Dragon Ball Super: Manga Chapter 81 - Official Discussion Thread

[Miracles]

Why doesn't Gas just cripple Goku with one punch, I mean he's like waaaaaay stronger than him

But seriously, the issue with making Granolah the protagonist of this arc is two fold

1. Granolah hasn't panned out to be a very compelling protagonist, aside from wishing on the Dragon Balls, he's become very passive and characters end up making decisions for him and manipulating him quite a lot. Like that scene where Vegeta basically orders him to take the senzu bean would've made for a much better character moment is Granolah convinced Vegeta that he take it for himself after finding out that it can heal injuries.

2. With Goku taking the wheel again, he feels like a guest character in an entirely different manga, where he doesn't even belong, he even says to Gas "Look, can we just not do this please?..." He has no convincing connection to the guy he is fighting and so we're left with this hamfited Bardock connection, which doesn't really add any real depth for me.

I believe that's where Goku's conflict is. Claiming he has no reason to fight Gas compared to his father, who put his life on the line to defeat Gas for a couple of Ceralians and a Namek is the difference in resolve here.

[Mr Baggins]

My issue with the Gas-Bardock/Goku connection is that Gas's hangups have nothing to do with anything else happening in the arc, or even its basic story premise. There's a reason Bardock's flashback chapter doesn't really touch on it, since Granolah and his traumatic past were collectively the centerpiece until now. So we've basically ended up with this massive stretch of filler material to wrap up a forced plotline.

If Toyotaro wanted to make Goku more relevant, there are more effective ways he could have done so - and earlier on in the arc - than whatever this was.

[NeoKING]

Spider Man Far From Home reference with the train hit - even the angle its drawn in is a clear homage.

[KentMan]

Depth? Clearly Kazuhiko Torishima would have words to say about that.

[OLKv3]

Everytime I read these manga threads, I'm so glad the original manga came out when it did and weekly.

I'm not comparing Toyotaro to Toriyama, or this manga to the original, but I'm sure if Goku vs Piccolo Jr., Goku vs Vegeta, Goku vs Freeza, the Cell games or the last few Boo fights (from Mystic Gohan to Kid Boo) were coming out monthly in 2021/2022, there'd be a lot of the same complaints that have been made against this last few chapters (nitpicking, whining about the pacing, being "boring", etc.)

What a trite observation.

The complaints being levelled at the manga right now are complaints that would've never been given to Toriyama's. The last 3 chapters, for example, have been extended, predictable fight scenes. That's 3 months' worth of pages. In the original manga, wild, subversive shit happens every couple of chapters. Toriyama knows that Dragonball isn't a story about fights or fight choreography, so he spends almost no time on that shit.

Also, it's just a disservice both to Toriyama and Toyotaro to compare them. Toriyama is legitimately an artistic genius on the level of a George Lucas, Shinichiro Watanabe, Kurosawa or any other genre-defining talent out there. Toyotaro is, for all intents and purposes, a novice compared to him. Why compare him to Toriyama? It devalues Toriyama's work and makes Toyotaro look bad.

You can defend Toyotaro's manga without invoking silly arguments of hypocrisy, or making holier-than-thou claims like you're doing here.

I'm sorry, but WHAT? Most of the DB manga is fights. Toriyama spends the majority of time on fights.

Spider Man Far From Home reference with the train hit - even the angle its drawn in is a clear homage.

It reminds me more of Spider-Man 2 actually

[Yuji]

Since when does Goku have problems defending the innocent or fighting for someone else's cause? He's never been exactly proactive in doing so but he's also never been this apathetic or deflective either. Selfish as he is, this strikes me as out of character regardless of his perceived degree of personal involvement with Granolah's business. It seems Toyotaro is deliberately imposing character flaws to juxtapose them with his prepared Bardock narrative.

[fleahop]

Is Goku apathetic here? He clearly had to keep himself calm. Whether or not that will be a true character flaw or not I think is yet to be seen anyway. I wouldn't take Gas' word on whether or Goku is progressing correctly.

Now it could be he has to give into his Saiyan heritage fully or something like that (Broly stuff maybe?) but the villains don't have a good track record of knowing what our character needs to progress. I think it should be played out first.

[TKA]

1. I'm sorry, but WHAT? Most of the DB manga is fights.
2. Toriyama spends the majority of time on fights.

1. No, most of Dragonball is gags and building up to the fights.

2. He does not.

[OLKv3]

1. I'm sorry, but WHAT? Most of the DB manga is fights.
2. Toriyama spends the majority of time on fights.

1. No, most of Dragonball is gags and building up to the fights.

2. He does not.

We had entire volumes being fights. What are you even talking about?

[OLKv3]

Since when does Goku have problems defending the innocent or fighting for someone else's cause? He's never been exactly proactive in doing so but he's also never been this apathetic or deflective either. Selfish as he is, this strikes me as out of character regardless of his perceived degree of personal involvement with Granolah's business. It seems Toyotaro is deliberately imposing character flaws to juxtapose them with his prepared Bardock narrative.

He's fighting Gas to protect Granolah and Monaito. He also tried to prevent Vegeta and Granolah from killing each other, and got manipulated by the Heaters because he thought a planet needed defending from a bad guy. Where was he apathetic in this arc?

[JulieYBM]

Rough paneling aside I actually liked the fight ideas in this chapter. Gas' attacks were interesting! I wish Gokuu had more of an arc, though.

[BWri]

Is it just me or did this one go by really really quickly? I was at the end and felt like I hadn't even read half of it. Maybe that's a good thing, but I was so confused.

[KentMan]

Is it just me or did this one go by really really quickly? I was at the end and felt like I hadn't even read half of it. Maybe that's a good thing, but I was so confused.

To me this felt short i wanted to see if they would go to Broly or if they would go to other planets

[Lord Beerus]

1. I'm sorry, but WHAT? Most of the DB manga is fights.
2. Toriyama spends the majority of time on fights.

1. No, most of Dragonball is gags and building up to the fights.

2. He does not.

We had entire volumes being fights. What are you even talking about?

Yeah, Dragon Ball is 90% fighting. This shouldn't shock anyone considering Dragon Ball is a Wuxia manga, so naturally, the practice of martial arts is going to be the focus.

[Cipher]

There’s enough thematically laid out here with everyone’s past hangups (Gas’, Granolah’s, Vegeta’s, and if not a “hangup” per say, Goku’s here too) that I’m interested in seeing where the story concludes, as Toyotaro’s always been careful with that. I’m curious as to where things land with Goku and Vegeta’s progression as well, as their conflicting abilities and natures seem to have been called into question—Ultra Instinct at odds with Goku’s natural passion and spark, as comes up in his fight with Gas, and Vegeta’s guilt and newfound compassion conflicting with the destructive tendencies of Ultra Ego, as he admits to at the end of his fight with Granolah.

But—I do second the opinions that the pages of fighting felt a little content-light for the pacing this month. I absolutely love Goku teleporting Gas off-planet, as it’s exactly the kind of drawn-out-climax-twist I want from DB, but I also wonder if the better spot for a cliffhanger wouldn’t have been on the other end of their destination, when we get to see who Goku teleported to. I think I’d have been more exited with a final page that showed him winding up at any of Freeza’s, Broly’s, Earth, the afterlife, or Beerus’.

For whatever my structural gripes—or anyone else’s—are with the arc, I’m more inclined to lay them on Toriyama, who’s shown a proclivity for the two-act structure in DBS and was behind the final outline. If anything, Toyotaro seems to have an interest in slightly longer/larger scopes, going off of the Moro arc. Though I continue to enjoy this more than that one. I’m extremely curious about what his initial arc pitch looked like, and how detailed it was or wasn’t.

[TheWayofPie]

The majority of Dragon Ball, which is the “Z” section, is fighting. In fact in the manga the interlude between Raditz portion and the Nappa/Vegeta portion is almost entirely offscreen. Goku vs Freeza is 20 chapters. That’s not even counting 13 chapters of Vegeta and friends fighting through his first forms.

[OLKv3]

There’s enough thematically laid out here with everyone’s past hangups (Gas’, Granolah’s, Vegeta’s, and if not a “hangup” per say, Goku’s here too) that I’m interested in seeing where the story concludes, as Toyotaro’s always been careful with that. I’m curious as to where things land with Goku and Vegeta’s progression as well, as their conflicting abilities and natures seem to have been called into question—Ultra Instinct at odds with Goku’s natural passion and spark, as comes up in his fight with Gas, and Vegeta’s guilt and newfound compassion conflicting with the destructive tendencies of Ultra Ego, as he admits to at the end of his fight with Granolah.

But—I do second the opinions that the pages of fighting felt a little content-light for the pacing this month. I absolutely love Goku teleporting Gas off-planet, as it’s exactly the kind of drawn-out-climax-twist I want from DB, but I also wonder if the better spot for a cliffhanger wouldn’t have been on the other end of their destination, when we get to see who Goku teleported to. I think I’d have been more exited with a final page that showed him winding up at any of Freeza’s, Broly’s, Earth, the afterlife, or Beerus’.

For whatever my structural gripes—or anyone else’s—are with the arc, I’m more inclined to lay them on Toriyama, who’s shown a proclivity for the two-act structure in DBS and was behind the final outline. If anything, Toyotaro seems to have an interest in slightly longer/larger scopes, going off of the Moro arc. Though I continue to enjoy this more than that one. I’m extremely curious about what his initial arc pitch looked like, and how detailed it was or wasn’t.

I'm really curious to how this arc was without the Namekian and Heaters.

[kemuri07]

1. No, most of Dragonball is gags and building up to the fights.

2. He does not.

We had entire volumes being fights. What are you even talking about?

Yeah, Dragon Ball is 90% fighting. This shouldn't shock anyone considering Dragon Ball is a Wuxia manga, so naturally, the practice of martial arts is going to be the focus.

It's purposely ignoring the context to say that "Dragon Ball" is only about fighting to justify how bland this arc has been. The point is not that there's a fighting in a fighting manga. The point is that the arc doesn't do its due diligence to make you care about anything going on. The fighting only matters if you actually give a crap about what's going on. If there's emotional and literal stakes, and if the characters change due to the conflict, it provides emotional currency for people to find out what's going on. Especially within the context of a monthly comic.

[TKA]

We had entire volumes being fights. What are you even talking about?

I don’t think you quite grasp what I’m saying.

If Dragonball is a manga about fights, it’s a shitty fighting manga. Compare it to Ippo, or Jojo and they blow it out of the water because those stories are actually about fighting. There’s emphasis on technique, learning techniques and figuring out ways to apply techniques.

Dragonball is a story about self-improvement and growth. Fighting is just one way it’s shown. There’s a reason no fight in Dragonball is just characters fighting. There’s always a million different plot threads in every fight where something or a bunch of things outside of the fight is happening.

The longest fight in the series is Goku vs Frieza at 19 chapters; roughly 5 months of the super manga. The last 5 months of this manga have been back and forth nonsense between Granolah, Goku, Vegeta and the Heeters, with scant development on any front. Within just the Goku vs Frieza fight, there’s so much happening in the fight and outside it.

Because, again, Toriyama doesn’t spend 40 pages choreographing fight scenes. Did we really need half this chapter to be Gas doing his ki weapon schtick that we already saw Granolah deal with? This is either padding or a gross misunderstanding of what makes Dragonball fun to watch/read.

I would be remiss not to mention that every fight in the manga had significantly more build up to those fights than any of the two Toyotaro-led arcs.

[emperior]

There’s enough thematically laid out here with everyone’s past hangups (Gas’, Granolah’s, Vegeta’s, and if not a “hangup” per say, Goku’s here too) that I’m interested in seeing where the story concludes, as Toyotaro’s always been careful with that. I’m curious as to where things land with Goku and Vegeta’s progression as well, as their conflicting abilities and natures seem to have been called into question—Ultra Instinct at odds with Goku’s natural passion and spark, as comes up in his fight with Gas, and Vegeta’s guilt and newfound compassion conflicting with the destructive tendencies of Ultra Ego, as he admits to at the end of his fight with Granolah.

This is interesting. I wonder if what will happen is that, in the future, Goku and Vegeta will forge their own path instead of going off what they learned from Whis and Beerus, respectively.

Or maybe this is just pointing to the fact they haven’t truly mastered those techniques? For example Goku has to be very concentrated to use Ultra Instinct, but that should come naturally to him once he masters it. It would also be weird for both to suddenly stop using such powerful techniques for something else, unless that was much more powerful and incompatible with both UI and UE…

Maybe by the end of this arc both will master UI and UE to the point no physical transformation will be needed to use them, which could fit with the movie in which it seems both Goku and Vegeta won’t be transforming, yet they will be training with Broly. Toriyama could have come up with the idea that by the movie, both no longer need to transform to be at their full power, and this might be how Toyotaro is tying up everything to show what happened to get them to that point.