I find that "the protagonists does too much!" is the go to complaint often until the protagonist's role actually does gets rolled back, in which the complaints becomes "when did this story stop being about [insert character]/start being about [insert character]?!"
I know saying people like complaining for complaining's own sake is kind of dickish, but it's the feeling I often get.
edited 26th Dec '17 3:36:10 PM by LSBK
I always found that sentiment from the fan-base kind of weird too, but if I had to break it down, I guess people hate how Goku hogs too much glory when other people are more deserving of the spoils. During the Saiyan, Namek, and Cell arcs, it was the supporting cast that did the lions share of the fighting. But in the end, triumph is almost always given to Goku. I know that's not entirely true, but this is the way it's perceived.
"Stood two-to-two" and "got decimated" do not sound compatible to me. Nor does it mean they deserve anything, it was better for the story overall. The story really isn't framed in a way in which "And they actually do okay until Goku shows up" would actually be satisfying if it happened.
edited 26th Dec '17 4:19:01 PM by LSBK
I mean, Namek is important to Goku's character arc. It's where he goes from rejecting his Sayian heritage, to embracing it.
Also, the one to defeat Freeza had to be Goku - I mean even aside from the fact that he's the main character. It's poetic justice that Freeza downfall is brought by a survivor of Planet Vegeta, but it couldn't be Vegeta who does it, because he lacks the moral high ground, having preformed planetary genocides himself. His defeat of Freeza would feel hypocritical.
Having your main character absent for much of the story arc while the supporting cast accomplish nothing waiting for him to arrive and fix all their problems is not a good way to use your main character or your supporting cast. Krillin and Gohan are the focus characters for the first half of Namek but Vegeta, the villain of the last arc, is the one who defeats literally all the named threats until he's stopped by Recoome and joins Krillin and Gohan in waiting for Goku. Krillin and Gohan don't even get to use their Guru power-ups. All they do is put up a bit of a fight against Guldo before they lose and Vegeta steps in to save them. If Krillin had defeated Dodoria and Gohan had defeated Zarbon, then maybe their Guru power-ups would serve some kind of point to the story. As it is, they just do nothing with them.
The most Krillin and Gohan accomplish on Namek is playing keep-away with the Dragon Balls, which is rendered pointless anyway when the Ginyu Force takes all of them as their very first action on-screen. It's rendered even more pointless with the reveal that Freeza never had a chance to have his wish to begin with because you can't make a wish on the Dragon Balls unless you speak Namekian, and there was never any implication that any of the Namekians would be willing to let him have his immortality.
Actually, I just realized something else! You know how Bulma does even less than Krillin and Gohan, literally just sitting on the sidelines for the whole arc? BULMA CAN SPEAK NAMEKIAN. SHE LEARNED IT IN ORDER TO PILOT KAMI'S SHIP! WHY WASN'T THIS RELEVANT TO THE STORY, ESPECIALLY ONCE THE CHARACTERS INABILITY TO SPEAK NAMEKIAN BECAME A PLOT POINT?!
edited 26th Dec '17 4:29:29 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
I meant in the meaning that they didn't balk in the face of insurmountable odds. They stood their ground and fought like true warriors. Yes, in the end, they got slaughtered by Nappa, but that's why some people think they deserved more glory than what they received. And for the record, I totally agree that it was in the story's best interest if Goku defeated the villains. I'm just trying to explain why some people have an issue with Goku hogging final victories when the supporting cast does the majority of the work (like Pushover explained
).
edited 26th Dec '17 4:27:17 PM by Arachosia
Fair enough. I just don't really get that sort of thinking. I get it can be hard to watch if you like the characters, but I feel like it's a bigger disservice to the characters to just throw them bones that overall hurt the story.
Which is part of the reason why Super's stuff with the side characters doesn't really hit home with me most of the time.
I think Oda and Toriyama have fundamentally different things they wanted to do with their characters so it's not particularly comparable.
I don't think it's that Toriyama couldn't have done more with them (though that would require rewriting the story in very drastic ways) it's that he mostly stopped wanting to. Oda, by comparison intentionally put all the non-Monster Trio Straw Hats on the crew, meaning they shouldn't be supporting characters, they should be main characters. That many of them often don't seem like they are is an entirely different issue, I think.
edited 26th Dec '17 4:47:15 PM by LSBK
I'm still focused on the Bulma thing. You have a character who's been around since the start of the series and has been a major character since the beginning, who now has exactly the ability the other characters need to make the Macguffins of the arc work, and you have her SIT ON THE SIDELINES DOING NOTHING. I'm so angry about this. I'm angry that it took me this long to realize this and I'm angry that this isn't something I've ever seen mentioned before.
It's kind of funny because it's a similar way of handling. Some characters are more focused on than others. For Dragon Ball, it's Goku and Vegeta and in One Piece it's Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji.
The difference I think is that Dragon Ball doesn't even give the illusion that anyone but Goku or Vegeta are anything but second stringers. While One Piece often feels like it makes out character's roles to be bigger than they actually are despite the fact that most of the heavy lifting are from the Monster Trio.
I do understand though, it can feel like a real disservice to have your supporting cast try their hardest only to come up short and make way for the main character. It's mostly how Shonen manga work compared to say, comics.
In Western Comics, every character at least feels tangentially important and conflicts are almost always resolved through equal contributions rather than everything falling onto one character while everyone else are just there to supplement his journey.
Guru still dies though, so the point is rendered moot.
edited 26th Dec '17 4:52:35 PM by BlackYakuzu94
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

It's kind of funny how by the time Goku gets to Namek, literally 85% of the characters introduced are dead. And of those, he meets only four or five?