#overall I reall can only bring myself to watch the flashback stuff

[kai-keda]

Thoughts on DBS: Broly after seeing it in theaters, taking a break from Dragon Ball all together for a long while there and then returning:

Yeah I watched Return of Cooler and Wrath of the Dragon with my sister before we watched DBS: Broly all in the same night back to back to back and I can successfully say the hype train for DBS: Broly for me is FINALLY done because I was FINALLY able to point out things I didn’t like.

Especially after coming right out of watching those two movies from Z that same night as well as watching a few episodes of the original Dragon Ball series with her a few nights prior, Goku seemed so very out of character. I was actually getting upset at him and was reminded of why I left the DB fandom in the first place.

(I’m really really sorry but I can’t put a read more here cause mobile on iOS is STUPID and I didn’t expect to throw up so many opinions and words ahhhh I’ll tag it with ‘long post’ though so I hope that’s okay)

Dragon Ball Super Goku is not in character. And the movie version highlights this weird luke-warm attempt, for me. Like the writers were trying but what they ended up coming out with was a weird watered down version of the IDEA of who Goku is supposed to represent in the modern understandings of his character rather than any actual attempt to get his character consistent with everything that came before BoG.

It was as if the writers involved (including Toriyama) just took each other’s word for it as far as who Goku is. So we come out with this “child-like wonder that never grows up.” character instead of the mature result of a completed coming-of-age story.

And yeah sorry everyone but after watching and geeking out at the animation in the previously mentioned Z movies (especially the storyboarding and camera movements for Wrath of the Dragon) just an hour or so prior to watching the fight with Broly, I have to say that said fight in the latest movie was all about trying to be as flashy and fancy as possible (including this weird but admittedly ballsy attempt to go with a Broly POV akin to an FPS for a short period of time) without actually putting any care in the world to making it easy to follow and understand as an audience member.

The art style is nice, but nothing in the animation really stood out to me as especially impressive without flashy effects being involved.

In fact, there were quite a few scenes where I felt like they overdid it on the amount frames it took to get from pose A to pose B and I just. didn’t. like. it.

And look, hot take, the scene where Goku’s trying to convince Vegeta to fuse with him - when I first saw it in theaters I was sure that I agreed with everyone that the animator involved could do no wrong and that the art style shift was necessary to the animation style.

But the reality is - it just wasn’t. As far as the movement was concerned, none of the characters in that particular scene did any movement that was especially exciting to me or even that different from the rest of the film. It was all pretty basic to Dragon Ball Super: Broly to me. They just were off-model. I’m sorry.

I know this community worships the ground that animator works on but I just didn’t see anything especially exciting. My sister can attest to this - while we were watching Return of Cooler and Wrath of the Dragon I was geeking out. With the former, it was the use of anticipation and settling while with the later it was the storyboarding. Like when Vegeta fights Hirudegarn there’s a sequence where the camera stays on Vegeta as he moves around the beast before it eventually zooms in on him and ahhhhhhhhhhh it’s so nice just thinking about it.

That sequence that I’m referencing is the kind of storyboarding style that I whole-heartedly believe Toei was trying to go for the ENTIRE fight in DBS:B but it was just too much too fast. I’m not saying it was impossible to follow but anyone who says the other previously mentioned films had fights with storyboarding on par or even worse than the fight in question either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or is straight up lying.

And I’m gonna say it - I’m gonna say it - STOP ZOOMING IN ON EYES AND MOUTHS SO DAMN MUCH HOLY SHIT IT JUST KEPT HAPPENING CAN YOU LITERALLY DO ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR STORYBOARD?!?! Things like that are supposed to be a novelty used either to make the audience member uncomfortable or laugh depending on the overall tone of the scene but when you do it over and over and over and over again it loses the rarity that gives it that effect and it just becomes annoying.

I tried keeping my mouth shut over it the first couple times but by the fifth or sixth time it happened I just - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH it ticked me off, man. Like - ticked off the animation part of my mind the way Goku’s character writing ticked off the analysis part of my mind.

It was annoying af.

Okay but back to the writing.

I loved everything that came before the time jump to “modern day” (for lack of a better phrase coming to mind) despite what others might say.

I’ve heard, understand and respect all the criticisms of Minus and even the added parts with little Broly and Paragus, but I just can’t bring myself to be bothered by those things. I don’t necessarily disagree with the more widely accepted complaints but that doesn’t mean I agree with them, either.

I see both sides of this so I guess you could say I’m neutral? But at the same token I do REALLY enjoy it all so I can’t bring myself to think of myself as entirely neutral on the subject, either.

Vegeta and Raditz being as tiny as they were made sense but also kinda weirded me out though, not entirely sure why.

Anyways, I think that’s pretty much all I wanted to say.

Feel free to send me asks and stuff about my thoughts on this. I’m not letting myself get angry over it anymore.

I just enjoy sharing my thoughts on these types of things and apprently Dragon Ball is the only series to REALLY inspire this deep kind of analysis while everything else I’ve attempted to write up in this style just kind falls flat.

Not entirely sure why that is but maybe that’s a set of musings for another day.

I’m Kairi Yajuu and I can’t speak or read Japanese.