only really notable exceptions are 超 #21 and 超 #51-60), so there hasn’t been that much opportunity to employ this sort of technique. I appreciate it.
  • Chapter 69 alights on the first full-on attempt by the story to lay down its themes for the arc to come, and it’s done in a very personal way by both Granolah and Vegeta. I would suggest that the arc lays down a couple of thematic questions that all the key characters grapple with, namely, “What makes us who we really are?”, and (since this is Dragon Ball, and fighting per se is never irrelevant to any question) “Why do we fight?”. The first question is by far the bigger, more important, more complex question, and goes a long way to answering the ancillary question (since who we really are and how we deal with that, so far as this story is concerned, defines the terms of why and how we fight). The story will eventually give two intrinsic, personal factors that make for its answer to the Big Thematic Question, in 超 #84: these being, ones' Nature, and ones' Convictions. I mentioned earlier that the characters in the story engage in a series of “poses”, and this often has to do with the mismatch between Convictions and Natures, or the difficulties the characters have in staying true to both these things at once, and thereby staying true to themselves. Simply put, if the Tournament of Power arc looks into questions of True Strength, the Granolah the Survivor arc looks into questions of True Self. Granolah and Vegeta serve as almost perfect counterpoints in the early arc:
    • Granolah is fundamentally a man of strongly-held, bitter Convictions – “grudges”, for want of a better word (and, as Vegeta concedes in 超 #76, they are “well-deserved”) – we’ve seen him discuss them at length with Oatmeel and Elec already; his Convictions are focused on vengeance for his people, against those responsible for destroying them (so far as he knows, just Freeza and the Saiyans), and even though he thinks there is no opportunity to avenge himself, he renews this Conviction constantly: he admits to Oatmeel that the main reason he lives on his mountain is to hold his destroyed home town before his eyes and “never forget”. When Elec reveals Freeza is revived, Granolah thinks only of the “chance to avenge my people!”, and his wish to become #1 Warrior in the Universe is simply because he concludes “To avenge the Cerealians I’ve lost…I’ll have to grow stronger than anyone” (超 #68); the conviction is redoubled when he faces Goku and Vegeta: “Nothing you say can change the fact that I’m taking revenge on the Saiyans, so stop wasting my time” (超 #73), and even Vegeta’s reasonable objection that neither he nor Goku had anything to do with the destruction of Cereal meets a blank “Be that as it may…I will have my revenge against all Saiyans” (超 #74). His Convictions are genuine, and all-consuming. But they’re contrary to his Nature. Granolah poses as an avenging warrior, but as Vegeta points out, “You Cerealians were never such a savage tribe, were you..?” (超 #76). Though they have combat aptitude as snipers, Cerealians aren’t a warrior race (Timestamp: 4:20), they were a peaceful people (超 #76), and despite his remarkable natural power and the fact that his wish makes him the Mightiest Warrior, even Granolah isn’t naturally a warrior (as Vegeta notes in 超 #74, “You’re clearly not used to your power. You are majorly lacking in the battle experience to back it up”). The way his Convictions cut across his Nature is clear enough from his exchange with Toronbo in 超 #70: he can’t increase Granolah’s power beyond his natural capacity, unless he does something fundamentally unnatural by sacrificing 150 years of Granolah’s future life in exchange for the power of the #1 Warrior in the Universe (Macki’s interjection in 超 #70 is on-point: “You sacrificed your life just to beat Freeza!? That’s insane!”). Granolah’s Nature and Convictions are in tension, unbalanced, and because his Convictions are so all-consuming, his Nature suffers and he robs himself of his Future in trying to avenge the wrongs of his Past.
    • His conversation with Beerus reveals that Vegeta likewise has issues with his Convictions, but these are fundamentally different to those we see from Granolah: Vegeta is lacking in Conviction altogether. He brought his Body and Spirit (ki) into balance in the Moro Arc (超 #55), and worked hard on atoning for past sins (超 #47 and 超 #61), but now he’s at an impasse. He knows that his own Nature doesn’t align well with Ultra Instinct, but he doesn’t know the way forward. And he doesn’t get the relevance of Beerus’s questioning, but it reveals his assumptions about Nature and Conviction – although fighting is in the Nature of the Saiyans, the way in which that Nature was co-opted for power and gain, by Vegeta III and by Freeza, led to “sins” that inexorably led to their destruction. Vegeta expresses the idea that Saiyan Nature is destructive regardless of specific Conviction, and so he (as a sharer in that Nature) is plagued by “feeling guilty for the crimes of all Saiyans”, with a “doubt” that “weighs down your soul”. This isn’t surprising: Vegeta has previously used himself as a representative of Saiyans at large (e.g., DB #262, “No self-respecting Saiyan could stomach being ordered around by the likes of [Freeza]”, explaining his own defiance by appeal to broader Saiyan Nature; or DB #268, “The Saiyans are a Warrior Race!!! We will not lose!!!”, which only practically pertains to himself, linking it back to Saiyan Nature by their near-death power-up), and consequently understands his own Nature well enough. But the growth of his heroic (or at least, less ruthless) Convictions over the previous years has led to crises of confidence before – most infamously, his acceptance of Babidi’s control in exchange for greater power: “I wanted to be the way I used to be!!!! I wanted to be the ruthless and cold-blooded Saiyan!! To fight it out with [Goku] – not caring about anything else!!!! I hated how your influence was making me softer…less aggressive […] that’s why I needed to be evil again […] I finally feel strong again!” (DB #459). We find again a Vegeta whose Convictions are in conflict with his Nature: a “battle-crazed Saiyan” whose “happy place” is “immersed in battle” (超 #74), which he supposes requires the Convictions of a “callous, unfeeling man” (超 #76) – but these aren’t his Convictions anymore (or, if you prefer, these Convictions increasingly fail to relate to his True Self – as Beerus protests, “What’s it got to do with you now?”). Finding a Nature so at odds with his Convictions, he can only explain the outcomes he encounters by appeals to, and acceptance of, “Fate” (also in 超 #76, as he mulls his own death) – the last refuge of those who have “lost sight” of themselves, and of the truth.
    • Beerus will have none of this. A lot of the discussion at the time was parsed through a comparison of what Beerus says with what we know of Ultra Instinct; i.e., “My mind’s always on Destruction and nothing else. That’s why there’s no limit to my power”, as opposed to Ultra Instinct’s focus on “Not thinking about anything” (超 #64), “I gotta empty my heart and mind for that move to work” (超 #52), as though Beerus were differentiating the technical grounds for his own power from that of Ultra Instinct. That may be so, but his point is more sweeping. Unlike the key characters of the arc, (almost) all of whom have issues with the union and proper alignment of their innate Natures and their Convictions, Beerus is a character in whom both these intrinsic factors are perfectly united. His Nature is that of a God of Destruction; His Convictions are those of an individual who only thinks about that stuff (超 #69), he loves it and “it never gets old” (超 #70), his Pride is on the line when it is challenged (超 #71). When he probes away at Vegeta’s “doubt” and “guilt”, and tells him that “As long as you’re trapped by the past…you’ll never manage to grow past this point”, all of these are insights into the mismatch between Vegeta’s Nature and his Convictions. Vegeta comes into the conversation thinking to learn a technical lesson (“Weren’t you going to show me a technique used by Gods of Destruction?!”; “W-was that the technique?”), and wonders how Saiyan history could possibly be relevant. Beerus, effectively, agrees (“What’s it got to do with you now?”), except insofar as Vegeta’s Conviction is inhibited by it – that’s the target of his little spiel (which is why he says it has “plenty” to do with things), and Vegeta doesn’t actually manage to overcome these problems in the first half of the arc – instead, he makes a ‘God of Destruction’-style “pose” in 超 #73 (compare the last panel of that Chapter to Beerus’s “Go ahead. I’ll obliterate you too” panel in this one), and tries to “revert” and act like something he really isn’t in order to find greater power: in a limited sense, Vegeta succeeds insofar as he manages to fuse his Nature as a Saiyan with his Convictions in battle for a time, and thereby brings forth the power of his Instinct, but this wears down over the following Chapters – for a few reasons, but most particularly because he trades on a “pose” which doesn’t address his True Self, and his Conviction ebbs away. Beerus doesn’t have this trouble. Whis doesn’t have this trouble either (Neutral Angelic Nature, No Convictions with No Thought and Emotional Equanimity; perfect alignment of Nature and Conviction likewise), but our main characters all encounter these issues that blunt their Resolve and inhibit their power.
    • It's also noteworthy that in addition to the two intrinsic factors the arc proffers to answer its thematic question, Beerus adds a third, extrinsic factor: The Influence of Others. Vegeta makes a pessimistic assessment of what happened to the Saiyans on intrinsic factors, with the nebulous conclusion that they reaped what they sowed, and it was all just “Destiny”, sooner or later it was bound to happen. Beerus won’t have this either, and gives a much simpler extrinsic explanation: He told Freeza to go do it (as he already noted, in 超 #2). Of course, these views aren’t mutually exclusive; in 超 #3, Beerus tells Vegeta III that he’ll have to destroy Planet Vegeta one day because “I heard your people have been out of control lately”, and Freeza had many reasons of his own for destroying the Saiyans even without Beerus’s prompting. But crucially, the whole truth isn’t known until the extrinsic and intrinsic factors are united.
    While a thematic question as complex as ”What makes us who we really are?” is only answered in a broad-brush and simplistic fashion by answering Innate Nature, Conviction, and The Influence of Others (it can, for instance, yield false dichotomy, and the appeal to ‘Nature’ in particular can be very problematic in Sci-Fi and Fantasy settings when whole Species are in view – this arc won’t get around that issue entirely cleanly), it serves well enough for a kid’s comic. Toyotarou isn’t going to be Philosophising, doing Genetics or Neurology or a cultural deep-dive, though certainly other relevant factors do emerge throughout the arc to add further dimensions to the answer (even at this early point, one can hardly avoid recognising The Past as another extrinsic factor with huge thematic significance, even though Beerus here argues against its significance for the characters when considered in terms of their personal growth), and the combination and re-combination of these factors is, I think, done in a convincing and entertaining enough way. And it’s certainly plenty thoroughgoing to serve as a worthy theme for the arc – the union of these three factors through the arc is as crucial for understanding what occurred 40 years prior as it is for understanding how the characters (inter)act in the present, and for providing a substantial linkage between the present and the past. Obviously there will be more to say as we go on.
  • Oracle Fish and Whis complain about Beerus destroying another “decorative planet” (Oracle Fish’s comic reaction is just precious, by the way). Beerus has created occasional mayhem on his own pad in the manga: he destroys a decorative planet in Revival of F #2, and Whis comments that when he destroyed “those two Suns over there”, the realm was in darkness (“the very definition of inconvenient”) until he reset things – presumably the inconvenience only lasted less than 3 minutes (超 #14); Beerus also destroys a large chunk of his own planet in 超 #27 when he puts Vegeta down for landing a punch on him – he tells Whis to fix this as well.
  • We get a mild development of Hakai in the middle of Beerus’s beatdown on Vegeta; previously known to us as a means to reduce a target to a splashy pile of shining purple dust (e.g., 超 #19, 25, but not 超 #65 – Team Goku Does Not Hakai The Rock 4 Lyfe). For starters we get a development where there is a highly explosive variant with a relatively minimal outlay of power, which relies on the annihilation of matter releasing vast energy (Star Trek fans will be vaguely familiar with this via the mutually annihilating Matter-Antimatter Reaction that powers starships – though I think this probably isn’t all that’s going on here, as we’ll see); and the mastery of this power of Destruction is preliminary to the Awakening that Vegeta is able to experience in triggering Wagamama no Goku’i/Ultra Ego in 超 #74 (the Official Plot Summary describes the emergence of the transformation as an awakening of that same power of Destruction within Vegeta).
  • We get a playback of the incident where the Galactic Patrol finally captured the Saganbo Bandit Brigade (recounted in 超 #53 by Jaco) – turns out it was in a hold-up of Lord Zuno the Wise. Presumably the whole brigade was rounded up in this action, but we only see Saganbo, Zauyogi, Shimorekka, and Yunba (and we’re looking through the eyes of OG73-I). They’re ambushed by 3 Agents: Calamis, Mezashi, and Merus, who captures them with the restraints designed to hold Moro (超 #47). Rather than playing things straight and presenting the ‘offerings’ (kisses) to ask questions of Zuno, the gang opted to hold him up. As we’ve seen from Zamas’s audience in 超 #18, it is possible to intimidate Zuno into answering questions, but unless the more obviously ‘useful’ members of the Brigade declined to get involved here (the three ladies, Miza, Iwaza, and Kikaza – or even the plausibly pretty Yuzun, who might have been able to elicit a couple of questions from Zuno; significantly, none of these members of the gang seem to be present), it would probably have been easier, safer, and more useful to simply give him his kisses as required.
  • We get a casual lore dump on Namekians and Dragon Balls. The idea of a Namekian Diaspora of some sort or other makes perfect sense – in fact, it smooths out a small wrinkle from the original run, where the Namekians of Planet Namek had been thought extinct for centuries thanks to a climate catastrophe (DB #243), yet Nappa and Vegeta know that Piccolo is a Namekian by sight, and know of Namekians well enough to say that in they might have power beyond Raditz, or other unusual powers (DB #214); the single Namekian who was a member of the Galactic Patrol around AGE 739 (Jaco #3) probably doesn’t suffice to explain the familiarity, so the idea that communities of Namekians might have lived on other worlds deals with this nicely. And that they might have their own Dragon Balls is par for the course, since any sufficiently skilled member of the Dragon Clan might make them (DB #393-4) – there being fewer than seven is something of a departure, but the variation in size is long established (V-Jump noted that the Cerealian Balls are the size of ping-pong balls).

    More surprising is the revelation that Namekians originate from a realm totally separate from the 12 Universes. While no further information about this exists yet (and the Dragon Ball Super Interval Special in the V-Jump November issue establishes that despite the unique origins of the Namekians, there is a Planet Namek in Universe 6 just as in Universe 7), one immediately thinks of the related Toyble creation of the “Ryu’oshin Realm” from DBAF – the sealed Realm of the various Dragon Gods, separate from and higher than other realms, where they exist until summoned via the Dragon Balls. In DBAF, Son Goku is merged with the spirit of Shenron following the events of Dragon Ball GT, and resides there as a result. Perhaps Toyotarou has something similar in mind as the realm from where Namekians originate, since it is established that their Dragon Balls are taken directly from the original Super Dragon Balls which were created by the Dragon God Zalama (超 #6-7). As a final note, I get the impression that the double mention (albeit lightly reformulated between Monaito and Muri) of the relevance of the Dragon Balls to the efforts of brave warriors in times of suffering serves as a kind of foreshadowing to Bardock’s Wish in 超 #83.
  • Nominations are now open for a backing tune to “Sugar Toast Love”. Thank you.
  • Not that Granolah’s scarf disguise for his Dragon Ball heist isn’t impeccably cool or anything, but if I were a Sugarian Police Officer enforcing Cute Justice, and I’d found a witness who had observed this Mysterious Shrouded Intruder, my investigation would look sort of like this:

    Were they pink and three feet tall? (No) -> Were they green and hobbling on a stick? (No) -> Probably Granolah then, innit
  • The Dragon Toronbo is summoned by an immaculate callback to the summoning spell used to call forth Porunga (DB #292), adapted to include the name of this Dragon – all that’s missing is the Namekian glyphs (though Oatmeel hints that Toronbo’s language is Namekian). Toronbo himself has a very cool, distinctive design, with an Axolotl frilling similar to the Sugarians (though less cartoonish), and his icy blue-and-white shading is a nice change from the more typical green we see on our Dragons (though in Toriyama’s official promotional artwork, Shenron often tends towards more blueish hues, in keeping with conventions of an azure Chinese Shen Long). It’s not clear exactly how large Toronbo is, but it at least seems clear that he’s significantly smaller than Shenron, just as the Cerealian Dragon Balls are significantly smaller than Earth’s.

Chapter 70 – The Greatest Warrior in the Universe/The Universes’ Greatest Warrior
19 March 2021
Chapter Notes
  • Toronbo rains on Granolah’s parade by telling him he can only make him as strong as his own innate potential allows. How strong is that? In the Volume 19 Release Interview, Toyotarou puts both Granolah and Gas in a band of strength occupied by Freeza Force Elites; probably above the Ginyu Force but below Freeza on Namek, so “maybe around Abo and Kado’s level” (Timestamp: 04:16 to 06:00). This refers to the antagonists of Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return, former elite soldiers of Freeza’s army – Vegeta remembers them as “shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ginyu Special Squad”, and Tarble adds that they’ve improved since then, and are now “strong enough to rival Freeza”. In the manga, Goten and Trunks promptly deck them, forcing them to fuse. This puts the pair below 530,000 BP, but likely well above 120,000 BP each: in the upper echelons of power in the Universe (less Goku and the gang, natch), so at least it’s a plausibly high starting point. As we saw in 超 #68, Gas is already significantly stronger than Granolah, and arguably Oil (and Macki?) also exist in this broad band of power, since Elec and Oil both seem to think he should be able to subdue Granolah, later on.
  • Toronbo’s extra-clauses-on-wish-granting schtick is an interesting swerve for the Dragons. We’re used to the idea that the various Dragons have differing capacities for unclear reasons:
    • Shenron will give you “any” wish, but only one (DB #20) until Dende makes him grant three (DB #394); he can’t grant the same wish twice (DB #198), he can revive the dead but, weirdly, not those who died of “natural causes” or those who have been dead for over a year (DB #321) – unless it’s Freeza, of course (Revival of F) – and he can’t grant wishes affecting things in a way that surpasses the power of his creator (DB #212), whatever that’s supposed to mean – if that were strictly applied to the wishes made in Dragon Ball, panties are all anyone could have been successfully granted. That said, he can make grouped wishes that extend to revivals from the dead, which is his original unique advantage (e.g., DB #165; but later that costs the ability to make one of the three wishes Dende endows him with: DB #394). He can also determine how to interpret wishes to an extent: he decides how young to make the Pilaf Gang, who aren’t specific enough with their wish (Battle of Gods; Bonus Comic #2), and Super Hero adds to this by Shenron gifting Piccolo with power beyond what his wish strictly asks for.
    • Porunga will grant three wishes (DB #292), which is his original unique advantage, but he’s stingy about restoring people to life: just one at a time; revival wishes can’t be grouped (until Muri changes all that: DB #514). Like Shenron, Porunga has the nebulous restriction that he can’t surpass the ability of his creator to affect things; this apparently means that he can bring back a whole planet with no issue (DB #513) but can’t avert the evils of Climate Change (DB #243), and his ability to grant a wish can be actively resisted by someone more powerful (e.g., Son Goku’s refusal to return to Earth: DB #329). Sometimes Porunga will read into the nature of the wish to grant what is not asked but is logically implicit (e.g., in reviving Kuririn he also restores his body and clothes: DB #329), but sometimes only grants wishes to the letter (e.g., bringing Piccolo to Namek, but not to the spot where the wish is made: DB #293); he also implies that he would not be able to grant a wish gifting Goku more energy than his “normal levels” (DB #516), though he can grant a simply restorative one (see also 超 #48).
    • Toronbo will give you one wish only (超 #70), and his ability to grant wishes can likewise be resisted by those more powerful (e.g., Bardock’s refusal to be sent away: 超 #83). But, boy, he sure does take the initiative where the other Dragons would just say “Nope”, and his ability to offer “conditions” to grant otherwise impossible wishes is clearly his unique advantage (Monaito knows offhand he can do this: 超 #70), e.g., drawing down on a different dimension of Granolah’s “potential” (his lifespan, since the conventional understanding of his “latent potential” won’t do the job) to pack it with hypothetical activity as though it were actual, and present the results to him as a granted wish. And he interprets his wishes with maximum latitude: not only does he give Granolah (and then Gas) raw strength enough to be the “#1 Warrior in the Universe”/“Most Powerful Life-Form”, but they get a litany of techniques that could be seen as accessories to ensuring that status (Jiren might think he can say what is or isn’t “True Strength”, but Toronbo clearly has a more expansive conception, firing off different versions of Hakai and Shunkan Idou, etc., along with vastly powered-up innate abilities, like Granolah’s eye); in Gas’s case, though we are never privy to the wording of the wish, it seems to continually raise Gas’s power to keep him as the Mightiest, though it burns away his lifespan.
    • Super Shenron can do literally anything (超 #42). For now.
  • Granolah sacrificing his lifespan isn’t a particularly original consequence, but it does underscore pretty effectively how deep and unnaturally warped his Convictions are, which drive him through the early arc. Moreover, there’s perhaps a neat little twist on the idea of “fate” (which already emerged in 超 #69, and will come up again at the end of this Chapter) in that Granolah’s wish has sealed his fate – by burning away his Future on the hypothetical that he used it to gain power to take his revenge, he has erased all the other possibilities of that Future, and anything he might have chosen to do with his life is now impossible because it has already been spent (see Vegeta, 超 #76: “You think you survived all this time just to take revenge on us? There’s nothing more to your life?”): both his Past and his Future are unchangeable now, leaving only a sliver of the Present in which he is free to act on his Convictions, and change them.
  • Elsewhere, Beerus explains more about Hakai to Vegeta, to distinguish it from just blasting a target with ki. The Japanese wording is that it turns “1” (イチ) into “0” (ゼロ). The rendering “something into nothing” in English is fine, but this specific phrasing alludes, I would argue, to a Chinese cosmogonic idea that is encapsulated most pithily in Daoist writings – basically, that behind all existence is the hidden Cosmic nullity (“0”) that is Dao/Tao (“The Way”), from which all things automatically spring and in which they maintain the essential ground of their being; the emergence of things (“1”) from this nothingness is pervaded by Qi (ki), controlled by the oppositional balance of the principles of Yin and Yang (thus Dao holds both Being and Non-Being within itself), and proceeds according to De/Te (traditionally translated “Virtue”, but with the meaning more like the “Nature” or “Power” of existing things) – the classic expression is from the Daodejing/Tao Te Ching of Laozi/Lao Tzu:

    “Heaven and earth and the ten thousand things come from existence, but existence comes from non-existence.” – Daodejing 40.3-4, Trans. Susuki

    “Reason [Dao] begets unity; unity begets duality; duality begets trinity; and trinity begets the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things are sustained by Yin; they are encompassed by Yang, and the immaterial breath [Qi] renders them harmonious.” – Daodejing 42.1-8, Trans. Susuki


    Since we’re talking about (to us) obscure Chinese philosophy in relation to a Japanese kid’s comic, this might at first seem like a stretch. I’m not arguing that Toyotarou or Toriyama are interested in (or even consciously aware of) Chinese or specifically Daoist philosophy as written. I am saying that, thanks to the historic influence of Chinese ideas on Japan, this idea may have enough currency (however diffuse) to stand behind what Beerus is saying. As an example, those of you who are familiar with another giant of Japanese popular culture, Metal Gear, may recall Big Boss’s seemingly baffling, tortuous argument in MGS4’s epilogue: he has to kill the insensible geriatric “Major Zero” because “Everything has its beginning, but it doesn’t start at ‘1’. It starts long before that, in Chaos. The world is born from ‘0’. The moment ‘0’ becomes ‘1’, is the moment the world springs to life. ‘1’ becomes ‘2’, ‘2’ becomes ‘10’, ‘10’ becomes ‘100’ – taking it all back to ‘1’ solves nothing. So long as ‘0’ remains, ‘1’ will eventually grow back to ‘100’ again. And so our goal was to erase Zero.” The argument is actually a pretty on-the-nose appropriation of what we just saw are classic Daoist ideas – Kojima may as well have copy-pasted Laozi. So, the notion isn’t too obscure to gain another pop-culture airing. But even if the idea is common enough and Toyotarou is playing with it here, why does it matter? I would argue that these ideas can be seen fruitfully in two key ways:
    • Firstly, in the cosmic significance of the literal relationship between “0” and “1”: Beerus reminded Vegeta in 超 #69 that “Before Creation, comes Destruction”, and the principle underpinning that can be seen here; Hakai takes a thing back from the “1” of createdness to the much greater, more significant “0” (Dao) in which all things ground their innate power (De). Hakai isn’t just about blowing things up; it’s about manipulating the power of (non-)existence (Dao) that stands behind the power of all things in their existence (De): even a tiny inert pebble is grounded in the immeasurable continuum of the nothingness from which it springs, and Hakai uses it as a key to accessing the power which gives it its character, which is so much greater than the thing itself. That’s why it is such vast power. As I said above, it’s intelligible and accessible enough to think of Destruction as though it is something like Matter/Antimatter annihilation, but I would argue that the return from “1” to “0” is actually more specific and significant than that – and what’s more, its positioning within Daoist thought relates to the journey of the main characters, as we’ll see.
    • This leads to the second point, which is that its significance is thematic for the characters and for the arc’s question, “What makes us who we really are?”. For Daoism, a person acts most effectively when their own De is aligned with Dao, and their action is thereby in tune with their own True Natures because Dao makes each person’s De what it is. Daoists argue that people obscure their True Natures thanks to their conscious ideation (their ideas about themselves and the world they live in, their conscious intentions and plans, etc.), and these delusions tend overwhelmingly to do violence to one’s own nature and to the order of things. People replace True Nature with laws and concepts of righteousness and humaneness, ritual, etc.; these obfuscate the Way, and so they are invariably counterproductive. But a being who acts in accordance with their True Nature, acts following Dao and De; they follow the freedom and spontaneity of their own Natures. This is called Wuwei (Lit., “Actionless Action”): their acts lack conscious intentionality and are instead reflexive expressions of their very Being; their actions are thus appropriate to and in harmony with every situation, and find success. Despite this being Daoist philosophy and having a certain richness that comes from knowing of the connection, the general principle alone is also plenty widespread in conventional wisdom – anyone who’s had a brush with, say, Disney, is familiar enough with the idea that being 'true to yourself' is crucial to success (and Toyotarou and Toriyama are definitely influenced by Disney). Every character in this arc finds an Awakening that is directly linked to recognising their Innate Nature – Vegeta appeals to his Nature as a “battle-crazed Saiyan” immediately before activating Ultra Ego for the first time, declaring “A God of Destruction taught me that power derived solely from Instinct is unbounded” (超 #74), and he specifies that his power is “innate” (超 #75); Granolah’s development of power likewise takes innate expression, as the red eye, “the mark of your people”, is duplicated when his full power comes forth (超 #75); Gas’s “Innate Nature” is fully released as a preliminary to his own Awakening (超 #80); Bardock appeals to how “We Saiyans have a way of growing and evolving” to push past their limits when he surpasses Gas (超 #83), and Son Goku, just before breaking new ground in Ultra Instinct, says “That’s just how I am”, before explaining that he’s using his own natural emotions in his favour to power his development of Ultra Instinct (超 #85).
    To phrase it another way, True Self emerges at the nexus point between each character’s Nature and their Conviction. Vegeta doesn’t just talk about being a Saiyan, he talks about full immersion in combat being his own personal “happy place”; Granolah doesn’t just get his second red eye from growing into his power, he gets it when he has to protect Planet Cereal from Destruction; Gas doesn’t just unleash his Innate Nature (termed 本能: hon’nō, or “Instinct”), which makes him lose his sense of self (自我, jiga): he is also reminded of his Conviction that he will never suffer defeat again; Bardock doesn’t just appeal to his growth as a Saiyan, but to the fact that he thinks of nothing except Victory; and Son Goku’s Conviction as a character generally is driven by his emotions, which he enlists in service of Ultra Instinct. Even Monaito gets development along these lines when his innate healing ability is perfected once he demonstrates the Conviction that he won’t let anyone else die (超 #81; #87). Nature and Conviction find perfect Unity. Sometimes it is fleeting, particularly when Conviction is undermined, as we will see; and there’s the ever-present caveat that the Convictions of some of these characters are mismatched, distorting their Nature and causing harm, or inhibiting their True Self, making them ineffectual (this relates back to what I said earlier about every character in the arc engaging in a “pose”); but when these two factors are truly aligned, that union is always the spur to the True Self, and to growth. That all starts in Beerus’s interactions with Vegeta.
  • There’s a really nice counterpoint in the depiction of Vegeta’s and Granolah’s progress through Destruction. Vegeta uses it on the tiniest of pebbles, whereas the empowered Granolah flattens a mountaintop with the huge Hakai on a boulder (which, incidentally, is my nod for Favourite Art in this Chapter – particularly in the colour version, which looks glorious). That this is the same technique is clear from the coy use of Oatmeel to ask what the technique is (and, cutely, the same sound-effect on activation is used both times, but with different lettering sizes), and the colour manga uses identical colours. Discussion about this was captured by the idea that the arc was pushing a ‘slow and steady wins the race’ sentiment (particularly given Monaito’s warning about what tomorrow might bring), and that Vegeta’s Hakai would surpass Granolah’s own because he’d worked for it as opposed to merely wishing for it; but Granolah remains pretty unimpressed with Vegeta’s Hakai when they face off (超 #74), and if the idea materialises at all, it’s only oblique, in Vegeta’s path leading to Ultra Ego. But that leads us back to the union of Nature and Conviction – Granolah has the latter in spades, but it isn’t in his Nature as a Cerealian to be an agent of Destruction (however much he poses as one, and has power enough to make the pose pretty convincing), whereas Vegeta is actually able to align the two in a more coherent manner. It’s also worth noting that Destruction as such unites the various characters in the arc: the Heeters, Vegeta, and Granolah are all (at least aspiring) agents of Destruction; Vegeta, Granolah, Monaito, and Son Goku are all survivors of Destruction.
  • Granolah’s wish comes with lush hair growth, which he chops back later. The physical changes wrought on Gas by the same kind of wish (超 #78) indicates that this is supposed to betray signs of ageing. As Granolah reveals he has traded away all but 3 years of his life, he’s effectively 197-ish now despite being “Somewhere in his 50’s”, and still appears to be in his prime – Toyotarou explains that Cerealians, like Saiyans, have a long fighting prime in “peak physicality” (Timestamp: 01:52 to 02:10).
  • I like the subtle way in which Freeza’s absence is broached: Granolah can’t sense him nearby, and the Heeters don’t know exactly where he is (though Oil seems to think Elec could tell Granolah, and he does manage to get word to Freeza’s goons around 超 #79); both plausible enough without us yet knowing the true reason. It’s interesting to think of Freeza’s absence as being a ‘presence’ of its own which gives the arc its basic shape; obviously the basic arc scenario would have been impossible had Freeza been present in the Universe when Granolah’s wish was made, he looms large in the background to the arc, and had Elec simply given Granolah the information he was seeking, Freeza would have merked him just as Elec intended. But particularly, Freeza’s absence (and impending presence) are integral to the encounter between Gas and Bardock 40 years ago (超 #77, 82-83) and between Gas and Goku and Vegeta in the present (超 #87), and his appearance almost immediately ends the arc. His role reminds me of nothing so much as Zeno-Sama in the Future Trunks arc: important from the get-go, his involvement is repeatedly teased and deferred, and his actual appearance instantly resolves the main conflict when the efforts of the heroes have merely escalated the fight and, perversely, the capabilities of their enemy.
  • I don’t know if this is accurate to the Japanese rendering, but the three more talkative Heeters are given a rough, unpolished idiom that belies their moneyed status (in this scene alone, we get “You ain’t strong enough to handle Freeza”; “Didja have a nice dream or somethin’?”; “Say G’Night!” even before the fight starts) – perhaps this marks them out as parvenus who have attained their affluence through dirty money and gangsterism, or else merely directly opposes their manner to Freeza’s notoriously (condescending, but) polite and ‘refined’ speech patterns laced with honorifics and other formal features.
  • The fight between Granolah and Oil and Macki is perhaps a little superfluous, but it’s neatly done, and has a few touches of levity that will be practically absent in this arc’s action scenes (until 超 #82) – the ripple on Oil’s gut from Granolah’s tap; Granolah’s bored little side-eye at Elec’s impromptu match-up; the Looney Toons-esque outline from Oil’s plunge; Granolah’s delicate binding of Macki’s hands amid her furious assault – and it does a good job of showcasing Granolah’s strength, speed, accuracy, and even his command of the more conventional version of Hakai. It’s a tad over-long, but neat.
  • The Super Eat-a-thon continues with the Heeters at their Business Dinner, mulling what to do about Granolah’s power. Most of the dishes are alien and unrecognisable, apart from a couple (e.g., Oil’s sandwiches/burgers; the huge game bird Elec demonstratively stabs), but there does appear to be a dish of eyeballs among the delicacies.
  • Well, that’s the opening of the arc done, and it’s been a really bold, jam-packed curtain-raiser. What else is there to say?

    We get a well-sketched central character in Granolah – with a cool design, a clear motivation, and a programme of action that makes sense and points the way forward for the plot; the inclusion of the Heeters and the Cereal-specific detail gives plenty of extra contextual information for the state of the Universe, past and present (apart from giving us some intriguing antagonists whose schtick is different enough to set them apart from what we’ve seen so far); Beerus’s development of Vegeta in particular sets in motion what is probably the strongest material in the arc, intertwining strong thematic and character linkage while giving us greater insight into the powers of the Gods of Destruction and bifurcating Goku and Vegeta’s paths to power further. And whatever you think of Granolah’s wish, the Dragon Balls undeniably re-emerge as an absolutely essential and pervasive plot element where they’ve lately been a bit of a sideshow.

    Just to illustrate how full of stuff this portion of the arc is (particularly when tying it into the rest of the arc in retrospect: i.e., the point of doing a Re-Read), I hit the character limits for posting both times; I could easily have written more. In that sense, I can sort of sympathise with those who were disappointed with the back half of the arc (and while I’m not nearly so down on it, I do accept that the arc is something of a game of two halves): the opener introduces a huge amount of story potentiality through the regulars and the new guys as it is, that one could see the straightforward battle-escalation tack it seems to take thereafter as a waste. But then again, the story potentiality, as so often in Dragon Ball Super, is as much about the seeding of the themes in the individual character arcs and the combination and re-combination of those features to tell the story, as anything else – and as we’ve seen, this part of the arc begins to see this work being done also. We’ll have to see whether, all things considered, it really bears fruit in the telling.
All righty then – verbosity, check. Now it’s over to y’all – what did you get from your Re-Read?

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Magnificent Ponta
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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Sun Jan 01, 2023 7:28 am

Hm. Well, that's peculiar.

Been getting a weird little Server issue in trying to post the above, which led to a double-post of the latest instalment; interestingly, neither of these appear to notify as new posts in this topic anywhere else on the forum (and I've reported it), but the main post seems to appear here okay for me, so hopefully it looks okay to others! Enjoy (and Happy New Year, y'all)!
Last edited by Magnificent Ponta on Sun Jan 01, 2023 8:46 am, edited 4 times in total.

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GreatSaiyaman123
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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by GreatSaiyaman123 » Sun Jan 01, 2023 6:29 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:55 pm It's true that Vegetto's return is total unapologetic fanservice (tbf, I think Toyotaro was correct that everyone would have complained if we didn't get a Potara vs. Potara fusion match at some point in that arc), but it does serve an incidental yet important purpose in the plot: Vegeta sees inside Goku's mind while they are merged and discovers his true final trump card, the completed Super Saiyan Blue. I guess Vegetto's only real purpose in the anime is figuring out Zamasu's weakness as only a half-immortal. In both mediums, it isn't much, but I like that Vegetto gives Vegeta the chance to show some great character development again -- he relinquishes the honours to Goku without even needing to be convinced.
You're right: It's better to give this match up a shot than miss the opportunity. I think it all just detracts from the point though: Not only it begs the point as to why Goku didn't try PSSJB first since they both hated fusion, but it creates an inconsistency. After Vegetto defused in the Boo Saga, Vegeta saw the boys inside of Boo and thought they defused from the "bad air" just like Vegetto. He didn't see Gotenks-Boo in Goku's head, and Goku had to explain it to him.

Vegeta "relinquishing the honours" happens pretty much every saga now so I don't think it means much, but at least fusion was also important in making Vegeta warming up to the idea of fusing vs Broly. He was convinced pretty easily, so Vegetto's 2nd outing was at least important in this development.
I've always found the Super Saiyan Blue stamina weakness quite funny, because in retrospect it makes Goku and Vegeta total hypocrites in their jeering at Freeza's failure to master his new transformation. In the manga continuity, they must have made the exact same mistake of rushing to Earth without properly mastering Blue. I do wonder how a full Toyotaro version of the Golden Freeza arc would have gone down, knowing that even a single quick transformation into incomplete SS Blue cripples its effectiveness. :think: Perhaps his version of the arc would have featured a surprise SS God appearance, just like the later arcs.
In the anime they seemed to be doing the training to unlock SSJB at the same time of Freeza's arrival. The timeline of their training is a bit compressed to run parallel to Freeza's arrival, but it did seem like they had just unlocked the form before coming to Earth. I've always liked to see all mediums as complementing each other in some details. The manga is the only medium that shows how Pilaf got de-aged and it often doesn't bother retelling the movies, although training filler has always been a thing in the series.

As it is now, the RoF manga should be more or less the same as the movie (Bar maybe Freeza being weaker than Base Goku), but I think if Toyotaro had his chance he'd definitely have saved Blue for later. He was definitely smarter than Toriyama when it comes to handling the forms; I imagine it was primarily his idea to keep the golden SSJ forms instead of making Blue the only form like Toriyama suggested.
Magnificent Ponta wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 3:19 pm If you carry on, hopefully you'll enjoy the coverage of the Tournament of Power arc - it's still my favourite, I think, and hopefully you'll see why.
I'll definitely get to it, probably by this week. His rendition of the Tournament of Power has always been my least favorite work of his though,
Magnificent Ponta wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 3:19 pm If I had to guess at the Outline reasons for Zamas2 being so "weak", I'd say it's simply because the constituent parts aren't 'all that' (like when Shin and Kibito fuse): Zamas is arguably weaker than Base Goku, and Black is weaker than SSjB Vegeta even in Rose, when all is said and done. Even with a fair-sized fusion boost, the de facto power-up that Completed SSjB represents makes sense as a match for Zamas2, as far as I can make out.
Interestingly, both adaptations seem to keep this tidbit despite trying to ignore it and making Zamasu powerful. Manga Zamasu does waste a lot of time toying around with Goku and Vegeta, and even if PSSJB is a new form, it's pretty much still Blue. The anime is more straightforward: All of the Saiyans are capable of putting up a resistance against Zamasu via teamwork or going to the very limits of their bodies and eventually loses to an attack made of everyone's hopes. I guess Vegetto also counts as Goku and Vegeta working together...

This also gets me wondering... How did Toriyama imagine Black starting as a threat to SSJB but eventually falling so far behind? I suspect he might have left it open for the writers, but on the movies Goku and Vegeta don't seem to go through any considerable power ups after RoF... but then again the movies are an incomplete picture.
Magnificent Ponta wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 3:19 pm I really like Shin's involvement in this arc too (and in the Super manga more generally, but much of it is in the Future Trunks arc - it single-handedly changed my perspective on Shin from thinking of him as a bit of a well-intentioned loser nonentity to a character who I actually really like); in this arc in particular, he's such a good example of a weaker character stepping up no matter what.
Put it that way, Shin reminds me of Kuririn here: Little guy who's always keeping up no matter outmatched. He just needs to pay some more attention to his job, I guess.
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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Mon Jan 02, 2023 9:01 am

GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 6:29 pm You're right: It's better to give this match up a shot than miss the opportunity. I think it all just detracts from the point though: Not only it begs the point as to why Goku didn't try PSSJB first since they both hated fusion, but it creates an inconsistency. After Vegetto defused in the Boo Saga, Vegeta saw the boys inside of Boo and thought they defused from the "bad air" just like Vegetto. He didn't see Gotenks-Boo in Goku's head, and Goku had to explain it to him.
Justifying why they went with Vegetto before Perfected Blue, there are a few points to consider. Vegeta may famously have issues with fusion, but Goku has consistently been more enthusiastic about the prospect every time it comes up, which I think comes from a place of sheer curiosity about how strong and cool they can be while fused. Although it was his final trump card, Perfected Blue was still a huge gamble for Goku. While it allows him to fight at full capacity indefinitely, any minor slip up could have worse effects than simple tiredness. It may be cheap, but frankly, Vegetto is always a safer bet -- his power utterly dwarfs any evolution of Super Saiyan Blue that Goku or Vegeta could formulate individually, so if they had a chance to unleash him against a dangerous (more so than in Toriyama's outlines) opponent like Fusion Zamasu, it would have been foolish not to try. Gowasu explaining that Potara fusion is only temporary seals the deal.

We may not have much insight into the ramifications of two minds merging into one, but I'd guess that Vegeta didn't recognise Buutenks simply because Goku wasn't thinking about it while they were fused. They were focused on their current opponent, which at the time was Buuhan. It's only a minor inconsistency, of which this franchise has plenty.
Vegeta "relinquishing the honours" happens pretty much every saga now so I don't think it means much, but at least fusion was also important in making Vegeta warming up to the idea of fusing vs Broly. He was convinced pretty easily, so Vegetto's 2nd outing was at least important in this development.
True, though the more recent arcs really emphasise Vegeta's stubborn unwillingness to forfeit victories to Goku, whereas that problem rarely came up in the earlier arcs and, when push comes to shove, Vegeta would swallow his pride more willingly. Compare that to the violent culmination of Vegeta's insecurities in the Granolah arc. That said, in the same arc, Vegeta does hand Goku some energy while they are both paralysed by Gas, so old habits die hard, I guess. And if only the Fusion Dance wasn't so embarrassing, he would've indeed come round to the idea much quicker in the movie.
In the anime they seemed to be doing the training to unlock SSJB at the same time of Freeza's arrival. The timeline of their training is a bit compressed to run parallel to Freeza's arrival, but it did seem like they had just unlocked the form before coming to Earth. I've always liked to see all mediums as complementing each other in some details. The manga is the only medium that shows how Pilaf got de-aged and it often doesn't bother retelling the movies, although training filler has always been a thing in the series.

As it is now, the RoF manga should be more or less the same as the movie (Bar maybe Freeza being weaker than Base Goku), but I think if Toyotaro had his chance he'd definitely have saved Blue for later. He was definitely smarter than Toriyama when it comes to handling the forms; I imagine it was primarily his idea to keep the golden SSJ forms instead of making Blue the only form like Toriyama suggested.
I like to view Super through a similar lens, though considering how differently all the mediums approach the story, it can be hard to reconcile them sometimes. The overall vagueness of what goes on with Super's writing processes means we can't say for sure who came up with the idea of bringing back the golden Super Saiyan forms -- I would also be inclined to say it was Toyotaro, but it's possible that Toriyama (or, more likely, one of his editors) realised that erasing these iconic forms would never fly in the long run, so they back-peddled and hoped nobody would notice Toriyama's earlier statements on the matter. What's also ironic is that Toyotaro's ROF promo manga had perhaps the most explicit portrayal of Goku using Super Saiyan God's power in his base form outside of Dragon Ball Heroes, yet that plot point was completely ignored in the actual Super manga storyline; there, Goku remains as a Super Saiyan God for his entire fight against Beerus and never learns to absorb it. That omission certainly made it easier to facilitate the return of Super Saiyan God in the Universe 6 arc and beyond with fewer questions asked.

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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by GreatSaiyaman123 » Wed Jan 04, 2023 3:47 pm

I think the ToP is a interesting case. A free-for-all between 80 people has every right to be overblown, but Toyo couldn't allow himself the luxury of padding; leave that for the Toei staff. His ToP is a much more intimate affair, like you said it all comes down to Universes 6, 7 and 11 (6 deserves the bronze medal much more than U4 and U3), specially 7 and 11.

With the first four sagas, I can't help but always compare each version (As I told LoganForkHands73, I think they're meant to complete and contrast each other). 17 and Freeza being stand outs and Vegeta being completely forgotten 90% of the tournament seem to be things right off of AT's draft, so I can't say much about it aside from a few details later. Surprisingly, Jiren's characterization seems all Toyo: In this saga I finished the manga first, so I was surprised that Jiren has hardly anything besides glimpes of a generic origin story for him. He still comes off as comically incompetent most of the saga however, and this kind of plot armour is something I've already complained about before. At least in the TV show Jiren had his mysterious meditation, possibly related to balancing his stamina issues, but in the manga he just stands there and lets Goku dish out at him for at least 15 minutes. What's up with that? Even Hit got a proper send off, and it's not like he was invested in Goku's talk like the assassin was.

Talking about Goku, did you notice he only ever fights Pride Troopers? And Kale, but only because Roshi told him get off the PT and go help Freeza... I'm sorry if you already pointed that out, I went through a lot of text, but it seems like Goku is always trying to fight his way up to Jiren somehow.

Most of the fights are like what-if, interesting counterparts: What if Freeza fought the girls instead of Goku? What if Gohan and Piccolo fought U9 instead of Goku and Vegeta? I don't mind Kuririn and Tien going off early, as you said that's not their main role... although Kuririn's support is made completely irrelevant by Gamisara/Damon stealing 18's W, even if I think Ribrianne finding Kuririn handsome much more AT-esque than the opposite.

Roshi is Toyotaro's one open misfire, however. He's already taught Goku everything he knows, to a point where he was actually having to train in secret before admitting this generation has surpassed him. Goku has also went ahead and trained with further greater masters than Roshi himself could ever hope to even meet. Is the implication here that Goku could have had UI (or it's watered-down, mortal variant) all along if he just listened? Or did Goku regress at some point in the series? What about Whis, could he have taught Goku UI as early as RoF? I'm not sure if Roshi is just being hypocritical or playing to the ambiguous meaning of "true strength" but he once said this:
Kame-sennin: “Ultimately the martial arts come down to two bodies colliding together…In the end, the stronger person wins…It’s simple…
He then goes on to say Goku's small size contradicts this principle in the same line, but he also won their fight thanks to being bigger so it all evens out.

As some middle of the road comments, I also want to say the anime handled Kale's journey better (Although her power was fairly inconsistent and the manga makes a better parallel with Broly, the way she was just turned into a rampaging beast and brushed aside is outright insulting) and that you (Or someone else in this thread) helped me realize 17 hearing Damon when Piccolo didn't actually makes plenty of sense. Another reason 17 is awesome, I guess... There's also some classic AT irony here with Piccolo not hearing Damon. Anime still did it better though.

As I said earlier, the only person to blame for Vegeta spending the tournament in a off screen fight is AT himself. Toei gave him something interesting to do with SSJBE as a mirror to Kaio-Ken Blue/UI, Toyotaro tried to copy the idea but the execution fell flat on it's flace. SSJBE is truly the most pointless form of the entire series. Vegeta thinking about his family might be a beaten trope (Though he never drew power from those thoughts before), but the only thing more beaten than that is "No Kakarott can't surpass me!". Vegeta is just a caricature of himself the whole tournament, specially in this moment.

And now, the finale. It's very simple, but also very effective. Before the teams were selected me and a friend would joke about Goku and Jiren double KO'ing each other and Yamcha's fallen body (Yes in that pose) being the winner. This is like a serious version of that, and 17 only coming out in the very last minute is much better. Granted 17 being alive was a surprise to no one by this point thanks to the anime, but Toyo drawing 18 in a poker face right next to Kuririn's cry totally kills the mood.

(Him saying "what am I gonna tell his wife and children now?" also reminds me of TFS Kuririn having to tell Chi-Chi Goku died lol. Given how death works in DB he sounds more worried about the wife kicking his ass than anything, so the scene never packed any punch for me here).

Freeza actually thinking rather than alternating between being KO'd and jumping Jiren like a rabid dog is great too. His sacrifice was a bit pointless though... He and 17 should have no problem against this fatigued Jiren. Still, he, 17 and Jiren were the best characters here in the manga.

A small touch on Broly (Still haven't read your "re-read" on it): Did you know the full color manga never gives him the green hair? I think it's just a mistake (Or a nod to the novel saying Gogeta beat him out of the form), but some people think Broly never goes beyond SSJ1 in the manga. It's obviously wrong, but still something curious.
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Re: The Super Re-Read

Post by Magnificent Ponta » Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:47 am

Thanks again for your comments! Here's my take on some of it:
GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 3:47 pmWith the first four sagas, I can't help but always compare each version (As I told LoganForkHands73, I think they're meant to complete and contrast each other).
I personally try not to make a habit of using my reading to make comparisons between the two media. I find it has previously been kind of limiting to look at the manga strictly in comparison to the anime, because then one starts automatically thinking in terms of direct contrast of approaches rather than necessarily evaluating the approach each has chosen on its own terms (i.e., 'does it have merit for itself and do I like it as it is?', rather than 'is it different to the anime and do I like that better because (arbitrary reason x)?').

I haven't tended to find that the approach yields much insight; it more typically just feeds the Super Manga-Anime Tribalism that occasionally rears its head (most apparent in this arc, of all the arcs) and leads to tiresome stuff like grousing about individual character 'showings' and whether or not the elimination of every made-up nobody from Universe Whatever is documented in excruciating detail, rather than looking at whether the overall approach taken suits the story they're trying to tell and is a source of enjoyment in itself. I don't think I've really changed my mind about all that from when I originally wrote the Re-Read for this arc.

That said, Toyotarou has obviously gone on record occasionally stating that he's made deliberate accommodations to the anime, so he's certainly very aware of it at all times even now, and it would be interesting to know how much incidental anime-only content he takes for granted as being part of the world he's writing when he creates the manga (i.e., he doesn't write about it, doesn't feel he needs to in order to tell the story, but assumes it's true for his version of Dragon World and its events all the same).
GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 3:47 pmbut in the manga he just stands there and lets Goku dish out at him for at least 15 minutes. What's up with that? Even Hit got a proper send off, and it's not like he was invested in Goku's talk like the assassin was.
Actually, I'd say Jiren is pretty taken with Goku for a little while after the Hit fight; not with his talk, nor by any threat he might pose (nothing threatens Jiren, obviously), but he's intrigued by his capacity for insight. Goku being able to notice something about Jiren that he didn't expect makes him curious enough to see whether there's anything more to Goku than the initial unimpressive showing.

As it so happens, around 15-20 minutes further in, Jiren's concluded that there really isn't anything more to Goku than there seemed at first, and he's preparing to eliminate him all over again ("The same moves, time and time again...if that's all you've got, this is a waste of time. Allow me to end it."). That's because Goku's just been grinding himself down on Jiren by trying to best him along a criterion where he can't be beaten (that is, pure conventional Battle Power terms); he's not really using the insight that Jiren was curious about and is perhaps hoping to see a little more of. That comes next, with a little help (and of course piques Jiren's interest all over again).
GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 3:47 pmRoshi is Toyotaro's one open misfire, however. He's already taught Goku everything he knows, to a point where he was actually having to train in secret before admitting this generation has surpassed him. Goku has also went ahead and trained with further greater masters than Roshi himself could ever hope to even meet. Is the implication here that Goku could have had UI (or it's watered-down, mortal variant) all along if he just listened? Or did Goku regress at some point in the series?
As you might expect, I can't agree with this; I think it lands slightly askew of the point the Chapter is trying to make. Roshi isn't teaching Goku some sort of 'greater mystery' that he's held back from him or something, and Goku hasn't regressed; Goku has indeed moved on to bigger and better. That's both the mark of his talent and the nature of his problem. Roshi is just reminding Goku of something more basic that he already knows full well, but has lost sight of because of the specific nature of the challenges he has had to face in recent decades.

Goku has been going toe-to-toe with an escalating Battle Power among his enemies (hence Roshi's "Who taught you that? Vegeta? Freeza?"), and has found various means of dealing with this that worked for him at the time (techniques and transformations: he even tries pulling a version of Kaio-Ken out in this same story beat), and are genuine progress in themselves, but this has its limits, and in this particular circumstance, a Strength-versus-Strength approach gets Goku nowhere (because Jiren is the pinnacle of that approach) and it limits him, because he already has everything he needs to get over the "wall" he was talking about earlier in the arc. It's about himself, making the best use of what he's already got.

Super likes bringing out fundamental lessons that make for genuine and new progress even at the pinnacle of power, because these are keys to making sure that the main characters stay true to themselves; that's the spur of progress. The Granolah arc will run with this kind of insight again, albeit with totally different foundations: not simply focusing on what Goku has learned as a fabulously talented Martial Artist, but also drawing in his nature as a Saiyan and more broadly as a fighter, and being able to integrate his whole self into that.

One of the things I appreciate most about the Super manga is that it takes what could have simply been a flashy, empty nostalgia trip for fanservice and nothing more, and actually makes productive and creative use of the past of the franchise and its characters in constructing the story and laying down its principal themes and beats (like in Chapter 39); it actually makes an out-and-out virtue of that stuff. That's how I feel about it, anyway.

Since we're on the Tournament of Power stuff right now, I figured I'd just go back and highlight one point of detail I didn't address the first time around in Chapter 31, because I didn't know it then:
Magnificent Ponta wrote: Sun Nov 15, 2020 9:49 am Chapter 31 - Super Warriors Assemble!/The Super Warriors Gather!
  • Monster island is a pretty fun location, and #17's reasoning for being there - "Monsters are wildlife too" - is a pretty fitting take on an otherwise slightly unusual aspect of his character. Toriyama established #17's job as a Ranger for a Royal Park some time back, and that he's likely embarrassed by its comparative wholesomeness (I imagine 'working for The Man' doesn't sit very well with him, either, so it's also fitting that he sticks two fingers up - figuratively speaking - at the Zenos at the end of the arc), though it pays well enough to help support a family of 5. The monsters mostly appear to be dinosaur-based, with various pterodactyl-type, Tyrannosaurus-type and Brachiosaurus-type monsters, but there are several others which give this general area my vote for favourite art - most notably the weird little hare-tortoise in the corner of one panel, and of course the Minotauruses, which are the targets of the poachers (to delve briefly into Pokemon for a moment, they seem to sort of resemble a cross between a Tauros and a Bouffalant).
The creatures on Monster Island, it turns out, are mostly references by Toyotarou to Toriyama's children's work Toccio the Angel: in which, an errant Angel is exiled to a wild island 'On Probation'; he tries to solve the problems of the various resident animals in order to keep his job but is terrible at it and upsets them all, until the island is menaced by a huge monster which he wards off by means of commandeering a sentient tank he found earlier in the story, thus earning their eternal gratitude. (Basically, more-or-less).

The colourists, of course, miss just about every reference made in the Monster island sequence (and to be fair, some of it is a bit obscure, Toyotarou is sometimes just doing some quick scribbles here, and not all these identifications are 100% nailed-on), but they're basically as follows:

Image

(The tiny reference at the end could alternatively be to Toccio's flying monkey, or just a random doodle. There are also the Minotauruses, which are unique to Dragon Ball Super so far as I know, and Chapter #31 also has an owl...which is just an owl).

Anyhoo, next Granolah arc instalment should be coming later on Monday, all being well! See y'all then.

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