I'm pretty sure Veggie was saying it would be less effective for him to try to almost kill himself...
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.![]()
You know the flipside to this is that dedicating so much screentime to the side characters just screeches the pacing to a halt though right? I mean, do we really need to see every character get their moment to shine?
And this leads to my issue with so many fans who want this stuff. They seem more concerned with having their favorites get "good moments" instead of what makes for a good story. And I can tell you that I've grown rather weary of the modern Shonen trope of having a set of antagonists who serve no other purpose than to give the extra characters someone to fight. It doesn't contribute anything to the story beyond just an extra fight that keeps you from the actual climax.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Yes, but in most series that's never the case. Fights like that only serve to give the other characters something to do, but doesn't actually have any actual effect on the climax of the story.
Best example I can use is One Piece, as the arcs tend to drag on when the likes of Zoro and Sanji get their opponents, but then they're left with not much to do in most cases until Luffy beats the antagonist of the arc.
Enies Lobby actually worked around this by having the fights actually serve a purpose, they had to beat their opponents to get the keys in order of uncuffing Robin.
edited 26th Dec '17 7:55:48 PM by BlackYakuzu94
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.There's also the matter of treating supporting characters as if they're all equal. I don't care how many fans he has, Yamcha does not need to get as much screentime as Krillin. Ever. Likewise Chiaotzu does need to beat anyone, he's never been a major fighter.
edited 26th Dec '17 7:56:07 PM by LordVatek
This song needs more love.YYH doesn't handle its cast well. Keiko is always useless, as are many of the side characters who keep popping up and there is a tiny handful of main charactees who still manage to disappear for long periods of time without doing anything.
The 'give everyone a solo enemy' is just the most obvious and shallow way of giving meaning to the side characters. On a surface level it looks like good use but it isn't necessarily enriching the story.
edited 26th Dec '17 8:02:33 PM by Saiga
"You know the flipside to this is that dedicating so much screentime to the side characters just screeches the pacing to a halt though right? I mean, do we really need to see every character get their moment to shine?"
But a lot of screentime is dedicated to the supporting characters in the arc I'm complaining about. Quite a lot in fact. Far, far more than Goku. Krillin and Gohan are the ones who hold down the fort forming alliances with and tangling with Vegeta (which is what I consider the highlight of the Saiyan arc, opinions may vary.)
Heck, Goku isn't there for any of Freeza's numerous forms so we don't get to see him react to them. Piccolo, Gohan, Krillin, Vegeta, all have to push Freeza through those but Goku only turns up when Freeza's on his final form - i.e. the one that actually matters. So those characters do get moments - they're just not moments any fans of those characters will remember. They're just padding anyway.
So the pacing is still slowed to a crawl (and in the anime at least the pacing in Dragonball Z is famously horrible anyway). But those characters don't get anything cool to do.
(Also, I dare anyone to watch the Dark Tournament and tell me that Hiei, Kuwabara, Kurama, etc's fights aren't entertaining. Sometimes you don't need immediate gigantic plot advancement, sometimes you just want to watch a fight).
edited 26th Dec '17 7:58:22 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Obligatory pot shot at Fairy Tail.
Final arc introduces a massive villain group designed to give tons of characters fights & ended up dragging the plot to ungodly long times. Doesn't help that these villains were worthless scrubs designed to give fights to worthless scrubs.
Tournament Arcs are different.
edited 26th Dec '17 7:59:33 PM by slimcoder
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I can't speak on YYH since it's been a long time since I've watched the anime and didn't even finish it, and have never read the manga, but if the cast is handled like in Hunter X Hunter, I wouldn't say it's handled well.
On side characters, Yamcha and Chiaotzu getting too much exposure is not the problem because people seem to like Yamcha as a joke character and nobody cares about Chiaotzu at all, apparently. The issue right now is acting as if Krillin or Tien should in any circumstances be able to hold up in a fight with say, Gohan, because of "experience" that really shouldn't matter at this point.
"Those characters don't get anything cool to do"
And this goes back to my statement about caring more about "characters looking cool" than what's actually appropriate for a plot. I like watching characters I like get their moments, but not the expense of padding an arc out.
And Vegeta and co holding the line against Freeza is hardly padding, because aside from his 3rd form, all of his transformations served to highlight how stupidly powerful he was. Padding would be if they simply kept on fighting with no transformations until Goku decided to wake up and Freeza goes final.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.You have the cart before the horse - Yamcha is thought of as a scrub because he has such a poor combat record. Chaotzu actually has a really unique power set, if Toriyama bothered to use him at all ever past his first fight with Krillin.
Similarly Krillin never lands his Destructo Disc and Tien never uses the Mafuba (or shedloads of his other powers actually.)
If Toriyama isn't going to use any of these characters he should have just had them stop turning up to fights and he certainly shouldn't have had Krillin and Gohan shoulder most of Namek arc if they weren't going to do anything and he definitely shouldn't have cut Goku out of an arc almost entirely when he was going to get one of his most important power-ups from it.
Like, I'm not going to sit here whining "why doesn't X get a fight he's my favourite" but I am going to whine "why do you keep X in the story when he's totally unnecessary".
edited 26th Dec '17 8:10:06 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"I reject the notion that characters are only useful if they get to beat people up. Krillin and Gohan were extremely useful in the Frieza Saga because they made friends with Dende and obtained the Dragon Balls. Even in the Cell saga, Krillin got to help blow up Gero's lab and redeem 18 and Yamcha got to show the strength of the Androids by getting a hole torn through his chest. That's to say nothing of how consistently relevant Bulma has remained while never lifting a finger. Characters exist beyond their battles.
Honestly I think a lot of this just comes from people upset that their favorites don't get cool moments they can brag about.
edited 26th Dec '17 8:15:53 PM by LordVatek
This song needs more love.I don't have an issue with that when it's done sparingly or if, as I said, it actually serves a purpose to the plot. But yea, I tend to roll my eyes when a group of villains show up in Shonen nowadays because I know they're just fodder for the extra characters to get a cool moment and that only one or two are actually relevant.
This too, marginalizing Krillin and Gohan's roles in Namek simply because they don't beat any major opponents is a large disservice to their character as without them, they would have never been able to be in a position to make their wishes on the Dragon Balls and Goku would basically be without any allies on Namek as Vegeta sure as fuck wouldn't help him if push came to shove.
edited 26th Dec '17 8:16:49 PM by BlackYakuzu94
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Characters don't exist outside their battles...they have to be effective, useful, and cool.
edited 26th Dec '17 8:16:57 PM by randomness4
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice."rather than actually critiquing what's actually there."
He's what's actually there in the Namek arc. Gohan and Krillin (and Bulma) go to Namek, rescue Dende, and then keep their heads down for the rest of the arc while the villains squabble amoungst themselves, only serving to keep Vegeta from getting all seven Dragonballs and fighting for ten seconds in one fight with the weakest Ginyu member. They don't work for jobbing because they are definitively shown to be about a tenth of Goku's power level when he first touches down.
Goku touches down, wipes out the Ginyu force, gets injured and has to be healed in a tank rather than by Dende for no reason, then turns up for the final Freeza fight. At no point is Goku ever shown to really care about the planet he's fighting on, or even about Freeza till Freeza kills Krillin. Then after that he goes Super Saiyan and kicks Freeza's ass seven ways to Sussex.
There is absolutely no reason to keep Goku out of the initial trip unless Toriyama wants to do the tired "Goku swans in and saves everyone trick" which he does twice.
I actually care less about giving Gohan and Krillin "good moments" and more about "if you're not going to have them accomplish anything really meaningful, why do you keep Goku out of most of this arc when it's a prime opportunity to build towards the Super Saiyan transformation reveal meaningfully".
edited 26th Dec '17 8:18:29 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Yamcha has a poor combat record because he is MEANT to be a less successful fighter than Kuririn and Tenshinhan. Not incompetent, but not someone who needs to have regular moments showing off their talent.
It's one thing if a character who is meant to be hyper competent doesn't have a record to match - like if Goku made several tactical errors, or kept getting his ass kicked by nobodies, or Jiren lost several fights in the tournament. Not every character needs to look cool.
Edit: uhhh yes there is a point in keeping Goku out: tension. It feels tense having Kuririn and Gohan have to avoid battle and only havong themselves. Having Goku around would mean keeping him weak, which doesn't work well for where he is meant to be in the story.
Also Gohan/Kuririn weren't the worf for the Ginyus - Vegeta was. Which worked very effectively with him defeating Zarbon so easily prior.
edited 26th Dec '17 8:20:57 PM by Saiga
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Twice? Doesn't he also swoop in to save the day when fighting King Piccoro too?
That's 3 times.
edited 26th Dec '17 8:19:48 PM by randomness4
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.This conversation makes me think of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, a series I really like but am continually frustrated with because you have tons of Stand battles that last multiple volumes so that all of the side characters can have fights, which is cool. But then you also pretty much can guarantee that no one will die because they aren't fighting the main villain (or his Dragon) yet, which really just makes the story feel like it's spinning its wheels.
So while it's great that Polnareff got to stab that guy in the face, it doesn't really move the plot forward in a meaningful way beyond adding another fight for him.

About the "people complain when the main character does everything" I think it's basically because a lot of shonen suck at handling their cast. Look at how YYH does it for an example of a show that gets things right. During the four Saint Beasts arc, each main cast member fights and kills their own opponent. During the dark tournament each gets a moment to shine and be impressive (you can even roughly give each team they fight as a spotlight moment to each Team Urameshi member). But if you just give loads to the protagonist they become stale as their fighting style gets overexposed while potentially interesting fights from side characters get lost.
In Dragonball, what's Krillin's most impressive moment? What's Tien's? What's Yamcha's? What's Chaotzu's?
Heck, Vegeta's is probably beating android 19, the single weakest enemy in that entire saga. When the Cell Jr's come out, no one can handle them. No one can handle them and they're Mooks! Heck, Saibamen kill Yamcha. Dragonball is one of the only shonen that will let cast members die to mooks.
Heck, in Namek there's just no reason for Goku to come with Krillin and Gohan. He gets most of his power boosts from Zenkai from hitting himself with his own Kamehamehas on the way there even though Vegeta later says to Krillin that you don't get Zenkai from hurting yourself. Goku could just as easily enough get his Zenkai boosts fighting Zarbon and Dodoria with Krillin and Gohan. But instead Krillin, Vegeta and Gohan get all the screentime, Goku gets all the major kills and no one's happy. Gohan gets a major powerup at one point but it still isn't enough to make him powerful enough to kill one major named enemy this arc and Krillin's is even weaker than his.
edited 26th Dec '17 7:40:36 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"