Manga/Dragon Ball

I can't find myself caring about the build-up of Luffy's army the same way I would for the side characters of Alabasta.

And so it doesn't get completely off-topic, One Piece still treats both its side & minor characters eons better than Dragon Ball treats its main cast or any of its character.

I'd say I like One Piece more, but Dragon Ball holds up a lot better than most people would think.

And it doesn't have the same issue of so many people acting as if it's perfect and Toriyama can do no wrong. That's something very offputting about One Piece (and a couple of other series to me) which, while not Oda's fault himself, still influences how I perceive and enjoy the series.

Edited by LSBK on Mar 7th 2021 at 4:40:06 AM

I still love Dragonball. There are a lot of little things about it I've come to appreciate as we've debated it on this thread. It's not perfect (lord knows Toriyama has little idea how to use more of his side characters, and the Power Creep is positively brutal) but it's been a fun ride that's gone farther than most shonen due, as we've watched Goku as a child, all the way into Fatherhood and Grandfatherhood. That doesn't happen in Shonen anymore.

In contrast, One Piece has some powerful world building, has it's own subtleties that I can't name as easily as I would for DB, and while still not perfect, does more right by it's side characters, even if it doesn't give all of them awesome fights, simply by not making Luffy better at everything than everyone. Oda's protectiveness of his women is a little irking, and it does feel like he goes a bit overboard with the abundance of side characters, but again, no series is perfect.

Honestly, I think I like both for different reasons. So I guess I'm a chicken who refuses to make a choice.

At least we can say One Piece knows how to handle their side characters well for the most part. We've never had an arc where the side characters absolutely sucked and weren't worth the effort.

I wouldn't say One Piece handles side characters particularly well. Oda often has too many in arcs having them doing too much that it's hard to keep up with what, and whether it's something that actually matters or is just padding.

Just having characters do things for the sake of doing it does not equate to handling them well.

Edited by LSBK on Mar 7th 2021 at 11:47:35 AM

I view One Piece as better because it's a better put together product and story. I'd say the same for Naruto and Bleach in not for their frankly more off-putting issues towards the second half of their manga runs.

@LSBK: I get what you're saying, but given I grew with both series, that's pretty untrue. There's TONS of creator worship for Dragon Ball.

For a certain period of time before Naruto took off in America, many touted it as "the greatest Anime of all time" and is considered as such by many older Anime fans.

I'm not saying you're wrong and obviously your experiences are different than mine just saying, it's not just a One Piece thing.

Yeah, a lot of people love it, but it really doesn't have the same kind of thing that One Piece and Hunter X Hunter have going for it.

Shitting on Dragon Ball as is probably as big a thing as talking about why it's big in the first place.

People tolerate negative things about Dragon Ball; for those other two there's a real sense that you don't belong if you don't think they're greatest pieces of fiction ever. Or at leas that's the impression I've gotten.

Edited by LSBK on Mar 7th 2021 at 11:52:55 AM

Despite being by far the biggest in my country, the US, Naruto was the one I was by far the least interested in, and I more or less tuned out completely once the original Akatsuki lineup started to fall and the (to me) profoundly uninteresting Senju-Uchiha feud became the main focus of EVERYTHING.

That's because you have an entirely new generation of people who didn't grow up with it and such, don't have the same love.

Look at it this way; the Anime you grew up with is gonna stick with you more than anything that came before or after.

You have people who have that same love for MHA, and you only need to look on Twitter for that.

Id say the only difference is that social media wasn't as prominent back then, but take it from somebody who was in elementary school when Dragon Ball was airing, it was THE show.

Both One Piece and Hunter X Hunter are over 20 years old. Them being younger than Dragon Ball doesn't account for what I'm talking about.

Again, it's not actually the writers fault, but I can't help but be influenced by it.

That is true. We know Toriyama almost completely made up the story of DB as he went along, with only one or two points planned out (and from what I can tell, he's still writing by the seat of his pants even with the monthly Super manga. I think One Piece is a little bit more planned out (though I'm not sure how far ahead Oda has seen).

As for One Piece and it's side characters, I suppose it depends on how much you care about them. Lord knows focusing on them too much can be a detriment, but at the same time, DB has always kinda thrown many of them under the bus to prop up Goku.

It also tends to have fewer villains, so there's less for the other characters to do but either stand around watching in awe while Goku once again shows how powerful he is, or get MDK'ed to establish how powerful the villain is so that we know what Goku is up against.

Dragonball still struggles to deal with a lot of things, like the endless escalation. Notably, while One Piece has introduced even more powerful dudes than the guys the straw hats have previously dealt with, it's never felt like it's gotten smaller like DB has, where one strong dude basically rules over everything uncontested because he's just the strongest dude period.

One Piece is a world that's got a lot to still explore. Dragonball is Goku's ring.

It has nothing to do the age of both shows, just the timing of when they took off in America.

I was already 12-13 When the big three Shonen really started to take off here, and by that time, Dragon Ball was already firmly established.

I know what you're saying, I'm just assuming the ones who did that with Dragon Ball had already grown up and moved on after the social media craze came about. I sure as hell had no desire to scream how great Dragon Ball was when I was in high school.

I was another who was basically a bullseye, demographic-wise, for The Great Mid-2000s Battle Shonen Boom, and as such have very clear memories of it. DB's popularity has done an interesting loop since then. It wasn't outright despised or anything in the mid aughts, but I got the impression it was generally seen as fairly brainless and mediocre and its biggest significance was in paving the way for more polished takes on the formula like Naruto/OP/FMA/etc. On /a/ in particular it was commonly made fun of, with many jokes made about everyone screaming really loud, five minutes on Namek, more and more characters dropping out of relevance as the story went on, and so forth.

Nowadays opinion has gone back to thinking that it's hardly faultless, but is legit good enough to stand on its own regardless. If any particular thing prompted this "shift," I'm not sure.

I sure as hell didn't resonate with none of the big three Shonen as much a I did with Dragon Ball.

Yeah, there was definitely a period of time where Dragon Ball was really looked down on. It ended right around when Kai was airing.

Teenagers make fun of what they liked as preteens, but young adults look at it with fondness. Awkward Zombie exemplifies it quite well using Pokemon, a fellow late 90's hit in the US that was looked down upon in the mid 00's.

Well, I don't think One Piece is overall a good series (Oda just cannot pace his long running arcs, nor balance all the threads he picks up... And most of the series has been that for a long time now) and Dragon Ball definitely holds up to me, so... That's the better series.

And I definitely see where LSBK is coming from with OP/HxH] having particularly off-putting fanbases. It's where the whole [="GODa" memes come from that get said a little too seriously.

However, that doesn't change my assessment of the series.

Edited by Saiga on Mar 7th 2021 at 12:22:59 PM

I don't think there was ever a point when I looked down on the stuff I liked, but I certainly kept it on the down low so as to not draw attention to myself.

But going back; I'd say One Piece appeals more to my tastes as an adult, while Dragon Ball is just easier to digest for me. It's simple and to the point.

I think that's kind of how it works too, since One Piece has a pretty active adult fanbase even in Japan. While I'm not aware of its readings with younger audiences, I do feel like there's more prestige for One Piece among the older guard.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 7th 2021 at 3:25:14 PM

Wasn't there a poll a little while ago that revealed that something like 40% of One Piece's ratings on tv in Japan come from women over 30 year old?

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Mar 7th 2021 at 2:31:27 AM

Pushover, this isn't the Kamen Rider thread. The Odagiri effect comes from them.

Edited by DevilSketch36 on Mar 7th 2021 at 1:24:39 AM

No, I meant One Piece, I remember seeing something about that a few years ago, but I don't know how legit it is.

To the elitist douchebags it is.

So...pretty much everyone online

Yea, that pretty much checks out