#this series has so much development for characters like Goku vegeta and Frieza

[bliss-wily]

Now these two side by side. Whilst standard Zarb is nice, his transformation from this company is just utterly gorgeous. I know I’ve posted the figure before but I could gush about him.

I like this because they are from the same manufacturer and it just really shows how much his body changes when he transforms. I’m quite sure there’s an implied height difference as well as the monster boy has his back arched a little as I’m sure it’s based on the scene where he initially transforms.

Also I love that his nails are painted. I know in the anime itself it was inconsistent as his nails would be painted one minute then seconds later they wouldn’t. Once again I’m rambling…anyway! Please enjoy the comparison.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 1: Broly (3/3)

Sounds like there's been enough talk. It's time for the main event!

So I said that I was going to cover this movie in three parts, but this third part is actually half of the film, and it's almost non-stop fighting. DBS: Broly isn't a perfect movie, but it has a lot to offer. Strong character development, tight plotting, exploration of the series lore, and then we come to this absolutely indulgent fight scene that's longer than a lot of the classic DBZ films' entire runtimes. Does this fight need to go this hard? Maybe not. The basic narrative of the battle is pretty simple, and it could probably be accomplished in half the time, with fewer twists and less ambitious choreography. But the fight does go this hard, and it's a visual feast.

I can't do it a lot of justice with words and still images, so if you haven't seen this movie, do yourself a favor and check it out. But I'll still be here, describing this thing with words and still images.

Okay, so the basic narrative is pretty straightforward. Broly's got a ton of power, but this is the first real fight he's ever been in. He struggles at first, but keeps getting better and better as he goes, forcing Vegeta and Goku to raise their own game higher and higher in order to keep up.

We know Broly has the power to win this thing. Frieza could tell just by meeting the guy that he could take down Goku and Vegeta, which is why he offered to help Paragus with his revenge plot. King Vegeta III might be dead and gone, but Prince Vegeta IV is alive and well on Earth, so Broly can kill the son for the sins of his father. But as the fight goes on and Vegeta turns Super Saiyan, Paragus is completely surprised, since he never imagined such a think could happen. And yet, Broly manages to keep up anyway. Then Vegeta turns Super Saiyan God, and seems to shut Broly down.

When this happens, Paragus admits that Broly is outclassed, and Frieza decides to withdraw, but Paragus can't call Broly off, because he doesn't have his remote for the shock collar he uses to control Broly. Cheelai swiped it earlier in the movie.

Broly is so frustrated that he begins to lose control of his power, the way Paragus described before. Normally, this is where Paragus would use the shock collar to de-escalate, but instead Broly powers up with this minty green aura. The funny thing is, this allows Broly to stand up to Super Saiyan God Vegeta.

As they continue fighting, Paragus explains to Frieza that Broly has somehow internalized the power of the Great Ape form, without actually turning into a Great Ape, so he has the power-up without the bulky monkey body to hinder his movements. I'm a little unclear if Paragus is seeing this for the first time or not. I always interpreted this scene as Paragus witnessing some new depth of Broly's power, but on this viewing, it seems more like he's dealt with Wint-o-green Broly before, and this is just the first time he's seen this form play out, since he always cut it short with the shock collar in the past.

So then Goku tags in and fights Broly for a while. It's not that Vegeta was in trouble, exactly, but he wasn't steamrolling Broly like he had been and Goku wanted a turn. He fights for a bit in base form, then in vanilla Super Saiyan, then finally turns it up to Super Saiyan God. I question the wisdom of using the lower forms when they clearly didn't work for Vegeta, but that's just Goku's style. He lasts longer than you'd expect him too, but it's not because Goku's that much stronger than Vegeta. It's the difference in their tactics. Vegeta was toying with Broly at first, then he started powering up to try to overwhelm him. When Goku takes over, he fights defensively, coping with Broly's offense without getting many hits in of his own. It's all intended to probe Broly's power, and take his measure.

Goku finally gets serious and manages to immobilize Broly in his red God aura, but then Broly freaks out some more and cancels it with his green Maniac aura. So Goku's attempt to reason with the big guy end up falling on deaf ears. Broly's too upset to listen.

From Frieza's ship, Cheelai and Leemo watch the battle, and pity Broly. Sure, he's winning, but they're still disgusted with the way Paragus controls Broly and forces him to fight at his command. It doesn't matter if Broly wins or loses, because he's fighting Paragus' battles, not his own.

Goku takes a pounding and then Piccolo contacts him telepathically to ask what's going on down there. Goku tells him he'll teleport to Piccolo if they need support, then he turns it up to Super Saiyan Blue. I think this might be the first time we've seen Goku switch from God to Blue, and for some reason his aura goes green while he does it. Maybe this hints at what sort of power Broly is operating on. Like he's using divine ki but it's sort of a bastardized version of Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue. I dunno.

Then the fight turns into CG for a bit. I've written about this before, but it always irritated me how Battle of Gods, Res F, and this movie worked in some CG actions sequences, not because they look bad, but because they look really conspicuous when they're surrounded by traditional animation. The figures just look a little stiffer and dead-eyed, and I wouldn't mind watching an entire movie in this style, but switching back and forth is just really disruptive. And then they made Super Hero and finally got it right. I'll get into that later, but DBS: Broly's CG walked so DBS: Super Hero could run.

Goku Blue seems to have the upper hand, and Paragus concedes that there's nothing more Broly can do. But he still hasn't turned Super Saiyan, so Frieza things back to when Goku turned Super Saiyan and tries to see if he can make that happen again...

So he Death Beams Paragus and calls out to Broly to tell him that Paragus was killed by a stray ki blast. Oh, and the ground is lava because Broly wrecked the Earth's surface around this area. Paragus was beginning to wonder if maybe King Vegeta had been right all along about Broly being too dangerous, but what he really needed to be worried about was the same treachery he used on Beets forty-odd years ago.

So Broly flips out even more and turns Super Saiyan, which stacks on top of whatever Wint-o-green form he was using before. This is enough to make Vegeta nervous, so he turns Blue and tries to help Goku with a double-team, but it does no good. So instead they lead Broly on a merry chase...

... to Frieza, so Broly attacks him for a while as Goku and Vegeta teleport to safety.

Goku's plan is simple: He asks Piccolo to coach them on the Fusion Technique so that they can become powerful enough to defeat Broly before he kills Frieza and blows up the whole world. Vegeta despises this idea, but he can't offer a better one.

But this takes like.... an hour, and Broly keeps clobbering Frieza the entire time. Frieza turns into Golden Frieza to stand up to Broly, but he doesn't really get very far. Then again, it says a lot about how powerful Frieza's become since he last tussled with Goku and Vegeta in Resurrection F. In that movie, he ran out of gas before he could properly leverage his Golden form, but here, he's getting beaten up for a solid hour and he's really not that badly hurt.

Then Goku and Vegeta finally get it right and return to the battlefield as Gogeta. And from here on, Broly's power begins to level off.

Broly seems to do reasonably okay, but then Gogeta turns Super Saiyan and the tide turns. Then for some reason, the entire background changes during the fight.

Like, where the hell are they? Is this supposed to be another dimension, or is it just an aesthetic choice? Anyway, during this part of the battle, Broly's Super Saiyan hair turns that "Legendary" shade of green-yellow, and Gogeta goes Super Saiyan Blue.

Things get back to normal, but by now it's clear that Broly isn't winning. He's still putting up a fight, but he can't do anything to stop Gogeta Blue.

And then the Dragon appears, because...

Cheelai has decided that the only way to save Broly is to use the Dragon Balls. And this is the part of the movie where it suddenly becomes clear that Gogeta really isn't having any trouble with Broly at all.

This is kind of what makes this fight so special, because it starts out with Broly powering through Goku and Vegeta's best stuff. They use all their transformations and special attacks and it does nothing. They double-team him, and it gets them nowhere. They even trick Frieza into helping them, and it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference. Then they fuse into Gogeta Blue, and while he's doing very well, it says a lot that Broly's been fighting Gogeta Blue for several minutes and he's still in this thing. Broly is a very dangerous threat, and this is a pretty standard formula for Dragon Ball villains.

And yet, by this point in the fight, it's clear that Gogeta has it won. He's just teeing off on Broly at this point, and there's not much he can do except scream and try to fight back. At first, it seemed like the suspense was over whether Broly could be defeated at all, but now it's clearly become a question of whether Broly can survive this. He took on Goku and Vegeta because Paragus forced him to, and now he's completely in over his head and no one can save him. No one, that is, except...

... Cheelai, who asks Shenron to take Broly back to Vampa. Shenron zaps him back home right before Gogeta's Kamehameha can finish him off.

Back on Earth, Leemo pulls up in his ship and picks up Cheelai so they can flee into space. Frieza had been planning to use the Dragon Balls himself, so he's all set to shoot down Cheelai and Leemo. This is one of my favorite shots from the movie. I just like the colors. It has nothing to do with the upskirt angle view of Golden Frieza's ass. That's just a happy coincidence.

But Gogeta spoils his shot and Frieza stands down and withdraws. Gogeta just lets him go because...................... Yeah, I still don't get this. I guess Frieza never actually hurt anybody this time. Well, he killed Paragus, but I'm not sure anyone knows he did it, and besides, Paragus was a jerk. Maybe Gogeta doesn't feel right about killing Frieza since he's not doing anything aggressive.

Bulla update: She's doing just fine with Uncle Beerus. Still don't understand why he was even in this movie, but Bulla's cute, so it's fine.

In space, Cheelai says she wants to meet up with Broly on Vampa, and Leemo decides to stick with them, since he'll be on the run from the Frieza Force no matter what he does. At least this way they'll all be together.

Three days later, Frieza's intelligence agents have confirmed that Cheelai and Leemo are with Broly on Vampa, and this suits him just fine. He believes that they'll help him learn to control his powers, and when that happens, he'll become the strongest fighter on the board. He hopes for this, because even though he's getting stronger, his foes are still Goku and Vegeta, and he'd like to have one other big shot in the game. I think the idea here is that Frieza thinks he can team up with Broly again some day, but this seems like a pipe dream. Oh well.

On Vampa, Cheelai and Leemo aren't exactly thrilled about the living conditions on Vampa, but then Goku suddenly shows up and gives them some extra supplies and provisions. None of them know anything about Goku, so they're confused about how he found them so quickly without a spaceship. They don't trust Goku, but he doesn't care, since all he wants to do is fight with Broly in the future, since he enjoyed their battle on Earth, and he admires a Saiyan opponent with so much power. He also wants to teach him some things to help him improve even further, and Broly seems to find this idea appealing.

Before he leaves, they ask him his name, and he says he's Son Goku, but also... Kakarot. I like this bit a lot, because it shows how much Goku has changed since he first learned he was a Saiyan at the beginning of DBZ. At first he despised his alien heritage, then he started to embrace it, calling himself a "Saiyan raised on Earth". In the 1993 Broly movie he angrily insisted that his name wasn't Kakarot, but here he is introducing himself by that name. By now, he's met a lot of other Saiyans, and he's learned that there's more to them than the despicable evil that Raditz described when he first came to Earth. Goku's embraced his Saiyan identity and expresses it on his own terms. He's always going to be Son Goku, but he doesn't mind Vegeta calling him "Kakarot" and now it seems like he wants Broly to call him that too. It's nice.

And that's the end of the movie. Again, it's good good stuff. Check it out if you haven't seen it, but that's about all I can think of to say. And with Broly out of the way, we just have one last story to cover, and we'll get into that very soon...

[govindhtech]

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero-The First Spark In October

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero news

“Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” was much awaited as the most recent Dragon Ball game because of its captivating storyline, amazing graphics, and engaging gameplay. Dimps’ game aims to keep both newbies and enthusiasts interested by adding new aspects to the Dragon Ball universe while maintaining its essence.

Dragon Ball’s past

Dragon Ball was originally a manga created in 1984 by Akira Toriyama. It now comprises anime, movies, and video games after decades of development. Goku and his friends defend the universe and Earth from many villains in the programme. Fighting, superpowers, and intricate stories have drawn a global fanbase.

Dragon Ball video games are popular because they show epic stories and violent combat. The “Sparking” series, commonly known as “Budokai Tenkaichi” in the West, is notable for its dynamic battle system and realistic interpretations of the anime’s legendary fights.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero PS5

Players were pleased with “Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” when it was introduced at the 2023 Tokyo Game Show. Dimps, the project’s developer, has pledged to bring the programme back to life with improved features and an immersive experience. The launch platforms for the game include PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5, aiming to appeal to a wide audience.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero gameplay

The gameplay in “Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” is one of its most important features. To improve the experience, the developers have added new mechanisms and kept the greatest parts from earlier games.

Combat System: The combat system in the game is highly developed, enabling smooth and exciting conflicts. Attacks that can be performed by players include special moves, energy bursts, and melee combos. Destructible landscapes allow players to take use of the terrain, which adds another element of strategy.

Story Mode: One of the best aspects of “Sparking Zero” is the story mode. It covers all of the major Dragon Ball storylines, including the Saiyan Saga and the Tournament of Power. Players may relive the intense battles and poignant moments in the anime thanks to the game’s excellent cutscenes that replicate pivotal events.

Multiplayer: “Sparking Zero”‘s multiplayer mode provides both online and local choices. In addition to cooperative options, players can engage in casual matches, ranking competitions, and team up. Regardless of their preferred gaming platform, players may now combat against a larger community thanks to the addition of cross-platform play.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero Characters

Character List: The Dragon Ball universe is represented in “Sparking Zero” with a large cast of characters. This features lesser-known characters from the manga and films as well as popular ones like Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza. With their own powers and metamorphoses, each character offers a wide variety of playstyles.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero

Sound and Visuals

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” produces breathtaking visuals by utilising the capabilities of contemporary PCs and next-generation consoles. The game’s bright settings, fluid animations, and intricate character models make the Dragon Ball world come to life. Battles seem more intense and visually stunning thanks to the introduction of sophisticated lighting and particle effects, which also improve the overall appearance.

“Sparking Zero” has equally amazing sound design. The game’s soundtrack consists of both original songs and reimagined versions of beloved anime themes. The original cast provides the voice acting, so the characters sound genuine and faithful to the original work. To further enhance the immersion, the sound effects for transformations and attacks are clear and powerful.

Expectations and Reception

Both fans and critics have reacted quite well to the news of “Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” and the trailers that followed. Expectations are high because the “Sparking” series is going back to its roots while incorporating contemporary improvements.

The precise replication of the anime’s look and fluid motion in early gameplay samples unveiled at multiple gaming events has won praise. Critics who think the game has what it takes to be among the greatest Dragon Ball titles ever have praised its creative features and painstaking attention to detail.

Together with Modding

The fandom for Dragon Ball video games is well-known, and “Sparking Zero” is anticipated to be no exception. In an attempt to encourage user-generated content, Dimps has indicated that the game would have options or tools for modding. As a result, the game’s lifespan might be increased as participants develop and exchange new stages, characters, and scenarios.

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero release date 2024

It will be possible to see Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero on Friday, October 11, 2024. Play the game three days early if you pre-order the Deluxe Edition or higher! Steam, the PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Store are just a few of the places where you can pre-order the game.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero price

This is a breakdown of the prices for the various editions:

Edition Standard: $69.99

Deluxe Edition: $99 (includes Season Pass and Early Access)

The Ultimate Edition, which comes with Early Access, Season Pass, and Ultimate Upgrade Pack, costs $109.99.

Ultimate Edition: $109.99 (Early Access, Season Pass, Ultimate Upgrade Pack)

Season Pass, Ultimate Upgrade Pack, and Early Access are all included in the $109.99 Ultimate Edition.

Regional differences exist in prices as well.

In summary

In the Dragon Ball video game series, “Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” is well-positioned to become a legendary title. Dimps hopes to provide an experience that pleases both seasoned gamers and brand-new players by fusing the cherished components of the “Sparking” series with cutting-edge gameplay innovations and breathtaking graphics. As the release day approaches, the Dragon Ball fandom is eagerly anticipating the chance to set out on this amazing adventure.

Any lover of the franchise should not miss “Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” because of its extensive character roster, compelling story mode, and well-designed fighting system. Its potential to become a fighting game classic is further cemented by its support for modding and dedication to excellent graphics and sound. Expectations and enthusiasm for “Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero” are rising as we approach its release, signalling the beginning of a new chapter in the Dragon Ball video game series.

FAQ

Will Dragon Ball Sparking Zero be on PS4

Dragon Ball: Sparking, indeed! The PlayStation Store listing and the official Bandai Namco website both state that Zero will be available on the PS4.

Read more on govindhtech.com

[theloganator101]

With how much I ranted about Bakugou, I know some of you are wondering.

“Well if Bakugou is bad, who would you say is a good example?”

And that’s what I’m going to be talking about today. I’m actually going to be explaining why Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z is a better rival character than Bakugou is, let’s get started.

So let’s list off what Vegeta’s personality is: He’s stubborn, prideful, angry most of the time, powerful, and has an ego that’s the size of a planet.

Now with these similar character traits, you would think this would lead to Vegeta being just as bad, if not worse, than Bakugou. But the one thing Vegeta has is very important.

An itsy bitsy thing called…

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!

But before we get to that, let’s look at his life at the beginning.

Vegeta was born into royalty on Planet Vegeta, his father gave him to Frieza when he was a child because the saiyans were under his rule. He was forced to do his bidding or else his father dies. And then later down the line his planet and most of the saiyans die as well, leaving him and a handful of saiyans as the remaining survivors.

From here alone we can see why he acts the way he does later in the series, and it’s a backstory that makes logical sense. He wants to be strong enough and defeat Frieza so he could avenge his people and feel like he earns the title as the Prince of all Saiyans.

But with Bakugou, what does he have? Uhh, he got praised a lot as a kid, especially after he got his quirk. He fell off a log and took Midoriya’s act of kindness as looking down on him?

Already not off to a good start.

Now let’s look at how their character develops throughout the series.

With Vegeta, after the Frieza Saga, resided on earth and started to live with Bulma. He starts training to get stronger and along the way… had a fling with Bulma that ended up creating his son Trunks.

Now this part here is very interesting. You see Vegeta was alone for so long, that he didn’t know he was lonely. He only knew how to hold his own. But as time passes he slowly starts to change, and now he wants to hold Bulma. And their children. And Goku-

The time he spent with her was the starting point of his development, yeah it wasn’t like he changed right away, but it was a starting point.

With Bakugou however, while it seems like his starting point would’ve been either after hanging out with Kiri or after his kidnapping with the villains… Nothing about him changes. He still stays his same annoying self, shouting and saying he’s the best while everyone around him grows.

Hell, it even led to him failing his Provisional License Exam and yet he still learns NOTHING from it!

And now we’re getting to the meat of this post! Which is to see how both act after some time have passed. Let’s look at how Vegeta reacts to Bulma getting slapped by Beerus. Keep in mind, this is after the events of Z and they’re officially a married couple.

Beerus Slaps Bulma English Dub

Now if this was like Z in the Android Saga, he wouldn’t give two shits.

But this is after he’s grown as a character, after he realizes that he now has people worth fighting for, AFTER time has passed and has learned some things! Now THAT is how you do character development.

Wanna see an example of what NOT to do?

Well now let’s take a look at how Bakugou reacts to Izuku feeling proud of learning how to control Black Whip. And keep in mind this is after their big fight in Kamino and a few other major events that happened before this scene.

Just Deku getting stabbed in the head with Bakugou's headpiece 🙃

Wow, real fucking mature brat.

It’s almost like Midoriya feeling proud of himself or anything he does is an insult to you…

OH WAIT! YOU DO TAKE OFFENCE!! Because your fragile ego can’t handle it!

So in conclusion, Vegeta excels as a better hotheaded character who gets character development better than Bakugou ever could.

And that concludes this post, good day

[comicbookuniversity]

Dragon Ball Super and the Future

by Bunnypwn Gold

I am a huge fan of Dragon Ball, as I have stated here before and as I have written about in the past. My love and knowledge of this franchise is deep, and I will always be ready to enjoy what it has in store and wrestle with the ideas in it. And right now, it’s a great time to be a fan, because Dragon Ball Super is going strong. The anime has come to a conclusion and/or could come back in the future, and the manga is approaching the climax of its newest story, the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga. It’s amazing for a lot of reasons that I’ll discuss as I respond to this article by Kofi Outlaw, which praises the saga for going back to DBZ style storytelling as a “course correction.” While I agree with several points in this article, I also disagree with the basic premise and argue that the author is only saying these things about the saga because he has not been paying attention to how consistently better the manga has been than the anime of Super. I am using this response to organize my thoughts on how Super has gone so far, the divide between the anime and manga version of events, and the future of the series as a whole, not as a pro or anti stance against Kofi or his article, to be clear.

At the beginning, Kofi criticizes Super for having low stakes and focusing on making Goku and Vegeta the sole focus, increasing their power levels dramatically and leaving other characters to languish. He also said that there were a lot of gimmick fights. Overall, the story structure had changed to reflect this change in character focus and the villains were weak and unmemorable. This new arc, featuring fan-favorite villain Planet-Eater Moro and a range of great battles with his bandits for the Z Fighters to show their stuff, is a return to the DBZ structure, and it features all the brutality and high stakes of the old days. Best of all, it lays the foundations for a new future focusing on other characters.

I have to say, I agree with much of this. The focus on Goku and Vegeta as “Gods” and their super-special Saiyan-ness in the meta canon is really annoying to me. Elements of this were seen in DBZ, as the humans and Piccolo stop trying to catch up to the Saiyans, and it was all GT was about, making that series a big disappointment for me. The first three stories of the Super era are notably low stakes, as well, and I would have liked a little more tension. There could have been more focus on other characters and a larger cast in general, and that certainly would have been enjoyable. And to finish it out, I am very excited for what the Moro story means for the future. The whole thing has a “last chance to shine” feel for the old guard of characters we’ve known and loved for years, Goku is probably going to master Ultra Instinct and thus complete his journey as a martial artist, and it still opens up a lot more about the history and lore of the series to explore in the future.

Beyond that, I have a lot to disagree with. For starters, if you look at the Tournament of Destroyers and the Tournament of Power and just see a bunch of “gimmicky fights” and no stakes, you’re missing the point. I always loved the tournament stories in Dragon Ball, and both of these Super tournaments deliver on that joy. The manga had a lot of important differences with the anime in how these tournaments went, too. Before the Tournament of Destroyers, the manga went through a condensed version of the Battle of Gods events, only offering one extension in the opening to give an actual benchmark on Goku’s strength so we know where we’re starting as a series, an important gift the anime and movie fail to deliver. It then time skips past the Resurrection ‘F’ story, which I think is sad, but ultimately serves the manga’s purposes. After Goku got his God form, the next thing we see, before the Tournament, is Goku training with a new master, showing that he’s back on the path to martial arts excellence. By skipping the Golden Frieza fight, the manga passed on a story that only shows off how cool Super Saiyan Blue looks (a term, by the way, the manga invented because it’s better); outside of showing off this new form, the Golden Frieza story adds nothing. As Goku and Vegeta enter the Tournament of Destroyers, they build a team entirely focused on power, and lose one of their strongest members because of a test of intelligence. To further drive home the point, Goku’s final battle with Hit ends with him realizing that his strength allows him to outmaneuver an innovative and amazing fighting technique, Time Skip. He then forfeits the match so he can have a real fight with Hit later, where Hit can try to kill Goku and has time to train beforehand, which sounds a lot like a DBZ style story. It’s the first step in Goku relearning that technique matters more than power. In the manga, they also gave more love to Piccolo. In the anime, they had him be effectively useless, barely able to fight Frost, a Frieza parallel. The manga had Piccolo fight evenly with Frost, who later shows that he’s almost an equal with Super Saiyan Goku; Piccolo lost because of poison, not because he “could never hope to beat a strong person.” It’s not as cool as it could have been, but it’s more than Piccolo ever got in the anime.

Now, I have to vehemently disagree that Zamasu was a weak, forgettable villain who existed solely as a gimmick. The Zamasu story carefully builds and delivers on the many themes of the franchise that I identify as atheist. Throughout the series, Toriyama repeatedly introduced gods of varying kinds and levels of divinity for the sole purpose of tearing down the illusion of their importance and special qualities. Gods in this world are a verifiable fact, and not only are they just people with a particular job, but every time Goku and Vegeta meet a god, they treat them like anyone else and show them no special respect or deference. Goku and Vegeta are the best exemplars in the series of treating deities like normal people, something the series itself does regularly. It’s one of my favorite parts of the series, as an atheist myself.

So, here we have Zamasu, a deity who believes that he’s uniquely capable and qualified to rule all of existence and that mortals aren’t worthy of life. In the Bible, on more than one occasion, God decided to wash the world clean of humans because they had become too sinful; similar stories exist in other religions and cultures. In this case, Zamasu is motivated by intense and literal hatred of mortals, who he sees as not simply having “become too sinful,” but fundamentally incapable of being anything else. He extends this hatred to other gods who want mortals to exist and do as they please. His rise in Future Trunks’s time to be the almost-almighty God with a Capital G is the antithesis of what the series has said about gods and divinity on every level, and that’s exactly why he’s such an amazing villain. He also checks a lot of other boxes. He uses the power of a mortal who made himself into a god, Goku, to kill the gods and overpower the mortals. He also relies on a mortal, Trunks, to develop his power and another, Dabura, to create the opening he needed to start his plan. In working to bring the downfall of all mortals, Zamasu in effect worships at the altar of mortals and relies on their miracles to succeed, just as Goku has trained with several deities on his path to success.

Trunks is also notable, because growing up, Trunks didn’t have any gods to look to like Goku did. The first “god” in Trunks’s life was Goku, as both his mother and teacher would talk about Goku as their main inspiration for hope. Goku was made into a mythical figure that could have fixed everything, and that’s exactly what Trunks used time travel for, both times he employed the strategy. That’s why Zamasu taking Goku’s body was so impactful, because “hope” came to kill him. Goku’s ultimate failure to defeat Zamasu also tears down the idea of Goku’s “divinity” in the same way as other gods were taken down a notch. This results in Goku calling on Zeno for help. The development of Goku and Zeno’s relationship is interesting and important in setting up the conflict of this story. They become friends because Goku is the only person who treats Zeno like he’s not special, which seems to confirm that Goku’s relationship to divinity is proper. At the same time, Goku doesn’t like Zeno, because he knows Zeno is just a bored shut-in and likely doesn’t understand Zeno’s role. And really, Zeno doesn’t have a role like the Gods of Destruction and the Supreme Kais. He’s in charge because he’s the most powerful and can destroy all of existence with a thought. That’s exactly what Zeno decides to do when he sees Zamasu and the multiverse he had been ignoring, getting rid of everything because he didn’t like how it turned out. Not unlike Zamasu with mortals; in effect, Zeno is the thing that Zamasu wanted to become, and that story ends with his vision of reality being carried out. It was the ingenuity of mortal time travel that made some form of happy ending, because like in every other Dragon Ball story, you can’t rely on the gods for most anything. So yeah, Zamasu is an amazing villain and his saga was brilliant. My main criticism of the manga version was that the setup was rushed, so the death of Future Bulma happened off panel and the death of the rest of the mortals in existence was breezed by. Plenty of brutality and high stakes, if you ask me, though yes, I wanted to see it with my own eyes more.

Then we get into the Tournament of Power, a great tournament story that really drives home the point of the god-centric Super run. The Tournament of Power, if you didn’t guess, isn’t about power. It’s about teamwork, strategy, and skill. In the manga, this is made absolutely clear. The downfall of everyone in the tournament is that they rejected this basic premise or were wiped out by someone who would later meet their downfall for rejecting this basic premise, setting up their incorrect view to be knocked down in the end. Goku brought Frieza onto Team Universe 7 because he feared they would need his raw power, ignoring the possibility they bring in Yamcha or Chaozu for a friendly face that works well with their team. Hit reappears and shows that he has gotten way stronger. However, he loses to Jiren, Goku’s main opponent, in the opening of the tournament because he was relying on that raw power and abdicated the potential of his famed fighting technique. Multiple times, stronger and more arrogant solo fighters regard those fighting as a team as being weak and no threat. The main exception to those relying on teamwork being weak is Gohan, who was very strong and wanted to work as a team. In the anime, Gohan was made inferior to Frieza and ultimately lost trying to beat a lesser opponent. In the manga, Gohan, in his Potential Unleashed state and not as a Super Saiyan of any form, fought evenly with Hybrid Super Saiyan Kefla, who I suspect was the second strongest person on the field, and double-KO’d with her. In the fight, it’s implied that Gohan could go Super Saiyan while using his Potential Unleashed state, but chose not to so he didn’t have to rely on that kind of gimmicky power. It’s incredibly badass and satisfying.

As the fight with Jiren nears its climax, Goku uses a strategy that could kill him in an attempt to overpower the foe who’s stronger than any God of Destruction. This prompts Roshi to step in and admonish Goku with the single most important line in Super. When Goku says he needs more power to beat Jiren, Roshi says, “Hmph…Power, y’say? Plain old fighting strength? Who the heck taught you that? Vegeta? Frieza?” This is a great moment, because not only does it push Goku to go for Ultra Instinct and focus on bettering himself as a martial artist once again, but it pushes back on the worst lessons fans take from the franchise. Goku isn’t cool because of his strength, and he’s not so strong because he can transform. It’s all about that martial artist’s journey, baby. Goku grew up constantly learning new ways to become a better martial artist than he was the previous day, and it was pure passion driving him; he got to where he is because he took every opportunity to better himself, with his transformations just a convenient way for the story to keep upping the stakes. Jiren is the pursuit of raw power incarnate, with indifference and constant dissatisfaction his reward, and all he wants is his dead master to tell him he’s finally a good fighter. He’s everything Goku was becoming, and Goku overcame him by returning to his roots. He was able to fight Jiren evenly with a technique that anyone, theoretically, could learn if they reached the same heights of martial arts mastery, as proven when Roshi uses an imperfect form of Ultra Instinct to trade blows with Jiren. The manga anchors this lesson because it focused on technique the whole time and built towards this moment: Super Saiyan God was just another technique that showed Goku he had a lot left to learn; the Tournament of Destroyers showed how boring life is when you’re so strong you can’t actually test yourself; Zamasu showed how power is corrupting and how the pursuit of it changes you; and the Tournament of Power shows how damaging and literally suicidal pursuing raw power over personal growth is.

And to put the nail on the coffin, Goku doesn’t beat Jiren with Ultra Instinct, but instead beats him by briefly working with Frieza; you can’t master the path of a martial artist in one fight. Android 17 wins the tournament for their universe by playing dead, an age-old strategy, and uses the Super Dragon Balls to wish back all the universes destroyed by Zeno. While that can be seen as lowering the stakes, it’s no more stake-lowering than any other time the Dragon Balls have been used this way in high-stakes stories, and the stakes in this case were the destruction of eight entire universes. That’s pretty darn high. Also, it’s a good time to point out that Zeno was the real villain of the Tournament of Power. He was going to destroy eight universes out of boredom, and then remembered he could instead let one survive by having them Hunger Games for his amusement. There are no stakes, no reason to fight, without Zeno. There’s going to be conflict with Zeno in the future, I’m sure of it.

The anime followed a very different route than the manga, focusing entirely on Goku’s raw power and how cool he is. They added a lot of filler moments to both increase the number of gimmick fights and silly, campy fun, too, which made the whole thing lower stakes and less brutal. As described in regards to Piccolo and Gohan, the anime also made other characters weaker compared to Goku and Vegeta to amplify the impact of their unique transformations. In the Tournament of Destroyers, the anime introduced the idea of Goku using Kaio-ken while Super Saiyan Blue, for no other reason than to let Goku use a bunch more strength after he proved he could win. I won’t get into it, because it’s a tangent, but the entire concept of Blue Kaio-ken is BS, and the DBZ anime is where the proof lies; the Super manga actually touches on that exact thing, since Goku trying something like Blue Kaio-ken against Jiren is what nearly kills him and prompts Roshi to step in. Anyway, the anime also elongated the Zamasu story with a series of gimmick fights meant to show off how cool the three Saiyans were, even though they knew from the start that none of them would beat Zamasu. That story featured a bunch of secretly alive people, too, lowering the stakes and overall brutality of Zamasu as a villain. The time between Zamasu and the Tournament of Power, including the lead-up to the tournament, was spent showcasing filler side stories that make the other characters, ignored for most of Super, look way cooler and stronger than they actually ended up being. For as much as I wanted to see more from Krillin, Tien, and Piccolo in the manga, at least Toyotaro didn’t jerk us around acting like they were going to be way bigger players than they were. And the way the anime presented Goku achieving Ultra Instinct was focused entirely on strength and treating it like a super cool new transformation, which it isn’t. So if you were watching that story, I could see how you come out of Super thinking that it’s less intense, more gimmicky, and glorified one or two characters to the detriment of others. That’s why I think you could only be as impressed with the Moro arc as a “course correction” if you’ve been paying attention to the anime and only just now got into the manga.

This brings and end to what I’ll call Phase 1 of Super and to a time skip past the battle with Broly (which I would argue was for the same reason the Golden Frieza battle was) and into the Moro arc, which I agree is a great story that brings back a lot of things Super wasn’t doing enough of. It even brings back the meta story structure of the Buu Saga, since the first part is a very Phase 1 storyline and the second half, after Goku and Vegeta are defeated, is much more of a DBZ storyline, just as Kofi described. It’s like saying, “Yeah, we want to pivot away from this, we’re done making that point.” Looking at the first part of the Moro arc, you can read it as a way of reinforcing the grand statement of Phase 1, that the constant jockeying for power and strength and the glorifying of a couple people to the detriment of others is a bad way to write a story. The reason that’s important to say is because that’s the way a lot of the meta canon has been going for a while, at least it seems to me; all the fun, original video game stories are about Saiyans and their super special Saiyan-ness and how super cool strong they can get. It’s why GT was such a disappointment to me, and as I said, it stopped several great characters from trying to become better during DBZ. I think Kofi is right to say moving away from that model of storytelling is a good and important shift in the right direction, though I can’t say if it’s for the same reasons. That’s because, if it’s not clear, I think that what Super did along the way in Phase 1, at least in the manga, was better, more important, and more complex than the simple glorification and valorization of Goku and Vegeta, loaded as it was with themes arguing against that model and continual demonstrations of why they need to switch back to a focus on their martial arts journey. The structure of the Moro arc only serves to reinforce and finalize this thematic argument. As it continues, we are undoubtedly in store for some truly amazing fights and a satisfying, climactic battle with Moro for the entire Dragon Gang.

I also want to make a very important point for how the series is moving forward. Kofi says that Toriyama is switching back to this DBZ style story because he “has learned a thing or two from his mistakes.” For one, the massive success of Super doesn’t really seem like a mistake for anyone to learn from. For two, it’s really in poor taste to imply that Toriyama is changing how he’s writing a story because of negative fan reaction. Allegedly, that sort of thing happened with the Buu Saga, which is why Goku came back and we saw Super Saiyan 3, the perfect continuation and parody of the Super Saiyan form, all because the fans didn’t like Gohan’s high school adventures. I don’t think that’s happening again, allegedly, and in my opinion it’s not exactly a good look to say that it is. For three, that almost literally can’t be what’s happening, because Toyotaro has much greater control over the narrative by now. For those who don’t know, the way Super is being created is that Akira Toriyama writes plot summaries, and then lets the different creatives develop it from there, free to add and subtract and move around what they will. The anime team decided to focus on power and how super cool Goku is, and that version of events reflects that. Toyotaro, artist and co-author of the manga, kept his eye on the martial arts journey while executing this long vision of Toriyama’s to introduce new levels of grandeur and warn against getting lost in it, and that version of events reflects that. Over the course of the series, each creative team was given increasingly greater control over the narrative, leading to greater divergences; the two Tournaments of Power might as well be two different stories. By now, in the Moro arc, with no competing anime version of the story, Toyotaro has much more authorial control than when he started, and that will only increase until, as I hope and predict, Toriyama officially hands off the series to Toyotaro’s capable hands so he can write new stories for the foreseeable future. So no, I don’t think it’s very accurate to say that Toriyama learned any lesson because Toyotaro is the one making the important changes in how the story is told, not Toriyama. Keep your eye on the prize, you know; forgetting Toyotaro’s role means forgetting that we can and probably will have new Dragon Ball that isn’t a video game or video game-related story after the passing of Toriyama. I think the long hiatus of the anime reinforces this: Toriyama has said that if the anime team followed Toyotaro’s lead, they wouldn’t make so many art mistakes, and allowing the manga to develop lead time could be a strategy to follow the manga as a source material in the future, rather than continue this confusing dual path.

So yeah, the Dragon Ball Super manga is better than the anime in every way, and judging the series by the anime alone is setting yourself up for disappointment. The Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga showcases an amazing villain for the franchise, and it sets up more to explore in a future that values the contributions of the full cast. It also, to my eyes, foreshadows the end of the road for the Dragon Gang we’ve been following so far, and thus a potential new beginning with their successors; I mean, there’s no more time after this between Beerus and meeting Uub to use, and meeting Uub is the moment Goku passes the baton to a successor. This is a time to look forward to that bright future and reflect on the themes the manga has been developing as we head into it, as well as what the two versions of Super mean for the franchise as a whole.

[dragon-ball-meta]

Ohhh boy... -cracks knuckles- Let’s do this, shall we?

30. HIS DESTRUCTO DISC WAS THE STRONGEST KI ATTACK IN THE SERIES How does that not make sense? You’re starting your list off by not even framing your complaints correctly, as your beef isn’t the attack’s power, but that it’s underused. But even that’s explained. In short, the Kienzan takes up a LOT of energy. To form, to get it spinning fast enough, to throw, takes a bit out of the user. It’s also got several drawbacks, including, but not limited to, being quite loud. People can hear it coming and adjust accordingly. One can make a slightly weaker version they can steer, but that reduces its effectiveness.  Really, the Kienzan is only feasible in certain scenarios, at least until Krillin managed to gain the ability to control it without sacrificing power. 29. HE THOUGHT ANDROID 18 WAS DATING HER TWIN BROTHER Uh... ok? I mean I’m not sure how that ‘makes no sense’ but yeah, he made a mistake. Whoops? 28. HIS BODY MEASUREMENTS Bear in mind a few things here. Namely, that while Toriyama does depict these characters as “muscular”, it’s also lean. So the idea he should be ridiculously jacked is also a bit off. I believe the weight estimate also originally came back when the “Z” arcs started, so there’s that. Otherwise, this is probably one of the only legitimate points on this list. 27. THE REASON WHY HE SHAVES HIS HEAD ...again, how does this make no sense? He shaves his head as a sign of dedication to his practice of the martial arts and because he was taught it aided in the flow of ki in one’s body. That’s explained full well. Just because he ASSUMED Roshi shaved his head doesn’t make this not make sense. 26. HIS ABILITY TO BREAK THE FOURTH WALL It’s a comedy manga at heart. There’s jokes like this throughout. In Goku’s rematch with Yamcha, Goku hits him so hard that he actually breaks one of the borders between the panels and bounces off of it. It’s a thing in the series. Also, Idk why you’re referencing movies when they’re clearly not part of Toriyama’s continuity, but I’m reasonably certain that “lasted a season” was meant in terms of time passed, not “seasons” of a show. Especially as DB never had “seasons”. 25. HE NEVER TRAINED WITH WITH KING KAI Now this is what annoys me about this article. Y’all will take the anime and even movies into account when making this list... and yet with this complaint, you even have a screenshot of where he trained with King Kai in the anime. Yet you say he didn’t do it. Also, “with all the time he spends in the afterlife”? lol really?  24. HIS HEAD DOTS You... you literally explain this in full. How is this something that makes no sense? Literally how? 23. HIS REDUCED FIGHTING PRESENCE IN THE CELL AND BUU SAGAS Again, you explain this in the first paragraph of this entry. Yet you also talk about his activities in both arcs. So... how does this not make sense other than the fact that complaining about it makes no sense? I mean he still has a role, it’s just primarily non-combat. He carried the meat of the story in the Cell arc. 22. HIS BIZARRE CHILDHOOD "A lot of the pasts and families of Dragon Ball’s characters have been shown before (including Frieza's), but Krillin’s remains a mystery.“ Actually, no. They’re not. By and large, we learn very little about the pasts of any of these characters. We have only the vaguest details about anyone not Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, or Bulma, discounting the people we actually see born during the series. Kami’s past, even his name, is a complete mystery. Tien? No one knows his background outside being taken in by the Crane Hermit and training alongside Chiaotzu. This is not uncommon. But we actually do know a bit more about Krillin’s past in that he was raised at Orin, and he was abused. Daily. Frequently. It left him with a complex that lasted well into his adult life. He ran away one day in tears, determined he was gonna prove he wasn’t weak or worthless someday. That’s a good sight more than we’d gotten about most characters til recently. 21. HE NEARLY BECAME AN ANDROID You guys are reaching into arcade path endings from video games. Why am I not surprised? 20. HOW HE DEFEATED GOHAN DURING TOURNAMENT OF POWER PREP This is easily one of the worst offenders on this entire list if only because this is very, very easily explained. Hell, it was the point of them doing it. Gohan was operating with the wrong perspective, that Krillin going one on one vs a powerful opponent would, by necessity, be outclassed and overpowered and thus couldn’t be an asset. He was also under the assumption Krillin had gotten much weaker, unaware he was stronger than ever. Couple these things with both the fact that Gohan himself wasn’t near as strong as he used to be, and Krillin simply out-planning Gohan and beating him by using the rules of the arena against him vs trying to actually overpower him, and Gohan losing there makes perfect sense. Krillin simply overwhelmed all his senses, dropped out of sight and detection, and then simply knocked Gohan off-balance and shoved him out of bounds. Simple. Literally nothing hard to understand about that. 19. HE’S THE FIRST PERSON FROM UNIVERSE 7 TO LOSE IN THE TOURNAMENT OF POWER He’s the first one out because he actually ditched the safety of the group strategy and rushes out to rescue his wife, who was nearly eliminated first herself. He then teamed up with her for a bit and even took out a particularly skilled enemy himself by using his head. Then he was tripped out of bounds because he was distracted by (sadly) rare praise. It happens and it’s not indicative of “strength” or “power” at all. 18. HIS BATTLE STRATEGY AGAINST FRIEZA'S SECOND FORM Lord, here we go. Imma say this again: The Kienzan takes a LOT of energy to form and use. Krillin had just thrown like, twenty of them in a row and then had to run at top speed. The odds of him being able to produce a Kienzan in time are slim to none This is why, upon blinding Freeza, he was yelling for Vegeta (who was still FRESH, mind you) to attack Freeza now. But Vegeta was too paralyzed with shock and fear to act. I’d also like to point out that blinding Freeza wouldn’t have been super effective with an attack that Freeza could easily HEAR coming. He heard it at the last minute even over Gohan’s screams of agony, pretty sure he’d have heard it off to the side where it was just them too. 17. HE LEAVES HIS DAUGHTER IN THE CARE OF KIDS Yes. Apprehensively. At the insistence of his wife, who assured him she’d be ok and could take care of herself. Y’all really tried to use this to imply he’s a bad dad, wow. 16. HIS REGRESSIVE PTSD IN THE FOREST OF TERROR I’m not sure if I’m happy someone finally admitted it’s PTSD (#DragonBallAintDeepBro) or pissed off someone called this “regressive”. Wait no, I know exactly what I am, and frankly... WTF is wrong with you? How on God’s green earth is that Regressive? Are you, by the body of this entry, implying PTSD is a thing that exclusively happens to people who aren’t strong or “strong enough”? Either way, you missed the entire point of the episode, which you simultaneously admit was good character development. A development arc hinted at since the Buu arc really, but really kickstarted back in the BoG arc. The Forest of Terror was never about just strength or ability. Truly, the enemies seen there were only as strong or weak as Krillin empowered them to be by his fear and the ki he poured into them as a result. The point is they were a personification of Krillin’s own fears. His self-doubt and self-loathing. The condition was slowly killing him, his confidence was next to nothing, and it was affecting his life. His job. His family. It’s why 18 gave him the kick in the butt to start training again, to try to regain some of his confidence. It’s why Roshi sent them there; he saw the lack of confidence in the man. He saw his student in anguish, hating himself for not being more than what he was, but also fully believing he never could be. That he just wasn’t good enough. It’s why, even when facing enemies that his rational mind KNEW were weaker than himself, to say nothing of dead, he still panicked. His PTSD was triggered, vivid memories of what they’d done to him, the pain he suffered, came rushing back. And removing it was what finally allowed him to reach into his truest potential, and become even stronger than he’d ever been before. I also love the realistic way the series handled the condition, in that even as he tries to improve himself, he still has moments where it starts to kick in and he has to fight it off, will himself not to lose it. His wife knows it too and takes extra care (for the most part) to not let him slip back into it. But he refuses to allow it to control him anymore. How the hell that’s somehow a negative, let alone something that “doesn’t make sense”, is a mystery to me. 15. HIS "FULL POTENTIAL" THAT THE GRAND ELDER NAMEKIAN GURU UNLOCKED How is this really confusing? It simply allows him to tap into potential, power, that was blocked off. There are many factors that can contribute to it, be it limitations on time, plateaus, mental blocks, etc. The Grand Elder removed those and awaken that potential. It’s why Gohan and Krillin started to make the gains that they did at the rate they did, going from only about as strong as Goku had been on Earth to strong enough to help Vegeta overpower and potentially kill Freeza in his first form. 14. HIS YOUNGER CHARACTER TRAITS Y-you do realize you’re literally complaining about character development... right? Krillin grew up in an abusive environment where he felt he could trust no one, everyone was out for themselves, and that he had to do whatever it took to get ahead and be accepted as one of Roshi’s pupils so he had a chance to be... anybody, really. And yes, over time, between the influences of his friends and general maturing and growing up, he became a very kind, compassionate, and caring individual and a true friend. THAT’S. CHARACTER. DEVELOPMENT. And to present these traits as a “mistake” is to somehow suggest they came later. They were his original traits. 13. HIS BULLET INJURIES DURING HIS POLICE JOB Literally explained in Resurrection F, both the arc and the movie. Emptying one’s body of ki leaves it vulnerable. It should be his instinct to do so right away, but he doesn’t. He’s becoming careless and distracted. It’s part of his PTSD. Hell, Goku’s clearly not getting “that weak” and yet he also  got lightly bruised by a bullet because he didn’t keep his energy up, a sign he was falling out of practice due to his inability to find a training partner, or to leave to a place that would really push him in his training due to work. Also, if one being vulnerable to gunfire means they shouldn’t be a police officer, or any like job where there might be danger... well...  That’s dumb, my friend. 12. HE CAN PERFORM THE SPIRIT BOMB AND KAIO-KEN ATTACK Stop using video games to pad your list! SERIOUSLY! And how does “performing the Spirit Bomb” make no sense? Goku and King Kai both instructed him how to do it, and Krillin’s always been especially gifted at both energy manipulation and learning on the fly. Besides, it’s not as if he knows how to summon said energy himself, just wield and form it. 11. HIS ROMANTIC NATURE NEARLY DESTROYED THE EARTH Hot Take Time: Krillin’s decision not to kill 18 stemmed from general compassion, not just the fact that she kissed him, and his decision would have had NO impact on Cell had Vegeta followed through, done what he was supposed to, and killed Cell. Even if Vegeta, by some bizarre chance, failed? Trunks was there, and just as powerful. There were two people there capable of killing Cell. No, what nearly destroyed the Earth was Vegeta’s VERY conscious decision to actually HELP Cell reach his Perfect Form, something Krillin never imagined Vegeta would be stupid and selfish enough to do. And even then, Krillin told her to get lost and hide, and even offered to help her move 16 so she could. 10. HIS EARLY DISMISSAL IN FORTUNETELLER BABA'S TOURNAMENT ...IT’S A COMEDY AND HE GOT HIS WHOLE HEAD BIT INTO BY A VAMPIRE, WHAT’S HARD TO UNDERSTAND? FFS He’s still weaker than even Yamcha at that point. His quick thinking is also all that saved Yamcha’s ass from getting whupped into submission. 9. HE PASSES AWAY THE MOST... EVEN THOUGH HE’S EARTH’S STRONGEST HUMAN Oh lord here we go... a. He wasn’t at the time of his first death. b. That kinda doesn’t mean much when you have to fight an alien lizard or ancient demon who could dust you with their pinky. This only makes no sense if you utterly ignore any and all context. Vegeta, for example, has actually died just as many times as Krillin now (Freeza, Buu, Freeza again)... and he’s the second strongest in the roster. Goku has also technically “died” just as many times now too (Piccolo, Cell, Hit), as well as Piccolo (Nappa, Buu, Freeza).  Mr. Satan and Bulma have died the least of anyone. Hardly an indicator of power. 8. HE LIVED WITH HIS FAMILY AND MASTER ROSHI IN THE KAME HOUSE It’s housed Roshi, Oolong, Krillin, Goku, Yamcha, Umigame AND Launch in the past. Housing Krillin, 18, a baby/toddler, and Roshi is hardly filled to capacity. That said... they move. They move as soon as they can afford their own home, which is shortly after 18 gets her fall money from Mr. Satan. 7. HIS FUSION WITH PICCOLO I’d just like to state for the record that this is literally complaining about a fun drawing Toriyama did of what Krillin and Piccolo would look like Fused. That is all. 6. HE CAN ABSORB SPIRIT BOMBS AND USE THEIR ENERGY Aaand we’re back to video games. 5. HE’S THE STRONGEST HUMAN ON EARTH Ok now this one? This one is utter BS. Krillin outpacing Tien makes perfect sense since it’s been happening since Tien first appeared. When everyone came back for the 23rd Budokai? The gap between those two shrunk. A lot. Krillin had not only taught HIMSELF how to fly, how to steer energy after firing it, and more, but he’d improved to the point of Piccolo not only using his true power to beat him, but he managed to survive a blow Piccolo assumed HAD to have killed him... and made Piccolo question whether or not he was even strong enough to conquer this world even if he DID beat Goku. When the Saiyans came? Even smaller gap with the exact same time to train. And Tien even had the benefit of having Chiaotzu as a partner, Krillin was off finishing his training solo. And the Grand Elder awakening his dormant potential, as well as the combat experience on Namek, finally sealed the deal. After all, Yamcha was still intently training at that time too, and Krillin surpassed him. Why then is it so hard to believe he could surpass Tien? It also doesn’t help that Tien doesn’t actually train nonstop, despite what anime filler would have you believe. He runs a dojo and a farm to boot. Tien is also demonstrably still weaker than Krillin in Super and lasts longer in the Tournament because he and Roshi are taking cover and surprising targets to knock them out while they’re off-guard. So there’s that. 4. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE EXCITING FOIL TO BORING GOKU He was created as a rival character to play off Goku and give Goku something to measure himself against. That doesn’t exactly mean he’s meant to be “more exciting”, but to bring an element of entertainment to the series that had been missing, as well as give Goku someone his own age to grow with. Nice dig at the character at the end though. Top notch. 3. HE NAMES HIS DAUGHTER AFTER HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND For the last time: Maron. Is. A. Filler. Character. Toriyama did not create her. Toriyama did not name her. Toriyama named Krillin’s daughter “Marron” because it’s French for “Chestnut”, which is a play on the fact that the first syllable in Krillin’s Japanese name, “Kuri”, also means chestnut. It’s not at ALL indicative of “lingering feelings” for a character that Toriyama didn’t even make, let alone doesn’t appear in his manga or continuity at all. 2. HE NEARLY ALLOWS VEGETA TO GAIN IMMORTALITY Well, it was more or less that or let the kid he’d sworn he’d keep safe die. I don’t really blame him for at least entertaining the idea at that point. An ultimately bad idea? Yeah. But one born of desperation. Hardly the first for characters in this series. And finally... 1. HIS MISSING NOSE ...wow. It’s... it’s a physical deformity. I’m not sure what about that doesn’t make sense? This list was even more of a dumpster fire than usual.

[hotstreak2k3]

Things we want for the upcoming Dragon Ball Super movie (2020) and future episodes!

While we are airing some English Dub version on a Adult Swim, there is a fatal announcement that another DBS movie is on development. Even Gohan’s dub actor Kyle Herbert wasn’t happy to know that his character isn’t in that film this time around.

Many fans have been wondering where do we go next since the Galactic PatrolPrisoner Manga Arc is unexpected goes beyond the series. Even though CBR had given some possible storylines in the upcoming movie, I am not certain we can bring back the Red Ribbon Army anytime or any other weird scenario from their list.

So here are the list of possible storylines and changes we fans should expect to see in either the next Dragon Ball movie or saved for the future episodes and manga arcs afterwards:

20.) The return of blood, gore and better animation quality from Dragon Ball Super: Broly.

19.) Gohan and Krillin enjoy their slice of life with their wives and kids in future Episodes... and train for the next threat as well.

18.) Filling up a fan theory of one the Angels sinister plot against Grand Zeno’s... and it could possibly be the Grand Minister.

17.) Bringing back Vic Mignogna as the voice of Broly

16.) Another Future Trunks Saga where we can see our favorite hero and future Mai settle down at since their Original Timeline was obliterated by Zeno

15.) One time story mini arc of Universe 6’s Saiyans (Cabba, Kale and Caulifla) adventures. In addition, explore more on their threesome relationship and the Saiyan society.

14.) Broly and Cheelai’s relationship blossoms (At least that what most fans would see a anime reference of Tarzan and Jane)

13.) Son Goku meet his parents, Bardock and Gine, for the first time!

12.) Piccolo merge with an namekian god to gain the power that rivals Super Saiyan Blue.

13.) Cooler is hint to be canon just like Tarble. But fairly some of us want our favorite badass villain to side with his brother Frieza, not as an anti-hero

12.) for the Dragon Ball Fighterz adaptation, Android 21 is now a beloved character thanks to Akira Toriyama himself. But not everyone wants the revived villains from the game. Plus her good half and the her human link partner would be a great addition to the Z Fighters. Wheras bringing back Android 16 would be a lot of fun. It’ll be cool to see a human fighting soul, his Majin Bio waifu and Goku to take on the Evil Android 21.

11.) Warriors from the Tournament of Power teamed with Son Goku and the Z Fighters to save the Multiverse from a much greater threat... like Frieza or Hearts [A villain from the Super Dragon Ball Heroes mini series]

10.) The return of Tien Shinhan and a long forgotten character Good/Bad Launch.

9.) King Kai teaches Tien, Yamcha and Chiaotzu the Kaioken technique!

8.) The development on Goten and Trunks; Goku trains Broly on Planet Vampa to control his inner power!

7.) Don’t add anymore Super Saiyan forms! Give the Z Fighters time to get caught up with their own strength, and the classic aspect from the original Dragon Ball series needs to come back!

6.) When Jiren was shown up in the Tournament of Power arc, he has poven to be the strongest warrior in the Multiverse. His potential story would be interesting to explore more of his tragic past while Goku’s for another round for this broken hero of Universe 11.

5.) Universe 7’s Saiyans (Goku, Gohan, Vegeta and Broly) visit Planet Sadala Of Universe 6. Also had a friendly spar with Cabba, Kale and Caulifla.

4.) In the Universal Survival arc, Gohan made a promise to Frieza that he will finish him up himself if Earth is threaten. Hell yeah! I wanna see our boy beat that galactic tyrant in his own hands. Sorry Goku!

3.) Make the Z Fighters become more prominent characters then being on the sideline. I mean for real Toriyama! Why is Super so focus on Son Goku and Vegeta? They already had their moments. So now it’s their turn take on the baddies much or similarly like DBZ.

-Krillin has decided to go back as a martial artist so that’ll be something for fans of the Dragon Ball.

-Tien’s new take as a role ofSensai would interesting enough to see how he teaches his pupils while taming Yurin and had another rematch with Mercenary Tao.

- Android 17 is surprisingly strong in the Tournament of Power. So would it be easy enough to had him aid Goku and friends in future battles? You damn right!

-Master Roshi is has been heavenly underestimated by his opponents, and he has overcome his pervert behavior in the TOP. Plus he can use Mafūba more then once despite how dangerous the sealing technique is. This Turtle hermit need some more comeback after a long absent.

-Videl is being treated like a housewife for her daughter Pan in Super. But many fans had forgotten that this gal is martial arts fighter in her own right in the Majin Buu Saga. When she hold on her own against Spopovich in a bloody fight, I was amazed how determined and inner strength the daughter of Satan has proven. Dont care what people are saying, she deserves more. So why can’t her husband Gohan teach her the Kamahamaha wave? Why haven’t he reason her training? This problem needs to be fixed!

2.) While Japanese fans were all looked up to Son Goku as their favorites, many westerners like me like Gohan more. He may not into fighting, but he’s willing to do it in order to keep his friends and family safe. Plus he did state that he is searching for a power beyond his Mystic form. So I hope Toriyama can hear this own out.... MAKE GOHAN GREAT AGAIN!!!

1.) Had Goku mastered his Ultra Instinct!

So here is my list I hope Toriyama and @toei-animation-official should consider take some advices. For the most part, I am not only speaking for myself, but to many Dragon Ball fans who grew up with the show since childhood. So don’t let all of us down! 🙂👍

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[suncannon]

Thoughts On Dragonball Z and How People Spend Their Time

So, I’m not going to pretend that I’m a Dragonball Expert, but I’ve followed and enjoyed the series for a significant portion of my life. I’ve also, like I’m sure many people who used to be teenage boys did, spent a lot of time thinking about that world and the people in it.

There is an opinion I’ve seen voiced in many ways and in many places that says something along the lines of “It’s just a show/game/movie/whatever, just consume it and have fun, why are you thinking about it so much.” To that, I’ve taken an idea from Lindsay Ellis to heart. It goes something along the lines of “These properties make ungodly amounts of money, and influence the thinking of countless people. To pretend that they aren’t worth thinking about seriously because they’re silly/made for children is shortsighted, and ignores what we can learn from those things”. She was talking about the Michael Bay Transformers movies at the time, but that kind of thinking can be applied to most things.

This is a long-winded way to say that I have Thoughts about Dragonball, and the way both the narrative and the characters within it discuss things like hard work, training, and the decision of how to spend your time.

I’ve always liked the human characters in Dragonball more than the others. Don’t get me wrong, I like Goku as much as the next guy, and I, like many others, went through a phase where I realized that Vegeta is both Incredibly Cool, and also A Pretty Good Dad. But it was always the human characters(Krillin, Yamcha, and to a lesser extent the half-human Gohan I suppose) that I really identified with. I guess it’s because I am a human? But I think even then, I identified with the feeling of other people outpacing me, getting better at things while I’m just trying to catch up.

Krillin and Yamcha are frequent fandom punching bags. Yamcha more than Krillin, and for good reason. Yamcha is kind of a dirtbag, so he deserves most of what he gets. But a lot of what I see when I see people talking about the human characters of Dragonball, is that they aren’t worthy of fandom because they’re weaker than the Saiyans, and that’s why they’re lame. I don’t agree with that line of thinking.

Sure, the human characters in Dragonball are probably always going to be weaker than the Saiyans, because Saiyans Cheat At Kung Fu Magic. They, as a species, are basically designed to always win in dramatic ways, and it’s hard to impossible for a human to catch up with that. They’re also the Designated Protagonists, so they always have to be the strongest. But the reasons I like the human characters aren’t because they’re good fighters, but because they’re more interesting characters, and their existence says interesting things about the setting.

Okay, before we keep going, I feel like it’ll be helpful to state what my sort of thesis is. Dragonball is a setting where hard work and determination can allow a person to transcend their normal limits, and become a being on the level of gods. But in order to attain that level of power, a person has to let everything else in their life fall away, and devote themselves solely to Getting Better At Punchwizarding. Saiyans have a natural disposition towards this singleminded focus, but Goku in particular, because he’s A Moron(and, like, brain damaged, I guess? Yikes), will always be best at this. The fact that other characters in the show, from Vegeta to Gohan down to Krillin and Yamcha, don’t reach that level isn’t an indictment of their skill or dedication, but a sign that they value other things in their lives. This makes me like those characters more, but that contrast wouldn’t exist without Goku doing what he does.

So, lets talk about Yamcha. Yamcha is a dingus. He dumped Bulma because he’s an idiot, and then effed off to use his Punchwizardry to become a famous baseball player. And while he’s an unenviable person(in a lot of ways, he has manufactured his own misery), he is a good example of what I’m talking about.

During Original Dragonball, Yamcha was a respectable martial artist. He wasn’t as good as the Designated Protagonist, but he could hold his own, and was likely one of the strongest humans on the planet by the end of that series.

Then, Dragonball Z happened. Raditz was a sign that things were climbing to a new level of power, and Yamcha managed to hang for a little while. He trained with the other Z Fighters for a while, preparing for the fight with Vegeta and Nappa. He also got immediately smoked my the Saibamen, getting brutally killed.

It’s around this point that I feel like Yamcha begins seeing the writing on the wall. He trains with King Kai alongside the others, and by the end of the Frieza saga he’s respectable, but not exemplary. Once the Android saga starts, and he challenges Android 20, he also immediately gets smoked, this time literally, with a massive hole blown in his chest. 

After this point, he is basically not a factor in any of the major battles of the series. He sits out most, if not all, major battles in the rest of the series, and during the timeskip between Cell and Buu, has completely stopped his training. He coasts by on his residual physical skill to make money. And while there’s something to be said for him abandoning the fight to protect Earth, to some extent, I get it? Like, he saw what was coming. Goku is doing sit-ups in 1000x Earth’s gravity or some nonsense, and lives for nothing but the fight. That was never Yamcha’s goal, so he got out while the getting was good. While he regrets this decision by the time Dragonball Super is going on, I understand the motivation.

So, lets take a quick detour to talk about Krillin. He’s probably my favorite character in the series. He looks like a weird gremlin and literally doesn’t have a nose. He’s great and perfect. A lot of his story is similar to Yamcha’s so we won’t have to talk about him long.

Krillin managed to avoid most of the pitfalls that Yamcha blunders into, but based on the person he is, he was always going to. Yamcha was a bandit who stumbled into World Shaking Nonsense, so his lack of dedication to back-breaking training is expected. Krillin was a monk who devoted himself to training when he was in Original Dragonball, and he stuck with that training for much longer. Accordingly, he stays relevant for much longer. By the time of the fight with the Saiyans, he survives when most of the others don’t, and he manages to hang during the fighting on Namek. Hell, his chops are still decent by the time of the Android saga, and he holds his own when he needs to. 

But he still makes the cardinal sin when it comes to Keeping Up With Goku: he cares about things besides training. He gets married, has a kid, settles down. Lets his hair grow back. Becomes a good dad and has a wife who loves him. He still does some training to keep himself in fighting trim, but by the time of the Buu saga, he’s basically no one of consequence. And that bites him in the ass when he gets taken out basically immediately.

I find this arc incredibly relatable. Who among us hasn’t devoted their lives to protecting Earth, but then fallen in love with an incredibly cool android woman and had a precocious kid, and then decided to skip leg day once or twice? Krillin manages to avoid falling as far as Yamcha did because Android 18 is another Z Fighter, and I’m sure they keep each other in shape. But they’re retired by the time of the Buu saga.

However, in Super, you can see how far a human can go when sufficiently motivated. Krillin makes it all the way to the Tournament of Power, while Yamcha is looking like a scruffy piece of trash, sad that all of his friends are going off and fighting without him. Like, of course they are, Yamcha. You haven’t lifted a weight in longer than Goten has been alive. Damn, even Master Roshi hit the gym when the chips were down, and he busts out some OG Dragonball moves. You see him in Resurrection of F, and the Tournament? Damn.

Y’know, I think I might’ve been wrong before. I said Krillin was my favorite character, but really, I think it has to be Gohan. He’s just the best.

So, a lot of the impetus of writing this piece has been because I’ve been vicariously reliving Dragonball Z through the All Systems Goku podcast. Seeing the series through fresh eyes has been neat, and it’s made me think about a lot of this for the first time in a long time. 

There’s a part at the beginning of the Buu saga where Vegeta drags Gohan for his decline in power level, and while I understand that frustration from Angry Saiyan Dad, like, I get it. Even by the time of Dragonball Super, Gohan has not, and likely will not, develop into the fighter he Could Have Been. But like, that’s fine. Vegeta didn’t, either.

So, to wrap this up and not write another thousand words, lets talk about the Saiyans as a group.

Goku is a Committed Idiot, who will always be the best at fighting because it’s all he cares about. Because of this, he is a negligent father and husband, and also not a very good person or friend.

Vegeta can hang on Goku’s level because he’s a Saiyan and has a very understanding wife that will build him weird gravity chambers, but he also takes an active role in parenting his children, and actually wants to be present at the birth of his daughter instead of going to train with an angel. Like, for real. Goku tries to convince Vegeta to miss the birth of his daughter to go train, because Goku missed the birth of Goten because he was dead, so it’s fine. Whis ends up making it a non-issue by using Angel Magic to just poof the baby out of Bulma, which is kind of horrifying, but Bulma was pretty alright with missing those arduous hours and having the work just done for her.

Vegeta compromises his training by being a person with a life, and watching Goku keep pulling ahead of him was the impetus for the Majin Vegeta stuff. He had his mid life crisis, but realized what he was doing, and I guess eventually got over it. He knows he’s not as strong as Goku, but he takes his son to Disneyland sometimes and he’s mostly cool with it.

Gohan could have been the greatest martial artist the Earth has ever produced. When he beat Cell, he was far and away the most powerful being that had ever set foot on the planet. But between then and the Buu saga, he just started to care about other things. He was a teenager, and went to school, made friends, fell in love. Between then and Super he got married, had a kid. People talk like they’re disappointed that Gohan has “gotten lame”, especially after the glimpse of him we get in Future Trunk’s Bad Future. But they don’t get it. 

Gohan won. That’s his happy ending. He can still hang with his dad and Vegeta; he’s probably the third strongest person on the planet. Piccolo might have him beat some days, but probably not. And he also has a wife and daughter and a life outside of lifting weights and screaming. That’s what Future Trunks would’ve wanted for him. 

At the end of the day, the Earth needs someone like Goku, who is willing to forsake everything else and keep doing push-ups until he can punch out God. It’s a good thing that he relishes the opportunity, because a more self-aware person would probably be pissed that the weight of the world/galaxy/universe/Creation keeps getting put on his shoulders. 

But to say that other characters are less interesting, or somehow “bad” because they don’t have that single-minded devotion to Punchwizardry is foolish, because that dichotomy and contrast between Goku and everyone else in his life is what gives texture and weight to the choices the characters make. Krillin sees Goku punching out deities and probably feels bad that he can’t help. But his family makes him happy, and that’s worthwhile, too. It’s what makes the fighting worth doing.

Okay, so that’s it. Feels good to get these thoughts out of my head. Been percolating them for a while. Not gonna do any more passes on this for editing because I’ve already been writing this for like an hour and I wanna be done. Happy to hear thoughts or comments. Be excellent to each other.

[tigerlover16-uk]

I have my problems with how anti climactic the whole thing was and the reused animation in a lot of the episode, but thinking about it I do at least appreciate that Gohan’s sacrifice to take down Dyspo does still feel like a logical resolution to the lesson Piccolo taught him in episode 88.

As Piccolo explained, Gohan has a recurring problem with getting drunk on power or otherwise overconfident when it’s looking like he has the edge over an opponent. We saw this with Cell when Gohan first went super Saiyan 2 (Though to be fair he also wasn’t fully in the best state of mind at the time), and we saw it with Super Buu where Gohan got a bit too sure of himself and let his guard down. Probably comes from the fact that he isn’t someone who fights as often as Goku or Vegeta do, and doesn’t quite have a warriors mindset.

When fighting Dyspo, Gohan and Frieza were careful and used tactics to turn his own speed against him, and at the last minute, even when it looked like Gohan had that fight just about wrapped up before Frieza got exhausted and dropped the energy cage, letting Dyspo escape and dodge Gohan’s attack, Gohan reacted pretty much immediately to grab Dyspo right as he was going back into super speed mode.

He didn’t let his guard down, seeing how quickly he reacted to the change in situation. He didn’t get overconfident and slip up at the last minute, Gohan played things smart and considered what needed to be done for every step of that fight.

Sure, it’s frustrating how he got eliminated too, but stop and think about it and the alternative was that Dyspo could have super speeded Frieza off the edge of the arena while he was out of breath, which would have been a disaster as we saw with how things played out later. And then who’s to say Gohan could have beaten Dyspo on his own? How much worse would it have been for team universe 7, and how likely would their chances of winning actually have been, if he didn’t take the fall?

It wasn’t the most dignified way to go out, and it wasn’t the epic last stand we all would have wanted for Gohan and just naturally expected he would get. But at the end of the day, Gohan took the lesson he’d learned to heart and applied himself, doing what needed to be done to save the day. And ultimately, while he might not have gotten to do anything as flashy as the other remaining fighters, he played a big part in ensuring not only universe 7′s survival, but all the other universes aswell. So let it never be said his contributions to the tournament didn’t matter, or that the development he got throughout the saga didn’t go anywhere.

It could have been better executed and certainly better animated, and I wish he’d gotten to have a few more epic moments, but now that I’ve had a chance to step back and look at it clearly, I’m not really angry or all that upset over how he went out. At the end of the day, Gohan not being one of the key players in eliminating Jiren or Toppo or whatever doesn’t invalidate his development throughout Super.

He can still go on to keep getting stronger and continue to be useful in future series. He’s still grown to the point he actually wants to get stronger for the sake of it, while still being the same loveable dork outside of the battlefield that we all know and love. We know Super almost certainly is going to get a continuation beyond the movie, so there’s still time for Gohan to become a major character again, acquire that new form he was on about, and just generally be relevant again. Which, honestly, that’s all I really wanted.

So... yeah. Still an anti-climax, but nothing to really worry about, is it?

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 023

tfw you’re in Dragon Ball Super Episode 23.

So for the last few episodes, Goku and Vegeta have been training on Beerus’ planet, and then Beerus ordered Whis to send them to some other dimension where they could supposedly improve faster.   But for Whis to do that, he had to send his staff to the other dimension as well.  This backfires on Beerus when he starts eating all the pizza Whis brought back from Earth, and Whis can’t bring him more because he needs his staff to do it.  So Whis has to bring back Goku and Vegeta to get his staff.  This whole thing is just a pointless waste of time.

I think the idea was that the writers on DBS wanted to show Goku and Vegeta training to achieve their Super Saiyan Blue forms, which they revealed in the Resurrection F movie.  In the movie, it was established that they reached that level off-screen, but this anime expands on the story.  So you would think this would give Toei a chance to tell some story about how they reached Super Saiyan Blue.  Except.... there is no story.  None at all. 

Part of the problem is that they probably didn’t want to show them transforming until the fight with Frieza, which is sensible enough.  That’s how the movie played it, after all.  But then we still have these scenes of Goku and Vegeta training with no apparent point.  Beerus just tells them their time in the other dimension did them a lot of good, even if they weren’t in there for very long. 

I guess it was like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, at least in the sense that they were stuck there longer than the amount of time that passed in the outside world.  Anyway, they had to eat all of Beerus’ extra pizza in order to avoid starvation, so yeah. 

So now that they’re back and Whis has his staff, they can finally find out about Frieza’s invasion, and Goku can try to teleport back to Earth.  Only it’s too far away, so Gohan powers up as high as he can go, and this gives Goku something to lock on to.  Wait, was Frieza’s power level not enough?  Everyone’s been talking about how amazingly strong he is, to say nothing of Tagoma’s body, now inhabited by Captain Ginyu.  You’d think there’d be plenty of strong ki powers for Goku to sense. 

Anyway, Frieza tries to finish Gohan off, but then Goku appears in the nick of time and blocks the shot with his crappily-drawn arm.  This episode sucks ass.

I tend to focus on the misshapen faces in this series, but there’s a lot of poorly-drawn fingers and hands.   Parts of this show look like fan art drawn by a talented-but-inexperienced teenager.  Like these should be the before shots next to a much better drawing in a social media post where the artist shows off their skill development over several years. 

Anyway, Vegeta quickly polishes off Captain Ginyu, thus bringing an end to the decades-long running gag of that frog showing up in different scenes.  I’m not sure what happened to Tagoma-in-the-frog’s-body, but it doesn’t really matter, since no one cared enough about Tagoma to care if he keeps the gag alive. 

Also, I’d just like to say that this series keeps using shots like this of characters in the mid-ground, even though the artists seem to really, really suck at drawing figures on this scale.  Like, what is the point of storyboarding for this sort of thing when you know your staff can’t execute it without making it look pathetic?  This isn’t a new problem, either.  This is Episode 23.  By now, everyone at Toei should be fully aware of the limitations of this production.

Anyway, Frieza pisses and moans about his revenge and goes to his fourth form to avoid the mistakes he made during his first encounter with Goku.... Except this is exactly what he got wrong on Namek.  He took forever to use his full power against Goku and the others, and kept giving them chances to put up a fight.  Now, he’s doing it again, because his fourth form is no longer his strongest form.  He’s holding Golden Frieza in reserve, and for no good reason. 

And you know, if that’s how Frieza wants to play it, fine.  But don’t tell me he’s correcting his past mistakes this way, because he’s not. 

If this seems kind of brief, it’s because I skipped over countless reaction shots from other characters, and this annoying thing where the “camera” would rush from one set of characters to another.  Also, Jaco did a lot of whining about wanting to run away, and none of it matters.  This episode bites.

[kaboomcookie]

Unpopular DBZ/GT/S Opinions

•Gohan has always been my favorite character and always will be, and I love the Great Saiyaman. I'm glad he's able to be a dork. •Bulma is not a good wife. She regularly yells at Vegeta, never even tries to understand his feelings, and even embarrasses him. I fail to understand their relationship to any capacity. •Android 18 and Krillin is one of the only couples I can actually stand. Well, Bardock and Gine too, but they're both dead. •I miss Tarble and I sorta hope he comes back. •It sort of pissed me off how easily Trunks and Goten were able to go Super Saiyan. The same goes for Caulifla and Kale, since neither of them even really tried. •Trunks and Mai's relationship is creepy. I don't care that she's in a child's body, she's still in her 40's. It's gross. •I hated Pan and Bulla in GT. They were both spoiled brats and they mouthed off way too much. I really hope that their characters are fixed in whatever series they show up in, because I'd really like to appreciate the two of them. •I am SO GLAD Android 17 is back. I love it. I think that's sick as hell and I hope he stays. •I'm really sick of Frieza, and I hate that they replaced Buu with him in the Tournament of Power. He's not even threatening anymore; just overplayed. •Gine is still my favorite full-blooded female Saiyan. And honestly I like Fasha more than Caulifla or Kale. •I didn't mind Valese. She's not an outstanding character or anything, but she wasn't a rich bitch and I appreciated that. She seemed genuinely curious and nice, and this series could really use more females like that. •I really, really, really don't like Videl. She was rude, selfish, and stalked Gohan for absolutely no good reason, then blackmailed him into teaching her how to fly and acted like a total asshole to his mother. I don't care that she's rich, she was only nice to him when she gained something from him. She didn't even want Saiyaman to save people because it's "her job" and went out of her way to stop him, when all he was doing was helping others. And to top it off, they KNEW she was a bitch, so they just erased her entire character in Super and made her Mother Teresa. I also hated the scene where she found out Cocoa kissed Gohan, because that's such BS. Nobody would just accept it that quickly and move on. She had EVIDENCE that her husband had kissed another woman and she didn't even care. That's not trust, that's denial. Rant over. •I love that there are other characters getting actual development in Super, like Master Roshi and Krillin. I wish there was more for Piccolo, though. •I'm so sick of Goku getting all the forms and all the spotlight. I like Goku but he's really annoying me these days.

[kitsunesbooks]

How to Fix Shonen's Biggest Problem

So not too long ago there have been a couple of videos regarding a certain issue within anime, more specifically shonen anime. It is a problem that has been around since Dragonball Z started, and has persisted to this very day through anime and manga like Bleach and Naruto. This issue is none other than the escalation problem. For many extremely popular shonen anime and manga, there is a constantly increasing scale throughout their plot. From Dragonball, to Naruto, to One Piece, each of these stories continues to build and build and build until the audience can barely stand it anymore. Hell, I'm pretty sure this is why Fairy Tail has become so despised in the community as of late. A video by Reality Punch Studios introduced me to this problem, and then Gigguk decided make video of his own on the subject. Both of them had great points and examples, while also providing some intriguing solutions, which I will cover briefly. But I felt they were ignoring the simplest solution to the problem.

In order to really grasp the problem and my solution to it, I have to introduce you to a very basic literary concept. That concept is the dramatic structure, or Freytag's pyramid. The dramatic structure is the most basic template for any and all storytelling. It was originally utilized to analyze old plays, such as the works of Shakespeare. But due to the fact that Shakespeare’s writing was so influential and has practically become an entire lexicon of tropes, the pyramid can be utilized to analyze almost any story you come across. The dramatic structure includes five parts that categorize the different phases of a story. Those parts are exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution or conclusion. Now, in order to really understand the escalation problem, you only need to really look at the first three parts of the pyramid. This is because, those three parts make up the problem.

If you look way back at the Frieza Saga from Drgaonball Z, and compare it to the earlier Saiyan Saga, you could argue that from a dramatic standpoint, the Saiyan Saga is superior. This is purely off of the fact that the Saiyan Saga itself is more or less a self contained story, albeit with a few loose ends. Not only that, the Saiyan Saga had far more personal stakes and conflicts. Goku having to battle his brother after discovering his origins is incredibly moving, especially to the hardcore fans who watched (and or read) all of the original Dragonball beforehand. That and the introduction of Vegeta and Nappa raises the power ceiling of the series to new heights, and even though character death had already been more or less numbed in the original Dragonball, seeing countless long term characters getting obliterated is still extremely hard to watch for long term fans. Compare that to the Frieza Saga where the stakes only really grew because the villain had a higher power level than the heroes. That and the overall conflict was far more “classic comic book” in style. The entire plot of the Frieza Saga is very, very cheesy. There is far less personal conflicts in the Frieza Saga, until the very end when Goku finally achieves his Super Saiyan transformation. That being said, these issues are more or less remedied in the Cell Saga as there is a far greater focus on character building within that arc. The thing is, that between the Cell Saga and the Buu Saga, character development is more or less isolated to single moments than the entirety of the arc.

Using DBZ as an example, the escalation problem can be narrowed down to the writer, Akira Toriyama in this case, wanting to constantly one up his earlier work in the series. That and also pressure from editors as the Cell Saga was an influenced nightmare on part of Toriyama’s editors being fickle. The big difference however, lies in the transition from the Saiyan Saga to the Frieza Saga. The whole purpose of the Frieza Saga was to find the Namekian Dragon Balls and resurrect everyone Vegeta and Nappa killed. That goal is lost once Frieza and his army enters the fray, sure they are still looking for the Dragon Balls, but the arc becomes more focused on stopping Frieza than saving the fallen heroes. There is a lack of personal investment with the stakes of the Frieza Saga and that is the biggest issue here as a result of escalation.

Bringing it back to the dramatic structure, we can pinpoint why this problem exists and where it emerges. You see, most shonen manga and anime seem to only utilize the first three parts of the dramatic structure. Exposition is used to set up the concepts and ideas of the entire series and then for the remainder of the series the plot is stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of rising action and climax. There is no falling action or resolution in these stories because it seems like they are rushing to get to the next arc. They lose the benefits the falling action and resolution can provide because those parts of the dramatic structure are never utilized. However, there are some stories that do utilize the full extent of the dramatic structure, and two of them couldn’t be further apart.

The first example I want to mention is Boku no Hero Academia. Aren’t you surprised? Of course not, I have been gushing about this show non-stop. Fandom aside, Boku no Hero has shown a great understanding of the dramatic structure. Horikoshi definitely knows what he is doing when it comes to writing a complete story. The most recent season of the anime featured a tournament arc that used all five parts of the dramatic structure. There was exposition to explain each stage in the Sports Festival, rising action in the actual events themselves, a climax that culminated in the epic final battles of the Sports Festival, and then a falling action into a resolution where we see the winners awarded for their efforts. The arc even has further exposition leading into the rising action of the Stain arc, which picks up shortly after the resolution of the Sports Festival. The point I am making here is that an arc should have a definite conclusion to it. Falling action and resolution help to bring the audience back to reality. This can especially help for stories involving a lot of high powered battles, like Dragonball Z, Naruto, or Bleach even. The problem with introducing such ridiculously powered battles is that while the spectacle is great, we as the audience can forget that the characters we are seeing are still people with emotions and attachments. Though the much easier way to fix this is to maintain consistency, but that is a topic for later. However, the second example of dramatic structure I want to talk about is a far more impressive one, and it is one of the oldest and longest running manga of all time. I’m of course talking about the legendary, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

I’ve been meaning to get around to discussing Jojo on here, because it is one of my favorite anime and manga of all time, even though it isn’t in my top four. Jojo has been running for a very long time, and it has several ways that keep the story from getting stale at all. For one, the dramatic structure is present in the entirety of it. This is especially true since Jojo is a story told across multiple parts, each of which are self contained stories. This allows for new exposition to be introduced without the plot getting too confusing. Stands would not have been nearly as loved as they are if the third part of Jojo continued directly from its predecessors. Despite each part having a relation to the others, there is a very large gap of time in between them, thus keeping them separate for the most part and only ever mentioned through core mechanics, references, or minor character interactions like Joseph Joestar, the main character of part two, appearing in parts three and four. Because every part of Jojo is a new story it allows for a whole new style of storytelling to be utilized. Hirohiko Araki has created a formula that allows him to have complete and total creative freedom with his work and it shows. His art and storytelling are both extremely detailed and exemplify the best parts of the dramatic structure. There are so many things in Jojo that utilize the structure as well. Not only do the individual parts use the pyramid, but the individual fights as well. Not only that, there are sagas that carry across multiple parts that utilize the structure completely. To be honest, if I were to map out all of Jojo, we’d be here all day. There is so much material to work with and all of it shows what a good shonen can be, even if Jojo is moreso a seinen series.

The dramatic structure is one of the most common and useful strategies when it comes to writing any story. A lot of long form stories in anime and manga could seriously benefit from the use of this structure and we are starting to see that within stories like Boku no Hero. With the fall season coming soon, it seems we have a ton of other battle anime coming out including Black Clover. Let’s hope these anime understand what makes shows like Boku no Hero and Jojo so great and utilize it in their own story. Hope you enjoyed the article.

[jo-wallice-blog]

Vegeta is the Greatest Anime Character Pt3: His Relationship to Bulma and Trunks.

Read Part 1 Here: 

https://jo-wallice.tumblr.com/post/161013940959/vegeta-is-the-greatest-anime-character-pt-1-the

Read Part 2 Here:

https://jo-wallice.tumblr.com/post/161051669699/vegeta-is-the-greatest-anime-character-pt2-his

Part 3:

Vegeta is introduced as a horrible villain. Later, Vegeta is given a common enemy with the heroes (Frieza) and subtly gains some empathy.

If spectacle and believable development can make for a strong character, I think Vegeta’s relationship with Bulma and Trunks is what makes him the greatest anime character of all time.

Future Trunks show’s up and kills Mecha Frieza in one episode. Trunks is a super powerful mystery, and his introduction is bombastic to say the least. After seeing another super saiyan come from nowhere, the biggest surprise Trunks delivers is that Vegeta and Bulma are his parents. Spectacle.

Vegeta was introduced as possibly the most hyped villain in the series (if you consider the amount of episodes that are spent leading up to his fight with Goku). Bulma is the series’ sweetheart, and easily the most prominent female character. Against all odds, the romance between Bulma and Vegeta is believable. Vegeta’s rollercoaster ride from being the tyrant Prince of the Saiyans  to father and protector of Earth is what makes him such an amazing character.

All of this is cemented when Cell appears to have killed Future Trunks. Vegeta is devastated. This is a person who killed his partner (Nappa) basically for fun. This is a person who has always viewed himself as superior to everyone, and now he’s feeling emotions for his half-human son from the future. From this point on, though he is still a bit of a jerk, Vegeta seeks to help Earth. Believable development.

Behind the scenes of all this is Bulma. She’s smart, fun, and has blue hair, so it’s believable that Vegeta would be attracted to her. Early on it’s implied that Bulma likes “bad boys” because she dates Yamcha who is a desert bandit. Obviously, if we consider who Bulma hangs out with, she likes powerful people. Vegeta is the classic powerful “bad boy”. Their romance is never shoved down out throat, so it’s believable that Vegeta would be softened by his relationship to Bulma.

Compare Vegeta to any other anime character. Who else changes so profoundly as a character? Vegeta’s change is nuanced, and so much time is put into it. He’s a powerful, interesting, and ultimately (against all odds) an empathetic character that the viewer relates to.

Vegeta is the greatest anime character.

Side Note: I’ve been writing a lot on Tumblr, and I’m working on a novel. If you’d like to keep up with me follow this blog. I appreciate all the support I’ve gotten from this community.

Thanks, Jo :)

[remotecontrolchuck]

Last Week Toonami Night Review: Jack is Back in the Past

Last week a long journey had come to an end. A good, but somber end. Jack finally gets back to the past and kills Aku, but at the cost of losing Ashi. Quite the Gurran Lagann as everyone was saying. But really, it just another case of time travel being a bittersweet experience. For not only by killing Aku in the past prevented Ashi’s existence, but everyone Jack has ever met on his quest now ceased to exist as well, becoming nothing more than a memory in the swordsman’s mind.

But even so, Jack has finally defeated evil itself, and saved his past and loved ones. The series may not have ended the way we expected it to, but nevertheless, it ended on a good note. Sure, the hero at the end of the story doesn’t get the girl after saving the world, but that’s how the story goes sometimes. Not all stories end on a happy note, and some great stories are like that. But even so, they could have done a better job conveying it.

Anyway, here are my last thoughts on the series finale. After so many years, I was glad to see this series get a proper ending. Jack finally got back to the past and defeated Aku once and for all. And while I’m not totally happy about the bittersweet ending we got, I was nonetheless satisfied with it. I look forward to seeing it all again in the marathon tonight.

Now to finish this off with the recap.

Samurai Jack: Jack is captured by Aku, but is rescued by everyone he’s ever helped. He then manages to help Ashi regain control of her body by admitting his love for her. Ashi uses her newfound power to help Jack travel back into the past and kill her father. The world is now at peace, but without Aku, Ashi ceases to exist. And while Jack mourns her death, he will heal in time, as he has his home again.

Also, in the end, we never got to learn his real name. I mean, we’ll always remember him as Jack, but some of us are curious as to what his name was originally. Oh well, I guess it’ll be left as one of those question we’ll ponder over for years to come every time we look back at this great series.

Dragon Ball Super: Frieza’s men plan to resurrect their master, and they do so by forcing the Pilaf Gang to use all seven dragon balls they had just acquired. With them, Sorbet wishes for Frieza’s resurrection, while Mai and Shu get their wish for money and ice cream. However, Frieza had returned in pieces, but his minions manage to put him back together again. With Frieza back in his prime, his rematch with Goku is sure to follow.

DBZ Kai: While Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan wait to face Dabura, the tournament continues, with Android 18 fighting “Mighty Mask”. However, the latter is soon revealed to be young Goten and Trunks, and are immediately disqualified and grounded by their mothers.

Attack on Titan: We’re given more backstory regarding Ymir and Krista, giving the two more character development, and nice break from the main characters. Gotta love episodes that focus on the side characters. Anyway, to summarize the episode is simply this. Ymir is a Titan Shifter, Krista’s real name is Historia, and the fans that ship these two were no doubt pleased by this episode.

Tokyo Ghoul: Hinami gets caught by Mado, but is soon rescued by Touka, who ends the mad investigator’s life. Meanwhile, Kaneki prevents Amon from catching up with Mado, and almost goes completely crazy from hunger. In the end, everyone goes home happy, except for Amon who mourns his mentor’s death.

Hunter x Hunter: While the Phantom Troupe continue to massacre the mafia, Zeno and Silva Zoldyck take on Chrollo Lucilfer, and we’re given a good, epic fight. I can’t wait to see who wins next week!

Gundam Unicorn: The contents of Laplace’s Box is revealed to be the original Universal Century charter, which includes an extra article regarding Newtypes, which could’ve prevented the hellish One Year War from happening. But while Banagher and Mineva plan to reveal the secret to the public, Full Frontal intervenes by using a new psycho machine to prevent their broadcast. The race for Laplace’s Box is over, now the final fight begins!

Naruto Shippuden: Kakashi takes on Pain, with some help from Choza and his son Choji. In the end they barely survive the encounter, and they discover a weakness from one of Pain’s puppets.

Ghost in the Shell: Batou goes undercover investigate information being stolen from a U.S. Naval Base. The suspect behind the thefts is a former paralympic silver medalist that Batou’s a fan of, Pavlo Zaitsev. While getting to know the man, he soon discovers that Zaitsev is indeed the spy, and is left with no choice but to arrest his former role model.

Well that’s it for the recap, here’s to seeing the Samurai Jack Marathon tonight! Don’t know whether I’ll be posting much during my liveblog, not sure what I can say that hasn’t already been said before, but I look forward to seeing everyone else’s comments during tonight’s run.

Until then, see you guys later this evening, and Stay Gold.

[tigerlover16-uk]

Thoughts on DBS Chapter 32

Oh, this is going to be fun to talk about. And by fun, I mean UUUUGGGGHHHHH!

* I liked the introductory scene we got of Caulifla, but apart from that I don’t really like how Toyotaro handled her. We get this set up that she’s some strong and intimidating gang leader that controls her own territory on Planet Sadla, and that the military can’t handle her. Which, alright, that’s good. It was curious that her followers mostly seem to be a small group of hooded women in this version, rather than a bunch of muscular male thugs like in the anime. And apparently there are children living in her settlement? That leaves me with a lot of questions I wouldn’t mind seeing answered.

However, I really don’t feel like Toyotaro sold her as a fighter. She beats up some random soldiers, and we get a transition shot of her kicking Cabba into a mountain, but then Cabba just goes Super Saiyan and kicks her butt, and it ends in Caulifla cowering against a wall as he stops short of punching her.

Like... I get the intention was to make her want to transform to get her to fight in the tournament, but the anime did that just fine by having Cabba just blast away that one guy by powering up. We don’t even get to see Caulifla powering up, we’re just told she did that off-screen with ease.

It honestly makes her competence as a fighter come off as an informed attribute. I mean, excluding Note from Dragon Ball Heroes (Which is as supplementary and far from canon as you can get, so I don’t count it), Caulifla is the first super saiyan woman in the franchise. Why did Toyotaro feel the need to trivialize the significance of that so much?

(Then again given how he wrote Bulma and Future Mai last saga, and Chichi and Videl’s practical nonexistence in this manga, I’m starting to wonder if maybe Toyotaro just has a problem with women in general... I’m terrified to see how he handles the Kamikaze Fireballs)

* I don’t know how to feel about Kale in this version. We didn’t see her transform before the tournament, which I guess isn’t necessary so whatever. She seems more brooding and her meekness is toned down a lot, and apparently she’s really fast in her base form. I guess some people might find this more appealing, but it leaves me wondering what exactly Toyotaro’s going to do with her.

Also, I don’t like how it’s Cabba who wanted to bring her to the tournament in this version. Here Caulifla seems less confident in her abilities and saying while she has promise she’s “Not quite there yet”. For the problems the anime had with Kale’s handling, her relationship with Caulifla was something I really did like, so this has me a bit worried.

Also, I feel like it was a waste that we still don’t really know anything about Kale’s backstory so far. That was the main issue with her portrayal in the anime, where we didn’t have enough set up as to why she’s such a depressed person and building up her and Caulifla’s relationship to properly sell why she would have such a meltdown when she thought Caulifla was abandoning her. Everything else would have been fine the way it was if it was built up better, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected Toyotaro to catch on to that.

* I see everything from episode 89 was cut. Which, I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I’m glad to see the stuff with Yurin and Master Roshi’s antics go. That was just uncomfortable on too many levels and not needed at all, so good riddance.

But I miss the detail of Tien having his own Dojo now. While the anime gratuitously undersold him as a fighter, Tien opening up a dojo and training his own students was the most significant character progression he’d gotten since the end of the original Dragon Ball, and honestly I feel it left him in a much better place than the Buu Saga did, where he and Chiaotzu had just apparently become wandering hermits who never see any of the other characters anymore, which I always thought was just unsatisfying.

In the manga, he just kind of shows up, with Roshi even commenting that he never expected the two of them would ever be needed for anything ever again (Hey, Toyotaro? Trying to be meta isn’t always a good thing, especially if it effectively advertises that they supposedly don’t really matter in this story)

I appreciate we didn’t see Tien get slapped around so much at least, but if his contributions to the tournament end up being as minimal as they were in the anime, then he’ll effectively be left with nothing in this version.

* On a similar note, Master Roshi doesn’t get any build up either. We don’t have any indication that he’s gotten stronger, we don’t see him training to overcome his perverted instincts, and we don’t get that nice moment with him and Korrin. Which is just disappointing.

I mean, the bit with him and Puar was uncomfortable yes and I’m not completely sad to see it go, but unlike the Yurin nonsense it at least served to show characters actually preparing for the tournament, that the minor characters have their own part to play, and overcoming his perverted nature counts as a bit of development for Roshi to show just how big a deal his role in the story was to his character.

Here he’s gotten nothing so far, we only know he wants prize money to renovate Kame House. I’m really nervous Toyotaro’s going to screw up his big moment in the tournament now.

* We also barely see anything with Frieza, and all the cool moments with Frieza selling him as having gotten smarter and a lot more cunning and effectively selling him as being back better than ever are cut out in favour of a joke about his and Goku’s negotiations “Not going well” and them showing up looking beat up. Also Frieza is the one who doesn’t want to hold hands in this version. It’s just... so unsatisfying and the way it’s set up makes his inclusion feel obligatory because it’s in the story outline.

I mean... it’s not even clear that the image training he did allowed him to overcome his stamina problem as golden Frieza, it’s just said he got stronger. What the heck? Isn’t Toyotaro the guy who just loves adding little details to things the anime glosses over?

* Either Toyotaro forgot to include Goten’s name when 17 said it, or Trunks is the only one guarding Android 17��s island in this version. Marron is nowhere in sight.

I mean, okay I get leaving her out, but why Goten too? Toyotaro just loves excluding and marginalizing the Son family, doesn’t he? On that note...

* We don’t see ANY of Gohan’s training with Piccolo. He just shows up (Wearing Piccolo’s purple gi instead of Goku’s. Because of course, gotta pander to the “Piccolo is his real dad” people I guess), says he’s excited to be fighting with Vegeta again (Notice how there’s no interaction between him and Goku in this version so far?) and it’s commented he looks like he’s improved.

Just... wow. I know we make fun of how fast and how much he seemed to improve in the anime, but at least the anime TRIED to give Gohan an arc and make him feel like a significant character. The writers actually TRIED giving him some good development and natural character progression that was really interesting. Here, Gohan just feels like as much of an afterthought as everyone else so far not named Goku, Vegeta and to a lesser extend Android 17. And I’m pretty sure that’s only because Toriyama specified that his scenes had to happen in a certain way to properly re-introduce him.

* What the heck!?!? We didn’t get ANY set up for the fighters from the other universes except Toppo, Jiren, Caulifla, Kale and somewhat for Dyspo I guess? Even the other Pride Troopers were just background fodder in their one scene, including Kahseral. This is just straight up admitting that every other new character in this tournament is just scenery who just exist to pad out time. What the heck!

* Also, instead of wanting Krillin to be in the tournament because he’s a good tactical fighter, here Goku just says he should join because he’s small and good at running away (Viz tried to soften it by having Goku say he runs fast, but the intent is still clear). Way to bow down to the memes and make a joke out of one of the series most important characters while not giving him any character development or having him get stronger and becoming a full time martial artist again, Toyotaro! Are you sure you’ve actually read Dragon Ball, and you’re not just a TFS fanboy!?

Okay, look, I can go on. I mean, I really can, because there’s a lot of stupid and lazy stuff here. This legitimately feels like one of the chapters out of the manga’s Battle of God’s saga, where Toyotaro was just abridging the story as much as he could to get to the Champa saga.

In conjunction with the other two “Build up” chapters before the tournament, everything feels so slap dashed and phoned in, like Toyotaro didn’t put any effort into making the story interesting or fun, or even trying to make it feel like any of the characters except Goku, Vegeta, Jiren, Toppo and the Saiyan girls had anything going for them in this story. 

I honestly never want to hear any more complaints about the pacing of the anime version after reading this, because this was insultingly lazy! It barely feels like there’s an actual story going on, there’s no tension or dramatic weight to ANYTHING in this chapter. Everything here feels like it was just ticking off boxes of stuff Toriyama said to include in the outline so Toyotaro can just get to the tournament ASAP. It’s that pathetically lazy.

I refuse to put up with anyone telling me that the manga version of this arc is so much better than the anime rendition, because literally ALL of the best parts were in the anime and weren’t included here. The only thing that feels slightly more fleshed out is Jiren, which great that he has more personality, but that’s NOT ENOUGH to make up for everything else that wasn’t included!

This was by far the worst, laziest chapter of the manga I’ve read in a while. All it’s missing was another one of Toyotaro’s nonsense comments about how Goku doesn’t know where babies come from.

Dear God, this blows. I really didn’t expect to get this angry writing my thoughts on this, but I have just had it with Toyotaro. THIS is the man Toriyama supposedly picked as his successor, people. GOD help us all!

[duhragonball]

The 10 Best Episodes of Dragon Ball and DBZ

Back in October I wrote up a list of the ten worst episodes of Dragon Ball, and I always meant to go back and do a ten best list to go with it.    Well it’s the last Sunday of the year and I got nothing better to do, so I’m gonna knock that out today.

Honestly, I’m not sure which one of these was tougher to do.    The main reason I made a worst list was because I noticed a small handful of episodes I just didn’t like, and I realized that even with a show I like this much, there had to be at least ten stinkers, so I liked the challenge of picking them out.   On the other hand, picking the ten best episodes is like finding really good pieces of hay in an awesome haystack.    And I’m a horse, so I’m already super-into hay.   This analogy is getting tortured, so I’ll just move on.

Honorable Mention: Dragon Ball Z Episode 125.

I think the fandom has unanimously agreed that this is the all-time best episode of Dragon Ball, but it didn’t feel right putting it in my list.    I don’t know if that’s because I sincerely believe it’s the 11th best episode, or because I just don’t want a predictable choice taking up space on my list.    That’s how Dragon Ball rolls sometimes.   Past a point, you can’t tell if you’re liking something ironically, or just plain liking it.  

Without question, this is the all-time best filler episode.   We all know the tale: Goku and Piccolo are busy training for the upcoming Androids battle, but Chi-Chi is sick of them not helping around the house, so she wants them to take driver’s ed so they can drive her to the grocery once in a while.    Well, mostly Goku, but Piccolo somehow gets roped into it too.    Honestly, I don’t think he really needed to go through with this.  He pouts like Chi-Chi made him do this somehow, but she was clearly only interested in getting Goku licensed up.    I think he just sort of invited himself into this situation because he wanted to feel like part of the family.   

Anyway, the boys dress up in stupid/awesome civilian clothes, and somehow manage to be great at driving and terrible at driving at the same time.   It’s a very zen kind of show.   Also there’s a smidgen of Vegebul goodness, and Icarus shows up for no apparent reason, so there’s something for everyone.   

10. Dragon Ball Z Episode 120

This the one where Future Trunks kills Mecha Frieza.   There’s no shortage of fans who think reviving Frieza in the 2010′s was worth it, but for my money, nothing they do with the character can possibly top his (first) death scene.  

Leading up to this episode, everyone just assumed that Goku killed Frieza on Namek, but he survived, got rebuilt as a cyborg, and invaded Earth for revenge.  The implication is that Goku will have to fight an even stronger version of his greatest foe, except he’s nowhere to be found, and no one else stands a chance of holding the line until Goku can arrive.  

But then the story ups the ante again by having a totally new character show up, turn Super Saiyan, and shrug off Frieza’s attacks like they’re nothing.   When he finally attacks Frieza, he whips out a cool-looking ki blast, and that turns out to just be a feint.    No, his real attack is a simple swing of an ordinary sword, which cuts Frieza in half like he’s made out of butter.

Meanwhile, all the major characters are standing on the sidelines wondering what the hell is going on here.    There’s a Super Saiyan besides Goku?   Aren’t all the Saiyans extinct?   Where did this new guy come from, and how did he even know to be here?

It’s a brilliant episode, because it serves as a coda to the menace of Frieza that loomed large over the previous 119 episodes of Z, and it also serves as a prelude to the next 75 episodes, which promises a crisis far beyond anything that’s come before.   But it also works as a stand-alone story.    Frieza’s body tells the story of why he wants revenge on the Super Saiyan, and when Trunks reveals that there’s more than one Super Saiyan, he completely self-destructs.   He goes from the tyrant of the universe to just another corpse in a matter of minutes.   It’s amazing to watch. 

9. Dragon Ball Episode 67

Strictly speaking, Goku’s assault on the Red Ribbon Army base is three episodes, so maybe it’s gauche to include one and not the others, but this one is the climax of the Red Ribbon’s downfall, so I think it stands out.   

By this point, Goku’s already entered the RRA headquarters, and is just having his way with the place.    Episode 66 was full of guys trying to shoot him, but he just kicks all their asses and moves on.    Staff Officer Black has finally realized what they should have accepted from the beginning: that Goku is too strong for them to defeat by force.    But Commander Red can’t quite bring himself to give up the fight.   Maybe it’s because so much of his identity is tied into the Red Ribbon’s supposed invincibility, or he just can’t fathom how a small boy can do all these things.   

I think what really hurts his pride is when his soldiers start deserting en masse.   Before, he could keep them in line because of the Red Ribbon’s fearsome reputation, but that’s over now, whether he believes it or not.    When Colonel Violet loots his treasure vault, not even bothering to disable the security cameras, he has to know that it’s all over. 

Then we find out that he only wanted the Dragon Balls so that he could make a wish to become taller, and Black is horrified.    He wasted all those lives and resources for something as petty and selfish as that?    What makes this episode so great is how the world around them is crashing down, and they’re arguing over a plan that’ll never happen anyway.  And Red absolutely doesn’t get why Black would think his wish was stupid.   He’s like “Um, you need to check your tall privilege?”   And Black shoots him in the face because he’s just done. 

But this episode’s not done, because once Red is out of the picture, Black sort of loses it and tries to fight Goku for possession of the Dragon Balls.   It’s really amazing character development, because Black was the calm, collected center of the Red Ribbon Army, but then he just flips out, forgetting all the lessons his comrades learned the hard way.    The lure of the Dragon Balls is just too seductive for him to give up.  

Also, Colonel Violet is super cute.

8. Dragon Ball Z Episode 135

A few episodes before this one, Vegeta debuted his own Super Saiyan transformation, and kicked the shit out of Android 19.  It was a big deal, because up to that point, Goku and Trunks were the only Super Saiyans, implying that jerks like Vegeta couldn’t do it.    It was also a big deal because it was assumed up to that point that the androids might just be unbeatable, and Vegeta clobbered one of them in a single episode.   

But that episode didn’t make the list, because this one is far more important.    Here, Vegeta tries to press his luck by challenging the even stronger Android 18, even though everyone else tries to tell him this is a terrible idea.   What follows is one of the coolest fights in the series, and the best classic Dragon Ball battle to feature a woman.   For a while it looks pretty even, but then 18 reveals she was hustling Vegeta the whole time, and defeats him with no trouble at all.

Why is this such a big moment?   For one thing, it’s the next step in deconstructing the Super Saiyan Legend.   Vegeta had already proven that you don’t have to be a good person to turn into a Super Saiyan, and that it’s not just a once-in-a-millennium thing.   Here, he proves that Super Saiyans aren’t as invincible as he liked to believe.   We’d already seen Goku lose to Android 19, but he was sick at the time.   Trunks was no match for he androids in his own timeline, but those battles had happened off-screen.   This is a much more visceral demonstration.   You’ve got the Saiyan Prince, in perfect health, fresh as a daisy, comfortably transformed, and it doesn’t do him a damn bit of good.  18 breaks his arm like it’s not even hard.

For Vegeta, this was a big deal, because it finally cemented the fact that there is no finish line.    From his first appearance, he seemed convinced that he could become the supreme being in his universe, simply by killing Frieza, becoming immortal, or transforming into a Super Saiyan.   Here, he thinks he’s finally pulled it off, only to lose even more decisively than ever before.

7. Dragon Ball Episode 99

I debated whether to go with this one or Episode 101, where Tien finally beats Goku to win the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai, but I think this episode deserves the nod.    The Goku/Tien championship bout spanned several episodes, but this is the one where Tien finally decides that he’d rather win the title than avenge Tao Pai Pai.   

Let me back up a bit here.    Goku (seemingly) killed Tao in a prior episode, and Tao was the brother of the Crane Hermit, Tien’s master.    So going into this fight, Tien was planning to defeat Goku, win the championship, and then kill Goku in front of the live audience, just to get that extra bit of revenge.    But once the fight actually got rolling, Tien began to develop a begrudging respect for Goku’s talent, and then this episode happens, where Tien starts winning, and Goku accuses him of cheating.    Tien doesn’t know what he’s talking about at first, until he realizes that the Crane Hermit is using Chiaotzu’s psychic powers to paralyze Goku at key moments.  

Once he figures it out, he tells them to stop, since he wants to prove his own superiority, but Crane just wants Goku to die, title or no title.   He orders Tien to stop clowning and kill Goku at once, but Tien refuses, and turns his back on the life of an assassin.   Chiaotzu does the same, since he was enjoying the match before all the interference started.    Crane flips out, but Roshi Kamehameha’s him out of the stadium, allowing Tien and Goku to finally fight without any outside interference.  

Tien’s first order of business is to let Goku have a bunch of free shots, in order to make up for all the hits Tien got in while Chiaotzu was cheating.   Then he grows four arms, because he still wants to kick Goku’s ass, even if he doesn’t hate him anymore. 

Tien’s reform isn’t unique in the series, but I think his particular transformation is very neatly accomplished, inside this one episode, during a single epic battle.    Like so many other characters, he figures out that revenge, power, and bloodlust are hollow pursuits compared to the thrill of pushing your own limits through the sacred art of gonzo anime violence.   Being a bad guy isn’t just morally shameful, it’s downright boring.   Piccolo and Vegeta would eventually learn the same lesson, but it never gets spelled out quite as eloquently as it does in this episode.   Also, Launch tries to kill Chiaotzu with a giant cartoon mallet.  

6. Dragon Ball Episode 147

On the other hand, you’ve got this episode from the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, where Piccolo doesn’t learn a damned thing, except how to take an epic beating.

This episode is just wall-to-wall nuts.    Piccolo blows up the entire city where the tournament is being held, and that’s just for openers.    Tien uses his Ki-ko-ho to make a foxhole for the others to hide in, and Launch kicks Kami into it when he doesn’t jump in right away.   

Piccolo’s city-busting blast was intended to finish off Goku, but it doesn’t even scratch the lovable bastard, and it just gives Goku and opening to pound the ever-loving crap out of Big Green.    Goku just goes sickhouse on him, in one of the most satisfying and well-animated sequences in the whole series.   And to add insult to injury, he continues to play by the tournament rules.   Once he has Piccolo laid out where the ring used to be, he asks for a ten count.  

And that turns out to be a huge mistake, as Piccolo has enough juice left to zap him with a mouth blast at the last second.   The attack leaves a baseball-sized hole in Goku’s pec, and Piccolo just starts stomping on the wound.   Worse, he’s still strong enough that no one else can come to Goku’s rescue.   

And then, just when Goku looks to be finished, he gets back up anyway, still looking to win this battle.    Is he overconfident or just stupid?   Neither actually, as he has the whole fight under control, as the next episode reveals.  

5. Dragon Ball Z Episode 281

Oh mannnn, this episode ruuuules.   One of my pet peeves with this fandom is people crapping on the Buu Saga, simply for coming at the tail end of this franchise.   It’s bullshit, just like how Star Wars purists act like Empire Strikes Back is the best movie ever made and Return of the Jedi is a cinematic bowel movement.   They’re both good, you just lost interest before the series ended. 

The Buu arc isn’t my favorite, but it’s balls-to-the-wall awesome, and when I was making this list I had a hard time picking a favorite episode from the Kid Buu fight.    It’s just such a beautiful battle, packed with story and character development.    I can’t blame viewers for getting burnt out on Dragon Ball if they watched the preceding 433 episodes first, but to say these episodes are bad is just flat-out wrong.

Anyway, I went with 281, which features the tail end of Goku’s solo effort against Kid Buu.   Vegeta steps into give Goku a pep talk, and Goku admits that he can’t gather enough power to blow Buu away.   To do that, he’ll need a full minute to charge his ki, and Vegeta offers to buy him that minute, even though he’s weaker than Goku and doesn’t stand a chance against Buu by himself.   

What follows is a solid ten minutes of Vegeta getting clobbered, but he keeps getting back up and forcing himself to find new ways to play for time.    He doesn’t try to beat Buu, because he knows he can’t.  Instead, he keeps him busy, and psyches him out so he won’t bother Goku while he charges up.   

What makes this work is that it’s the counterpoint to Episode 133, seen earlier on this list.  Then, Vegeta thought his Super Saiyan form made him a guaranteed winner.   Now, he’s using Super Saiyan 2 in a desperate bid to just hold the line until an even stronger fighter can make his own last-ditch effort to win.    Vegeta’s fighting for a chance at victory, and it’s a slim chance at that.   One of my favorite things about this episode is how tragic it is.   By Episode 282, it becomes clear that Goku’s plan was never going to work, so Vegeta’s efforts were in vain.    But he doesn’t seem to mind much, because at least he got to throw down against Kid Buu and see exactly how long he could hold out.  

4. Dragon Ball Z Episode 184

This is the one where Gohan finally snaps and turns into a Super Saiyan 2, but when you put it like that, it seems so pedestrian.  

From his first appearance in Episode 1 of DBZ, Gohan was shown to have hidden potential, which was gradually brought out over the course of the series.   By the time the Cell Games rolled around, it was sort of implied that he had finally realized that full potential.   Goku trained him to be a Super Saiyan like himself, and how much higher could he possibly get than that?  

But Goku’s secret plan was for Gohan to fight Cell, and if he got in a pinch, Gohan would then tap into the same hidden potential he used to turn the tables on the Saiyans and Frieza.   Goku’s theory was that if he trained Gohan to be a Super Saiyan, then any power boost Gohan experienced during the fight would rachet him up to an even higher level never seen before.  

This suited Cell just fine, so he pooped out an army of mini-Cells to torture the Z-Fighters until Gohan’s rage pushed him into this higher level.   And that’s what this episode is all about, except it doesn’t really work.    The Cell Juniors clobber the heroes from pillar to post, but Gohan doesn’t change, and he doesn’t know how to make himself change.   Then Android 16 has an idea to talk him through it, and he convinces Mr. Satan to toss his severed head over to Gohan to he can make his speech.   Cell stomps on 16′s head in an impulsive act of cruelty, and then then “Unmei no Hi - Tmasahii Vs. Tamashii” starts playing.   

This is a huge moment in the series, not only because of the advent of Super Saiyan 2 and the turning of the tide in the Cell Games, but also because it marks the fufillment of the promise of Gohan’s character.   We all knew he would become something great, and now it finally comes into focus.  

But this episode also gets high marks for how all the other characters are handled.   Goku’s “foolproof” plan collapses, and he’s forced to apologize while they all get beaten down; Android 16 sacrifices himself after already losing his body; Mr. Satan does what little he can, proving that he’s more than just a gloryhound; and Cell seems to have second thoughts once he finally gets a glimpse at Gohan’s hidden power.  

3. Dragon Ball Z Episode 94

Maybe it would make more sense to pick the episode where Goku turns Super Saiyan for the first time, but I think the false-finish that precedes it deserves the spot.   I’ll try to explain.  

There’s really three things going on in this one.   First, Goku’s trying to assemble a Spirit Bomb powerful enough to kill Frieza.   In the previous episode, Frieza finally noticed what he was up to, and he decided to kill Goku before he could use the bomb.    But the bomb still isn’t big enough, so Goku needs more time.  

Second, Piccolo has jumped in to keep Frieza busy long enough for Goku to get the time he needs.   Much of this episode is Frieza beating up on a defenseless Piccolo, and then Krillin and Gohan jump in too.   It’s just awesome seeing all these guys throw everything they can into this effort.  

Third, there’s a filler subplot featuring the dead Z-Fighters on King Kai’s planet fighting the dead Ginyu Force members.   It’s goofy, and kind of inconsequential, but it’s fun.   I just like seeing the whole gang getting to worth together in the same episode.  

So when Goku finally deploys the Spirit Bomb and Frieza finds himself overwhelmed, it really feels like a team effort.  King Kai reports that Frieza’s been beaten, and this inspires Yamcha and the others to put the Ginyus away for keeps.   On Namek, only Krillin and Gohan are left standing after the Spirit Bomb explodes, and they wonder if Goku and Piccolo could have survived.  

I won’t sugar-coat it, a lot of DBZ episodes go pretty light on plot points.   So when you get one like this, with so many things going on all at once, and so many characters joining in, and so much suspense and drama, it really clicks.  This would have been a brilliant finale to the Frieza Saga, and the icing on the cake is that it’s all for naught.   Frieza’s fine in the next episode, which is all-the-more frustrating because of how satisfying this episode was.   

2. Dragon Ball Z Episode 179

Huh, I got a lot of Androids/Cell episodes on this list.   It’s almost like the Androids/Cell arc is the best one and it rules over all.   Nah, that can’t be it.  

This is the high-water mark of the Goku/Cell fight, which the whole series had been building to since Cell was first introduced some thirty-odd episodes earlier.   Here’s the new big-bad final boss, the next Frieza, essentially, so naturally it’s going to be up to Goku to put him down in a 19-episode brawl.  Only that’s not what happens.     Goku goes into the Cell Games admitting that he’s no match for Cell, but he wants to fight the guy anyway.   No one understands what he’s planning, but he seems pretty upbeat for a guy who expects to lose.  

The fight itself only goes four episodes.   The first is a feeling-out process, the second is mostly Cell showboating, but in this third episode, they really go at it.  The animation is beautifully handled by Keisuke Masunaga.   He’d supervised a handful of episodes before this, but this one is the first action-heavy episode, truly serving as a demonstration of what he could do.  

Plotwise, there isn’t a whole lot to say.   The battle goes pretty evenly here, and the main appeal is that all the other characters are still trying to figure out what Goku’s strategy is.   He said he couldn’t win, and yet he’s hanging in there with Cell, so what’s the deal?   You might think Goku’s aiming to win on a technicality, using Cell’s own rules against him, except Cell enjoys the fight so much that he blows up his own ring to prevent any chance of an out-of-bounds finish.    From here, the Cell Games can only end by surrender or death.  

So then Goku goes up into the air and tries a Kamehameha, similar to the one Cell used earlier in the battle.   Cell thinks it’s a bluff, since he knows he can dodge it, and from that steep an angle, Goku would just end up hitting the Earth and destroying it.    But Goku doesn’t blink, and just when Cell isn’t sure what’s going to happen, Goku teleports right in front of him and unloads the Kamehameha into his face at pointblank range.    

It’s another false finish.   Cell survives, but he has to grow back his head and arms first.    But for a moment, it looks like this was Goku’s big plan.  He knew he couldn’t outpower Cell, so he out-finessed him by using the Instant Transmission to get past his guard.   And you know, if the ring hadn’t been destroyed, maybe this would have worked.   Goku could have tossed Cell’s decaptitated body out of bounds and Cell would have regenerated to find himself outside the ring.   I always wonder what he would have done in that scenario.    I mean, Cell’s kind of a sore loser, but he seems to respect clever ploys, and the tournament was his idea.  

Anyway, Cell rules, this episode is wall-to-wall action, and the Warp Kamehameha is the best move in Budokai 2.  

1. Dragon Ball Z Episode 31

Personally, I find the Saiyans Saga to be slightly overrated, but dammit, this episode has just about everything.    I’d go so far as to say that when people praise the Saiyans Saga, they’re really only thinking back to this one episode, or maybe five of the best episodes that include this one. 

Here’s the deal: Vegeta has invaded Earth and all of the Z-Fighters are dead or badly hurt.  Only Goku is left to stop this guy, and he’s armed with the Kai-o-ken technique, a power multiplier as effective as it is risky.    King Kai warned Goku never to go beyond a double Kai-o-ken, because anything more than that could cripple his own body.   But he tried that in the previous episode, and Vegeta laughed it off.  So in this episode, Goku reluctantly goes for a Kai-o-ken times three.   

And for a few glorious minutes, Vegeta gets completely wrecked.  Goku just picks him apart with hit after hit after hit.    It’s enough to humble Vegeta and it’s enough to draw blood, but it doesn’t actually put the guy down.   Instead, Vegeta becomes so outraged that he flips out and tries to destroy the entire planet with his finisher, the Galick Gun.    This leaves no choice for Goku to keep using the Kai-o-ken times three, and he’s gotta fire a Kamehameha to block Vegeta’s shot.  

And when that turns out to be too weak to push back Vegeta’s attack, Goku is forced to turn it up even higher and use a four times Kai-o-ken.    So now we’re beyond anything King Kai had imagined when he taught him the technique.   It works, and Goku manages to shoot Vegeta into space, but his body is terribly banged up from the effort.  

Which is a real shame, because Vegeta manages to save himself from being blasted into space, and he’s still got enough juice to pull his own trump card: turning into a giant ape!   Saiyans need a full moon to do this, and Piccolo helpfully destroyed the moon before Vegteta’s arrival, but that doesn’t matter, because Vegeta can make his own artificial moonlight with a special ki technique!   So the episode ends with an exhausted Goku staring at a hundred-foot tall Vegeta-ape.  

And hopefully I’ve made my point.   You’ve got three big BIG moments in the series here.    Goku’s Kai-o-ken X3 offensive against Vegeta was what made their rivalry.  Before that, Vegeta never came close to sweating Goku, and afterward, every time Vegeta thought back on their battle, this was the part he remembered.   The Galick Gun/Kamehameha beam struggle was an iconic moment all by itself, and it’s the standard by which all other beam struggles are judged.   And then you’ve got Vegeta using the fake moon trick and turning into a giant ape, setting the stage for the final leg of the battle.    Any one of these things would earn a spot on this list, but DBZ #31 has all three.   It’s gotta take the top spot.   It’s just gotta. 

There’s a lot of really great episodes I didn’t cover.   I’m a big fan of the Pikkon episodes, and the one where 16 fights Cell is a personal fave, and the Vegito episodes are awesome too.   But there’s only so much room at the top.     I bet I could have a completely different list in a couple years’ time.   In conclusion, Dragon Ball fucking rules.