Dragon Ball Magic? *RUMOR*

[dragonballhero]

Honestly, you all have basically covered what I was going to say.

I'm not saying Pan (GT) has NO fans whatsoever and it's definitely NOT Pan being a tomboy that takes me (and many others, apparently) out of her character in GT. It's the fact that she was purposely written to be "What if Teen Bulma from OG DB was a Saiyan, and didn't get much (if any) character development?"

On that note, they thought borrowing from Bulma was a good idea on that front? I mean, maybe on paper, but in practice, you'd think they'd notice that Pan just comes off as kind of insufferable...

I mean, besides being Goku's granddaughter, she's also the daughter of GOHAN. I mean, how do you go from him and his character development to... whatever was done with her in GT? Frankly, I've always likened Pan (GT) to that of pre-Red Hood Jason Todd from the Batman comics. Heart is definitely in the right place, but (more often than not) is surprisingly prone to getting their allies into real trouble. Not to mention incredibly quick to rush into a fight, guns-a-blazing.

And that hurts, because I genuinely wanted to like Pan (GT), but it feels like once TOEI wrote her to be a Teen Bulma-stand in, that damage was pretty much done, and for whatever reason, she just faded into the background on some level. Like, she was still more involved in GT's plot than nearly every other character, but you get the feeling that she was more of an obligatory addition going forward than anything else.

Side note, but I've also been wondering something. Given how 'Magic' is implied to be part of Super's continuity, does anyone else get the sneaking suspicion that it might be adapted into the Super manga? Personally, this is the time where I'm hoping Toyotaro simply pulls an RoF/Broly on us and says it happened, but we're not going to waste time covering it.

[JulieYBM]

On that note, they thought borrowing from Bulma was a good idea on that front? I mean, maybe on paper, but in practice, you'd think they'd notice that Pan just comes off as kind of insufferable...

I mean, besides being Goku's granddaughter, she's also the daughter of GOHAN. I mean, how do you go from him and his character development to... whatever was done with her in GT? Frankly, I've always likened Pan (GT) to that of pre-Red Hood Jason Todd from the Batman comics. Heart is definitely in the right place, but (more often than not) is surprisingly prone to getting their allies into real trouble. Not to mention incredibly quick to rush into a fight, guns-a-blazing.

And that hurts, because I genuinely wanted to like Pan (GT), but it feels like once TOEI wrote her to be a Teen Bulma-stand in, that damage was pretty much done, and for whatever reason, she just faded into the background on some level. Like, she was still more involved in GT's plot than nearly every other character, but you get the feeling that she was more of an obligatory addition going forward than anything else.

Side note, but I've also been wondering something. Given how 'Magic' is implied to be part of Super's continuity, does anyone else get the sneaking suspicion that it might be adapted into the Super manga? Personally, this is the time where I'm hoping Toyotaro simply pulls an RoF/Broly on us and says it happened, but we're not going to waste time covering it.

Pan being written the way that she was is probably a result of only having one (1) woman in the room (Matsui Aya), and then basically just not letting Pan do anything, especially after Matsui left for maternity leave after Episode #22, which would have meant that the in-put being put in on scripts were essentially all those of men.

I'm pretty sure that the problem is ultimately just that the series' staff were dismissive towards feeling a new to portray their main female character as actually having a character arc, and shown to do cool things, both due to misogyny and a general desire only to highlight Gokuu as a character throughout the series.

[Cure Dragon 255]

On that note, they thought borrowing from Bulma was a good idea on that front? I mean, maybe on paper, but in practice, you'd think they'd notice that Pan just comes off as kind of insufferable...

I mean, besides being Goku's granddaughter, she's also the daughter of GOHAN. I mean, how do you go from him and his character development to... whatever was done with her in GT? Frankly, I've always likened Pan (GT) to that of pre-Red Hood Jason Todd from the Batman comics. Heart is definitely in the right place, but (more often than not) is surprisingly prone to getting their allies into real trouble. Not to mention incredibly quick to rush into a fight, guns-a-blazing.

And that hurts, because I genuinely wanted to like Pan (GT), but it feels like once TOEI wrote her to be a Teen Bulma-stand in, that damage was pretty much done, and for whatever reason, she just faded into the background on some level. Like, she was still more involved in GT's plot than nearly every other character, but you get the feeling that she was more of an obligatory addition going forward than anything else.

Side note, but I've also been wondering something. Given how 'Magic' is implied to be part of Super's continuity, does anyone else get the sneaking suspicion that it might be adapted into the Super manga? Personally, this is the time where I'm hoping Toyotaro simply pulls an RoF/Broly on us and says it happened, but we're not going to waste time covering it.

Pan being written the way that she was is probably a result of only having one (1) woman in the room (Matsui Aya), and then basically just not letting Pan do anything, especially after Matsui left for maternity leave after Episode #22, which would have meant that the in-put being put in on scripts were essentially all those of men.

I'm pretty sure that the problem is ultimately just that the series' staff were dismissive towards feeling a new to portray their main female character as actually having a character arc, and shown to do cool things, both due to misogyny and a general desire only to highlight Gokuu as a character throughout the series.

I while I think that yes, this very much can indeed be blamed on sexism and not having more women in the writing staff, GT's male writers have also wrote female lead series with much success. Like Atsushi Maekawa and Fresh Precure. And "his" boy led series Turning Mecard had a very prominent and well written female lead that was actually allowed to develop and get shit done. That said, Having woman in the room is vital, many blunders can be averted, Doki Doki Precure dodged a bullet because a man wanted an adult and a teen to have a relationship and the female writers put a stop to that.

[VegettoEX]

Please note that this is not a Dragon Ball GT discussion thread. If there are elements of that specific series and its specific production and its specific events that you would like to discuss, you are encouraged to do so in a more relevant thread than this one. Thank you.

[Saiya6Cit]

But didn't the first part of GT try to appeal to OG fans? That didn't work. And how well did DBS (who was aimed at a younger audience) do with kids? I'm not sure about the Japanese fanbase, but outside of that the main people I've seen pick up Super were Dragon Ball Z fans.

Are you really going to judge a company for something they did in 1996? this is related to recent news about Dragon Ball copyright and Akio Iyoku leaves Shueisha to start a company called Capsule Corporation Tokyo. Rumors say he said something about dragon ball not being milked enough and that a new dragon ball streaming series was needed.

Personally I believe we all have been witnesses of One Piece success, it is a matter about bringing people to the fandom and streaming is what young watches, therefore it is a very valid marketing decision.

I saw a pic, I believe, today thanks to a friend and the quality seems superior to the Dragon ball Super anime, which by the way with a release date of July 5th 2015 is considered an old anime already. I have no problems with a new series, I will support DB til the day I die.


By the way the link from instagram gives an error 404 and the link from Youtube says it is a private video.

What a contrast to the Dragon Ball Heroes anime. After years getting a less-than-ten-minute episodes, we are jumping into twice the regular length?

New animation renders that make animation cheaper now?

If they want to redo the GT, it would be better to set it after EoZ. EoZ is overstuffed with useless arcs, no need for another one. Also, I don't want GT remake without Pan and Trunks. Shin could be a nice addition to the team, though.

Agree with every word.

If anyone cares to help: in minute 21 of geekdom101's video he talks about someone who used to be on youtube but he is not ever ever coming back. I can´t help it, I am so curious, can someone please tell me to whom is he referring?

[super michael]

Assuming Dragon Ball Magic is real, I really hope Toei does a huge improvement in it compared to DBS Anime. Here are the things Toei should improve:

- Stop going overboard, mainly on gags. It stops being funny and just makes the character look bad. Example Goku has to be dumb always.
- Fans wants to see their favorite character fight and do things. No more preventing characters from doing things or always. If they want to help, fight, train, spar, etc, then let them.
- Fix power scale, so characters who are planet busters don't appear to be weaker than Kid Goku (DB) and Kid Gohan (DBZ).

[IntangibleFancy]

Is there any possibility that the October 12th thing is just Battle of Gods returning to theaters here in the US? That crossed my mind earlier today and now I can't get it out.

[Vegetto95]

- Fix power scale, so characters who are planet busters don't appear to be weaker than Kid Goku (DB) and Kid Gohan (DBZ).

It's always funny to me when I see people say this (and I do see people say stuff like this A LOT). Apparently the characters not destroying half the universe every time they move their pinky fingers is supposed to mean they're significantly weaker than they should be? That mindset shows an absolutely astounding lack of the way these characters use their Ki abilities, as well as they way Ki/Chi/Qi abilities generally function in Dragon Ball's wuxia story roots.

Spiritual (Ki) and physical abilities are two separate forces that are combined together in combat by master martial artists. The amount of force that Gokū's fists can put out have a hard limit that is set by his physical body, but he can exceed that limit by at least MILLIONS (if not billions at this point in Super) of times over through use of his innate spiritual energy, or Ki. And, of course, they can concentrate their Ki into explosive masses of concussive force and fire it out from various points of their bodies, something that their physical bodies cannot do on their own. But these characters have mastered Ki to such a degree that they can compress large destructive quantities of Ki into small attacks that pack a hell of a lot more power than it looks. So just because attacks only blow up a cliffside as opposed to entire planets when they're dodged or deflected, doesn't mean those attacks weren't INSANELY powerful... they were just performed by people who are EXPERTS of the HIGHEST level at spiritual martial arts who possess an absolutely insane level of control over their power. Gokū and the others LIVE on Earth, after all... they're not trying to destroy it when they fight!!

And even then, hasn't there been a GREAT deal of examples of how destructively powerful the characters are in Super? Beerus and Gokū nearly liquefying the fabric of reality by punching each other three times and creating universe-spanning squiggly shockwaves (which, despite the fact that that entire sequence was one of THE absolute DUMBEST and most nonsensical things I have EVER seen in Dragon Ball, if taken at face value it is still an EXTRAORDINARY feat of destructive power)? MnG Gokū shaking the endless void of in the Tournament of Power by charging his Ki? Broli and Gokū turning a vast frozen arctic wasteland into a fiery lava hell in the span of a few seconds through sheer environmental devastation? The battle between Gokū, Vegeta, Trunks, Zamasu, and Gokū Black quickly laying waste to an entire gigantic city? These characters are still absolutely shown to be MASSIVELY powerful... but again, they're just not trying to blow up the very planet they live on every time they throw a punch.

And that doesn't just apply to offensive ability either, that applies to defense and endurance just as much. We've seen characters completely shrug off attacks that can destroy planets without receiving a scratch... because they can concentrate their Ki to protect their otherwise extremely limited physical bodies. But the opposite is also true... if they're NOT doing that, their physical bodies are quite vulnerable. Sure, they tend to be naturally more steeled than the average human (i.e., at the very beginning of the series, Gokū was taken by surprise by a gunshot to the head, as well as an axe to the head shortly after, and despite the fact that that was when he was at his weakest, they didn't even penetrate his skin despite him being caught completely off-guard, though they did cause him a SEVERE pain nonetheless), but things like Kuririn hurting a very relaxed Gokū, who wasn't expecting a threat from his best friend, when he threw a rock at his head, are 100% in line with all of that.

To that point, as much as I think Revival of 'F' is an absolutely godawful film for a veritable cornucopia of reasons, one of the few things about it that DIDN'T bother me that (in my experience, at least) bothered a LOT of other people was Gokū getting shot through the chest by Sorbet. Again, Gokū had Freeza beaten, and while he was ready to react if (the severely weakened and easy to beat at that point) Freeza attacked, he wasn't expecting an attack from Sorbet's laser ring, which had no Ki to sense, and it went right through his heart because he wasn't steeling his body with his Ki at that moment. Compare Vegeta consciously lowering his Ki as far as he can so that Kuririn can mortally wound him. I literally saw a YouTube comment one time where someone said that the people bumping into Vegeta in the festival crowd in DBS episode 2 should be getting their bones crushed just by doing so, which is just... HILARIOUSLY off as to how these characters work. I've seen so many people legitimately think that Gokū and Vegeta and the others are just like Superman, but nothing could be further from the truth. Superman's strength and endurance are ENTIRELY physical, DB's characters' strength and endurance are about 0.001% physical and 99.999% spiritual.

I would 110% recommend, if you haven't already, checking out our own Kunzait_83's post "Dragon Ball's True Genre: We Need to Talk About Wuxia". It is a VEEEERY long read, but EXTREMELY informative (and entertaining!) and shows definitively just how much Dragon Ball's characters are NOT like western-style comic book superheroes (which I do absolutely love and have loved for decades, but I labor under no illusions that the similarities between the two are anything but completely superficial and surface level) and rather are no different whatsoever than the millennia of tales of supernatural martial arts adventures from Chinese literature and all of the similar Chinese and Japanese comic books, movies, TV shows, etc. that have spawned forth from that ancient storytelling tradition.
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The thing that DOES greatly irk me about the powerscaling in Dragon Ball Super, however, is the WILD lack of any consistency whatsoever in relative character strength. I am NOT someone who obsesses over "power levels", and I recognize that battle powers were inserted into the story NOT so that nerdy megafans with too much free time would go ballsout crazy and try to apply battle power readings to EVERY CHARACTER EVER at EVERY point of the series (something the Daizenshuu did NOT help with as they retroactively applied battle powers to most of the main cast pre-Raditz, despite some of of them not really matching up with statements of strength increases made by the characters), but instead as a tangible way to demonstrate the difference in the evil aliens who can't sense Ki and rely on their scouters, and the Earthling/Namekkian characters who have no need of such a device, as well as all the advantages and disadvantages that each faction has as a result (something that was further delved into in the next arc, where the main characters have trouble finding the Artificial Humans due to their overreliance on sensing Ki not working on beings who don't HAVE any).

But... battle powers WERE 100% still used to tell us which character was stronger, and when you say that a character (Shisami) is about as strong as Zarbon and Dodoria were (between 21,000 and 27,000), it makes ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE to have Piccolo struggling to fight him in Revival of 'F' when Piccolo's was already over a million when he fought second form Freeza, and almost two decades had gone by between that fight and Freeza's return in RoF (and we know he's gotten AT LEAST several HUNDRED times stronger at that point, judging by his power relative to the Super Saiyans in the fight against Dr. Gero, his assimilation of God, and the 12 years that went by between then and RoF where he was undoubtedly still constantly training). Like... if you're going to set specific numbers for how strong characters are... you NEED to stay consistent with those numbers. I don't care that Toriyama wrote RoF over twenty years after the Freeza arc... "I forgot!" is NOT a valid excuse.

Then you have things like the oft-cited No.17 possessing God-levels of strength... from being a park ranger for the last decade, or the fact that Gokū's absorption of Super Saiyan God's powers created a GIGANTIC confusion hole (that, of course, was NEVER filled in with an explanation) as to how relevantly powerful are his various forms with God Ki absorbed into his base form, especially when it was revealed he can still transform into Super Saiyan God afterwards. That created not only a giant nonsensical fallacy as to not only how powerful each of his forms now were in relation to one another, but how powerful he now is in relation to the other characters who never attained God Ki, and it seems to have erred on the side of "Gokū's base form is just as powerful now as it was pre-God ritual", which makes NO sense and directly contradicts the events and statements of Battle of Gods.

There's also stuff like Super Saiyan Blue Gokū barely being able to go toe to toe with Super Saiyan Rose Gokū Black, but then still being able to barely hold off Merged Zamasu despite how much more powerful Merged Zamasu should be than Gokū Black alone, but then Super Saiyan Blue Vegetto barely going toe to toe with Merged Zamasu despite how much more powerful Vegetto should be than Gokū alone... and THEN throw into the mix the nonsensical bullshit of Super Saiyan Rage Trunks coming out of absolutely buttfuck nowhere possessing God-levels of power all because... Trunks got the big mad? And let's not even talk about the bullshit that was how ridiculously overpowered Trunks' Genki-Dama sword was when 1) he gathered Genki from the maybe few hundred-few thousand people left on the planet, and there's no way the power of beaten and weakened Gokū and Vegeta would have made THAT much difference, and 2).... TRUNKS NEVER EVEN LEARNED THE GODDAMN GENKI-DAMA IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

THAT is the kind of terrible powerscaling Super DESPERATELY needs to fix. Again, I don't give a single fuck about "power levels" outside of a purely story-based standard... but Dragon Ball IS still a battle shōnen, and it does, as it ALWAYS has, tell its story by constantly having characters be more powerful than other characters and subsequently leapfrogging over one another until someone wins (which, to be fair, IS inherently a VERY self-limiting style, and one could make the argument, as I do, that Super has LONG gone past the point where that writing style works for compelling storytelling anymore), so it is ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL for the reader/viewer to have a good, solid idea of generally how strong each character is, especially in relation to the other characters, their opponents in particular. The original series had a small pitfall here and there (especially if we start talking about Tōei's filler), but overall Toriyama did a FANTASTIC job keeping us informed of all that without ever even needing much explanation... Super, on the other hand, has instead done a decidedly piss-poor job at maintaining any real sensible level of understandable, easily-kept-track-of powerscaling between the characters. And, again... that NEEDS to change. ESPECIALLY with dumb, fanservicey, unexplained, random bullshit like Ultra Ego Vegeta, Gohan Beast, Orange Piccolo, and Black Freeza having recently been thrown into the mix on top of everything else that was already wrong and terrible and fucked up.

[Hellspawn28]

- Fix power scale, so characters who are planet busters don't appear to be weaker than Kid Goku (DB) and Kid Gohan (DBZ).

It's always funny to me when I see people say this (and I do see people say stuff like this A LOT). Apparently the characters not destroying half the universe every time they move their pinky fingers is supposed to mean they're significantly weaker than they should be? That mindset shows an absolutely astounding lack of the way these characters use their Ki abilities, as well as they way Ki/Chi/Qi abilities generally function in Dragon Ball's wuxia story roots.

I think people care so much about that stuff is because of online vs matches. They really want Dragon Ball to be the strongest franchise ever and be like "Goku can now beat Superman! Here's proof!!!". I doubt anyone from Toei, Shueisha, and Toriyama gives two shits about power scaling and feats. If someone went up to one of them and be like "Is Mystic Gohan a galaxy buster?!?! I want to see if he can beat The Avengers or Superman", they will be like "What are earth are you talking about?". People should care about a good story than silly nonsense.

[SupremeKai25]

Feats are irrelevant, only statements matter.

It was already stated in BoG that 10% Beerus and Initial SSG Goku are able to destroy the universe with their fight. Everyone else in Super scales from that.

Feats are irrelevant, it has already been stated that these characters are Universal-level, so why we need feats to prove it? Only statements matter.

Besides that, these fighters are trained and skilled and know how to control their powers so as not to accidentally destroy the Earth. Story-wise, even Broly (the dumbest fighter) was smart enough to understand that blowing up the Earth isn't a good idea.

[JulieYBM]

battle power stuff is so boring. what's the character arc? where are characters starting and ending after interacting together?

i love fight scenes, but way too many people are too worried about the least interesting thing about fight scenes in these sort of shows.

[WittyUsername]

I think there are far more important things to focus on in Dragon Ball than the imaginary stats and feats for each of the characters. I’m fairly certain that the people making Dragon Ball couldn’t care less about appeasing the Death Battle crowd.

[super michael]

Here is what I mean by power scale issues:

- Goten and Trunks struggling against a snake and taking long to defeat, when Kid Goku and Kid Gohan could beat dinosaurs easy.
- Goten and Trunks unable to sense anyone in RoF movie, making seem like RoF Freeza is weaker than Mecha Freeza.
- Goten and Trunks getting battle damage in the anime on Monster Island against humans and their machine. Kid Goku defeated the entire RRA when he was weak.
- Goten and Trunks unable to sense anyone in the Moro chapter, until Vegeta ask for everyone energy. Making everyone look weaker than Mecha Freeza.

Then one episode C17 is SSB tier level, another episode he is Base tier level. Other characters the same thing happens.

This isn't about not destroying planets and universe.

Pathetic training can result in huge power gains, which is bad writing.

[miguelnuva1]

battle power stuff is so boring. what's the character arc? where are characters starting and ending after interacting together?

i love fight scenes, but way too many people are too worried about the least interesting thing about fight scenes in these sort of shows.

No one in DB Super has a character arc. They start, finish and then repeat.

[JulieYBM]

battle power stuff is so boring. what's the character arc? where are characters starting and ending after interacting together?

i love fight scenes, but way too many people are too worried about the least interesting thing about fight scenes in these sort of shows.

No one in DB Super has a character arc. They start, finish and then repeat.

Kale has an arc. It's not as fleshed out as I would have written it, but she does go from very insecure in her relationship with Caulifla, to at least communicating with her better after moments of despair and triumph over her power and battles.

[miguelnuva1]

battle power stuff is so boring. what's the character arc? where are characters starting and ending after interacting together?

i love fight scenes, but way too many people are too worried about the least interesting thing about fight scenes in these sort of shows.

No one in DB Super has a character arc. They start, finish and then repeat.

Kale has an arc. It's not as fleshed out as I would have written it, but she does go from very insecure in her relationship with Caulifla, to at least communicating with her better after moments of despair and triumph over her power and battles.

I'll give you Kale, I was stuck on the main cast rinse and repeating everything.

[Zekken]

No one in DB Super has a character arc. They start, finish and then repeat.

Kale has an arc. It's not as fleshed out as I would have written it, but she does go from very insecure in her relationship with Caulifla, to at least communicating with her better after moments of despair and triumph over her power and battles.

I'll give you Kale, I was stuck on the main cast rinse and repeating everything.

Zamasu has an arc and so does Jiren, Hit as well altho u could argue off screened

[MasenkoHA]

Saying Zamasu has an arc is being extremely generous.

He started out as a narcissistic asshole and ended the story a narcissistic asshole but with more power and insanity

[JulieYBM]

I hate having memory issues, because I actually really liked Jiren's arc, too. The Tournament of Power suffered from some really shitty animation and softball writing, but I think it also had a number of big victories, too.

Saying Zamasu has an arc is being extremely generous.

He started out as a narcissistic asshole and ended the story a narcissistic asshole but with more power and insanity

And Zamasu bcame even gayer, too!

[MasenkoHA]

And Zamasu bcame even gayer, too!

Zamasu and Goku Black totally porked