The Dark Tournament was a lot more exciting than the TOP. Not to say that is a huge milestone, but still.
Unlike the TOP, YYH's characters actually care about what's going on - Yusuke becomes more of a Blood Knight in this arc, yes, but his priorities are straight. If he doesn't win these matches and face Toguro, Toguro will murder the f'ck out of him and his friends. That's TOP's biggest problem. I'd like everything else a little more if Goku and the others stopped sandbagging around after Universe 9 got nuked.
We could talk about what's wrong with the TOP all day and still not strike upon anything new really, though. Yu Yu Hakusho was just better-written, and wasn't being written to fill a gap/time-skip. This thread's already established how inconsistent Super is overall.
At this point, just be happy the humans and the androids got their five minutes of fame. Because Super has been dead-set on making sure that Goku and Vegeta are the only ones who can solve conflicts. This is about as good as it will probably get for any of these characters.
edited 26th Dec '17 9:59:10 PM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!But, anyway, I admit to being one of those not particularly fond of the Ginyu Force. I don't think they're bad, but I think they are actually an example of the stalling becoming a bit too blatant.
I wish a bit more had been done with Guldo, though, but Recoome tearing into everyone was great.
edited 26th Dec '17 9:51:09 PM by LSBK
Fair enough. I mean, ideally, it would be nice to have both (a cool moment for the side characters that's also plot important and doesn't slow the plot to a crawl).
Ok. I can't argue with this.
This either, although I'd argue that they could have still had given them a few victories (via pulling it off by the skin of their teeth) while keeping that sense of being outmatched. I mean...did they really need to lose to Guuldo and get saved by Vegeta? And hell, just make Jeice and Burter stronger than Recoome and have Vegeta, Gohan and Krillin just barely managed to stop the latter, only to realize they now have two opponents left who are more powerful, and they barely have anything left. Then have Goku show up (after the other two have gotten a chance to strut their stuff and show how strong they are). Goku still swoops in to save the day, but Krillin and Gohan get to win a few fights as well, while the Ginyu still show themselves to be a fearsome group that you don't mess with.
...that's a shitty role. I mean, it's somewhat necessary, but also shitty. I also think there was no reason to place that role on him alone. I guess I just resent the idea of having one fall guy who's there to get beat all the time. I don't think it was necessary to have Yamcha in that role all the time, even if I agree that someone had to do it.
Oh yes. Looking back on it, Toriyama creates arc characters....then keeps them around afterwards...but since he created them for that one arc, he clearly doesn't have any plans for what to do with them, hence his tendency to just toss them into a meat grinder or under a bus without much care at all. Only a small few have been lucky enough to continue getting development past their introduction (Bulma, Piccolo, Vegeta, Krillin, and of course Gohan, who's story spans Z...and then sinks harder than the Titanic).
I mean, sometimes I can almost hear him saying well, I don't need this guy anymore, but he'll make good fodder!
But I'll agree that trying to bring them back after basically throwing them away was a big mistake. Their time was done, and this should be the era of Gohan, Trunks, Goten, etc. But both Toriyama and Toei seem to be unwilling to do that.
One Strip! One Strip!
x4 Not every character has to be cool but half the Z cast is literally there to lose. Like, you don't need that many jobbers.
Notice I never complain about Bulma but that's because she serves a non-fighting role. If they are a fighter, and they never win or do anything impressive, then they're kinda vestigal and should be canned or killed. Dragonball's linear power system doesn't help.
x5 The mistake you make is assuming Super's supposed to continue the plot. We hoped it would, but it doesn't. Nothing changes. Arc, arc, arc, same status quo.
edited 26th Dec '17 9:58:52 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 just think it's kinda a waste: Yamcha has some nice techniques (I love the rendition of the Wolf Fang Fist in the Path to Power, and the Sokidan was pretty nifty if flawed).
It may also be that the way the fandom makes him their punching bag has just started to grind my gears a little.
Maybe it's just personal because of way back when I watched that very first dub of Dragonball. Yeah, Yamcha had his fear of women, but that was good for a laugh, and a nice bit of silliness to contrast his ruthless thief persona.
Right, I might as well admit it; I just want it that way for the same reason most [people want certain characters to be cool: because that's just the way I want it. It's not rational, but dammit, that's how I am.
Don't judge me man! Down with Government!
....I'm fully willing to admit I lost this argument.
Edit: adding on a bit more, it really does feel like after a while, their only role was to lose. As Saiga said, not everyone needs to be cool, and as others have pointed out, there are other roles they can serve, but if you weren't Goku, Krillin, Gohan, Vegeta, or Piccolo, it seemed like all Toriyama could think of to do with you was smear you on the ground.
...poor Chiaotzu. I mean, his background in the third movie was more interesting than the TV series. Why not go with that?
edited 26th Dec '17 10:02:24 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!I actually thought of that when Pushover first pointed out that we had enough universes for a traditional tournament bracket.
Having 10 v 10s would bog things down even more than the 80 man battle (that's 7 battles of 10 v 10) but i was thinking they could be forced to split their universes into teams to only have 1 team per round (so each fighter can only have 1 fight)
He's mediocre. He's at his worst in the Cell Saga.
It's hard to live down taking your time to get back to Earth when Freeza was coming and giving Cell a senzu bean.
He's also rather blase about having his son fight world destroying abominations.
edited 26th Dec '17 10:04:29 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?"In hindsight, Namek might be the worst plotted arc of the series.
Goku isn't even in 80% of it, either recovering in a hospital, training on a ship en route, or recovering in a healing tank. He also doesn't even interact with the Big Bad until their final battle.
Gohan and Krillin accomplish nothing aside from staying alive and playing keep-away with the Dragon Balls, which turned out to be utterly pointless because the people they were trying to keep from getting the Dragon Balls got them anyway and could never have used them. Bulma actually does literally nothing, a complete waste of one of the series' oldest and most important characters. The only character who accomplishes anything for most of the arc is Vegeta, who was just introduced and was the Big Bad of the previous arc. Piccolo shows up near the end of the arc just to get a power boost and then accomplish nothing with it, same as Gohan and Krillin's power boosts.
The arc repeats itself, doing the "wait for Goku to get here and save all of us" gimmick twice. Keeping the Dragon Balls away from Vegeta and Freeza loses all tension once you learn that neither of them was ever going to get immortality anyways. Freeza heals every time he transforms and is using less than 0.5% of his full power from the start, making everyone's fight with him up until the very end utterly pointless.

Haha Hell yeah Ginyu Force Rules.
I know that was basically a non-answer but its fun confirming it.
The PT got nothing on the guys who got their own theme song for Zeno's sake.
edited 26th Dec '17 9:47:47 PM by slimcoder
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."