#i just got polls and im making it so dang personal

[kai-keda]

Honestly, looking at your posts about Super sometimes I feel guilty for supporting the show so much. Because I honestly love it. I love the art style, I love how most of the characters are, I love the humour, I like a lot of the action and the stories. There's some stuff I don't like and I know the animation isn't always great, mostly in the first two sagas, but honestly there's not enough to ruin the experience and I still think it's a great show all around. It's the most fun I've had with 1/2

First and most important - you are absolutely not wrong for liking Super.

Never let critics tell you what you can and can’t enjoy. Ever.

You’re not stupid for liking it.

You’re not wrong for liking it.

It’s okay.

Now, from here on out is gonna be a little bit of tough love.

I’m not going to say “oh it’s okay, it’s okay, Super can totally be good! If you like it - it must be, right? It’s not dragging down the franchise!” because I would be lying to you and myself if I said that.

Liking things that are objectively bad un-ironically is normal. Lots of people do it. I do it. I really fucking love Equestria Girls. Like. A lot. I love it. A lot.

Not being able to study a piece of art on a critical level doesn’t make you stupid. It’s okay. You just can’t seem to place what you love about the series.

I can’t help you to figure it out, either, sadly, because I know that everything is done bad and I know that the story goes against everything I’ve studied about Dragon Ball’s writing and just writing in general. The same with animation. Everything I’ve studied to do to make something look good in an animation is done wrong in Super.

If you read what I have to say about DBS and can’t argue because you think I’m right on the complaints that I have, then I suggest that when you’re talking about it with friends you say something along the lines of “I can’t really say why I like it. This person online says it’s really bad, absolutely hates it, and I kinda agree with what she says but something about it keeps me attached.” That’s a perfectly valid reason to watch it but if you think I’m right when I say “the writing is done bad and the animation is done bad.” then you can’t really say that those things are done well, can you? Unless you don’t believe that, in which case I’d ask “why” and we’re back to the “I don’t know, but I like it.” argument.

I’m so sorry but the fact that you like it doesn’t mean it’s good.

I think the problem with comparing it to GT is the time between the end of Dragon Ball and its airing.

Many fans watched GT while Dragon Ball was still new and amazing and hyped everywhere as being great. So when GT wasn’t as good, everyone lost their minds. (Honestly, I’ve heard through the grapevine that GT had basically the same reactions from fans as Super. Everyone was swearing it was made by Toriyama and that it was canon, if you tried to criticize it you got shut down and only after the hype died did people start listening to the critics).

The problem with GT is the same as The Legend of Korra. It’s not as good as the original, but it’s not god-awful. GT is fine when standing on its own. It had one silly arc and one ehhhhh kiiiinda bad arc but the writing was still solid. It’s “meh”. GT is not as good as Dragon Ball, but good Lord it is not as bad as people make it out to be.

Not trying to say GT is some diamond-in-the-rough secret masterpiece like what Dragon Ball is, because it’s not. It’s okay. I got bored pretty often and some things in the writing weren’t the best but I wasn’t pulling my hair out and screaming about basic rules being broken the way I am with Super.

GT’s biggest problem is boredom.

People complain about the animation in GT while praising Super’s and that’s baffling me. No, GT is not fantastic - even for its time - but it’s not consistently terrible with random quick moments of “lol hey look at this quick pretty scene now forget about all the crap before it” the way Super is. GT’s quality was consistently “pretty good”. Super’s is inconsistent but on average, pretty dang bad with a lot of god-awful and obnoxious-to-look-at moments.

I think there’s a lot of “what we wanted Super to be” projection going on. That’s why, when you try and discuss the writing with fans of the series, their only defense is “but the concepts are good!”. They’re right. The concepts are good. But story concept alone does not, a good story, make.

Ideas are cheap, I’m afraid. So when you botch a great concept with terrible execution, you get a terrible product. That’s just how it is.

I feel like people are terrified of another GT and so they’re projecting so hard this idea that “well, wherever Super is bad, OG Dragon Ball was bad too” and that’s what’s hurting the franchise.

This fanbase has a serious problem of disrespecting Toriyama as an Author, as an Artist, and disrespecting Dragon Ball as the amazingly written series that it was.

This is a random scene from DRAGON BALL - ya know, the really fucking old series? - and the animation still holds up. Random, unimportant sequence of just Bulma talking and this is the average quality I expect from Dragon Ball.

Compared to Super’s average:

That fancy over-the-shirt-whatever-it’s-called-coat on Gohan changed size. In fact, Gohan’s line where his hip starts jumped up for no fucking reason. Also - do you know how hard it is to find DBS gifs on here? There’s not a lot. Because no one’s making a ton of gifs of scenes. Especially not of the countless amount that look like shit. Just a lot of the same two fights that looked great because those two exist. Mr. Satan’s muscles aren’t real. Videl should’ve fucking blinked or reacted or something, Mr. Satan’s cape is defying gravity. What’s the light-source? I don’t know. You’d think it’s inbetween Gohan and Videl but Mr. Satan begs to differ. This isn’t even the worst. It’s just kinda bad but it’s the fact that this is the best the average gets that’s shit.

Here’s where I bring out information that I was gonna save for its own post tomorrow but I guess it’s coming out now.

Among the Asian countries, there’s an annual poll of the best Anime. For all these years since serialization, Dragon Ball hasn’t gone below 20. Dragon Ball Super comes out, the poll changes the name of the anime to “Dragon Ball Super” to encompass the entire franchise, it isn’t on the list by the end of the poll. Out of 100. Why when the ratings are fine? Well, I’m watching Super on CrunchyRoll every week because I fucking have to because I can’t stand not taking in every Dragon Ball everything out there but if I was in that poll, I probably would’ve voted for Hunter x Hunter or Yuri on Ice. I sure as hell was not going to vote for DBS purely because of Dragon Ball when so much other Anime is so much better and has so much more blood, sweat and tears in it than DBS’ garbage. Teen Titans Go was doing GREAT for ratings for Cartoon Network but we all know how those numbers are bullshit. Ya know - it being the only thing airing 80% of the time. Ratings =/= quality.

http://goku-x-chichi.tumblr.com/post/154773647402/im-gonna-need-to-see-the-receipts-for-these

http://vote.animefestival.jp/finish.html

http://animefestival.jp/ja/post/4695/

So - yeah - Dragon Ball Super is hurting the name of Dragon Ball because of its terrible quality.

I’m sorry.

That doesn’t mean you’re stupid for liking it.

That doesn’t mean you’re stupid for not understanding what’s bad about it.

It just means that there’s some other God-only-knows reason you like DBS.

Don’t stress about it.

PLEASE don’t stress about it.

Enjoy it.

Have fun.

Just don’t try and tell me that it’s good because it really - really - isn’t.