But this wouldn't be a subversion.
Him not actually being strong (though he's not powerful in the fighting sense, but in the just needs to blink sense) would be something we'd expect.
One Strip! One Strip!By this point, we've all become accustomed to Toriyama's whole "weaker looking character is strong" shtick by this point so Zeno not actually being strong at all would be a subversion.
This song needs more love.Ah, but y'see, that's what he's expecting you to think. You'd think "well, he just did it with Monaka, he wouldn't do it again, would he?"
And that's when he gets you by doing it again.
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimariAh, but we'd expect that he'd expect that we'd expect that he wouldn't do it again. If he's aware of that then he, indeed, wouldn't do it again.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!Honestly, I think he's now trying to do the subversion less because they work and more because it's just what he does.
I feel like there were a few moments where playing expectations straight might have worked better, but as we all know, I'm a filthy human lover, so you can just ignore me.
P.S: Destructo Disk needs to work more often and bring back Kaiouken
edited 2nd Nov '16 8:28:56 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!Well to be fair, he's really abused it since Battle of Gods. Before, there was Vegeta, Frieza Form 4, 17 & 18, regular Majin Buu, and Kid Buu (though I would argue that Kid Buu wasn't really an example because, while still strong, he was arguably weaker than the more imposing Super Buu with Gohan Absorbed) but there have been plenty of characters that look as strong as they actually are, like Perfect Cell, Full Power Frieza, Transformed Zarbon, Super Saiyan in general (but especially 2 and 3), and the aforementioned Gohan Super Buu among others.
This song needs more love.Yeah. Pure Boo is the absolute weakest form of Majin Boo. The fact that its the super transformation for the Majins in Xenoverse 2 is pure bullshit.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!I remember in a poll in a Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z magazine I had in the past, it said that Cell was the most popular villain and Frieza was a very close second.
Come on! Let's bless them all until we get fershnickered!I mean, the only other options in Z are Vegeta (who isn't really a villain by the end) and Buu (who has literally 3 forms with completely different personalities, so its hard to say "it's my favourite" rather than "a specific form of his is my favourite". And nobody watched Dragon Ball, so the Piccolos are out. That's basically everyone.
The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!Zarbon, Dodoria, Kiwi, the Ginyu Force, and Androids 19 and 20 all say "Hi."
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!Who could possibly forget the Ginyu Force?
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!Unpleasable Fanbase really is a thing.
It's really not. There is more involved than just reducing it to something that simple.
The issue is making the logical thing an action that would be terrible for the story. You can't really blame the fanbase when a writer deliberately engineers two shitty directions for the story to go in.
More like before Monaka. The issue is that Toriyama has tried to subvert expectations by only ever going in the opposite of whatever he thinks people are expecting. He's repeated this trick too often, and made it too extreme. When you've got a 50% chance of guessing whatever his intent is, and a 100% chance of knowing what the other possible intent is, that's not very subversive writing.
Exactly. I mean, I'd say the last real surprise he churned out was having Goku lose to Beerus in Battle of Gods.
The rest of the time, we know that any other attempt at stopping the villain will fail, and Goku will punch the hell out of it.
Look at the tournament. They had 5 fighters they could have done great things with, and what happened: Monaka was a waste of a slot on purpose, Buu gets eliminated before the fights even start, meaning there was no point in him even being there, Goku goes first just to get taken out by a cheater so he could be saved for later anyway, Vegeta forces Piccolo to forfeit a battle to satisfy his ego, and for some reason he decided we needed another evil Frieza after we'd already had the real Frieza one arc earlier.
He needs to stop subverting expectation, and start subverting himself perhaps. You have other characters, and while they do have interesting lives and such, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to use them instead of always falling back on Goku (who I know he loves quite a bit, and I won't fault him for that), maybe do stuff with the other characters. Seeing someone else do something when they usually can't would be a real subversion to me.
One Strip! One Strip!Goku Black: "I've become so powerful even I don't know what my powers are anymore"
I don't know if it's just Black not being my favorite Z villain ever, but I wasn't fond of this either. I've never imagined "giant energy scythes" in Dragonball and it clashes with everything I've ever known Dragonball for. It's like if there was an episode of Yugioh where they dropped card games entirely and just resorted to handhelds, or if Pokemon started wearing armor and carrying weapons.
That said, Black and Zamasu's apparent self-awareness is great.
Ah-ha!!!
I mean, we already have Goku and Beerus nearly wrecking the fabric of reality just by punching each other really hard. Goku moving faster than time and Trunks and Vegeta mysteriously developing godly ki.
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!Ki blades are fine, but a Ki scythe is too much?
Where's the line?
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.

Toriyama does love his subversions.
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari