#DB was never meant to be something to be pulled apart or dissected too deeply

[aotopmha]

Dragon Ball Super Episode 27-104 Thoughts

It hit the big 100, so I thought I’d actually write a Dragon Ball Super post because it has grown on me. 

First, though, I haven’t seen all of the first 27 episodes of the series, but I have seen Battle Of Gods and Ressurection F, along with a couple of the slice-of-life episodes at the start of the series.

Battle Of Gods is a great DB(Z) movie mostly because it’s generally well-animated and just having a lot of fun. What it does with Goku’s character and what could come from it down the line is interesting (and if it doesn’t we have his character explored in a different light than before). Beerus and Whis are in general great characters.

-----

Ressurection F has some good action scenes and I like how it highlights Goku’s and Vegeta’s rivarly and weaknesses, which also could ultimately lead to some great payoff (and looking at episode 98 we are seemingly getting some of that with them actually teaming up). Overall it’s okay, though - I didn’t hate it or find it straight-up boring, but I also do have problems with the lack of tension it had for being a movie about bringing back one of the series’ most iconic villains and the mess of an ending it had. 

-----

I like the U6 arc because it introduced characters with strange powers again like Hit, Botamo and Magetta. Beamspam has been a dominant thing since Freeza, even more so Cell. It’s nothing big or amazing (and it’s not meant to be), but seeing Vegeta trying to reserve his energy for possible strong opponents and struggle against Magetta with the constraits put in the match was interesting and something we hadn’t seen for a while.

The Cabba fight did a great job highlighting Vegeta’s character development.

For being a stoic rival archetype, Hit’s simple personality was made likeable by just making him eager to push his limits and giving him cool time manipluation powers. Hit vs. Goku is one of my favorite DB fights just for the “keeping up step-by-step” element of it.

The U6 arc ended pretty satisfactorly, but it was very much the Goku and Vegeta show, just like BoG and RoF. Piccolo lost in his match (even if he did hold his own and I do appreciate that it was shown that way) and Buu was just thrown aside. I also actually thought making Frost an actual good guy would’ve been more interesting, but at the same time I like it for essentially being an acknowledgement that Freeza will always be evil.

I liked the U6 arc! It was low stakes, but it was never meant to be something huge, just a set-up arc and introduction to other universes. What it aimed to be, it did well enough. The most questionable story part of it was in my eyes Cabba’s transformation, but even that has a basis in the fact that U6 Saiyans are different. (Would be nice if that would be explained)

The U6 arc ends with episode 42, the summoning of Super Shenron.

I love the Pan-centric episode after that because it showcases Goku actually genuinely caring for his family. It’s sweet, but also genuinely funny and charming. It’s still probably one of my favorite Super episodes. 

The Copy Vegeta arc is the worst Super has been for me, though. While it further shows Vegeta’s care for his family (which is why I don’t understand the dislike of him getting these goofy moments - a part of his character growth, as Whis says, is that he needs to chill), but that’s the only thing worth anything in these 3 episodes, not even Trunks and Goten get anything interesting. It’s what I had the most problem with in GT: it was boring and the only part I genuinely had trouble sitting through in my marathon. As much as I dislike the execution of Ressurection of F, that had some interesting elements going for it. This one? Only one thing at most and that’s done better prior and after. But at least it’s only 3 episodes.

-----

Next up was the Future Trunks arc!

Black was an entertaining villain. I like that his name is actually so cliché because Bulma is bad at naming. More importantly, though, his nature and personality are actually pretty interesting takes on the “Evil Goku” trope that we have seen several times at this point. He’s not Goku, but he’s also not Zamasu. So that results in the unsettling “politeness” Freeza has and the potential for brutality that Saiyans are capable of. He takes great joy out of being cruel. It’s a good, entertaining basis for a villain.

I love what is done with Vegeta in this arc. He took on a mentor role for Cabba in the U6 arc and this is further shown with his moments with Trunks and encouraging him. He beats up Goku Black while expressing the respect he has gained for Goku and unlike being wholly against it, this time around actually accepts to fuse with Goku fairly easily. It’s good, solid character writing that makes sense. The relationship between Vegeta and Trunks brings some cool moments like the Father-Son Gallick Gun.

While Goku has a couple of clumsily written moments of incompetency, like forgetting the Mafuba seal and the Senzu Beans, I liked his moment of anger when he learned Chichi and Goten were killed. It goes back to the Pan episode and we see more depth from him beyond just “wanting to fight strong guys”.

I like the focus on Kid Trunks becoming more serious and actually meeting Future Trunks. I like the episode where Future Trunks meets Gohan and eventually comes to the conclusion that Gohan doesn’t have to be the Gohan he knew because he′s happy and that’s what truly matters.

Future Mai isn’t half-bad of a character - she’s just a normal human, but manages to keep the surviving groups of humans alive and save Trunks at points. Bulma’s efforts ultimately do save Future Trunks and Mai, I liked that she played a major part in the arc.

The character building blocks for the arc are solid and that’s the reason why I actually genuinely like it.

Unlike the U6 arc, it has some notable problems, though. Zamasu alone is a pretty one-dimensional and dull villain, but could’ve been great would he have been built up and presented better. The time travel aspect is badly written - mostly because it’s so complicated. I have no problems with Trunks’ rage and spirit sword, though, because ultimately they had the balance of effectiveness: Trunks ultimately failed and I actually also don’t mind Goku Black being Zamasu because it was made clear that he wasn’t entirely Zamasu prior to it, which is the most interesting part of his character - at the same time, it’s the execution that really annoyed me - why keep juggling his identity?

The ending of the arc is infamous, but I do like the idea that it wasn’t entirely happy. My problem lies in the incompetent execution of it. If you don’t do the payoff right, the whole arc suffers greatly.

I don’t really care about the power level stuff, which has been a mess since Freeza. In fact, it’s probably always been more of a narrative convinience rather than anything consistent, but they always make sense on a basic level. Trunks keeps getting beaten down and getting Senzu beans? Of course he’s stronger now. Goku Black gets used to his body? Of course he’ll be able to use more of Goku’s power. Trunks got the finisher because he’s been the one fighting the most in the arc and that’s after Vegito wore Zamasu down. It’s all about what feels satisfying, looks cool or seems interesting story-wise. Goku got to Super Saiyan in 6 days, but him defeating Freeza was extremely satisfying because it all felt right narrative-wise.

So, the Future Trunks arc is a flawed arc, but I was generally entertained by it and it was a pretty big improvement in terms of animation quality. A lot of the problems it has are similar to other Z arcs. Time travel was a problem in the Cell arc. Power levels and sudden power ups were a problem in the Buu arc and these problems really aren’t in any worse forms here considering the outcome to it all. In fact, I probably find it more entertaining than a big portion of the Buu saga, which had it’s great moments, but really wasn’t worth the 100 episodes it took, while the previous sagas generally were worth their time in some fashion. In the end, the Future Trunks arc was only 20 episodes, but unlike every DB arc ever, the problem wasn’t that it was too slow, the problem was the pacing was too uneven. 

The Future Trunks arc ends with episode 67 and there is about 10 breather episodes between this and the Tournament Of Power arc. The Shenlong episode was cute, but the Arale and baseball episodes were pure old DB fun. Arale is a fun character, but the baseball episode gave more time to the U6 characters and Yamcha of all characters - it was an absolute blast. The Hit two-parter did the same for Hit - it was cool to see Goku finally figure some of Hit’s techniques out on his own. It felt like the story was getting it’s stuff together and settled on a steady pacing instead of just rushing through everything or being really slow in the worst ways.

The Gohan and Krillin two-parters did some wonderful favors to their characters by giving them direction again and even Roshi gets to be the mentor again. When was the last time we saw that? When was the last time Gohan sparred with Goku? When was the last time we saw anything of Krillin? It’s nostalgic, but also puts their characters back on track in the most logical way it possibly could. This is where I started to disagree with the criticism thrown at Super. They were actually trying and it actually made sense. Prior I got the criticisms better, but now I disagree. It’s competent enough direction and writing for what this series is going for, and.. it no longer looks like crap, either.

------

So we move on to episode 77, where the current arc starts. The Tournament Of Power... and it takes about 20 episodes to get there.

I’m actually rewtaching original DBZ right now and this pacing is nothing compared to how the Saiyan Saga was paced - this time around, all the characters actually get their focus episodes, instead of the 20 episodes being just split up between Goku and Gohan and barely focusing on anyone else.

Buu and Gohan get cool fights in the Zen Exhibition Match episodes (Goku’s aren’t anything that special, but have a couple of interesting character things going on and I do like Toppo). Gohan’s and Krillin’s characters are given further focus, same goes any of the 10 fighters. Roshi’s and Tenshinhan’s contributions are the weakest of the bunch (I’m so sick of pervert Roshi, more mentor/cool old man Roshi please), but they actually get something for once. Every member of the major cast at least gets one or two nice moments in these 20 or so episodes. That’s a considerable improvement to a lot of DBZ which was all about the Saiyans for a large majority. Add to that, most of it is substantial in some way, even if sometimes takes too long, but that’s DB in general for you. Pacing is something in DB that has always been annoying and at this point, after consuming roughly 500~ episodes of this story, I’m very patient with it. All I want from an arc is some sort of payoff that is satisfying. BoG and U6 were good with that RoF and FT not so much.

They also do their best to patch up the plot holes. They went out of their way to make sure Vegeta destroyed the Time Chamber and Buu fell asleep when there wasn’t enough time to get in there. Goku chose Freeza because they needed another strong fighter to replace Buu and he was apparently the only one who hadn’t moved on from the afterlife yet (it’s not as solid explanation as it could be, but I think it can be overlooked because his reintroduction was really entertaining and opened some interesting story possibilities). The time limit also sets up a possiblity that not all the fighters are the best of what the universe has to offer because the gods of all the universes have varying levels of competency and priorities. Gowasu had trouble because he was doubting himself, U9 and U4 were plotting against U7, Beerus and Shin are lazy and incompetent respectively and nobody listened to U11′s Kai to actually try and  convince Zeno to not destroy the universes because they were too busy arguing amongst themselves and worrying about their survival. 

My biggest problem with this portion is that some of the episodes also really do feel like a waste of time - 87 (the second part of the 17 two-parter) and 89 (the Roshi and Tenshinhan episode) were the weakest of the bunch. There is a lot of fluff here.

------

Moving on to the actual Tournament Of Power, it’s introduced in episode 97, but starts proper with episode 98. Here’s my rundown of the past 7 episodes.

98 was cool for the Vegeta and Goku team-up because they actually never really have genuinely done that without messing up in some way. It wasn’t delibarate, but it also didn’t end up with them being dropped out, so I’d say that’s an improvement. I also disagree with Vegeta’s character being regressed because he’s still Vegeta. When the group left for the tournament, he glanced back at Bulma, but he still has the rivalry going on with Goku and he still has a sense of pride. The whole point is that at this point, when things really get serious, he’ll put his pride aside. Being more caring is not the same as being prideful. It’ll be a reasonable criticism if he doesn’t deliver when it matters, though and if his scenes remain limited to a few lines (also if he doesn’t get to do much substantial).

99 was cool for everything involving Krillin and 18 and I can’t help but feel that because Krillin is out so early he might become relevant later on in a different way. This might not be the case, but his moment didn’t seem like a “big moment”. Maybe this’ll be another Yamcha case of buildup not being equal to payoff, but at least it was still cool.

100 was the weakest so far, but Caulifla has a great personality, which I think saved that episode in hindsight. I didn’t mind the Kale stuff as much as some seemed to have, her character in general seemed the type to be set up for growth. The case in point being that 101 did a alright job at giving Kale a character direction and did a good job with writing the Kale and Caulifla relationship. Their relationship is probably the strongest part of their characters.

102 had the great magical girl parody stuff, which was genuinely funny and Android 17 shining, even if it was really slow.

103 had a good character moment for Gohan and actually the first genuinely solid fight that seemed to push a character with Obuni vs. Gohan.

104 had the great Hit vs. Dyspo fight in the first half. Again, it’s one of the first fights that genuinely seemed to push the characters we knew. Hit actually had to struggle against Dyspo somewhat.

I like that the pacing didn’t go to overdrive and they take the time to build stuff up. It’s probably going to be frustrating when following it weekly, but in hindsight might work out for the better. DB has always been a series that has emphasized the story coming together as a whole rather than something big happening every episode. It emphasizes build-up through smaller moments and the reward for that build-up. Which means if the reward is underwhelming, it hurts the arc a lot overall.

I mentioned it above, but the Tournament Of Power reminds me a lot of the Saiyan arc - everything up to the fight with Nappa was kind of a series of small moments for each fighter. The contestants of the Tournament Of Power are essentially Saibamen, except some have more distinct powers.

I like it so far, but the fight with the less significant characters can’t go on for too long without getting boring at this point. I think if they play their cards right and put effort into the big battles, along with rewarding character development, this will be a solid arc. Right now, it really isn’t meant to do something big yet because it’s still in the beginning stages of setting everything up action-wise. Some of the moments in the Future Trunks arc are some of the best in DBS so far, but I have much more confidence in this arc coming together as a whole because they do take their time.

At the very least, I don’t see how you could call the story genuinely horrible at this point myself. Not amazing or flawless, but it is at least competent for what it’s trying to do.

-----

So yeah, I think the good outweighs the bad with Super. It’s a good shounen for knowing exactly what it is. DB was never meant to be anything complex and the fact that DBS is so self-aware helps with it a bunch. I don’t go into DB looking for the most consistent or complex storytelling, I’m looking to have some moderate fun with maybe some great moment shere and there. It’s not great, but at this point I do keep coming back to Super because I care, mostly for the characters, but also where it ends up.