#(they also flanderized their own characters so. rip lmao)

[sonicprim3d]

Man, if that anon thinks Alex possibly not shipping Tangel and Whisper is bad, just wait till they find out I don't really ship 'em at all

[hellzonegrenade]

dbs super hero thoughts under the cut, spoilers and being kind of critical in general

disclaimer, i watched it online with not great sound quality, and who knows if the translation was spot on, but it sounded mostly right

it looked REALLY GOOD from what i could see. pans training with piccolo stood out to me for how good it looked. also loved all the redrawn shots from the anime. there WERE some scenes that were… wacky looking, particularly all the scenes on whatever beerus’s planet is called. i do wish it had leaned more into the superhero element? want more impact in the fight scenes. this is part of why pan’s training stood out.

some of the models looked kind of. meh. cheelai looked weird to me? krillin was weirdly skinny for a short ripped martial artist. tbh a lot of the characters just looked weirdly skinny compared to usual. also wish piccolo had his long nails but that’s just personal preference lmao

most of the characters who they shared the models for to get everyone excited for the movie were barely in it at all. like, 18 might have had three lines?? goten and trunks were barely there. krillin was FLANDERIZED. to be fair i don’t watch super so maybe it’s been that bad for a while, idk. but you’re telling me he wouldn’t go help?? HES EITHER THE STRONGEST OR SECOND STRONGEST HUMAN ALIVE (it’s him or tien) and yeah he’s always been one to try to get out of situations but to not even go help when his wife and basically nephews are in a life or death situation AND THE WORLD IS AT STAKE?? WHAT????? videl was barely in it at all, don’t know if she was even aware of her child being kidnapped. where tf is she walking around all the time on facetime, girls gonna get run over. her giving piccolo plushies as thanks for taking care of pan was kind of cute but like. this is so picky but it didn’t feel like a videl thing to me. id believe gohan did that before videl. BUT i LOVE getting some piccolo and videl interaction, they’re two of the most important people in gohans life. id love some real interaction also bc i think their characters could bounce off of each other well but that ship has sailed in canon especially since videl seems to be like. background wife character now. speaking of people who are now just background characters.

GOHAN. wtf did they do to my boy. SOMEONE NEEDS TO COUNT HIS MINUTES OF SCREEN TIME. i saw on peridodite’s blog (not tagging u bc i don’t wanna force someone to read all this lol) that it was supposedly a piccolo movie but they pushed for gohan to be in it, which makes a lot of sense. i’m sorry, but i want one or the other. i love gohan but i’d be fine with just a piccolo movie (gohan would make an appearance regardless, you know he would)! it would make way more sense! bc by forcing gohan to have to be relevant but not wanting to adjust the plot events too much, they make the whole thing into like… piccolos scheme to get gohan to fight? I WILL SAY they actually made piccolo seem pretty chill with gohan not training in this one, at least in the translation i had. he wanted to make him fight bc he’s like. their best bet. BUT. i think that was a bad move period. it’s not a good look to make the characters not try to fight their own battles or just ask for help directly. where did piccolos strong will and backbone go? he’s not against asking for help when he knows he’s down and he definitely isn’t against lying but like. him being like well i can’t do much and goku and vegeta aren’t here teehee didn’t make me too happy, but i don’t like the huge power divide now anyway.

but anyway, gohan is barely in it, but i liked a lot of his moments! him nearly destroying his house was GOOD. him not sensing piccolos ki… i thought they’d reveal it was a joke but they didn’t?? that just doesn’t make sense. he’s been able to easy sense his loved ones since saiyan saga.

i liked piccolo talking to shenron bc in what i watched it seemed like it was making a joke about how king piccolo murdered shenron and so shenron was scared, but i wasn’t sure if it was actually going for reverence towards kami or something, idk. but the fact that they can just… power up the dragon to grant them more power…. didn’t like it. and didn’t like that they wouldn’t just resort to training, they were like give me a power up! piccolos always been big on training. idk, it made the fight feel cheap.

the new forms SUCK. like oh god piccolo looked SOOOO cute and then his new forms are SO UGLY and just not good. very uncreative. would’ve loved something related to the dragon if we HAD to have new forms. gohans stupid hair dear lord. but i’d much prefer that no one had a new form, bc it was kind of forced into the plot with low stakes which made them feel less significant (super saiyan was a HUGE DEAL to achieve at first, for example). i still maintain that piccolo should’ve learned kaioken bc he could use it REALLY well given his regenerative abilities. gohan shouldn’t need a new form! he’s gohan!

also you’re really telling me these gammas are that powerful 💀

bringing back cell…. bad…. wasn’t a good design and bringing him back had zero impact given no one really responded accordingly. and that fight was really boring? the hits didn’t have impact, the obvious choice was to have piccolo or someone use makankosappo on the head thing bc IT’S MEANT TO PENETRATE. also when they were like someone has to sacrifice themselves kind of surprised piccolo wasn’t just like ok cool i’ll do it bc he’s never shied away from self sacrifice lol. but again, there wasn’t any weight to it.

you can have weight in dragon ball movies, broly proved it! you can know everyone will ultimately be ok but still make care bc you wonder how the arc will resolve for the characters and how they’ll be affected! but like. nothing really happened. gohans change just felt weird? idk.

the villains got a LOT of time but there were a lot of them and they didn’t do a great job with their time making you invested. i didn’t care about any of them. i’m sorry but when gamma 2 (?) died i felt nothing. and it’s not like i went into this movie planning to hate them! i was SOOOO hype for this movie, but i was like oh. ok. i don’t even dislike any of them i’m just perfectly neutral. i don’t remember the gero grandsons name but he had a little more appeal bc he’s clearly like a brat but also just wants to do good ultimately? and he’s smart but stupid in that he has no common sense and got fooled really easily, which was endearing to me in this case. but also i don’t even remember his name.

oh yeah my thing didn’t have a post credits scene so i’m wondering what that is lol

it was cool to hear piccolo refer to goku as goku, i immediately noticed since he’s usually like SON. his japanese va is awesome as always. and there were definitely cute antics! i liked him clawing at gohans window, trying to drive the plane… pan was cute.

GOKU AND VEGETA. HNGHHHHHH I WAS MAD. you’re telling me GOKU needs to learn patience in fighting, but vegeta is better than him at it?? SUPER GOKU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU

At least the final scene with those two it seemed like they made it ambiguous whether or not goku pretended to lose to vegeta

there are definitely other things im forgetting right now bc it has been a minute but. overall it wasn’t great, i was honestly kind of disappointed bc i was looking forward to it for a long time, piccolos my favorite. BUT. it wasn’t terrible! i know i was very critical here but i didn’t hate it. probably a better experience in a theatre setting, the fights might have been better with better sound. would’ve liked more of superhero elements (where r u saiyaman…. we need u……..). definitely wayyyyy inferior to the broly movie. kind of at the same level as like. tree of might.