YMMV / Dragon Ball Super

For the other YMMV subpages:

• Dragon Ball
• Dragon Ball Z
• Dragon Ball GT

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Tropes with their own pages

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Ass Pulls
• Complete Monster
• Ensemble Darkhorse
• Franchise Original Sin
• Fridge
• Harsher In Hindsight
• Hilarious In Hindsight
• Memetic Mutation
• Memetic Losers
• Moral Event Horizon
• Signature Scene
• Tear Jerker
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot
• The Woobie

General subjective tropes

A to E

• Abandon Shipping:
  • Whis/Vados shippers quickly jumped ship once it was discovered that they're siblings.
  • Some feel this way about Trunks and Mai, as Trunks in the present timeline is still a young child while Mai has the mind of a fully grown woman trapped in a child's body. This may also make Future Trunks' first interaction with present Mai awkward, despite the fact that he's more-or-less glad to see her above all else, and the main reason Mai's blushing is her outdated values for hand-holding.
  • Back when she was announced, Cabba and Kale were a rather popular pairing. After she and Caulifla were properly introduced though, the ship was quietly dropped for shipping either (or both) of them with Caulifla.
• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Goku Black's desire to face Goku, and his quotes about it are... oddly weird. Then again, this is not strange for Black...
    Goku Black: This body wants him. It doesn't look like I can stop that desire.
  • After being revived Frieza punches Goku in the gut claiming his hand slipped, Goku then returns the favor. Frieza then asks what will slip next with clear enthusiasm in his voice. It doesn't help that Baba's insistence for Goku to take Frieza and leave already could be compared to an annoyed bystander telling them to get a room.
    Frieza: [punches Goku] Sorry, my hand slipped.
    Goku: [catching his breath] Ungh... Well, guess it can't be helped. [punches back] Sorry, mine slipped too.
    [The two proceed to share a chuckle, before Baba gets annoyed.]
    Baba: Can you two leave already?
    Goku: Alright Frieza, hold on. [sees Frieza looking confused] It's my Instant Transmission, remember. Just grab on to me, no more hand slipping.
    Frieza: Then I wonder, what will slip next?
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Rō was an unlikable and smug Jerkass God who not a lot of fans could stand, but even then, some fans felt really bad for him when his universe lost and he was erased, especially as he screamed Zeno's name in terror.
• Alternate Self Shipping: Goku Black and Zamasu is a popular Crack Pairing, despite being alternate timeline versions of each other. It helps that they're both colossal narcissists and already have a Villainous Friendship.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • The Doctor Slump crossover had a vocal group in the US who hated the episode, citing the wonky power scaling and a gag character not fitting the tone of what they think Dragon Ball should be (which is another issue entirely with the fanbase).
  • The reception Ribrianne had in her native Japan is quite favorable, while in the west Ribrianne was... not, due to her magical girl parody being seen out of place, for the same reason as Arale stated above (it doesn't help that magical girl shows like Pretty Cure generally don't fly off in the States). Initially she was just despised, but later development elevated her to Base-Breaking Character.
• Angst Aversion:
  • Quite a few fans were turned off by the Future Trunks Saga's chronic Yank the Dog's Chain — especially the ending where Trunks' entire timeline was lost.
  • The Universe Survival Saga also ran afoul on this, courtesy to Zeno threatening to destroy all but one of the lowest ranking universes, having planned on wiping them out from the start. The tournament was just a handy excuse and living is the prize for the winning universe. Goku's Blood Knight mindset hasn't helped either since he and the others seemingly didn't really care about the multiverse, just their own survival. This was mostly fixed with the finale's revelation that the Zen-Os planned on the winner being righteous enough that they would use their wish to restore the universes, thereby undoing all the erasing and removing the Jerkass God pretense. Though there is still the issue that had the winner used the wish for a selfish reason, Zen-O would have Rage Quit the entire multiverse, meaning billions of innocent lives would've had their fates determined by a tournament they knew nothing of.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Episode 67, where the cast is rather nonchalant about Future Trunks' timeline being destroyed by Future Zeno, with only Future Trunks and Mai showing any real grief, because they were personally invested in that timeline. This is even worse in the manga's covering of the events, where neither Future Trunks nor Mai seem to care that their timeline and everyone they knew were gone forever. To add insult to injury, they were seen actively engaging in a victory party with the rest of the cast, while in the anime they were seen crestfallen at a quiet dinner.
  • Although the cast is understandably horrified when they hear that their universe will be destroyed if they lose the Tournament of Power, they're more worried about their universe. Not so much about the other universes being destroyed and all the lives that would be lost. This also holds true for the other universes where they're all smirking and act as if they're having fun. This is subverted in episode 99, however, as nearly everyone reacts in horror at the erasure of Universe 9.
  • The remaining Z-Fighters finding out that Goku lied about the Tournament of Power having prize money and the universe would be erased if they lose. To the surprise of the fandom, the characters were more upset about Goku lying to them and that there was no prize money with the universe being erased being a secondary concern. Some even threatened to quit and only agreed to fight once Bulma promised to pay anyone who wanted money and wasn't pleased about the arrangement when Goku brought it up. Vegeta's lack of reaction was the most standout since many expected Vegeta to be motivated since his daughter was just born.
  • In the next few episodes, most of the characters are unfazed about Frieza being the tenth member to replace Buu. Only Vegeta, Krillin, and the Supreme Kai gave any real vocal protest. Gohan, who was tortured by Frieza and the team leader, and Piccolo, who was killed by Frieza, offer no protest and even smile when Goku left to get Frieza. Bulma also stands out since Frieza killed her entire family before Whis rewound time, yet her only concern were the details of how Frieza could be revived.
  • Frieza, last seen screaming in futility at his Hellish punishment, is pretty chill to see Goku there wanting to talk to him. Not so much in the manga though, where Frieza is clearly angry to see Goku again in hell.
  • Chapter 40 of the manga has Android 17 sacrifice himself. Unlike in the anime, Android 18 acts oddly apathetic and shows absolutely no reaction. It's revealed in Chapter 42 that she knew that 17 was alive the whole time.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Frieza may have fared better here than in Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F',^note  In Resurrection F, the fight was a straight Humiliation Conga from beginning to end, and Frieza never really had Goku on the ropes even when he had the advantage. Super at least gives the impression that he had a chance at winning. but he still falls into this. Despite coming back stronger than ever and beating Goku close to unconsciousness, Goku merely had to wait until he ran out of stamina, after which he was easy pickings. If Goku and Vegeta had worked together, they would have easily taken care of Frieza without any trouble.
  • Zamasu in the present. After episodes building up to his Face–Heel Turn and his role as the Arc Villain, he is completely disintegrated by Beerus in less than a minute. This was turned on its head after it was revealed that Goku Black is an incarnation of Present Zamasu whose plans succeeded.
  • The epic clash between Vegito and Fusion Zamasu is one of the best animated sequences in the series and pits two fused characters against each other. It ends with Vegito's fusion breaking in the middle of the battle since Super Saiyan Blue burned through his energy. It's even more anticlimactic in the manga since Vegito utterly dominated Fusion Zamasu before defusing.
  • Once Fusion Zamasu fuses with the entire multiverse, he essentially becomes the most powerful villain in the entire franchise by a country mile. Future Zeno proceeds to wipe him out in seconds along with the entire future timeline. Justified as by that point, he couldn't be fought or defeated by any conventional means.
  • In the Universe Survival saga, there's Universe 4 last fighters. Since the beginning of the saga, the hidden fighters Damon and Gamisaras were always hidden and preparing an attack, but once they finally attacked, they were revealed to be mostly gimmick characters who make Quitela, set up as The Rival to Beerus for the tournament, a Smug Snake, and they are rather humiliatingly defeated without much care in the world. Even the episode's direction seems to lampshade this, as unlike other fighters' Last Stands, the musical and fighting direction is goofy and doesn't treat them seriously. It says something that even managing to very easily eliminate Katopelsa and Piccolo doesn't make them that much of a threat.
  • Kefla in the manga. In the anime, she's presented as the Climax Boss and Universe 6's secret hand whose battle against Ultra Instinct Goku is considered one of the most memorable moments in the series. In the manga, she gets ringed out in a tie with Gohan and never fights Goku, and her fight was not even the focus of the chapter she was defeated in.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The manga Future Trunks Saga. While the manga being a monthly publication would cause it to fall behind the anime, the Future Trunks Saga had been going on for more than a year when it finally ended. Compare this to the 29 weeks it took the anime to cover the same ground, and you'll see why fans were ready for the manga to move on to the Universal Survival Saga.
  • Zigzagged with the Universe Survival Saga. On the one hand, fans had this sentiment towards the early focus on Universe 7's recruitment episodes and the odd pacing of the tournament eliminations. On the other hand, several fans have appreciated the attempt to characterize the 60+ new characters and feel the year-long length was necessary to do this, and the Tournament of Power was generally agreed to have improved dramatically after its proper endgame began.
  • The Moro Saga in the manga. While initially praised for finally allowing Toyotaro to create a unique arc that had arguably the most interesting villain in the manga so far, on top of having a solid start and premise, fans turned sour about it as time went on due to the dragged out pacing, and how ultimately the arc copied many past arcs for its setup and execution. By late 2020, the arc went from being seen as the best arc in the manga, to being far more divisive. Made worse that as it seems Merus destroys Moro's absorption abilities, Goku's Ultra Instinct manages to cripple Moro tremendously until Goku idiotically decides to "fight Moro as a human", dragging it out even further than it should.
• Archive Panic: The Dragon Ball manga by Akira Toriyama ran for 42 volumes and 519 chapters. The anime spans for 450 episodes, counting 153 episodes from Dragon Ball and 291 episodes from Dragon Ball Z. The number bumps to 514 if you count Dragon Ball GT. Even if you want to just watched Dragon Ball Z Kai, the abridged version of Z (no, not that abridged series), that is still 167 episodes. There is also the Dragon Ball prequel, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, that introduced Jaco and Bulma's sister Tights. To top it all off, Super brought in 131 more episodes as of now, and that's not even getting into the movies, both the Non Serial Movies and the canon movies, along with the three TV specials.
• Ass Pull:
  • Frost being Evil All Along. It came with next to no foreshadowing and goes against nearly everything established about him prior. This is actually exactly as Frost wanted it.
  • Fusion Zamasu casting off his physical form and then turning into a multiverse-consuming Eldritch Abomination thanks to his immortality seemingly came out of nowhere; there was little foreshadowing that such a thing was even possible. Doubles as Never Trust a Trailer since the preview focused entirely on scenes that didn't involve this event, giving the impression that aside from dealing with Future Zeno, it'd be the standard goodwill wrap-up episode for the arc. Only one Freeze-Frame Bonus detail hinted otherwise: when Future Zeno appears, the sky is a dark-green, not nighttime-blue.
  • The reveal that Mosco who is initially shown to be a robotic God of Destruction, turns out to be operated by a little imp named Mule the whole time. There is absolutely no foreshadowing prior to this episode and this revelation ended up opening a lot more questions than answers that we will likely never get unless the manga reveals this earlier^note For example, why does Mule wear the Mosco suit in the first place if he is a God Of Destruction? Why would he need Campari to translate for him if he can talk normally? How could a robot possess power equivalent to a God and so forth....
• Awesome Ego: Zamasu (all versions of him). He views himself as a perfect divine being that can't comprehend the very thought that a God such as himself can have faults, and views mortals as ugly creatures who deserve to be cleansed for their sins despite having no problem committing the same sins he despises mortals for. His ego is so big he's his own best friend, literally. His first words after becoming Fusion Zamasu is demanding that everyone praise and adore him.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • While Goku and Beerus are charging up their power, their Battle Aura turn into a pair of aura dragons who roar at each other and fly around one another before just suddenly flying back into their respective fighters. While long power-up scenes are a staple of Dragon Ball, the fact their auras turn into semi-sentient dragons who peacock at one another and then just stop (without this even being the end of their powering-up) just seems odd and out of place, and it's never called out or spoken of again.
  • Episode 69 came off as this to US Dragon Ball fans who never grew up with or even heard of Doctor Slump. However, due to the fact Arale and the Dr. Slump universe had been featured in the original Dragon Ball series (and thus meaning their cameos here are neither out of nowhere nor technically strange in context) this is more of a Bizarro Episode than a BLAM. It cannot even be considered completely irrelevant to the plot, since it at least establishes that Beerus can destroy anything in the universe, even a spirit that is already dead.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The following moments are cited as being three of the most satisfying moments of the series, even by people who didn't like how it was carried out, due to Zamasu and his various incarnations being such self-righteous monsters the viewers has come to Love to Hate, finally getting what's coming to them:
    • Vegeta utterly overwhelming and humiliating Goku Black after training for six months in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. This was the first time we truly saw Black on the ropes and it's a wonderful sight even if it was brief.
    • Goku melting half of Fusion Zamasu's face with a giant Kamehameha and then him literally kicking the mad god in the face several times before using the the Kaioken with his god form to break Fusion Zamasu's halo. We then have Vegito giving Fusion Zamasu a spectacular beatdown.
    • To say nothing of the scene where Trunks, wielding a radiant sword literally made of the majestic Light of Hope Itself, charging Fusion Zamasu and cleaving the mad god in twain.
  • For manga readers, seeing Fusion Zamasu and his thousand other clones running away from Future Zen-Oh as they are about to be erased is easily cited to be the most cathartic and deserving death self-righteous prick like him deserve to have, especially given that he not only threatened to destroy an entire galaxy but he even uses Future Mai as a shield to save himself from being disintegrated by Goku.
  • Despite being a minor villain in a two-part Breather Episode, Barry Kahn was one of the most hated characters in the series and fans enjoyed watching Videl tear him a new one in her short, but sweet "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Gohan slamming Barry into a wall and 'politely' asking him to leave his house also got more than a few cheers.
  • A minor one, but seeing how Master Roshi's lecherous behaviour in episode 89 wasn't exactly taken kindly by the western fandom, a few people were actually glad Yurin kicked him in the clockworks for his trouble.
  • Seeing how Goku Black killed off all of the Supreme Kais in the future timeline, some people were actually happy knowing that means Ro, the Jerkass Supreme Kai of Universe 9, was brutally slaughtered in that timeline, and to an extension, that Quitela, the God of Destruction of Universe 4 that's a jerkass even for a God of Destruction, was indirectly murdered as well.
  • For those upset that Beerus, and by extension Champa, never get any real comeuppance for their actions, it's surprisingly satisfying to see them be completely scared out of their minds whenever Lord Zen-Oh is present, even sucking up to him just like they make the mortals of their respective universes suck up to them.
  • After spending his entire appearance in the series as a despicable Smug Snake, fans couldn't help but relish in Quitela's erasure upon his universe being eliminated from the Tournament of Power, especially so when he's pathetically begging for his life.
  • There were a group of people who wanted Frieza to get beaten up by a strong opponent come the Tournament of Power. Considering how during the saga, he was a mass manipulator who usually never assisted Universe 7 in any major battles unless if it benefited him (i.e. "fighting" with Gohan to screw with Frost) or if the needs were drastic (i.e. Anilaza blindly taking anybody from the universe on) and usually picked up much weaker foes than him for unnecessary torture, especially in the cases of Jimizu and Cabba. Come Toppo, who he kept on taunting and mocking, who proceeds to turn into a God of Destruction and give Frieza a very serious beatdown, including blasting him with a Sphere of Destruction and even breaking his skull, something very similar to the torture that Videl received from Spopovich back in Z. Despite Toppo being from the opposing team, fans were very happy to see Frieza get what he deserved, especially for being overly cocky to a God of Destruction (that he himself used to shit his pants over). This worked so well that when Frieza helped Android 17 and Goku eliminate Jiren to win the tournament, fans at public viewing parties (an amazing enough feat in and of itself) were actively chanting his name.
  • Throughout the Universal Survival Saga, Jiren was seen as an unstoppable force who manages to shrug off whatever Hit and Universe 7 could throw at him, and acting smug and condescending to his outmatched opponents. It was extremely cathartic to see Mastered Ultra-Instinct Goku finally give Jiren a well-deserved beatdown that puts him in his place.
• Character Rerailment: An odd example with Goku. Relative to Z he comes off as less heroic and often more concerned with having a good fight than the well-being of Earth or universe at large. Some fans consider this to be Flanderization, however, Word of God is that this was how Goku was meant to be portrayed in the first place (ie. rather selfish) and that the original DBZ anime (including the Japanese version) was an example of Adaptational Nice Guy.
  • One of the few universally praised things about the Resurrection F Saga is how it handled Freiza's character. Some believed he was too quick to the punch with his evil nature in the film, barely showing his sadistic and playful side. Compare how he deals with Tagoma as an example: in the movie he throws him out the airlock; in the retelling he turns him into a pincushion for his finger beam and physically/psychologically breaks him over the course of 4 months as his training dummy.
• Common Knowledge: Some people in the fandom say that FUNimation tried to get YouTuber Mark de Groot to sing an English cover of the first theme song for the English dub despite no evidence to back that up. Mark did record and release his own cover on his YouTube channel before, but before the English dub even started production.
• Contested Sequel: Much like Dragon Ball GT before it. Its fans tend to like it for its decent pace and many new Ensemble Darkhorses, but its critics tend to dislike it for its controversial writing decisions.
• Continuity Lock-Out: Super has a minor case of this since the show starts on the assumption that the viewer is aware of the events of the Buu Saga. This has caused much confusion for many newer English fans who grew up watching Dragon Ball Kai which only went up to the Cell Games and Buu Kai didn't get an English premier until Super was airing at the same time on Adult Swim Toonami. Also, since the show runs on nostalgia, all the Continuity Nods and Call Backs can be hard to follow, especially the Future Trunks Saga that mixed important plot points from both the Cell and Buu Sagas. The show also assumes the viewer read or at least have passing knowledge of Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, since it doesn't bother to explain where Jaco came from, how he knows the Briefs, when did Bulma get a sister, or who are the Galactic Patrol.
• Crack Pairing:
  • After Episode 59, with the lovely little cabin in the woods scene, some people started to ship Black and Zamasu. This died down with the revelation they were the same guy the next week. People still joke about it, though, especially with the two of them hugging upon agreeing to fulfill their plan. Some 4chan users even declared them the One True Pairing of Super, as a joke of course.
  • Some people started to pair Jiren with Ribrianne for a gag scene in episode 111, and while they are from twin universes with a similar theme (Sentai and Magical girls), the two are so different the idea itself can give one a good laugh.
• Creator Worship:
  • Since fans heard that Toriyama was making the story outline for Super, and working with the animation staff and promotional manga, some declared the show better than Dragon Ball GT even before the first episode aired. Also, any story decisions, characterizations, or fights that fans don't like are almost always blamed on Toei until proven otherwise. They do this while also making fun of his forgetfulness and his tendency to leave beloved characters behind.
  • Toyotarō, the writer of the Super manga, gets this from certain parts of the fandom. His work is often hailed as the superior version of Super and any errors or unpopular plot points in the anime are supposedly 'fixed' in the manga. Any flaws in the manga are often hand waved by his most hardened fans and he's called the 'true successor' to Toriyama among them. However, his reputation took a small hit after it was discovered that he copied panels from his own fan manga for Chapter 22 and seemingly based Goku Black's personality off his version of Xicor. However, his handling of the Future Trunks Saga finale was deemed better by some due to the absence of the universe consuming Eldritch Abomination of Fusion Zamasu, which many disliked and felt came out of nowhere and made little sense. Instead what happened was the fragments of Fusion Zamasu growing into clones of him, similar to Majin Buu.
  • King Ryu, the script writer who wrote most of the Champa Saga along with several beloved Breather Episodes like Episode 43. He's often credited for the increase in writing quality in Super after the retellings.
  • For a small subset of fans, Tomioka Atsuhiro, also known as the Pokemon guy, since he was the head writer for Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, Black and White and XY, and a prominent writer for Sun and Moon and Journeys. He was the script writer for most of the Future Trunks Saga, the two Breather Episodes before the Universal Survival Saga, and almost all the Universal Survival Saga's episodes so far, which many considered as some of the most mature writing in the franchise. He's also beloved for his used of Call Backs and Continuity Nods to expand the story or promote character development instead of them just being fanservice.
  • Super's infamous animation issues early on led to an increased focus on who exactly produces the show. This only grew on during the Tournament of Power, where the show regularly puts out strong animation. With animation-focused threads and even YouTube channels, certain animators have become popular.
    • Yuya Takahashi's retro style on episode 114 quickly made him incredibly popular among the animation fans of the show. Even casual fans noticed and praised the shift.
    • Naoki Tate's idiosyncratic style long left him divisive status with people who love and hate his work, but his portrayal of the Ultra Instinct debut won over all but his harshest critics.
    • Naotoshi Shida, who provided some of the most well-choreographed and intense cuts in Super yet despite his infrequent appearances.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Goku Black, who can seemingly turn into a dragon-like shadow creature with red eyes who patrols the skies looking for people to kill. From the ground, he looks like bolt of yellow lightning that can strike at anytime and when he does descends, it's like a tornado making landfall. Goku Black is closer to an Eldritch Abomination than an actual person. Him laughing gleefully when Future Trunks punched him in the gut only reinforced the creepy factor.
  • Trunks' transformation in Episode 61, caused by a supreme Rage Breaking Point, involves him gaining pure white eyes, a blue aura under his yellow aura, and his mere footsteps causing the earth to shake. It's as pants-shittingly terrifying as it is awesome, not unlike Broly's Legendary Super Saiyan (which it superficially resembles).
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Frieza has definitely become one, especially in the Universe Survival Arc. Most of his fans see him not only as the embodiment of Evil Is Cool, but also more sympathetic than he was in Z. Some even have a disturbing habit of justifying Frieza's past actions, no matter how flawed the excuse is. Of course, this is ignoring that Frieza shows zero regret for his actions and even rejoices to remain evil.
    • Ask anyone who has seen the end of the Universe Survival Arc. Most will answer you that Frieza is a true hero, incredibly badass and amazingly cool. His moral ambiguity at the end of the Arc has opened an endless debate beetwen fans.
  • While Beerus isn't evil, just a Jerkass God, the fandom has a disturbing habit of always taking Beerus' side in any argument, no matter how flawed or hypocritical the argument was. In the Future Trunks Saga, fans agreed with Beerus that Goku and the others depended too much on the gods for help, despite the entire saga being gods' fault. Fans agreed with him about the Supreme Kai and Goku being at fault for U7's low mortal level, despite Beerus not doing his job (like killing Majin Buu and Frieza) since all he did was sleep and eat. He even made the Supreme Kai's job harder by destroying planets over bad food and trapping one of his fellow Kais in a sword for million of years, something that his fans tend to forget. Fans agreed with him that Goku and the others were fools for only looking at Earth to recruit fighters for U7's team, despite Beerus doing absolutely nothing to help and spent all his time stress eating. For the most part, it seemed the fandom take Beerus' side since he tends to echo the sentiments of the viewer.
  • This is an ongoing joke with Zamasu. It isn't uncommon to see fans say "Zamasu was right!" or "Zamasu did nothing wrong!" in a tongue-in-cheek manner. However, his ideals are taken more seriously by the fandom who cite Goku's behavior in the Universal Survival Saga as confirmation that Zamasu was right about mortals and Goku. There is also a small subset of fans who pushed Zamasu's behavior on Goku, since he's the reason Zamasu went off the deep end, because he had to spar with Zamasu. This is ignoring that Goku sparred with Zamasu to see if he was Black, and Zamasu was already unhinged long before Goku got there.
  • Universe 9 in general, for many fans. While the general consensus is that the Universe's Supreme Kai is an unlikable jerk, Sidra and the Trio of Danger has a fandom that downplay their nastier tendencies. Many fans agreed with Bergamo that Goku was a moron for coming up with the Tournament of Power (even though by doing so, he unintentionally gave the other universes a fighting chance instead of being outright erased by Zeno), in spite of Bergamo being a lying coward with a foul mouth and quite a sadistic Jerkass who even told Lavenda to try to kill Gohan for fun. That being said, however, the trio have shown to have a great camaraderie, and had survived their 'garbage dump of a universe' together, which in turn made fans think of them as Jerkass Woobies. Sidra, likewise is supposed to be an antagonist for hating Goku and trying to bring down Universe 7 (under Quitela's manipulations), but considering he is also presented as a man with the worst universe on his shoulders, made many fans put him in a tragic light. It helps he is a Benevolent Boss.
• Ending Fatigue: There are several places the Future Trunks arc could have ended prior to the actual conclusion. Among them are Future Zamasu/Goku Black being successfully sealed by the Evil Containment Wave like intended, Vegito beating Fusion Zamasu before the time ran out, or even Future Trunks slicing Fusion Zamasu in half with his new Spirit Bomb sword. The arc finally ends with Goku and co. escaping in the time machine to evade Future Zeno's blast, before coming back and taking him to the present, while Whis creates a new identical timeline from before Goku Black interfered for Trunks and Mai to live in.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Videl's hair turning gold during the Super Saiyan God Ritual has proven to be quite the tree planter, mainly because no one can agree on what it means, if it means anything in the first place. Theories tend to range from Pan being a Super Saiyan even before birth (another large detraction from GT) to thoughts that since Videl is channeling Pan's Saiyan power/blood, she herself is now capable of the form.^note The latter is Artistic License – Biology; Mothers don't directly mix blood with their offspring, although they can absorb DNA from their unborn children in a phenomenon called microchimerism. But only if their children are male. Given that we've never seen a female Super Saiyan in canon (until Universal Survival saga), it's hard to say if it was even a transformation since Videl's hair doesn't turn spiky, nor do her eyes turn green. Then of course there's Videl getting faint afterward, which makes it even harder to tell what happened.
  • The God of Dragons, Zalama, has been a victim of this trope. His whereabouts, how he looks, his power and how he created the Super Dragon Balls had invited speculation since he was mentioned. Some even speculate he is related to Zeno as some sort of counterpart.
  • Everything about Goku Black from his origins, motives, powers, and personality had fans making theories about if Black is Zamasu, a Demon Kai, a God of Destruction, a shape-shifter, Future Goku's corpse being controlled by outside forces, an alternate timeline Goku turned evil, Present Goku possessed by a version of Zamasu, Goten, etc. The fact that everything revealed about Goku Black opens up more questions has only made the theories more wild. Even the cast gets into this, theorizing that Goku Black is a creation of the Super Dragon Balls and is only a clone of Goku. Even with the truth of Black's identity revealed, it still opens up questions.
  • Zamasu is almost as bad. Most of the confusion and fan theories center around if Future Zamasu and Present Zamasu are the same person, or is Future Zamasu the Zamasu of Trunks' timeline who happened to turn against mortals without meeting Goku, but somehow heard about him (probably from another version of Zamasu). Things really got confusing when Episode 59 reveals that Beerus killed Present Zamasu after he tried to murder Gawasu, and that this is supposed to have taken care of Future Zamasu... when it hasn't. The manga's take on events is more clear-cut, with Goku Black explicitly being the Zamasu of Goku's timeline in the near future, who learned of Goku through Kaioshin mentioning him and then looking him up on Godtube, and Future Zamasu being pretty unambiguously shown to be from Future Trunks's timeline but since this explanation is completely at odds with the anime's take, it doesn't so much clear up the issue as it just adds yet another wrinkle to it by giving two contradictory explanations across the different media.
  • The seventh ending, "Angels and Demons", seemed to invite this with their enigmatic lyrics about a demon and an angel, both wearing masks, telling someone to "Destroy all evil for the sake of justice". The fans wondered who this someone is, who the angel and demon were. People have speculated if it's about the Grand Priest, Zeno, or Zamasu.
  • Some fans became suspicious of the Grand Priest's motives once the Universe Survival Saga started. They speculate that the Tournament of Power isn't being done because of Zeno's decisions, but the Grand Priest's as-of-yet unknown ambitions. We only learn anything about the tournament's rule and stipulations from him, not Zeno, and the detail about the Angel race being spared from universal destruction could be read as the Priest making sure his own kind is spared above all else.
  • In the Tournament of Power opening, there's a part at the beginning where all of the Universe 7 fighters save Gohan, Vegeta, and Goku are holding Dragon Balls. Krillin was the first one from Universe 7 to get knocked out in the Tournament of Power, and he happened to be holding the One-Star Dragon Ball in that very scene. Many people are speculating that Vegeta, Goku, and Gohan are going to be the last three standing and that the other seven fighters will be knocked out in the order of the number of stars that the particular character is holding. In reality, Android 17, Goku, and Frieza were the last ones standing for their universe, while Gohan and Vegeta were the 6th and 7th knocked out fighters.
  • In Episode 93 of the anime, Whis mentions that "there's a God of Destruction that has a mortal stronger than him that beat him in an arm wrestling match". In the manga, the said God of Destruction is Quitella, and a lot of the fighters from that particular universe have been quite easy to deal with, especially with Master Roshi managing to wipe out a good portion of them. With that being said, some people are speculating (although some are jokingly doing so) that Damom, one of the two hidden fighters is the "fighter" that Whis was referring to. Jossed in the Episode 109/110 special, where it's revealed that Jiren was this fighter.
  • Others think that Shantsa is extremely strong secretly, due to his extremely similar appearance to Janemba from Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn, and the fact that, for most of the tournament, besides things like Goku fighting Jiren, is usually The Stoic, showing little to no reaction to most things around him.
  • After The Reveal of just how strong Jiren is combined with his, as-of-yet, unrevealed plans for the Super Dragon Balls, fans have tried their hardest to figure out why he wants the Super Dragon Balls, and how he could be as strong as he is. Some theories range from Jiren being an artificial being created by Belmod that is filled with God Ki since the God's cannot participate, to him being the Sole Survivor of a previously destroyed universe, or even a previous God of Destruction of a destroyed universe. While none of these are confirmed, fans clung to the idea of Jiren being a previous God of Destruction of an eliminated universe due to how Belmod telepathically spoke to Jiren during the tournament the same way Quitela and Sidra did when plotting to kill a recently brought back Frieza. At this point we have no idea but whatever the case is with Jiren, he's certainly not one to mess with.
  • Geene, the God of Destruction of Universe 12, is speculated to be the most powerful, or at least the eldest and most experienced God of Destruction due to his rather muscular and tough appearance, along with his refusal to participate in the sparring match between Iwen, Arack and Liquiir, because he knew that they would have to repair the arena afterwards, which paints him as a rather smart and perceptive God of Destruction. Some fans interpreted Geene's statement that results would be obvious as him saying that he would win against the other three gods in the fight.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The Future Trunks Arc ends with what's intended to be a bittersweet ending, but the circumstances paint the ending in a slightly more grim light for some. Trunks and Mai return to the future, happy with the knowledge that the future is safe from Zamasu's genocidal ambitions. Unfortunately, they're not returning to their timeline, as that entire timeline's multiverse was erased by Zeno to stop Zamasu's spirit. Everyone in their original timeline that Trunks and Mai cared about don't exist anymore, and they're in effect going to 'share' another timeline with another Trunks and Mai, with copies of everyone rather than the originals. In addition, Gowasu is forever shamed by the sins of his protege.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Just like its predecessor, Dragon Ball Z, Frieza is admired for his genocidal, petty and violent actions. The Super adaption of Frieza is even regarded by many to be better than the Resurrection 'F' version since Frieza is more noticeably un-hinged, violent, and tortures people like Tagoma and Gohan.
    • During the Tournament of Power, he remains an utterly sadistic bastard, but becomes more cool, badass, brave, level-headed, cunning, charismatic, and savvy this time around.
  • Goku Black quickly garnered a fanbase of his own for his mysterious origins, being a No-Nonsense Nemesis who killed two main characters (or so it appeared) in his introduction alone, and providing a rather chilling tone shift from the Champa Saga, which had no real villain or consequences if the heroes lost.
  • Moro is well-liked for being a unique villain as compared to previous Dragon Ball antagonists, with particular focus being his use of magic. Fans also like how he also uses his brains and not just his powers to stay one step ahead of the heroes, akin to King Piccolo before him, making him an even more dangerous villain.

F to H

• Fan-Disliked Explanation:
  • An interview with Akira Toriyama regarding how the Super Saiyan transformation works, which involves a specific type of cells on the Saiyans bodies called S-Cells, which grow depending on training, a healthy environment (A vegetable joke, by the way) and the Saiyans pure-heart. While this helps explain how Goten and Trunks were able to transform into Super Saiyans at such a young age (A case of Ascended Fanon and I Knew It!), fans have unfavorably compared this to the Midichlorians from Star Wars due to feeling it cheapens the mystique of the Super Saiyan transformation. However, as a case of Broken Base, there are some people who don't mind this explanation.
  • A number of fans have an issue with the Super Saiyan transformation achieved by Caulifla, as she managed to obtain it by focusing her energy on a specific point in her back, and making the energy "tingly-like".
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Fans are coming up with ideas and stories about what happens to Future Trunks and Mai after they leave for the new timeline, like Future Trunks training with Alt-Future Trunks. Likewise, some are coming with ideas for how Trunks will deal with Beerus on his own timeline.
  • Like with the previous series, some fans like to imagine what would the different kind of Saiyan transformations look on the new Saiyans introduced in Super. Goku Black, in particular, has a lot of fans who like to imagine how would he look like as a Super Saiyan 4 or with the Ultra Instinct.
  • In general, the many cool fighters from the Tournament of Power got fans who like to imagine backstories for many of them.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • While there seems to always have been a fandom rivalry between Dragon Ball and One-Punch Man over whether Saitama would win in a fight against Goku, for Super in particular, there has been rivalry between it and the anime of One Punch Man. The animation problems of Super has been a mocking point by fans of One Punch Man, since that series has some of the best animation in the industry thanks to Madhouse. Dragon Ball fans are quick to point out that the One Punch Man anime should have better animation since the series is only 12 episodes while Super is an ongoing series.
  • A very odd example since they are fans of the same franchise, but fans of Dragon Ball GT have a rivalry against Super since they're both sequel series to Dragon Ball Z. The rivalry happened because the events of Super cannot correlate with the events of GT. At best, GT happens in a different timeline after Z and Toriyama has referred to it as a side-story. This has caused fans of GT to call Super the inferior sequel to Z, claiming that GT has a better story, pacing, animation, and fights. Super fans, naturally, brings up the old laundry list of GT's well-known flaws, and since it didn't have Toriyama's involvement outside of some concept and character artwork it deserves to be exiled from canon according to them. There is another group of fans who maintain that Super and GT can work in the same timeline, like at some point Goku and Vegeta lose their god powers, and memories of everything that happened during Super.^note Although, that wouldn't explain why Hell in GT is very different from the Hell in Super, why Frieza is much weaker, why the Pilaf Gang have their elderly age rather than being much younger, why Kibito Kai is still fused together, and why there are so many populated planets when they're supposed to be only 28. Others split the difference and suggest that the broad strokes of GT's events could happen after Super but with the details altered to take Super's plot developments into account.
  • Even stranger, there is a rivalry between fans of the Super anime and the manga. Unlike with Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, the Super manga is not the primary source material. Both run at around the same time and use the same story outline by Toriyama, rather than one adapting the other. So, the anime and manga are both 'canon' in the overall plots, just different interpretations in the finer details. This has led to some heated flame wars over which version of the story is better. One example of it is the Future Trunks Saga: The anime is praised for the characterization of Trunks and Goku Black, and for giving Future Trunks the defeat against Zamasu. Likewise, the call backs like Cell's time machine and Trunks' brief interactions with Android 18 and Gohan are well received. However, the timeline inconsistencies and the random power-ups for both Goku Black and Trunks have been received with mixed results. Meanwhile, the manga is praised for expanding some concepts better than its counterpart, like the Babarians actually changing their ways, the less-convoluted timeline theory, and Gowasu's last attempt to convince his former student to change his ways, and Vegeta getting the Super Saiyan God transformation, alongside a more consistent power scaling. However, Future Trunks being a glorified extra, Goku never taking the enemies seriously or having a match with Goku Black, the latter's characterization being not as well-received, Zamasu killing humankind before his eventual defeat (thus erasing the tension of their survival), and Trunks and Mai's nonchalant reaction to it have been badly received.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Monaka has been called "Nipples" by various fans due to his nipples. His name even means large nipples.
  • Carryovers from the Battle of Gods and Resurrection ‘F’ movies that Super adapts: Goku is sometimes called Godku; Vegeta when he attacks Beerus—after the god slaps Bulma, natch—is called Ragegeta; and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan is referred to as "Blueper Saiyan" and "Super Cyan". The Super manga referred to the SSGSS form as "Super Saiyan Blue", which eventually became the name used in the anime. Golden Frieza has the nicknames of "Oscars Frieza" and "Bling Frieza".
  • Fans will often refer to Champa as "Fat Beerus". Doesn't help that Goku initially calls Champa by that name.
  • Botamo's design earned him the nickname of "Winnie the Pooh". In Latin America, thanks to the Mexican parody series Doctor Goku, he has also being referred as "El Winnie", and Hit followed trend, being named "El Jit" thanks to the parody.
  • The design of Super Shenron, the Eternal Dragon of the Super Dragon Balls, have some within the fandom calling it "The Winged Dragon of Ra" or "The Blue-Eyes White Dragon".
  • Goku Black is often called Rosé because of his Super Saiyan Rosé transformation.
  • Fusion Zamasu, being the fusion of two Zamasus, just calls himself Zamasu. Some fans have jokingly given him a more traditional fusion—a combination of the names of the two fusees, in this case Goku Black and Zamasu—which, in this case, is the terrifying name of Zack.
  • The sword that Future Trunks creates to slice Fusion Zamasu received the nickname "Spirit Sword"—not to be confused with Vegito's sword—both as a nod to Trunks absorbing the Spirit Bomb and merging it with his energy sword and a reference to Kuwabara from YuYu Hakusho. It has also been called the "Monado" or the True Monado since they are both BFS made of light used to slay a god.
  • The Future Trunks Saga is often called the Goku Black/Black Saga or the Zamasu Saga among the fandom.
  • Fans use "Manga Black" when talking about the manga version of Goku Black, since Goku Black is an almost completely different character in that medium.
  • Belmod, the clown God of Destruction seen in the Universe Survival Arc trailer, quickly got the nickname of "Buggy D. God of Destruction"—a reference to the Evil Clown from One Piece. He also has the nickname "Booze", which is a reference to both Bozo The Clown and the alcoholic drink Theme Naming of the Gods of Destruction. A small subset of fans call him "The Joker" and refer to his angel as "Harley Quinn".
  • Kale, prior to her name reveal, was referred to as "Brolady", "Cauli" ^note (cauliflower to Broly's broccoli), "Girl-Broly", "Braly" or "Broly-chan" for her Super Saiyan transformation and form resembling that of Broly.
  • Some users in 4chan refer to Jiren as "Captain Ayy Lmao" because of a particular alien meme involving The Greys and the fact that he is also a superhero. Likewise, the Spanish-speaking community has referred to him as "El Marcianito 100% real no fake", which is inspired by a different meme involving aliens.
  • Liquir, a kitsune with three tails, is often called "Tails".
  • Sidra, whose hair and skin colors are the same as the Big Bad of The Legend of Zelda, is called "Ganondorf" or "Ganondwarf" by some.
  • After Fat Buu lost a ton of weight training for the Tournament of Power, the fandom begame calling him "Skinny Buu" or "Fit Buu".
  • A classic from the original days of DBZ: Ultimate Gohan is often called "Mystic Gohan".
  • Majora, the blind canine/fox fighter from Universe 4 who made an Early-Bird Cameo in the introduction, was frequently called "Smug Pup" by the fandom—specifically, This Very Wiki and 4chan.
  • Ribrianne has been consistently been compared to a Teletubby since first revealed, as such, she is known as "The Teletubby" in a lot of circles.
  • The member of Universe 3, Katopesla, due to his superheroic look and the P on his chest, has been referred as Pepsiman. His red speed mode has been been named "Cola Man" in some circles.
  • Due to a huge amount of shit-posting on 4chan, which involves some absurd conflict between the Latin American fandom and the English-speaking community, and something about a fan theory about a "Super Saiyan White" transformation (It's a Long Story), the Grand Priest earned the nickname "El Grande Padre" (The Great Father, on broken Spanish) on 4chan.
  • Goku's Ultra Instinct transformation is often referred to with one of two different names: the "Limit Breaker" form or "Super Saiyan Silver". Its mastered stated however, quickly gained the name "Goku Blanco" (Goku White) due to the Memetic Mutation of "Gohan Blanco".
  • Kefla, the fusion between Kale and Caulifla, has been jokinly called "Mia Khalifa" by almost everyone, expecially fan parodies. Sometimes even Caulifla alone is called like that.
  • Vegeta's form that is beyond Super Saiyan Blue (sometimes actually called "Beyond Super Saiyan Blue") and gives him darker blue hair is still called "Super Saiyan Royal Blue" by many fans, even after its official name of "Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Evolution" was confirmed. Many people prefer the nickname because 1) it's a better fit for the Prince of All Saiyans and 2) The term "Evolution" does not exactly evoke beloved memories in the fandom.
  • In Latin America, Dr. Rota is nicknamed as "Dr. Pumbaa", not only because he looks like that character, but also because he is voiced by Pumbaa's regular voice actor, Francisco Colmenero.
• Fanon: Thanks in part to a very active fandom who love to speculate, some theories have been taken as a fact by some fans.
  • In the manga, it is stated the Saiyans from Universe 6 evolved in a different way from their counterparts, losing their tails in the process. Some fans like to theorize the Universe 6 Saiyans come from a long line of mixed relationships, very similar to how Goten and Trunks are half-human, half-Saiyan breeds, and this explains why they are so powerful, something that isn't exactly stated.
  • Thanks in part to a theory made by MasakoX in one of his Dragon Ball Discussions, many fans believe the Super Saiyan Color theory, which reflects the emotional and cultural significance of every transformation in the series.
  • A lot of fans believe that thanks to having the DNA of Frieza and the Saiyans, Cell could actually obtain his own version of the Golden Frieza transformation with only a few months of training. Cue to Fanfic Fuel about Resurrection 'C'.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • There are groups of people who consider the Super anime non-canon and instead choose the Super manga as the canon one, and vice-versa. Fans of the manga version cite◊ Toriyama's seeming complaints about the anime quality, Toriyama's direct contributions to the manga (he draws and writes some of the pages in it), his checking and editing every chapter before they're published, his attention to and correction of even the tiniest details inside it, and Shueisha's repeated statements that the manga is "the canonical sequel", with them using images from the manga on their websites and advertisements instead of the anime. Toriyama's involvement in the manga stands in stark contrast to his fairly light involvement in the anime; he admits he doesn't read the anime's scripts before they go to air, much less contribute to them. Fans of the anime point out that Super was an Anime First production (which it technically isn't as the manga started first, but the anime is more widely known and essentially the "main" product from a commercial point of view), that when the events of Super are referanced outside the product itself it is the anime's events that are used instead of the manga's and prefer the way it is written, as to them it has a better plot which uses side characters effectively and better characterization. (with the return of the Kaioken and both Trunks and Zamasu's character development taken as arguments).
    • "Canonical" arguments complicated even further by the fact that, since the anime ended, Toyotaro wrote his own arc (The Galactic Patrol Prisoner arc) before collaborating much more directly with Toriyama to create the "Granolah the Survivor" arc. Without the anime to continue past the events of the tournament of power, canonical arguments lose hold as the manga remains the only continuation of the story written by Toriyama until the release of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
  • Many fans consider the events of episode 67 where Future Trunks' timeline was erased by Future Zeno to be non-canon. This is primarily due to being seen as a Shoot the Shaggy Dog moment for Future Trunks' timeline as all of its inhabitants' struggles against the Androids and Goku Black amounted to nothing, leaving a bitter taste in the majority of the fandom's mouths for its Downer Ending.
  • Given the sheer number of holes it pokes in what we know about Universe 7, a lot of people just refuse the "28 planets" statistic outright and openly deride it.
  • A lot of fans choose to ignore or downplay the conversation with Beerus about how Goku absorbed the energy of a Super Saiyan God to make his base form nearly just as strong as it, due to the fact that it makes the already wonky power scaling of the series even worse and raises questions of how anyone could even hope to match his Super Saiyan or Kaioken multipliers if that was the case, especially characters like Frieza and Android 17 who seemed to do it with relative ease. To the anime's credit, unlike the Movie it does at least keep Goku in his Super Saiyan form for this conversation instead of his base form. While the same questions as to why his power multipliers don't seem to close the power gaps they should still remain, it at least helps make the natural power increase Goku got seem not quite as severe.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Quite a few fans ship Kale with Broly despite the fact that they haven't even met based on their very similar, if not identical, super forms. Speculation is abound about how they would react to each other and at least one fan Manga (DB Kakumei) has them go into shocked hyper focused silence upon meeting.
• Faux Symbolism: The Future Trunks Saga had a surprising amount of this:
  • Zamasu, the prodigy Supreme Kai from U10, had a lot of parallels to Lucifer. Both of them started out as promising and talented individuals who eventually fell into darkness over their jealousy/lack of understanding of mortals, which eventually led them to mass genocide to correct a mistake from god. They're also ruled by their pride to the point of being unable to see their own flaws, hypocrisies, and failings. That pride led them to want to become the Top God to imposed their belief on everything. In the end, Zamasu suffered the same fate as Lucifer, being utterly stomped by the true god of the universe despite all his power. Out of all the Zamasus, Fusion Zamasu was the worst when it came to this since he continuously invoked 'the angel of light' motif, he had a holy halo, his arms were in a cross formation when he was born, and Gowasu talked about Zamasu's conflicting views on mortals, like why do mortals resemble the gods.
  • There is also Zamasu whole thing about taking Goku's body. According to Fusion Zamasu, he did this because Goku represents everything wrong with mortals and he took Goku's shell as an eternal reminder of the mortal's sins and the failure of the gods. This sounds like Jesus, who took the form of a human to carry our sins upon himself.
  • The saga also had debates about the role of the gods and failing of mortals that wouldn't be out of place in Theology classes. Like should the gods be more involved in mortal's affairs or should they be hands-off and let the mortals grow and learn from their mistakes. Are mortals a lost cause since we keep repeating the same mistake. There is even a line said by a character that Fusion Zamasu wasn't a real god since 'no god would act like this', namely Fusion Zamasu wrecking the Earth to kill the remaining mortals.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • One of the big complaints about the Champa Saga was how Goku and Vegeta massively held back, using only their basic Super Saiyan forms, when they could have flattened the entire U6 team, save for Hit, with Super Saiyan Blue. Thing is, this has always been the case with the Tournament Arcs in the series. Goku and whoever was his opponent in the finale never used their full power until the final bout where they usually state, 'now I will use my full power'. It is only made more apparent here because no one had transformations in the original Dragon Ball, so you couldn't tell who was holding back and by how much.
  • Goku asking Zeno about the tournament he promised after Beerus and Whis warned him that wasn't the best idea, which leads to the entire multiverse being put in danger, has led fans to calling Goku a selfish Jerkass who isn't any better than Vegeta from Z. However, Goku has always been this selfish and reckless with regards to potential fights. He spared Piccolo so he could have a rival around to fight, despite Piccolo wanting to take over the world and he nuked an island to kill him. He spared Vegeta, the same person who oversaw the murder of all his friends and tried to kill his son, just so he can fight him again. He was willing to let Frieza live (twice) despite all the deaths he caused (although this was in the vein of Cruel Mercy and Not Worth Killing). Literally the entire Cell saga only happens because, not just Goku, but everyone of the Z-Fighters decided they'd rather let the Androids come so they can test their strength against them than just destroy them early and avoid the whole mess outright, something that was even lampshaded by Bulma. He also didn't take out Majin Vegeta quickly as a Super Saiyan 3 to prevent Buu's awakening so he could save Vegeta's pride and get a good fight, and he didn't want to fuse with Vegeta again to kill Kid Buu because it wasn't 'fair' to Buu, who wasn't a fused being anymore. This is despite this version of Buu destroying the Earth, which killed his sons and his remaining friends. This time, his recklessness endangered far more people and the story is more in your face about the consequences of Goku's decision even when it later turned out to not actually be the case.
  • The power of the Universe 6 Saiyans and that they can easily master Super Saiyan and challenge their much more experienced counterparts in Universe 7 was met with criticism. The issue itself begins further back in Z however, as easily mastering Super Saiyan however isn't something new. Gohan turned into a Super Saiyan when he was young, and Trunks and Goten both easily turned Super Saiyan in the Buu Saga, but the scenes where they did were played for comedy at first while Gohan did so in training with his dad to actually achieve the form. In addition, Gohan was explicitly stated several times to have massive potential, while Goten and Trunks' mainly contributed to the Buu arc with Fusion, which was more justified as a concept for them to be serious, though the kids were still clearly not in the same league as the adult Saiyans (Goten could only spar with an out-of-shape Gohan on even terms as Super Saiyans and still lost and Trunks could only land one hit on a restrained Vegeta) a. Meanwhile Kale and Caulifla easily prove strong enough to pose a threat to Goku, despite him training for a few years as after gaining Super Saiyan God and getting stronger by fighting some of the strongest opponents faced in the series so far, like Goku Black, Hit, and Zamasu (though Cabba is guilty of the same with Vegeta, insofar as base and SSJ power). ^note The three U6 Saiyans easily gaining SSJ (or beyond) is partially justified by their S-Cells, which the more they have, the easier the transformation is. Since their base power levels are far beyond Goten and Trunks, who themselves easily transformed into SSJ, it should be much easier for them.
  • New power ups appearing. Having transformations appear out of nowhere has been done in the past, with Vegeta having a way to become an Oozaru without a full moon, Frieza revealing he had two more transformations after his first one, and Goku and Gohan unlocking Super Saiyan states that let them win against much stronger opponents. But in Super, these have started becoming more common, and often out of nowhere, to the point where they made the Super Saiyan God state look ineffective, since Trunks and Kale easily tap into transformations of their own that let them fight on a level close to Super Saiyan Blue.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Much like with Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, Super has a very friendly relationship with One Piece, especially since Super is One Piece's lead-in in Japan and fans of both series watched each other's shows.
  • A lot of Super fans are also fans of Sailor Moon, another Toei show. This steams from both Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon being Gateway Series for many western fans, both getting a revival anime in the 2010s (Sailor Moon getting Sailor Moon Crystal), and both sharing the agony of said revival having bad animation at the beginning of their shows' run before steadily improving, and eventually getting theatrical continuations with improved animation in the style of their respective older series. This is best seen during Brianne de Chateau's transformation sequence since she's a blatant Affectionate Parody of the Magical Girl genre. Many fans unironically call it the best transformation in Super. This is compounded in Latin America, where both Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball share many of the same voice actors (for starters, Patricia Acevedo voices both Usagi/Serena and Chi-Chi, respectively).
  • Surprisingly with The Flash (2014) fandom, though mainly among Western audiences. It's very common to find fans of both shows intermingling, liking the light-hearted tones of both superhero shows. It helps that Barry Allen is a fan of Dragon Ball Z. Like with Sailor Moon, this gets even bigger in the Spanish-speaking Latin American fanbase, where the voice actor of Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne in the Latin American Spanish dub of the series is Adult Goku's voice actor Mario Castañeda, and Barry Allen's first voice actor is Mario's son Arturo, who is also Whiss's voice actor.
• Fountain of Memes:
  • Zamasu, all versions of him, but especially Goku Black and Fusion Zamasu. Even if he remains a very divisive character, many of the most quotable phrases and memes from the Future Trunks Saga come from him and his godly boasts, or at his expense.
    They don't seem to be listening to you at all.
    I'm just being self-absorbed. It doesn't matter if no one's listening.
    I see. How truly god-like.
  • Gowasu also spawned a lot of memes, from his Memetic Loser status, to fanart, to Godtube.
  • Just about everything about the key players, plot points, and theories thereof about the Tournament of Power, especially to the Latin American fanbase.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • For the English dub, Copy-Vegeta, the uninspired filler villain of a filler arc, has developed a fandom among American viewers. The reason being that him being voiced by Brian Drummond, as opposed to Geets himself being voiced by Christopher Sabat, is the ultimate conclusion to any debate between Vegeta's two primary English voice actors.
  • According to the statistics, episodes 130 and 131 were extremely popular in Latin America, particularly in Mexico. To put it this way, the episodes were aired on town square projector screens to large cheering crowds and in bars with flyers designed to resemble those of big-name MMA matches (albeit illegally in both cases).
• Growing the Beard: The quality of the show (both story and animation-wise) rose considerably once the Champa Saga began. Fans have different opinions about where exactly in the saga they think Super came into its own, but this is the story arc that raised the series for many fans since it was no longer depending on retellings:
  • One group say that Super grew the beard right at the very start of the Champa Saga. Not only was new material presented, but the pacing greatly improved.
  • Another group of fans say that it's the beginning of the Tournament Arc - specifically, Episode #32. Interesting new characters were introduced for the protagonists to fight, the fight scenes were better and faster, and the pacing accelerated considerably, with at least one fight being over and done with per episode, and one episode even going through two fights in one go.
  • Others fans point to Episode 34 as the moment when the show came into its own with the revelation of Frost's true nature. Though a Broken Base topic, almost everyone agrees that it is an effective twist that is a giant punch to the gut to those who thought that Frost was a Good Counterpart to Frieza, and the anime really plays up Frost being a savior of Universe 6 with Cabba vouching for his heroics. The level of betrayal and disappointment is thus felt by both the cast and the audience. That same episode also had the beloved Piccolo vs. Frost fight, which is considered one of the best fights in the franchise since it pitted skill against a stronger fighter and skill almost won, losing only because the stronger one cheated.
  • As far as the fights themselves are concerned, the matches between Piccolo and Frost, Magetta and Vegeta, Cabba and Vegeta, and Hit and Goku are considered highlights. Piccolo vs Frost emphasizes the importance of battle strategy, while Vegeta vs Magetta features an unique fighting style. The Cabba fight emphasizes Vegeta's Character Development and personal growth, while the Hit fight introduces an unique fighting style and merges it with the goodness that made Dragon Ball Z so beloved.
  • For other parts of the fandom, Goku revealing that he can combine Super Saiyan Blue with the Kaioken X10 justified the entire show's existence.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Guldo's ability to stop time was played for laughs as while dangerous, Guldo himself was treated as a joke. Then the Champa Arc comes in and we get Hit, a much more serious character who's also much stronger a fighter despite having a weaker time manipulation. Not helping was the fact that Vegeta, the same person who kills the former, gets effortlessly worfed by the latter.
  • Similarly, when Ginyu switched bodies with Goku in Dragon Ball Z, it was treated as humorous moment for the most part since Ginyu was laughably incompetent at using Goku's body to the point that Gohan and Krillin could beat him up, and he got utterly stomped by Vegeta. Goku Black shows exactly how dangerous Goku's power and abilities are in the wrong hands, especially with someone who knows how to add their own skills on top of Goku's powerset.
  • In the dub, when King Kai is talking about Beerus, he calls him a powerful deity on the level of the Supreme Kai. Goku becomes interested and says that since he's a deity, that means he's good. Yeah....Zamasu was also a deity and he was anything but good, despite claiming otherwise.
  • Cabba's talk about how the Saiyans from Universe 6 save planets from conflict now feels sinister since it's been revealed that they were working with Frost on some of their missions.
  • Many fans wanted U7 to lose the tournament against U6 so the Earth would be moved to Universe 6 and have new adventures there. Goku even lampshaded that there would be no real problem if they lost since they would simply moved to another universe. However, if U7 had lost and the Earth was moved, then Future Trunks would have no allies to get help to fight Goku Black since he would have remained in Universe 7.
  • After the revelation that Goku Black is an alternative version of Present Zamasu who used the Super Dragon Balls to take Goku's body and then murdered Goku who was trapped in his original body, all the praise Goku Black heaps on Goku for being the strongest of the mighty warrior race and how much he admires Goku becomes extremely creepy and disturbing. His Super Saiyan Rosé transformation scene is especially unnerving since Goku Black tells Goku to rejoice, since through him, his body had reached the height of beauty.
  • During the Champa Saga, Universe 6's Supreme Kai and his attendant are weirded out with the fact that in Universe 7, mortals can casually chat with gods. Later in the Future Trunks Saga, when Goku casually approached Zamasu, a Kai of Universe 10, and attempted to chat and spar with him, he took serious issue with it and this eventually became his Start of Darkness.
  • When the 2015 Dragon Ball Z movie was announced, all fans got was the tagline: The worst wish in history and the beginning of despair. One of the most popular theories was that someone wished for Goku to become evil. While the wish in this case turned out to be Frieza's return, the Future Trunks Saga does depict the creation of an evil Goku as the worst wish in history, which has brought true despair. The birth of Goku Black was the beginning of the end for Future Trunks' timeline.
  • The entire Future Trunks Saga becomes this once you see the ending. Future Trunks' entire timeline is destroyed by Future Zeno and that is after Fusion Zamasu kills everyone after losing his physical body. So despite beating Zamasu and going through hell, Trunks still loses everything except Future Mai.
  • Related to the Future Trunks Saga; during the Universal Survival arc, try watching Goku's friendship with Gowasu knowing that Goku and his friends will ultimately be the ones to cause Universe 10's complete destruction.
  • This Dorkly comic on how Dragon Ball GT could have been better includes a panel of Pan as depicted in GT dead, stating that she died of a heart virus similar to her grandfather in the future timeline. Now in a "slice of life" episode, Pan (as a baby) gets a fever and because of her Saiyan blood, the fever was rendered incurable. If they didn't wish Pan to be better with the Dragon Balls, she could've actually died in canon.
  • Bulma's parting lines in Episode 96 before everyone left for the Tournament of Power became more sad in retrospective after Bulma's Japanese voice actress Hiromi Tsuru passed away in November 16th, 2017.
  • Episode 105, "A Desperate Battle! Master Roshi's Sacrifice!!", in which the titular character almost dies after a spectacular show of force, became depressingly ironic and doubly emotional in the Hungarian dub, as Roshi's voice actor Ferenc Végh suddenly passed away after recording, leaving fans wondering for a month what his last episode would be.
  • Dub-specific: the episode where Vegeta said the following gem aired on the same night Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans had its finale (where Tekkaden was routed and Rustal Elion got to build his utopia by having hunted down Tekkaden) air stateside (spoiler marking due to the implications):
    "You can't build utopia by hunting down people."
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Ryūsei Nakao, Frieza's Japanese VA, once said at an Anime Convention that if he could have one wish from the Dragon Balls he would wish for Frieza to be turned into a good guy. Now he has his wish in Frost who he is the VA for. Unfortunately subverted; Episode 34 reveals Frost is also evil. Poor guy.
  • Although Nakao's original wish for Frieza to become a better person has come as close as it can to ever being realized by the end of Universe Survival Saga. While it would still be impossible to call Frieza a "good guy", he nonetheless plays a huge part in winning the tournament and even develops what seems to be some genuine camaraderie with Goku.
• He Really Can Act:
  • For western fans, Masako Nozawa's as Goku Black. To say that her playing Goku and his entire family is divisive is an understatement for fans of the Japanese cast. Her performance as Black, however, had gotten near-universal praise even by fans who despised her playing Goku and her hardcore fans called it her best work to date.
  • James Marsters' performance as Zamasu in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 was received quite poorly, with detractors criticizing his voice sounding too flat and old for someone like Zamasu. However, Marsters' performance in Zamasu's official debut in the English dub won many fans over and attributing his previous lackluster performance as the result of poor voice direction from the studio. His performance in the Future Trunks saga's home stretch also got this reaction in spades, particularly when it came to Zamasu's screams and descent into insanity. On a lighter note, his brief stint doing Goku's voice when they switched bodies is almost indistinguishable from Sean Schemmel.
  • Not that he wasn't already a celebrated voice actor, but in a medium where many consider the original voice track to be infinitely superior to any dubs, Sean Schemmel's portrayal of Goku during the famous Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-Ken x10 scene in the Champa Arc is considered to not only match, but possibly exceed that of Masako Nozawa herself. Even in earlier episodes, while Schemmel's Goku was previously criticized by fans of the subbed version for failing to capture Nozawa's goofiness and childishness, he seems to have a lot of fun with the role and conveys Goku's silly, childish side perfectly without compromising the more realistic, adultlike voice he gives the character.
• Hollywood Homely: Downplayed. The running gag about Bulma's boobs starting to become saggy is clearly a crack about her age, but at the same time, the gag never explicitly says that they (or Bulma) are growing less attractive as a result; just more saggy/chronologically older. Not to mention, her Super redesign clearly makes her look much younger than how she appeared during the Buu saga.
• Ho Yay:
  • It seems even the animators and Toyotaro, the new illustrator for the manga, are not above relentlessly teasing the audience about Vegeta's love/hate relationship with Goku:
    • In the anime, after Goku's battle with Beerus, he falls out of the sky and Vegeta catches him in a Bridal Carry (where, years in the past, he'd let Goku fall to the ground and football kicked him out of the way)
    • In the manga adaptation of Resurrection 'F', Goku and Vegeta teleport back to Earth holding hands, when Vegeta had previously demonstrated a significant reluctance to do so.
  • In the Les Yay variant, Kale is implied to have a crush on Caulifla; she blushes when Caulifla is showing off her new Super Saiyan form, her transformation into the Super Saiyan Beserker form is triggered whenever she believes another character has taken Caulifla away from her and shows attention to them, including Cabba and Goku. She only calms down when Caulifla tells her she's not interested in Cabba that way and praises her.
  • It becomes far more explicit in the Funimation dub, where Kale says Goku is taking her "One and Only" away from her.
• Hype Aversion: The Universe Survival Saga has been hit with this by some on both sides of the world, first because of how long the Tournament dragged out and how undeveloped most of the antagonistic characters are, and later due to various Call Backs to previous arcs during the last episodes of the arc. ^note Namely the following: Vegeta using Final Flash against Jiren like he did against Cell; Frieza surviving Energy of Destruction and then telling Jiren "he should die by his hand" like he did with Goku; or Vegeta using Final Explosion like he did with Majin Buu. To them, this can be seen as tiresome and drags the arc out more by just Pandering to the Base; the most critical have even compared it to Toyotaro's blatant tracing in the manga.
• Hype Backlash: The Super manga fell into this for many since its fans declare the manga to be far superior to the anime and is the true 'canon' of Super. Those who read the manga are often put off by the rushed pacing, the lack of character building compared to the anime, and the long Info Dumps that plagued the Future Trunks Saga portion of the manga.

I to O

• I Knew It!:
  • A lot of people correctly predicted that the unnamed planet on which the Universe 6/7 Tournament took place was actually the seventh Super Dragon Ball.
  • Many fans were not surprised to see Future Trunks attack Goku on sight due to triggered PTSD from fighting Goku Black. Since Goku was supposed to stay dead in Trunks's timeline, the poor boy didn't know that Goku was brought back to life by Old Kaioshin.
  • There has been debate since the days of DBZ as to whether Future Trunks had reached Super Saiyan 2 after being brought back to life. ^note Supporters who think he did have noted that Saiyans' "Zenkai" ability should have pushed him over the edge like it did with Cell, and that Trunks was drawn with spikier hair & lightning bolts around his aura after returning to the future to fight the Androids and Cell. Detractors, however, noted that there was no actual mention of him being anything more than SSJ in writing. When Goku spars with Trunks in Super, however, Goku flat-out says Trunks is Super Saiyan 2. The fact that he was shown to have single-handedly defeated Dabura—who was as powerful as Cell—only further solidifies this fact.
  • Future Mai surviving Goku Black's first attack was no shock, given how heavily she was promoted as a major character in the arc.
  • Several fans—and Bulma—speculated that Zamasu murdered Gowasu and took the Time Ring. Lo and behold, they were right (however they thought he was poisoned by his tea).
  • Damn near everyone initially thought Goku Black is Zamasu. Then it looked like it was a lie, only for it to be true—after a road of many plot twists that left behind even more questions.
  • Subverted: A lot of people thought Black was related somehow to Future Goku, thanks to a scene where he touches his heart after fighting main Goku in the present, implying he had the same heart disease that almost killed Goku. Turns out this is not the case. According to Black himself, he traded bodies with present Goku (one year into the main timeline's future specifically), thus it is not the same Goku who died of the disease.
  • People called it when the preview for Episode 62 mentioned the technique that would defeat Future Zamasu would be the Evil Containment Wave. Sure enough, Piccolo mentions the technique and Goku goes to Master Roshi's to learn how to use it.
  • Ever since Goku Black was shown with a Potara earring, speculations came about that he would either fuse or was fused with someone. Once Future Zamasu showed up, he became the top fusion candidate. Lo and behold, Black and Zamasu did indeed fuse together using the Potaras.
  • Due to the nature of the Future Trunks saga, fans speculated Vegito may come back at some point. And thus did he come back, stronger than ever as a Super Saiyan Blue.
  • Many people speculated that Goku Black and Future Zamasu fusing together would be their downfall, as Fusion Zamasu wasn't 100% immortal. This ended up being correct, as while Fusion Zamasu still was durable, any attacks strong enough were powerful enough to deform his body and ultimately lead to Future Trunks slicing him in half.
  • It was a popular theory that Goku hired Hit to assassinate him so he could fight Hit at his best. Another popular theory was that Vados hired Hit to kill Goku so U6 would have one less foe to deal with during the Zen'o tournament. Another theory claimed that Whis did it to train Goku. Turned out, all three were right to some extent. Goku begged Whis to hire Hit to kill him, so he contacted Vados to set up the job.
  • Some YouTube users managed to guess correctly that one of the Gods of Destruction would be a fox.
  • Many users, including from this very wiki, managed to correctly guess the Universe 11 fighters were a Superhero team due to their uniforms.
  • A mysteriously strong female Saiyan, who was introduced during the Universal Survival Arc, was officially named "Caulifla" (a pun on "Cauliflower"). However, it was not the same female Saiyan seen in the Genkai Toppa×Survivor opening transforming into a Legendary Super Saiyan form. It was one of her shy underlings: Kale.^note  Whose name would still be a pun on a broccoli, seeing as the vegatable is part of the same species.
  • Some fans weren't buying the idea that the emerging appearance of Caulifla was a redesign of the, then, mystery Legendary Super Saiyan, going so far as to say that there were two new female Saiyans being introduced. Episode 89 confirmed the two Saiyans to be two different people that happen to work with each other.
  • Many people called it that the first universe to kick the bucket by Zen-O would be Universe 9, especially due to how high Ro's, the Surpreme Kai of that Universe, Smug Snake behavior would bite him in the ass.
  • Many people guessed in advance that three of Universe 3's warriors would fuse as a Combining Mecha, judging by their similar colours. However, not many people didn't expect Dr. Paparoni to later fuse with them to form an even stronger warrior.
  • Honestly, nobody really thought that any of the erased universes would be gone for good; it's just too dark for the series. What most people didn't expect was that 17 would be the last man standing, or that the Zen'os and the Grand Priest were counting on the winner to wish the erased universes back and the whole thing was a Secret Test of Character.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • One of the biggest complaints about the beginning of Super is that the first two arcs, outside of a few changes, are basically rehashes of Battle of Gods and Resurrection F with less-than-stellar animation and art.
  • A somewhat consistent but otherwise downplayed complaint from the fandom is the lack of variety in the protagonists' techniques. While Goku (re)obtained the Kaioken to go along with Super Saiyan Blue, neither Goku or Vegeta (Or any of the supporting cast) get any new cool techniques. Some people even got critical of Vegeta using Final Flash - which was only used once in Z, twice if you count the anime scene where he used it on a Cell Jr - much more often in the series' last arc, if mainly the uncharged, 'weak' version.
  • This is the criticism of Kale. During the introduction of her Berserker transformation and episode 100, she was a walking reference to Broly, copying his phrases and sequences to the point many viewers, Broly-fans and detractors alike, started to dislike her as a shallow copycat. Episode 101, however, gave her a more standard Super Saiyan transformation, and outside of a rather visually pleasing transformation sequence supervised by Yuya Takahashi, she stopped relying on Broly references.
  • The manga interpretation of all the new characters fighting styles. While the anime took the effort to create some unique powers and cool sequences for many of its new fighters (Outside of Aniraza who, like Kale, is a movie villains reference), none of the anime powers were transferred to the manga fighters who rely in a rather basic fighting style. This was especially bad when Hit ditched his unique time powers for a rather standard fighting style. It made the manga fights quite repetitive.
  • A frequent point of discussion regarding Ultra Instinct design. People were really hyped for the black hair design (named Omen) because it was a fresh take on a new form that was more a state of mind than being a specific form, but then the complete white haired version was released and people started to complain about how derivative it was. It doesn't help Akira Toriyama took a character sheet of Goku and recolored his hair like he did with Super Saiyan God.
  • One of the biggest complaints about the Moro arc in the Super Manga is that it feels formulaic and very similar to the Goku Black arc in design. Namely that Goku and Vegeta have to fight a strong enemy tied to the Gods, who defeats them each time by getting stronger thanks to not being able to use his strongest powers, before both go and train and learn something new power wise that pushes him into a corner, before he enters his final form and nearly wins. The outcome being another "Goku has to use Ultra Instinct to save the day" like the previous arc also means that it has the same basic setup despite the interesting start, and while ultimately the heroes to unite to stop Moro, they only do so by powering up Goku to use Ultra Instinct again.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Future Trunks. This guy has been through hell not once, but twice. His world was ravaged by the androids who killed everyone he knew and loved except his mother. Then Goku Black comes and kills her and reduces the human race to the hundreds. Despite all the pain and heartache, he still keeps fighting to save his world when it would be easy to just escape to the past and give up. Even having his entire timeline erased doesn't have him down for long, since Whis creates a new one for him and Mai, although they will have to share it with alternative versions of themselves. However, he finally burst into tears when Present Gohan comes to say goodbye to him, sobbing that he couldn't protect the world.
  • Future Mai has it almost as bad as Trunks. As far as we know, the rest of the Pilaf Gang is dead, which must be hard for her since they've been together for decades through thick and thin. She is also a survivor of the androids and has to live through Goku Black's attack for over a year, despite knowing better than anyone how powerless normal humans are against such creatures. That doesn't stop her from fighting and directly challenging Goku Black, going as far to attack him with a rocker launcher and snipes him in the face with a special bullet. She only reaches her breaking point after Fusion Zamasu becomes one with the multiverse and kills everyone in it. Even then, she opts to live in a new timeline as long as those she tried to protect are still alive.
  • The surviving humans in the future timeline for much of the same reason as Future Trunks and Mai. They all lived through the androids and manages to survive Goku Black for over a year. Despite this, many of them keep fighting and directly confronts Black to save as many lives as possible. It's a shame that all of them died to Fusion Zamasu in the end and then are erased from existence by Future Zeno in order to stop Fusion Zamasu.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!:
  • One of the biggest criticisms of Vegito Blue vs Fusion Zamasu. Many felt that the battle between the two should have gone on for at least another episode before the former defused.
  • For the Universal Survival Arc, some felt that God of Destruction Toppo was eliminated too quickly, feeling that he should've stayed for at least another episode, especially after he was hyped up as a nigh-impossible threat to stop, being able to negate any type of attack, whether it be physical or energy-based, using his newfound Energy of Destruction.
  • The manga's version of the Universe Survival Arc was heavily criticized for this, with fans taking issue with how the arc was seemingly being rushed by Toyotaro. Fighters who received extensive focus in the anime were quickly wiped out or nowhere nearly as focused on in the manga, with four universes eliminated in the span of a few pages. Not helping is that each chapter of the actual tournament ends with a small timeskip, meaning many moments are just not shown either, resulting in some of the issues the anime had becoming even worse. For clarification on the length; the anime's take on the arc was 54 episodes long, with the actual tournament being roughly 35 episodes long, during which many awesome moments occurred, and some of the shows largest criticisms were fixed for fans. By contrast, the manga is only roughly 15 chapters long (divided into four volumes), less if you only include the tournament section and not the stuff leading up to it.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Goku Black being an incarnation of Zamasu in the Future Trunks arc. While initially being a surprise, it didn't take long for the surprise to wear off, where even people who don't follow Super know of this twist.
  • Frieza being the 10th member of the Universe 7 team for the Tournament of Power. Although the initial spoiler came as an immense shock and all three people who managed to avoid it long enough for the episode to actually air were no doubt extremely surprised, now that the tournament is underway it's essentially common knowledge even amongst people who don't follow Super. The updated opening, ending, and merchandise reflecting the new roster didn't help, either, so while Toei clearly doesn't care much about keeping it a secret anymore it's very hard for anyone experiencing the Universe Survival Saga for the first time to avoid having this twist ruined for them long in advance.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Unlike in the film where Shisami is one-shotted by Gohan and is killed by Frieza for failing, he is shot from behind by Tagoma while he's fighting Gohan because Tagoma saw it as an opportunity to kill Gohan. The look of betrayal and shock on his face really shows how he never suspected that Tagoma was capable of such a thing and dies cursing Tagoma's name. Yeah, he was soldier in Frieza's army who is responsible for mass planetary genocide, but what a sad way to go.
  • Tagoma. Sure he killed Shisami just to injure Gohan, and he was planning to usurp Sorbet's position as Frieza's second-in-command, but think about this: Tagoma was first severely injured by Frieza and then tortured to near death every day for four months just for suggesting that Frieza forget about the Saiyans. If that wasn't bad enough, just when things were finally looking up for him (he became more powerful than the rest of Frieza's army put together, he was going to be made Frieza's second-in-command, and he was going to have his own planet), he has all of that taken away from him when his body is stolen by Ginyu. Now that Ginyu is dead, Tagoma will have to spend the rest of his life in a frog's body.
  • Despite being the one responsible for bringing back one of the biggest monsters in the entire series and shooting Goku In the Back when he was fighting Frieza, you have to feel for Sorbet. Everything he did was to restore the trade empire he spent years holding together and he had to watch everything fall into ruin because Frieza couldn't let go of his grudge towards Goku. He is also a Benevolent Boss who cares for his men, one of only three in the franchise, and was horrified when Tagoma kills Shisami in cold-blood. In the end, he is killed by a deflected energy blast from the lord he gave up everything to revive.
  • Episode 127 lands Jiren firmly into this. He revealed himself to be a massive Jerkass and is nowhere as noble or heroic as his comrades. But given his failure to avenge the deaths of his parents and mentor, and his fellow students subsequently abandoning him out of fear, is it a wonder he's so bitter?
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Super is a victim of the Fanon Discontinuity by vocal part of the community. However, this same community tend to enjoy the down to Earth moments between the cast, and why the filler arcs are appreciated.
  • The Potaufeu arc is considered by many to be a bit of a dud. That said, a lot of people are happily re-watching its English dub simply because of the amazing Casting Gag that is Brian Drummond, the Ocean Group dub Vegeta, playing Copy-Vegeta.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Caulifla is shipped with everyone, including but not limited to: Kale, Cabba, Goku, Vegeta, Android 18, and Goten to name a few. The manga also launched Kefla/Gohan due to battling and respecting one another.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Someone dying in Dragon Ball is not new, especially since Death Is Cheap in the series. That said, fans were shocked when Piccolo is killed by Frieza since it didn't happen in the Resurrection 'F' movie, and Piccolo was one of the fighters chosen to be on Beerus' team.
  • Goku Black killing Mai got this reaction since she was all over the pre-promotional material, in the opening, and Mai's voice actress on Twitter said that the character would have an important role in the story. Several episodes after her supposed death, she was confirmed to be alive, despite taking a direct energy blast from Goku Black, and being confirmed dead by him and the narrator.
  • After everything that happened in the Future Trunks Saga, fans were certain that everyone who died would be revived in some way, even when they learned that the Super Dragon Balls were destroyed. As it turned out, nope. Not only does everyone who died stay dead, everyone in the future is killed except Future Trunks and Mai, and their timeline is wiped out by Future Zeno to kill the immortal Fusion Zamasu.
  • Let's all be honest, no one thought Goku's death in Episode 71 would stick. Hell, even the episode abandons any pretense of suspense, showing him fighting no worse for wear in the preview for the next one. And that's not even taking into account his then already confirmed participation in the Universe Survival Saga. Let alone the fact that since he's alive and well during the tournament at the very end of Z where Uub appears, he's clearly going to be resurrected before then.
  • Since the beginning of the Universe Survival Saga, some people called this on a Universe getting erased when they lose. Yet two episodes into the actual Tournament of Power, Universe 9 and it's team is erased in seconds of losing, and it's clear the same fate will befall the other losing Universes. However, Episode 131 ultimately proves them right, as Android 17's wish brings back all the universes that were destroyed and the whole tournament was all along a Secret Test of Character to see if the winner would be virtuous enough to make a selfless wish.
• Love to Hate:
  • Super's version of Frieza is beloved for being more of an irredeemable Jerkass compared to Resurrection 'F' Frieza, since he tortures his own men, one literally into insanity, put holes through Gohan, and murders Piccolo. When he returns for the Tournament of Power, people initially feared that he's going to be redeemed, but when he actually gets to appear on-screen, he's not only shown to be as evil as ever, but he is also plotting a new Evil Plan which involves manipulating the high-ranked gods. And even when this plan falls through and forces Frieza to help save the day, he is then rewarded by being granted life again and he promptly goes right back to being the tyrannical "Emperor of the Universe", announcing his return with psychotic, malevolent glee.
  • Goku Black and Future Zamasu. Their motivations, backstory, and personality make them enjoyable, and between their horrific actions, their self righteous attitude, and smugness makes it very easy to want to see them finally get their comeuppance.
  • Fusion Zamasu, the fusion of Goku Black and Future Zamasu. Although he's only around for a few episodes, fans love him for having an ego bigger than Black and Future Zamasu combined and his fight with Vegito where he actually pushed him. Him being split from the groin up by Future Trunks was cited as one of the most satisfying defeats in the series. However, it turned out even bisection couldn't keep a good bastard down and he topped all his previous acts of bastarddom by attempting to wipe out EVERYONE in every universe before finally meeting his end at a multiverse busting attack by Future Zeno.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Hit, introduced in the "Champa Arc", is an assassin from Universe 6 with the power to "Time-Skip", famed for always fulfilling his contracts without leaving a trace. Despite his cold professionalism, Hit always abides by a code of honor and goes out of his way to avoid unnecessary casualties when performing his contracts. Initially joining Champa's tournament for personal gain, Hit finds an adversary providing him a challenge in Goku for the first time, a sentiment that causes him to fake his defeat to show that he is not Champa's pawn. Later hired by a client to assassinate Goku, Hit swiftly dispatches the Saiyan before he could attack, promising to pay his respects to his seemingly slain rival, who was only saved by his own quick thinking. In the Tournament of Power, Hit rarely loses his cool in the heat of battle and simply shifts tactics whenever his opponents find ways to counter his signature Time-Skip. Even when he's physically outmatched by the mighty Jiren, Hit nearly rings out the Pride Trooper by using a variety of tactics and techniques, a feat that was previously deemed impossible.
  • Grand Minister is the attendant and advisor of the Zenos twins, who always maintains a polite and calm demeanor. When the Zenos desire to hold a tournament, Grand Minister creates the Tournament of Power, a multiversal tournament where the penalty for losing is erasure of said universe. Grand Minister instructs and coordinates the universes, creates the arena via magic materialization, and serves as the tournament announcer. Seemingly apathetic to the destruction of losing universes, the tournament is revealed to be a Secret Test of Character for the winner to make a selfless wish of restoring the erased universes, while making any other wish would lead to the complete destruction of the multiverse, with Grand Minister showing content when the selfless wish was made.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Chi-Chi gets this for the same reason as Z. She is able to control and strike fear into some of the most powerful beings in the universe such as Goku, Goten, Gohan, and even Piccolo who was once the Satan of Dragon Ball. There's even a joke that she sent Hit running in Episode 72.^note Hit left since there were "too many witnesses" to finish his hit against Goku and vowed to return to finish the job later. It also helps that she's seen as this In-Universe with Goten calling her the real strongest being in the universe.
  • Bulma gets this for being the only character (aside from Whis) who is able to get away with scolding Beerus. It even appears that Beerus is scared of Bulma, sweatdropping or looking nervous whenever Bulma gets angry. That's right, the God of Destruction is intimidated by this one mortal. She's also jokingly said to be immensely powerful for her slap scratching Beerus in Battle of Gods, while sustaining little damage from Beerus knocking her down.^note Beerus had greatly suppressed his power when he hit her, but she was still knocked unconscious.
  • The man who was cooking for Whis is already being hailed as Earth's savior, since his food was so good it gives the heroes more time before Beerus tries to destroy the world. The fact that his food practically drives Whis into The Immodest Orgasm isn't too shabby either.
  • Beerus, already one of the most powerful characters in the franchise, is fully considered one since he 'deleted' Present Zamasu from existence with just one word. Now fans say he can do the same thing to any character.
  • Hit firmly became this after he killed Goku with a single attack to his heart. Now, he can kill anyone whether they're Goku Black, Vegito Blue, the Grand Priest, or Zeno. The only exceptions are Future Zamasu and Fusion Zamasu and it's only because they're immortal. His manga counterpart on the other hand...
  • Monaka jokingly got this from the fandom after he takes down Hit with just one punch.^note Hit threw his fight against Monaka as a favor to Goku and to spite Champa.
  • Zeno amazingly get this. He can already destroy the multi-universe on a whim, but fans believe that he's a Reality Warper capable of rewriting history and the laws of reality, like being able to kill an immortal and reset things to make GT happen. They also believe that there is only one Zeno ruling all timelines.^note Turns out, he can kill an immortal, but he doesn't rule over all of time since there's a Future Zeno living in the present timeline with Present Zeno
  • Baby Pan is jokingly called one of the most powerful characters in the universe since she's only a year old and can already fly, breathe in space, and beat up Future Trunks. ^note Pan can't actually breath in space. She was still in the stratosphere, like Goku when he fought Beerus. In addition, Trunks was being very careful not to hurt Pan in any way despite the fact that he could've easily restrained her at any point.
  • Goku Black (in the anime) is fast becoming the new Broly when it comes to hypothetical battles. Fans have claimed he is invincible and the strongest character outside of Zeno himself. It got worse once he revealed his Super Saiyan Rosé form and he beat both Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta and Goku with ease. This belief was only reinforced after Atsushi Kido (Super's producer) called him the strongest fighter after Beerus if you don't count fusions and the fact that he was never defeated even after Vegeta beat him up. He just got stronger again by impaling his energy blade into his own hand, pulling out a giant energy scythe, and used it to ripped a hole between dimensions. Even he doesn't understand his own power anymore. His manga counterpart...isn't as beloved.
  • Future Trunks. He gets a new form, that is equivalent of a Super Saiyan God-form. He can master new techniques on the first attempt, including a Spirit Bomb Sword. He even got to cut an immortal god in half! Some have pitched him to be the new hero over Goku. Like with Goku Black, his manga incarnation isn't seen in the same light by some fans.
  • Arale, which is fitting since she's also seen as one in her own series. Since she's a gag manga character who runs on Rule of Funny, fans are saying that Arale is unbeatable and the real reason why Beerus ran wasn't because of his stomach, but he sensed what Arale truly was and booked it.
  • Liquir, the God of Destruction from Universe 8 gets this to an extent. Fans believe that he is one of the strongest, if not the strongest God of Destruction, mostly due to his rather intimidating design, which is considered to be one of the best designs for a god and because he is from one of the four universes with the highest mortal level. Likewise, the creator's staff seem to like him, giving him a small fight with other three gods of destruction, and Toyotaro' showing off his powers in the manga (Geen and Iwne, by comparison, didn't receive as much attention).
  • Jiren get this thanks to being the strongest mortal on Universe 11 and the one mortal who surpasses the Gods of Destruction. Once a real life earthquake warning happened on Japan during his first words ever in the series, 4chan users started to joke he is so strong he can cause real life disasters. It got ridiculous after Episode 109 where he proceeds to clobber both Goku and Hit after both had received power-ups.
  • Jimeze, the Yardrat from Universe 2. Many people were excited for him and jokingly stated that he was either going to last long in the Tournament of Power or even take Jiren on. After he got kicked by Caulifla, some hype for him died down, but it quickly came back after he saved Ribrianne and Rozie from Goku and Android 17 and managed to take out a Universe 10 member himself, giving some variety in the other fighters (this is considering the Tournament has been criticized for only showing Universes 6 and 7 taking out fighters).
  • Some fans jokingly consider Bollarator, the crab-looking robot from Universe 3, is a all-mighty psychopath who can take anyone down because of him making Gohan retreat for a while. This picture can attest to it.
  • Roshi became this in when scans of Chapter 39 of the manga were released, which showed him effortlessly dodging blows from Jiren.
  • In Chapter 40, Jiren compliments Vegeta for putting up a good fight comparable to Goku in Ultra Instinct Omen. The problem is that all Goku did in Ultra Instinct Omen in the manga was dodge a punch from Jiren before timing out, making it seem more like an insult than genuine praise.
  • Last but not least, the Ultra Instinct itself, a form so badass that when Goku finally mastered it, every single god of destruction stands up in awe. The existence of the form itself elevates Goku, who's already a Memetic Badass himself, up to eleven, sparking even more power-level debate across the fandom. Even without taking Goku into account, Ultra Instinct is always associated with being "untouchable", with many videos showcasing impressive feats of dodging/evading often edited with the Ultra Instinct theme or Ultimate Battle song. Heck, slap "Ultra Instinct" on any character, no matter how weak or unimpressive they are, and they'll become an instant badass. Just ask Shaggy Rogers.
• My Real Daddy: Like with Bardock and Future Trunks in their animated specials written by Takao Koyama, some people prefer the way Zamasu and Goku Black (especially the latter) are written by anime writer Tomioka Atsuhiro compared with the manga version (Done by Toyotaro instead of Toriyama, in this case). Future Trunks and Future Mai also get this to a certain extent by having a bigger protagonistic role in their own arc, with much needed Character Development and an effective Gut Punch. Of course, like everything in Dragon Ball, this is up to debate.
• Mis-blamed:
  • Toei is often the victim of these since they're the go-to scapegoat for the fandom:
    • Toei is blamed for Gohan's character development since the end of the Buu Saga. Fans blame Toei for Gohan's Badass Decay to make Goku and Vegeta the strongest characters, therefore, rendering Gohan utterly worthless. This is, of course, ignoring that Toriyama did the exact same thing to Gohan in the Buu Saga and he wrote the movies that Super is adapting, so he would be the one responsible for Gohan's development, not Toei.
    • Piccolo's loss to Frost was blamed on Toei because their writers were, apparently, a bunch of Vegeta's fanboys who made Goku dumber to build up Vegeta. This accusation only went away after Piccolo lost in the manga in a lackluster match.
    • Goku doing well against Hit in his base form was accused of being Toei wank since Vegeta got stomped by Hit as Super Saiyan Blue (which came off as strange since the same fandom previously claimed that Toei's writers were Vegeta's fanboys). In manga Chapter 12, Goku did the exact same thing against Hit.
    • The infamous kissing joke from Episode 60, where Goku implied that he has never kissed his wife, got the fandom breathing down fire on Toei for flanderizing Goku by making him look like a stupid Manchild. In Chapter 18 of the Super manga, Goku outright said that he has never kissed his wife instead of it just being implied, showing that the joke most likely originated with Toriyama.
    • Similarly, fans were quick to blame Toei for making Goku look clumsy and silly for falling out of the Time Machine because he got motion sickness. The same joke appeared in Chapter 18 of the manga.
    • Goku is blamed in the anime for forgetting the the seal for the Evil Containment Wave. Although, Roshi never gave Goku the seal even when Goku talked to him for several minutes before leaving. Even more, fans blamed Toei for making Goku an idiot because he 'forgot'. Come Super manga Chapter 22 and Goku grabs a porn coupon instead of the seal.
    • Speaking of the Evil Containment Wave, when it failed to trap Future Zamasu some fans accused Toei of shoehorning the Evil Containment Wave into the story and how it was little more than shameless nostalgia for older fans of Dragon Ball, citing how they done this before with the return of the Kaioken and other older techniques. Then, Chapters 20-22 revealed that the Evil Containment Wave was Toriyama's idea, it failed in the manga for the same reason as the anime, and both versions led to the creation of Fusion Zamasu.
    • While it was accepted that Toriyama was responsible for the Potara retcon, fans did blame Toei for Vegito's short scene time since they didn't even devote half an episode to him. When Chapter 23 of the manga was released, Vegito's scene time was even shorter and the fight choreography was seen as only okay while the anime brought Toei's best for Vegito's return. Interestingly, an interview with Toriyama and Toyotaro revealed that while the Potara retcon was in the original draft, it was originally intended for Fused Zamasu, who was also originally weak enough for Goku and Vegeta to fight against together unfused, Vegito having originally been excluded from the arc altogether. Goku and Vegeta using the Potara to become Vegito in the arc was Toyotaro's idea to meet fan expectations, a decision that ultimately affected both adaptations.
    • Toei is also blamed for there being only 28 planets with intelligent life, since they apparently made this up to explain why all the fighters for the Tournament of Power came from Earth. Not only is this accusation odd since Toei would want more planets with life for the sake of future stories, ex GT, but it was stated by Jaco in Jaco the Galactic Patrolman that very few planets have intelligent life.
    • The more vocal parts of the fandom blamed Toei for Buu missing the Tournament of Power and replacing him with Frieza. These fans claimed that Frieza was only brought back for marketing and Toei ran out of ideas for Buu, with some going as far as calling it a last minute decision. This is ignoring that Toriyama writes the outline for every major story arc in Super while Toei and Toyotaro fill in the details. In other words, it's Toriyama who decided the lineup for Universe 7, not Toei. The most Toei could be blamed with was using a Bait-and-Switch.
    • When Ultra Instinct's completed state was revealed to have white-gray hair from Super Dragon Ball Heroes leaks, some criticized this visual change as a merchandising ploy for making more hair color changing Super Saiyan forms. In their eyes, it betrayed Ultra Instinct "Omen"'s look, which seemingly emphasizes Goku's using a technique of the Gods that any with minimal visual changes to his base form look (akin to Kaioken). However, Toriyama's initial draft of Ultra Instinct revealed that it always had white hair and a skinnier build, and that "Omen" was the Toei - original design that was inserted into the plot to build-up Goku's competence in completing Ultra Instinct.
    • The controversial "tingly back" explanation of the Super Saiyan transformation, introduced via the U6 Saiyans, was met with backlash for rationalizing the powerful state into a mundane power-up achieve through baby talk and steps. When Toyotaro's manga decided to skip over the explanation in a similar set-up, these dissenters felt vindicated that it was merely a bad filler joke made at Toei's expense. However, according to series and movie director of Super Tatsuya Nagamine, Toriyama coined the explanation, which became beneficial to Nagamine's new approach to revisualizing Super Saiyan transformations in modern Dragon Ball.
  • Some US fans have started to blame Funi for making Goku heroic again when he declared in Episode 5 that he needed to get to Earth before Beerus destroyed it, showing concern for his friends and love ones. However, that line was also in the original Japanese version of Super, which was a case of Adaptational Nice Guy from the original source.
  • Goku has been getting borderline Ron the Death Eater treatment for the existence of the Tournament of Power, with many claiming he's willing to endanger the multiverse for a good fight. Ignoring that Goku had no way of knowing that Zeno would destroy the losing universes and no reason to suspect such, the Tournament of Power is actually just an excuse to do this in an entertaining way. Zeno's been wanting to destroy all the weaker universes for a while, now. Not only that, but the idea for the Tournament as a whole was thanks to the Beerus and Champa's Tournament of Destroyers. All Goku did was remind Zeno of said tournament, again, completely unaware of Zeno's end goal.
  • Fans are quick to blame the Supreme Kai for U7's low mortal level and the low level of planets with intelligent life, citing his incompetence during the Buu Saga and him not stopping Frieza when he was taking over the universe as proof that he's terrible at his job. While it is true that the Supreme Kai isn't the best at his job, most of that is because all his mentors were brutally murdered by Majin Buu and he was only a Jr when he became head god. Also, if you go by the Super manga, it was Beerus' job to kill Buu. Instead, he was fast asleep while his fellow gods were being massacred. And as stated by Gowasu, it isn't the Supreme Kai's place to kill mortals. In fact, they're strictly forbidden from harming mortals, something Zamasu had major issue with. Only the Gods of Destruction are allowed to touch the creations. Meaning, dealing with Frieza would also be Beerus' job. Not only did Beerus fail to take direct action against Frieza, he approved and encouraged his actions like Frieza's genocide of the Saiyans.
  • In Champa's introduction in the dub, some fans complained that Champa's voice sounded too deep and sinister, which doesn't match his character. However, long-term sub fans pointed out that was how Champa was introduced in the original version. His more goofball personality wasn't shown until his third appearance.
  • This is a bit of a weird one since some fans blame Goku for telling the lie about there being prize for the Tournament of Power instead of being truthful about the stakes. This is odd since we saw in Episode 84 that Gohan told Goku to lie and he was right there when Goku came up with the idea of the prize money to get Android 18 on the team. It probably doesn't help that the cast also blamed Goku for the lie while sweeping Gohan's responsibility and Gohan himself said nothing to stick up for his father.
  • Given the recent divisiveness of the manga, many fans were quick to decry Toyotaro for his poor writing and rushed pacing of the Universe Survival Arc's manga adaptation. While part of the blame does lie on Toyotaro's writing decisions, its rushed pacing also owes to the fact that the manga is a monthly publication, meaning that Toyotaro has to cram in as much content as he could in short amount of time. Pressure on Toyotaro by his superiors to catch up with the anime that had ended months ago could also be to blame as well.
  • Recently aired episodes of Super on Adult Swim, starting with episode 110, have been criticized by fans online for noticeable framerate drops during certain action scenes, as well as mistakes and alterations in the dub's script. As certain more hardcore factions of the fanbase tend to do whenever the English dubbed version of any Dragon Ball property has issues, Funimation and the dub were swiftly attacked. The alterations/mistakes in the dub are probably fair game, but the framerate issues have nothing to do with Funimation or the dub, they were done by Adult Swim (as they have admitted on Twitter) after certain scenes failed broadcast tests related to epilepsy (which are different in the West than Japan) and dropped the framerate to mitigate. The home release of the dubbed version won't suffer this.
  • Many consider the fact that Potara Fusions only last an hour when used by mortals to be a Retcon, due to Old Kai saying the fusion would be permanent in the Buu Saga. However, people tend to forget that Vegito defused after entering Super Buu, with no real explanation given. At most, the characters had theories, but nothing was confirmed.
• Moe:
  • Jiren was surprisingly adorable as a small child.
  • Because Goku's character is rewritten to be more naive and humorous and in line with his Dragon Ball self, he comes across as a goofy, lovable teddy bear of a warrior. Even better is that Sean Schemmel adapts to this new (old?) take on the character perfectly in the English dub and provides one of the most endearing performances for an adult male character in anime.
• Narm:
  • The wonky animation in the original broadcast version of Episode 5 (has since been fixed), which made the first confrontation between Goku and Beerus unintentionally hilarious.
  • Due to some scenes being stretched for drama in the Battle of Gods Saga, that they didn't have time to focus before, some things such as Beerus slapping Bulma end up looking over-the-top ridiculous instead. Some, however, think this has been fixed in the English dub, where Vegeta spent that time begging Beerus for mercy, adding to the tension.
  • King Kai's Japanese monotone voice (Ep. 1-12) when dealing with the God of Destruction and Goku kinda takes away some of the impact of the scenes. He got better when his original voice actor Joji Yanami had to step down due to health issues from Episode 13-onward.
  • Copy-Vegeta is considered to be one of the most lazily designed characters in the franchise, literally being a purple colored Vegeta. The fact that he's yet another evil Vegeta was could also be tiring.
  • Zamasu and Goku Black hug is either freaking hilarious, freaking disturbing in context, or both.
  • To some, Fusion Zamasu came off as this because of his inability to stop talking and just finish the heroes off, and his over-the-top Villainous Breakdown wouldn't sound out of place as a /pol/ post. There was also his final form after he lost his body that looked like a really bad screensaver or moving wallpaper. The Evil Laugh actually made it funnier.
  • The entire Future Trunks saga, when you realize that it's essentially Zamasu throwing a massive omnicidal temper tantrum because Goku beat him in a friendly spar.
  • From the manga, Goku and the Supreme Kai congratulating Future Trunks for killing Goku Black. This got more than a few chuckles from some since all Trunks did was stand on the sidelines, give exposition and heal Goku and only 'killed' Black after Goku and Vegeta did all the heavy lifting.
  • Episode 71 treating Goku's death as a little more of a big deal than it should be for some, even before Like You Would Really Do It and Spoiled by the Format (or 72's own preview) come into play.
  • "Looks like he has taken damage! Emotional damage!" a line from the manga said by Future Trunks when Goku was defeating Future Zamasu for the second time has been considered hilarious, to the point of Memetic Mutation in 4chan.
  • Some fans find the phrase "Tingly-like feeling on your back" to be utterly ridiculous, seemingly kills the badassery of the Super Saiyan transformation, and even 'accepting' that intense Rage Breaking Point anger is a better (and believable) explanation.
  • When Kale reaches her controlled Super Saiyan form, something about her high pitched voice with her bulk sounds kinda weird.
  • ATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA. Rinse and repeat for at least 3 minutes every episode since the start of the Universe Survival Saga. It came to a point where the Zenos started to imitate it!
  • Also from the manga, while the group shot of U7 at the start of the tournament is generally seen as superior to the anime's (mainly because the anime shot is rather too non-chalant, while the manga shot has everyone in epic poses), its epicness suffers due to the fact that both Krillin and Roshi apear to be a foot shorter then they actually are.
  • In the dub when Jiren tries to finish off Goku and Vegeta after his Dark and Troubled Past is revealed, he says "I trust no one, even Dragons". What was supposed to be a moment of Jiren affirming his views became an unintentionally hilarious moment, because it makes it seem like Jiren has some kind of personal dislike of Dragons. Naturally the community memed it to death after, even to the point of becoming a big one of his overall character.
  • The English translation for "Ultimate Battle". While the original song, as well as the intent are meant to be exciting and blood-pumping, but many find the English version to be more hilarious than anything.
  • The current antagonist from the manga is named Granolah from Planet Cereal. While Edible Theme Naming has been a Dragon Ball convention from the very beginning, there is a rather sharp contrast bewteen the seriousness of the character with the blatant silliness of his name.
• Narm Charm:
  • Universe 2's Last Stand involves three of their male members to use the magical girl transformation from the Maidens. It is every bit as absurd as it sounds, but the fact their whole universe is supporting them for their victory can make the viewer both laugh and feel some kind of admiration.
  • For the English dub, the "next episode" previews narrated by Goku. A staple of shonen anime, it's odd to hear them spoken by an adult man in a childish manner,^note Masako Nozawa's Goku in the original does sound a lot more like a young boy, but Sean Schemmel delivers them with such genuine charm and energy that it's hard not to smile.
    "Hey! It's me, Goku!"
  • In the dub, when Goku is thinking of his allies motivating him as Jiren is trying to knock him out, the dub gives them all a little moment to make a comment more fitting for them. Frieza's comment however is changed to "Dance for me monkey", which is both hilarious for how different it is, and yet also fits perfectly with the character.
• Never Live It Down:
  • The animation since Episode 5. Episode 5 had some clunky scenes, but animation overall in the series has been good, even better than in DBZ in some cases, which in itself, as some people pointed out, has had some◊ clunky frames◊ too. It has now been mitigated following the changes made to the episode on the Blu-Ray release.◊
  • Gowasu watching Godtube to see the Universal Tournament and his one-off Godtuber comment has forever marked him as someone who is obsessed with Godtube. The fact Toei made Godtube real^Explanation Actually their section for previews of chapters. with him on the page doesn't help.
  • The Supreme Kai being bad at his job. While U7 Supreme Kai is far from the best, the fandom tends to blame everything wrong with Universe 7 on him because of his poor performance during the Buu Saga and his ignorance during the Battle of Gods Saga. This is despite the show making it clear that Beerus is equally if not more at fault because of his laziness and his inability to take responsibility for his own faults.
  • Caulifla being able to attain the Super Saiyan transformation via a "tingly sensation in their back" has been a subject of mockery by her detractors who criticize her for unlocking two Super Saiyan forms within a short span of time.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • Frost's third form is only a little different from Frieza's, but the fact his backstory shows him happily holding a cheering child takes away a lot of the fear factor. Justified, as Frost isn't a monster like Frieza in the slightest. Or so we were led to believe.
  • Infinite Zamasu, the physical manifestation of Fused Zamasu's spirit shows that an Eldritch Abomination that resembles a screensaver comes off as hilarious rather than frightening.
• No Yay: Black and Zamasu's hug after joining forces seems rather intimate for two mere allies. However, considering they're timeline variants of the same person and their alliance is to destroy all mortals in the universe, any amount of Ho Yay that could be drawn from it tends to be either canceled out or turned to Squick. Heck, Zamasu in general is this, with his obsession over Goku to the point he steals his body, saying it was his desire in the first place to do so, and wanting to fight him to become even stronger is creepy, to say the least.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Many fans considered Frieza to be better characterized in the anime version of Resurrection F than the original movie that was actually written by Akira Toriyama himself, as he is noticeably more unhinged and spiteful in a way befitting his circumstances. In fact, this is the second time such a thing has happened - the first was in DBZ when Frieza first came to Earth seeking revenge as a cyborg, alongside his father. In Toriyama's original manga, Frieza showed no changes in his usual behavior despite what he had been through on Namek. The anime, however, made him far angrier and erratic, plus suffering from PTSD over his defeat at Super Saiyan Goku's hands, which fans found to make more sense for the character.
  • A few people complained about Android 17 going from weaker then Piccolo in the Cell Saga, to being on par with Super Saiyan Blue Goku during the Tournament of Power arc, and often complained that it was lazy writing or just an Ass Pull. Characters getting super strong over timeskips is a staple of Dragon Ball that people often forget: Vegeta went from being weaker then barely five percent of Frieza's final form, to stronger then Android 19 and 20 an arc later in three years, while Goku and Vegeta went from weaker then Cell's Perfect Form to being stronger then Gohan was as a Super Saiyan 2 from his fight with Cell in seven years. Heck, one year of training allowed Piccolo, Gohan, Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, and Goku from being far weaker than Raditz, to significantly stronger than he ever was, with Goku going to be stronger than Nappa, who is much stronger than everyone else save Vegeta. Android 17, who had nearly fifteen years after his last appearance to get stronger, makes arguably more sense then several other examples, especially since (A) he likely has never trained prior to becoming an Android, and (B) no one has ever seen how a mix of organic matter and Android technology deals with improvement through training.
  • The Final Kamehameha Super Saiyan Blue Vegito uses against Fused Zamasu first appeared in, of all things, DragonBall Z Ultimate Battle 22 as Gogeta's attack. It also later appeared in Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 as Super Vegito's strongest attack in a more recognizable form, as 22 had it look like a normal ki blast.
  • Some people take issue with Caulifla easily attaining the Super Saiyan form, saying that it undermines the form's importance. The form has been undermined for a long time and hasn't been that important since it was usurped by other forms — Goten and Trunks attain it off-screen with no emotional trigger to note, while Cabba learns it after a few minutes of coaching and insults from Vegeta.
  • The video game Shin Budokai: Another Road featured a storyline about Majin Buu awakening in Future Trunks' timeline before Super did, the difference being that in Shin Budokai, Trunks had a much harder time, had to summon the Dragon Team from the past and things ultimately went about the same way the canon Buu saga did compared to how effortlessly Trunks solved the crisis in Super.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Fusion Zamasu's attack, Wall of Light, where he creates a giant bird-like entity similar to the Susanoo has made quite an impact despite only appearing briefly in one episode.
  • The random alien girl selling flowers during the Hit arc made quite an impact with some viewers, despite appearing for 30 seconds.
  • Despite appearing for only one picture, as an extra in Volume 4 of the Super manga, the Flying Pig which is implied to be formerly Zamasu's pet when he was a Kaio made quite an impact with the fandom, for giving some depths to Zamasu. It has received fan art in the Japanese community.
• One True Threesome: Cabba × Caulifla × Kale, the three Saiyans from Universe 6, has become this in some parts of the fandom.
  • One True Pairing: Or alternatively Cabba × Kefla to make things little simpler.

P to Z

• Padding:
  • While fans enjoyed seeing Future Trunks and Future Dabura's fight in Chapter 16 of the manga, especially since the anime gave an extremely barebone version of the account, most feel it was an unnecessary addition that didn't really move the main story, especially since the manga is only updated monthly, and it would have worked better as a special.
  • The go-kart racing scene in Chapter 17 of the manga is a more egregious example. Many complained that it served no purpose to the story, and consequently shafted Future Trunks' interactions with other characters in the present timeline.
  • The in-between Breather Episodes before each arc are viewed as this by part of the fandom since they rarely connect to the upcoming story arc outside of the training episodes in the Resurrection 'F' Saga and the two-parters with Hit and Goku, and Krillin and Goku before the Universal Survival Saga.
  • On the subject of the Universal Survival Arc, while many enjoy the various recruitment episodes which do a lot to re-establish the supporting cast, there is no denying that a majority of it is there to lengthen the saga. Still, it does mean that fans get to see their favorite characters back in action, so it's not a bad thing in the long run.
• Plot Twist:
  • Frieza replacing Buu as a fighter for the Tournament of Power after Buu fell asleep for two months. If you didn't read the spoilers leading up to Episode 92, this twist came as shock since the foreshadowing for it was extremely subtle.
  • When the tournament began, everyone suspected that Frieza would end up betraying his universe after he attempted to join Universe 9 and seemingly joined forces with Frost. Come episode 108, and it appears that those suspicions were coming true... except, instead of betraying his universe, Frieza ended up betraying Frost - even teaming up with Gohan to throw off suspicion.
• Popular with Furries: Following from Beast Men, Universe 9 and the God of Destruction Liqueur have been very well received by the furry fanbase. It's a running gag among many fans to call Universe 9 the "furry universe" and saying that if someone likes a Universe 9 character besides Comfrey, they are likely a furry. Of Universe 9 as a whole, this trope particularly applies to Sorel (the rather minor bunny member) and the Trio de Dangers. (But especially Bergamo; he alone returns hundreds of (safe for work, though some of them are most likely borderline Not Safe for Work anyways) hits on FurAffinity from a wide range of artists!) And that's not even getting to Beerus and Champa, the latter of which has become a particular hit with the Bara fanbase.
• Realism-Induced Horror: While many Dragon Ball villains are presented as fantastical over-the-top card-carrying villains who destroy whatever they want for fun, Zamasu's villainy feels much more disturbingly realistic. Unlike other villains, he desires to bring "justice" to the multiverse, yet he attempts to do this by wiping out all mortals as he blames them for everything he deems wrong. Even when it's shown several times that his actions are FAR WORSE than whatever damage mortals can inflict, he still believes that he's wholly justified in his actions and responds to whoever says otherwise by trying to kill them, even the gods themselves. People in real life, particularly tyrants and terrorists, have this exact mindset, committing deplorable actions to "better" the world in their own twisted way and believing they are right no matter what.
• Replacement Scrappy: Kale is this to a portion of Broly fans, who wished for him to appear in the canon series for decades and feel Kale is just a poor rehash of him. Coincidentally enough, they would soon get a rebooted, canonical take of original Broly through the Dragon Ball Super: Broly film.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Magetta was disliked by some for his design... and then they actually saw him fight. He went from one of the least popular Universe 6 characters, to being one of the most well liked.
  • Pan was very well liked when she was introduced at the end of Dragon Ball Z for being cute, powerful, and her relationship with Goku. However, Dragon Ball GT's portrayal of her as a Bratty Half-Pint soured Pan's character to a lot of fans and made her The Scrappy for a generation. Baby Pan is quickly changing that, reminding the fandom of the little girl that we were introduced to at the end of the manga and Z anime. It also helps that she's seen as a Memetic Badass.
  • Kid Trunks managed to do this with the fans who don't like how arrogant he can be. In Episode 59, he decides to go Vegeta on his future self, encouraging Future Trunks to stop moping around after his defeat. Like Vegeta, he does show that he cares. Future Trunks took everything in stride and thanked his younger self. This even applies In-Universe, as when they both get knocked back by Whis, Beerus, and Goku's impact returning to Earth, Mai, who had explicitly been crushing on Future Trunks and dismissing Kid Trunks' attempts to impress her, went to tend to Kid Trunks. He got further development in Episode 60 after realizing that the reason why he grew up in a peaceful era was because of Future Trunks helping them with androids and saving Goku from the heart virus.
  • Copy-Vegeta was initially viewed as nothing more than an unoriginal Filler Villain, but come the English dub he immediately got redeemed when it was revealed Brian Drummond would be voicing him. Having both iconic Vegeta voice actors clashing on screen now made him all the worthwhile.
  • When Ribrianne first appeared in the trailers and opening, she was heavily disliked for her absurd design of being a fat, pink, female creature. However, her official debut in the series and the revelation that she was a parody of the Magical Girl trope immediately won over many fans. But later on she fell right back into The Scrappy status due to overstaying her welcome as people had gotten sick of the Magical Girl parody and her selfish personality that's uncharacteristic of her stereotypes. However going through Character Development and realizing there's more types of love than she had believed and being a Graceful Loser, she has managed to regain some fans, ending as a Base-Breaking Character at best.
  • The anime version of Kale was a bit of a Base-Breaking Character before, however her showings in episode 93 and 100 somewhat soured the general opinion of her character, as she was seen as nothing but a walking Broly reference who was way stronger than she should be (though ironically enough, the rebooted Broly showed this wasn't unusual). Episode 101, however, gave her a lot of Character Development, an adorable, middle ground Super Saiyan form and a very cool team-up fight with Caulifla, restoring her character in the eyes of a good number of viewers.
  • Due to how Nigrisshi and Narimama got abruptly knocked out despite being hyped as one of the strongest modified warriors, Universe 3 is initially seen as a weak Butt-Monkey on par with Universe 10, not helping is The Preecho's abrupt elimination as well which causes fans to look down on Universe 3 as the third universe to be erased after 10. However, things change with the introduction of Maji Kayo where despite coming from Universe 3, he successfully managed to restrain Super Saiyan Goku, which forced him to go Blue to break free and by the second half of the tournament, they still have 6 members in the tournament, the second highest after 7. Then we got introduced to Katopesla whom fans widely regard him as among the best new character owing to his hilarious overdramatic poses along with actually being a strong member. But it is only when they are fought in their featured episode do they truly gain praises from fans owing to the fact that Paparoni and his robots actually gave Universe 7 a very good fight but particularly Anilaza that require the effort of all 5 of Universe 7 to take him down, taking one of them down in the process and nearly eliminating 17 to boot. As a result, Universe 3 went from being perceived from a Butt-Monkey on par with U10, to one of the best teams of the tournament that is not U7/6/11.
  • While Android 17 wasn't a scrappy necessarily, he was effectively the lesser third of the Android Saga's not-so-Terrible Trio, due to 18's remaining a supporting cast member and lasting longer, and 16's Tear Jerker story. He was only really remembered for an admittedly awesome fight against Piccolo during that arc and being one Brainwashed and Crazy half of the villain of a lackluster arc of GT. While his joining team Universe 7 wasn't poorly received, he wasn't expected to accomplish all that much when it was announced and even predicted to lose against U3 when they were still perceived as the Butt-Monkey team. To put it lightly, he's a contender for the most useful member of Team Universe 7, has had a lot of character development to make him go from underdeveloped to extremely deep and poignant, and like Vegeta, managed to survive a Suicide Attack. He then joins Frieza in confronting Jiren at the eleventh hour of the tournament while Goku lay broken and weakened, goes on to win the Tournament and uses his wish to resurrect the erased universes. To put it bluntly, people are pretty fond of the guy now.
  • Frieza returning from death and becoming an ally for the Tournament of Power redeemed him and his transformation in the eyes of the fanbase who felt his Resurrection ‘F’ arc was an unwatchable mess. In fact, many of the viewers ended up outright rooting for him despite being one of the biggest monsters ever created in manga and anime.
  • Mr. Satan was a Base-Breaking Character throughout the original Z, but is widely beloved in Super for having his character development stick and becoming much more humble and a genuine friend to the Dragon Team.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • It's harder to root for Goku during his fight with Bergamo, since Zeno agreed to drop the rule that losing universes will be erased if Bergamo wins.
  • Frieza is repeatedly called the most despicable character of any universe in the show, to the point even other Gods of Destruction refuse to consider an alliance with the space tyrant. In spite of this, Frieza is just so damn charismatic and a very welcome addition to the Universe 7 team as the Token Evil Teammate that it's impossible for fans to not want to see him actually get revived at the end of the arc and avoid being sent back to Hell. Come episode 131, and fans actually started literally rooting for Freeza during his part of the team-up fight against Jiren.
  • Though most of them classify as a Hero Antagonist, in general it's pretty easy to find oneself rooting for one of the other universes in Universe Survival.
• The Scrappy:
  • In terms of forms, Zamasu's Infinite form (after his body is slain by Trunks's Sword of Hope) in both the anime and manga (although especially the anime's version) are easily his most-hated. It's often criticized as being a blatant Ass Pull that renders the whole battle All for Nothing and causes the Dragon Ball franchise's most-controversial ending yet.
  • Ribrianne - but not Brianne de Chateau - from Universe 2, especially among the western fanbase.^{Long Explanation}Her repulsive appearance isn't really appealing to many fans, and though claimed to be formidable, hasn't exactly proven it - Post-God Base Goku isn't really trying hard against her, though she did take a strong hit from SSJB and got up without significant struggle. Then she ended up being a roadblock to Goku when he tried to intervene in significant fights, including Frost vs. a weakened Master Roshi and Frieza seemingly aligned with Frost, which for many is the moment that she overstayed her 'Magical Girl parody' welcome. Not helping the matter is that she can come across as a selfish hypocrite, or perhaps a blatant Protagonist-Centered Morality; while she condemned Android 17 for attacking while they were transforming, she later tried to attack Goku while he was charging the Spirit Bomb. There's also her wish to become a love goddess with the Super Dragon Balls, which is either selfish because it rules out bringing back the other universes, or yet another case of Angst? What Angst? (as each Universe only cares about their own survival, not the others'). The fact that she is shouting about love every time she is on screen pushes her into even further hatedom, since unlike Toppo and the Pride Troops, she just never stops shouting about love. To say that many people cheered when she finally got defeated in Episode 117 tells you how people felt about her, but she did get some Character Development by realizing that there's more to love than the love she was constantly preaching about. Her Face Death with Dignity attitude after Universe 2's erasure, as well as the fact that the women she blasted in her introduction were merely injured rather than killed, has made her slightly more likable.
• Seasonal Rot: The manga version of the Universal Survival Arc has been subject to a large amount of scrutiny from fans. Many, even those who critiqued the anime version for its Arc Fatigue, have critiqued the manga for heavily rushing through many parts of the story in order to get to the end, leading to many characters having extremely anti-climactic and underwhelming eliminations and others getting little characterization.
  • For the anime, the initial two arcs as detailed under Slow-Paced Beginning, especially as far as the animation was concerned.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The Battle of Gods arc in comparison to the film. The Super Saiyan God ritual goes from a deceptively simple one, to making the environment go completely out-of-whack - golden-glowing clouds, weather rapidly switching between rain/hail/snow/clear/etc (sometimes multiple at the same time), and time passing through day and night twice in seconds. The battle between SSJG Goku and Beerus nearly destroyed the universe this time around, even affecting the World of the Kais in Otherworld whenever they clashed, which is outside the living realm.
  • Needless to say, the fandom collectively lost its shit when Goku combined Super Saiyan Blue with the Kaioken, and then pumped it up to x10. He becomes so fast that he's actually able to counter Hit's Time Leap ability. Yes, you read that right, Goku out-speeds the very concept of time itself!
  • The fandom expected Super Shenron to be big, considering the Super Dragon Balls are literally planet-sized. They still had this reaction when they saw how massive the dragon truly is: galaxies look like specks of dust by comparison.
  • Five words: Christopher Sabat and Brian Drummond. The fans lost their shit when Copy-Vegeta was revealed to be voiced by Drummond, whom Sabat Darrin'd during Z's airing on Toonami.
  • The announcement of the "Future Trunks Saga", along with the new villain, Goku Black.
  • The revelation that Future Trunks defeated Future Babidi and Dabura, and acquired Super Saiyan 2. This is something the fandom had speculated for years and was really hoping would become canon.
  • The entire second half of the Future Trunks Saga:
    • The second half of Episode 56 is filled with this. Goku Black has not only become so powerful that he can fight Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta without taking any damage, but he also has his own Super Saiyan form, Super Saiyan Rosé, which he uses to impale Vegeta. Then, Zamasu shows up and reveals that he's working alongside Goku Black and wants to personally kill Goku.
    • Episode 57 is also one big Wham Episode. Future Zamasu is strong enough to put up a fight against Super Saiyan Blue Goku (before he was weaker than Super Saiyan 2 Goku). Goku Black and Zamasu double team Goku, and would have killed him if Trunks hadn't jumped in and actually pushed Goku Black back. Zamasu really is an immortal who survives being impaled and taking a Final Flash to the face. Finally, Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks are soundly defeated, and are forced to retreat back into the past. Even then, the episode still wasn't finish dropping bombs: Present Zamasu learns about the Super Dragon Balls and goes to Zuno to find out more information about them.
    • Fans were awe-shocked on how powerful Beerus really is. How powerful? Strong enough to atomize Present Zamazu by simply saying "Destroy". He isn't called the God of Destruction for nothing.
    • The revelation in Episode 60 that Zamasu used a wish on the Super Dragon Balls to switch bodies with a version of Goku. Therefore, Goku Black is Zamasu: it's Goku's body with Zamasu's heart. Then Black says to Goku that he personally killed the original Goku with his own hands.
    • Episode 61 had several moments from Goku Black and Future Zamasu talking about how they murdered all the gods in the multiverse, Goku losing his shit when he's told that Black killed his family in an alternate timeline after taking his body, and Future Trunks ascending to a new Super Saiyan form that no one has ever seen before.
    • The internet was set on fire when Goku Black and Future Zamasu used the Potara earrings to fuse and become Fusion Zamasu.
    • Goku and Vegeta fusing to become Vegito and fighting evenly with Fusion Zamasu.
    • Damn near everyone lost their shit (in a good way) when Trunks cut Zamasu in half. You read that right. Future Trunks cuts an immortal god in half by creating a Spirit-Bomb sword, with the powers of the survivors, Mai, his present parents, and Goku, cutting Zamasu completely in half!
    • The finale: Fusion Zamasu survives without his body, spreads across the Earth and then the multiverse, and proceeds to kill everyone except Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, Future Mai, Bulma, and the Supreme Kais. That's right, everyone dies. And to top it all off, Future Zeno is summoned and he destroys Future Trunks' timeline!
  • Before the Universe Survival Saga's debut, its preview trailer massively escalated the HSQ among fans. Not only does it featured fighters from all twelve universes (and the losers' universes are destroyed upon their defeat), but the trailer showcased what appeared to be the anime's first female Super Saiyan. Correction: a female LEGENDARY Super Saiyan.
  • Episode 81: Bergamo turns every single universe against Goku and Universe 7 with a passionate plea the universes' survival, calls him out for wanting the tournament and gets away with speaking casually to to Zeno. The man gets everyone's support, rather than discipline- in stark contrast to Goku who is on friendly terms with Zeno, which rubs everyone in the area the wrong way and gets Universe 7 backtalk and gossiping instead. Then Toppo comes into the picture.
  • Goku manages to gather a team full of 10 people to represent Universe 7 ... but then all of a sudden, Majin Buu falls asleep (similar to how he did in the Universe 6 Tournament arc). Goku needs to find a final member for the team ... which is when we learn two more revelations. Goku recruits Frieza ... yes, Frieza, for Universe 7 and that one of the universes has a God of Destruction who is stronger than Beerus (at arm wrestling at least), with that particular god from a universe that has a mortal stronger than that god.
  • The return of Super Saiyan God in Episode 104! With Goku now able to utilize it as his fastest form without the stamina problem of Super Saiyan Blue.
  • Goku and Jiren's entire fight through Episodes 109 and 110! Highlights include Jiren blocking every one of Super Saiyan God Goku's flurry of punches with one finger and blocking the Spirit Bomb with one hand and throwing it back at Goku!"
  • The equally impressive clash between Hit and Jiren in Episode 111. Jiren, much like Goku before him, goes Beyond the Impossible when he manages to break through Hit's Cage of Time using raw power alone. Vados actually says Jiren "possesses power that transcends time itself".
  • Episode 116 - Kefla fires a twin blast and Goku uses the energy ball from his Kamehameha to grind on Kefla's blast before flipping over and fires at point blank range.
  • Vegeta defeating God of Destruction Toppo. After dozens of episodes establishing how dangerous Energy of Destruction is, Vegeta manages to punch through a ball of Energy of Destruction by tapping into The Power of Love, and is able to directly damage Toppo even though the previous episode went out of its way to announce that Toppo was unable to be directly damaged directly by conventional attacks.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The main reason why Super became infamous during its early months was that the first two arcs were recaps of what happened in the movies of Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F', meaning people would have the see the same stories all over again, but worse as unlike those movies, the animation was cheaper, there was no tension as the events would largely play out the same, and a Troubled Production behind cameras was also responsible for it (such as issues with King Kai's Japanese voice actor Joji Yanami ^note  his health had deteriorated, making the King Kai voice sound monotone and boring, necessitating a replacement after the ninth episode and an infamously short pre-production). It's not until Champa's introduction and the tournament with Universe 6 that it started to Win Back the Crowd with the introduction of fan favorites such as Time Master Hit and the return of the Kaio-Ken (which, outside of briefly during the Otherworld Tournament Filler arc, hasn't been used since the Frieza arc), solidifying it with the Future Trunks saga with the return of Trunks and the introduction of Arc Villain Goku Black. By the Universal Survival saga, the series managed to recover a good chunk of the fanbase.
• So Okay, It's Average: The Bang Zoom! Entertainment dub is this. There's some very solid casting and performances in it, such as Doug Erholtz as Whis, Kirk Thornton as Champa, (which some have considered better than Funimation's Champa) and Derek Stephen Prince as Frieza. It even manages to get Wendee Lee, the original voice of Bulma from the Harmony Gold dub, to reprise her role. That said, it also has quite a few woeful miscasts (John DeMita uses a regal, posh tone for Beerus that doesn't suit his character at all, Steve Kramer's Old Kai voice is both grating and reaches Big Green territory in a few spots, and Spike Spencer's Majin Buu voice basically just takes the already obnoxious Funimation voice and makes it even worse) and it's hampered by a poor, occasionally censored script and poor production on the whole.
• Spoiled by the Format: Goku dies in Episode 71, then is shown alive and well in the Episode 72 preview and was confirmed to participate in the Universe Survival Saga.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Goku fighting against Jiren in the Tournament of Power is considered by many the closest thing to an actual crossover between Goku and Superman.
  • The Tournament of Destroyers and Tournament of Power are interdimensional fighting tournaments similar to the Dragon Ball Multiverse web comic.
  • The Tournament of Destroyers is about two brother Gods arguing over who's universe has the best fighters, similar to Marvel Versus DC.
• Squick:
  • As mentioned under Abandon Shipping, the pairing of Present Mai and Trunks for some. Since Mai is mentally old enough to be Trunks grandmother, de-aged or otherwise. ^note On account of Mai's out-dated romance values, and being physically kids, it's unlikely to go any further than a Toy Ship level until they've grown.
  • Even the Future Trunks and Future Mai pairing can imply the same squick factor for fans, again, given she's mentally older than his mother, de-aged or not, and considering he doesn't know about Pilaf or Shu, there is the implication that Future Trunks has no idea about her past. The Senzu bean feeding scene did not help matters.^note Arguments are made about Future Trunks being a consenting adult however.
• Subbing Versus Dubbing: The series has found itself at the forefront of the debate, due to the fact that the dub started off about a year and a half after the original. As such, some fans who usually stuck to the dubbed versions of the series ended up watching it in the original Japanese, and criticised many of the performances, such as Masako Nozawa's performance of Son Goku being derisively called "Granny Goku".^note This wasn't helped by Goku's more clownish behavior in the series in general, which made Japanese Super Goku very jarring for fans used to his English DBZ incarnation. Unsurprisingly, this can lead to some heated arguments. The dub itself, while occasionally getting flack from purists (for taking some creative liberties they consider unnecessary), has been largely acclaimed, due to benefitting from the Enhanced on DVD animation cleanups of some of the more infamously Off-Model moments, great vocal performances and casting, and witty dialogue that still stays relatively faithful to the original Japanese, with the only consistent criticism being the English-translated songs. While many Western fans have grown used or attached to the original Japanese version over time, the debate rages on.
• Superlative Dubbing: In keeping with Funimation's track record with Dragon Ball Z Kai and many other modern anime series, the English-dubbed version is beloved for its strong voice performances, casting and woolseyisms while remaining largely faithful to the original Japanese (which, for American viewers, is more divisive in comparison). It helps that, like with Kai: The Final Chapters, the dub was directly designed for [adult swim],^note as opposed to previous dubs which came in both censored and uncensored varieties and aired on kids' channels allowing for blunter adult humor.
  Goku: Look, I wouldn't come here just to see your boobies. Yours are too saggy now!
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The tension leitmotif that plays at some points during the Black arc has a part that sounds just like the opening to "Changes" by Yes.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Among the many issues with Manga Black, this is the primary source of grief among the fandom. Anime Black is beloved and is considered the best thing about Super even by people who don't like the show for his elegant personality, remaining calm even when overwhelmed or surprised, and never being defeated. The manga made Black more of brute who is quite short-tempered, prone to whining, seems to get by because he was lucky, and got his butt kicked by Vegeta twice. Fans also don't like Black's design in the manga which draws a lot from Majin Vegeta, especially after he achieved Super Saiyan Rosé, which made him look more like a brute instead of refined and ethereal like the anime. On top of that, Manga Black has no real personal connection to Goku, despite stealing his body and killing him, and he doesn't even fight Goku, while Black's obsession with Goku was a major part of his character in the anime.
  • The Retcon to Potara fusion, making it last only an hour for mortals rather than being permanent. While it did explain why Vegito defused inside Buu back during the Buu Saga, it was also criticized for making Potara fusion essentially the same as the Fusion Dance, since the latter also had a time limit of 30 minutes. This sentiment only increased when Vegito Blue defused not even 5 minutes into his return, with it being because the amount of power they had made the time run out faster, just like GT had done with SSJ4 Gogeta's battle against Omega Shenron.
  • The manga making Fusion Zamasu work on a one hour time limit like Vegito since neither Black nor Future Zamasu are Supreme Kais. Fans not only called this a Plot Hole since it was also said that only the Supreme Kais could used the Time Rings, something both Black and Future Zamasu could do, but it also severely gimped Fusion Zamasu since he could be defeated by simply running the clock. They also disliked that it took out the plot point that Fusion Zamasu wasn't fully immortal anymore because of Black, who became corrupted by Goku's body and just wanted to fight and become powerful.
  • The primary source of criticism of the manga adaptation of the Tournament of Power, particularly how the order and manner of eliminations deviates from the anime. Fans were extremely dismayed how the manga has many fighters drop out of the tournament like flies, simply so Toyotaro could clean the slate ASAP for the final battle between Universe 7 and 11. Fan favorites such as Hit and Android 18 who have received more focus in the anime were taken out without any fanfare, while characters that could have been utilized better such as Krillin and Tien were handled even worse. Even the fans who have defended him up to this point have a hard time here.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!:
  • A general criticism of Toyotaro's Super manga is his use of 'tributes'. Namely, reusing poses from panels of the original manga or frames from the different Dragon Ball anime. Examples of this includes Fusion Zamasu's regeneration often using reusing Cell and Majin Buu's regenerations from the original manga and the clash between mastered Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Fusion Zamasu from Chapter 25 being lifted from Dragon Ball GT with Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta and Omega Shenron's fight.
  • A very unusually and strange example from the Super manga. Toyotaro was formerly known as Toyble who wrote the fan comic, Dragon Ball AF. In that comic series, the Z-Figthers fight Xicor, who was the son of Goku whose mother was a rogue Supreme Kai. While the similarities between Goku Black and Xicor were noted early on, the anime took this plot idea in a very different direction from the comic. Not so much the manga where Toyotaro actually copied panels from his own manga in Chapter 22 and Goku Black seemed to have Xicor's personality and not the calm, elegant Smug Super Anime Black was. So, Toyotaro basically copied himself. This has not gone over well with fans who learned this information.
  • Some people have been criticizing the Stock Footage used for the Tournament of Power, via comparing footage used there from footage used in previous episodes, specifically those in the exhibition match. One fighting scene with Bergamo in the battle royale is even identical to the one shown in the second opening. People have defended this saying that it saves producers some time in animating, preventing Off-Model disasters from happening.
  • Dragon Ball is considered the Trope Codifier and Genre Popularizer for Shōnen battle anime, but since it was pioneering the formula, it didn't actually follow many of the genre conventions we know of today. Super however, being created inside of today's conventions, follows quite a few of them. For instance, modern shounen commonly makes use of The Power of Friendship trope whereby a The Hero overcomes the Arc Villain by remembering some important life lesson imparted by his/her loved ones. In the original Dragon Ball, there was very little reference to The Power of Friendship other than the mechanics of the Spirit Bomb, and even rarer were instances where the heroes summed up such feelings in a Kirk Summation before defeating a Big Bad. In Super, both things happen a fair bit now, with both Trunks and Goku telling Black and Jiren, respectively, that they cannot win thanks to the bonds and trust they have in their friends. To some fans of the original series, or those not fond of such tropes, these scenes have induced some eye-rolling.
    • It should be noted that both of those scenes are exclusive to the anime- in the manga version of Super Trunks and Goku never get powered up by The Power of Friendship, but rather by more practical methods, and just get outright flattened by Black and Jiren no matter how motivated they get. Seeing as how these scenes and scenes like them are some of the only major plot points not consistently shared between versions, it can be assumed that they're Toei-only additions to Toriyama's outline.
• Too Cool to Live: Vegito Blue, a fused character so powerful that he probably surpassed Beerus if you go by the Super manga. So, naturally, his fusion time was drastically short to the point of lasting only a few minutes instead of a full hour, and the hour time limit was a downgrade since he was originally supposed to be a permanent fusion before the revision.
• Unfortunate Character Design: Hit, while generally liked as a character, has been noted to have a head design that looks... phalic. There's a reason why some parts of the Latin American fandom jokingly call his race the "Dickheads", and it's not because of Hit being rude.
  Totally Not Mark: Why has no one mentioned Hit's head's a giant penis?
• Unexpected Character: There's a few, especially in the Universe Survival arc:
  • Most of the Universe 7 roster in the Tournament of Power was relatively obvious, but a few had people scratching their heads:
    • Master Roshi had been Demoted to Extra since Z, and power-wise, is the weakest of the roster by a considerable margin.
    • Android 17 had been Put on a Bus since the Android saga, and only showed up for a brief cameo in the Buu saga and a role as the Arc Villain in a largely despised GT mini-arc, so him taking up a major role again blindsided many. And even those who expected a return (since he was largely well-liked and memorable outside of GT, Word of God about what he did after the Cell saga made fans interested in seeing him again) were surprised at just how prominent he was during the arc, going so far as to win the entire tournament.
    • And then, of course, the big one: Frieza, replacing Majin Buu.
  • Kale, the Distaff Counterpart of Broly. To say that nobody expected a female Super Saiyan to appear was an understatement. Her being the first canon Legendary Super Saiyan made everyone lose their minds.
  • After Kale already shocked the audience as a female Legendary Super Saiyan in the trailer, Caulifla took it further by being the first canon female Super Saiyan to ever appear in the anime. She then becomes the very first canon female Saiyan to achieve Super Saiyan 2, the very next episode after unlocking the initial transformation. Then in a lesser vein, she becomes the first female Saiyan to use Super Saiyan Third Grade - humorously after unlocking Super Saiyan 2 - also making her the first female character in the franchise to use a 'Power Stressed' form.
  • And to top the previous two entries off: in episode 114, we get Kale and Caulifla's Potara Fusion Kefla. Absolutely nobody expected it prior to the reveal, especially given rules on item usage in the Tournament of Power suggested such a thing wouldn't be allowed.
  • Jimizu from Universe 2. Not only because as far as it was known, Yardrats should only have existed on Universe 7 and its twin universe Universe 6, but were you expecting a Yardrat to perform as a competent fighter in the Tournament of Power?
  • Kami and Nail's small cameo during episode 118 took many viewers by surprise.
  • Super's bonus manga chapter reveals the return of the Cell Jrs. who actually survived their fight with Gohan and are now tamed by Android 17!
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Universe 9, compared with the other universes.
  • The Trio de Dangers are shown to be arrogant, downright malicious, and Bergamo was responsible for making the universes go against Goku in the exhibition matches by calling him a demon without a thought on his head. The thing is, he isn't exactly wrong. The Zenos were going to destroy the universes eventually, because of Goku, they gained a chance of survival... but, Bergamo convinced the Zenos to forgive the universes of their erasure if he won the fight, and tried everything in his power to win. Since Goku has become somewhat unlikeable in parts of the fandom due to Blood Knight tendencies, it made them root for Bergamo to defeat him in his fight. The fact the Trio are shown to have a great sense of camaraderie and belong to a garbage dump of a universe (their words) which they weren't responsible for just made a lot of fans feel they are a Jerkass Woobie universe. It helps they are cool and gave some of the best fights in the series.
  • Sidra is also an example of this. We are supposed to dislike him because he tried to get rid of Universe 7 before the Tournament of Power. Instead, he comes more as a guy with too much on his shoulders and was forced to cross a line in order to survive. It helps that the people he wanted to eliminate were Frieza and Goku, and only did so due to Quitela's manipulations.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Super Saiyan Rosé and the fact it gives Goku Black pink hair has been lambasted by fans. In Japan, however, pink has a completely different color symbolism and thus is less strongly associated with being feminine than it is in other cultures. It's seen as a masculine color with strong associations with cherry blossoms, their symbolism of young samurai who died in the prime of their life.
  • Some western fans didn't find Roshi's dirty man antics funny in Episode 89, calling it in poor taste and outdated. In Japan, not only is the dirty old man humor common, Roshi has actually been toned down compared to how he acted in Dragon Ball. Indeed, the only reason Launch was introduced to the series was because Goku and Krillin were tasked with kidnapping a woman for his pleasure, not to mention the numerous times he perved on a 16-year old Bulma. A bit of Grandfather Clause is thrown in too, because, you know, being a Dirty Old Man is one of Master Roshi's most recognizable character traits.
• Vindicated by History:
  • The Breather Episodes were a big Broken Base among the fandom. Some enjoyed them since we get to see the characters in everyday or awkward situations, while others derailed them as pointless Filler. Almost a year after Super's premiered, these episodes are seen more fondly by the fanbase with some declaring them the best part of the show. A Vocal Minority even wants an entire series based on these types of episodes.
    • In particular, the Potaufeu arc was initially heavily derided by the fanbase, thanks to somewhat dull fight scenes, questionable power-scaling to some (Vegeta in his god-enhanced base form is able to completely No-Sell SSJ3 Gotenks, which is a heavy jump from the previous status quo) and an uninspired, laughable villain. Coming out while the fanbase was impatiently waiting for the Future Trunks saga didn't help. While still not seen as an especially great arc, most nowadays view it as being on the upper end of So Okay, It's Average, thanks to being genuinely funny and managing to effectively provide Foreshadowing for the Future Trunks saga. If nothing else, it went from being seen as "terrible" to "basically harmless". It also helps that the Funimation dub provided an entertaining bit of Fanservice by casting Brian Drummond as Copy-Vegeta, which helped redeem the character to some fans.
  • Super Saiyan God. When it was first seen in Battle of Gods and its anime saga, fans were divided because of its transformation and look. After 95 episodes since its first appearance in the latter, fans who like the form and/or want to give it another shot celebrated its return after seeing so much of Super Saiyan Blue.
  • The anime's Universal Survival Arc. During its runtime, the dragged out pacing and questionable handling of some of its characters, and too much focus on Universe 7, attracted a lot of criticism. However, when the arc concluded, some fans began to view it in a more favourable light due to its great fight scenes, variety of interesting characters from different universes and satisfactory conclusion. Another reason, however, is the manga which many begin to view as an inferior adaptation to the anime which shares many of the anime's flaws and yet refuses to improve on them and make them even worse. This causes fans to view the anime more fondly than they did during its runtime.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Super is an overall lighter show compared to Z, especially thanks to the changes in censorship in Japan, so there's almost no blood in the series. At the same time, it has some dark material that seems out of place for a show meant for 8 to 12 year old boys and airs on Sunday morning like: Tagoma being tortured for four months by Frieza which destroys his mind, Gohan having holes blown through him by Frieza, Zamasu cutting a Barbarian in half, Black and Future Zamasu's mass genocide of mortals, Black impaling Vegeta through the chest, which actually makes him draw blood, Black murdering Chi-Chi and Goten with his energy blade and impaling Goku several times, Fusion Zamasu being cut in half by Future Trunks, Goku dying with his eyes wide open, and Frieza's massacre of the Universe 9 assassins, especially when he blew up their heads. Like with most other shonen series, and in keeping with the path that Dragon Ball took in the West over time, the English dub dances around this trope by airing on [adult swim]'s Toonami with content and language intact.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • The Champa Saga is seen as this for many fans since Super was finally out of the retellings and was getting into its own original arcs. Many proclaimed that the Champa Saga is the 'true' beginning of Super.
  • For those who were unimpressed by the Champa Saga's lack of stakes and relatively shallow story, the Future Trunks Saga. Not only did it return fan-favorite Future Trunks to the fold, it also had Goku Black along with a deep and dark storyline.
  • The Universal Survival Saga was this for fans of the extended cast since several characters become noticeably stronger (Gohan and Piccolo) and fan-favorite Android 17 returned.
  • Many who are moreso fans of original Dragon Ball than Z can point to one key difference between the two; with Z, strategy and mastery of combat became increasingly less important than massive spectacle and pure power especially in the big fights, and Earthling characters they had come to love were being to made look increasingly worthless in battles against whatever ultra-powerful villain Goku had to ascend to and beat next. GT attempted to revert entirely to the tone of original Dragon Ball but then suddenly changed course to continue what Z was doing due to viewership and profit concerns, as well as had various good ideas tarred by bad decisions in execution. Super, however, has achieved a happy medium between further advancing Goku, Vegeta, and their enemies' supreme power levels versus giving nods to the characters and concepts of old, allowing the likes of Krillin, Tenshinhan, and Master Roshi to get much stronger than before in order to get impressive moments and emphasizing tactics, trickier skills, and unique new fighters far more than Z ever did. Despite its name, the Tournament of Power is the biggest example of this new balance essentially by design, what with being an 80-person tag team battle royal. (Yamcha still gets no love, though; Japanese fans really wanted to see him get in the Tournament of Power.)
  • Within the Tournament of Power itself, a lot of people ended up... divided on the announcement that Frieza would be joining Team Universe 7 instead of Buu. Come the actual arc, however, his involvement in the tournament as a Token Evil Teammate has not only been highly praised as top form for one of the franchise's most iconic villains, but with some even going so far as calling it a better Frieza comeback than Resurrection ‘F’, which was largely what was responsible for the initial uncertainty about the choice.
  • For the manga, the current Galactic Patrol Prisoner Arc is considered this by some readers after its very poorly received adaptation of the Universal Survival Arc. Some of this could be due to the anime currently being off-air and thus the manga is the only new Dragon Ball Super content currently being released after Broly (which the manga skips adapting, allowing it to go straight to new content), meaning that it gets first crack at the arc instead (assuming the anime also adapts it if/when it comes back). Moro is also considered a large improvement over Jiren, who many found boring personality-wise, by being a cunning and utterly sadistic mastermind.
• Woolseyism: The Funimation dub has taken a few creative liberties with the original script. Several of the changes have been well-received due to either fitting better with the characters/story, or for being funnier then the original line. These changes include:
  • Vegeta's "Yeah, sure. Let's go see Yamcha", Goku's "Super Saiyan Please" and "Iforgotmytractor!" lines, etc.
  • Sean Schemmel's take on Goku Black and his Evil Laugh, which some fans consider to be the best evil laugh in the history of dubbed Dragon Ball.
  • During Zamasu's discussion with Gowasu about their roles in simply watching the mortals. Instead of a straight conversation on how they must simply let mortals grow, much to Zamasu's annoyance, the dub instead changes it to a garden analogy, which some fans think gets the point of both characters across in a more satisfying way.
    Gowasu: [original dub] We must wait for the mortals to learn, Zamasu.
    Zamasu: [original dub] Are we only to watch over them? When I was invited here, I thought I would learn justice from you. But is the gods "justice" purely watching others?!

    Gowasu: [Funimation] Patience, Zamasu. Every seed needs time to grow.
    Zamasu: [Funimation] Gardens are tended. Not just watched. Should a gardener not pluck the weed? When I was invited here, I thought you would teach me divine justice, but all you seem to do is just watch while these monsters stain existence with each other's blood.
  • Vegeta saying to Black that he's the star of the show after Black said he's the opening act to the fight instead of how it was in Japanese with Vegeta telling him to "crumble into dust", which some people feel fits better since it plays better off Black's line about Vegeta being the opening act before he fought Goku.
  • When Goku is about to be defeated by Jiren following the elimination of Vegeta, he has a moment where he thinks of the rest of the team, and the fact that it's up to him to win. In Japanese, save Android 17 and Vegeta who say the last thing they said prior to being defeated, and Gohan who calls him "Father", all of them simply say Goku's name or full name. This likely is intended to be a sign of respect, but it lacks any real weight to it from a Western perspective due to cultural differences. In the dub, each character says something different (such as Krillin calling him "buddy" and urging him to fight), which comes across as more fitting for them.

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