Manga/Dragon Ball

Popularity does mean more haters.

And I made the mistake of respecting such a stupid concept

More Kakarot silliness. The side-quests feature a lot of random people siccing giant death robots on each other.

Eventually, the one about Yamcha cheating on his girlfriends leading to them trying to murder him answers how this is possible: they pull them out of capsules, which would mean that Bulma is selling giant death robots to the public.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 7th 2021 at 6:50:04 AM

That tracks

Ocean dub was wild yo

Pretty in character for Bulma really.

I heard that there is a side quest that explains why beastmen aren't as common anymore because apparently the Red Ribbon Army was putting out some kind of drug that turned humans into beastpeople.

That is some JK Rowling-type revision there and I love it.

Fully agree. HXH and Yu Yu Hakusho almost rank higher for me. I like HXH's pacing until the Chimera Ant arc, and I like how even the smaller characters can feel important. Yu Yu Hakusho does an even better job of making the narm work, and it's relatively shorter, so nothing in it besides maybe the Spirit Detective arc really feels like fille.

But neither compare to Dragonball's timelessness and fun. Much as I might loathe parts of Super and Heroes, it's still got nostalgic value.

That Toriyama apparently wrote most of this crazy tale by happenstance makes it even more addictive for some reason.

And the drug is called Animorphaline.

You know, this animation right here is Dragon Ball GT vs Dragon Ball Super in a nutshell

Yes, they made a completely what-if Dramatic Finish for both Gogetas in fighterz just because.

Now i wonder if Heroes or any of the side games would try to replicate this shit.

In the end, we couldn't change anything.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 8th 2021 at 10:14:17 AM

Speak for yourself, I voted for One Piece.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Mar 8th 2021 at 8:57:54 AM

Yeah honestly, I'm not much for letting nostalgia dictate my choices.

I love Dragon Ball, I think people really underrate it and it does a lot of really great things that people frequently overlook... but One Piece is just better.

As I said, Dragon Ball is much easier to jump into, but while One Piece is just a more solidly told story overall despite its own issues.

I've never seen One Piece. I'm not really fond of anime in general. <.< Dragon Ball's just sorta grandfathered in as an interest because it's something I watched on Toonami growing up. Same with Yu Yu Hakusho.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 8th 2021 at 10:45:30 AM

One Piece hit the states right as I hit the middle stage here (at least in regards to anime), so I never got into it (or other big anime in the subsequent years like Bleach).

I increasingly got back into anime (at least certain ones) as an adult, but now I look at One Piece and think "wait, how many episodes?" and always balk at pursuing it.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 8th 2021 at 10:48:17 AM

There was a discussion a while back about how Dragon Ball passed the "Teenagers shitting on stuff they liked as kids" phase of nostalgia and entered the "Adults looking back fondly" phase. And I want to note that I do think Dragon Ball owes at least some of its revival to the release of high-profile content over the past decade or so.

I don't mean Battle of Gods or Super; those are symptoms of the revival, not causes thereof. The Dragon Ball resurgence, I feel, really began with the release of surprisingly enjoyable fighting games in the Budokai and Tenkaichi trilogies (plus affiliated games like Shin Budokai). These games put Dragon Ball back on the pop culture radar.

Meanwhile, in internet culture, TeamFourStar formed and started making a funny parody series that brought the characters and stories back into focus and got people excited for them again. So now there were gamers talking about Dragon Ball and there were YouTube content consumers talking about Dragon Ball.

And then Dragon Ball: Evolution happened. Which was awful. But everyone agrees that it was awful, and could close ranks around how dirty this movie is doing the series. A truly terrible adaptation can bring a fandom together just as much as a truly great one; and the awfulness of Evolution has even been suggested to have been a motivating factor in Toriyama returning to the series with Battle of Gods.

Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return also happened, but that always felt like a bit of a one-off and is rarely talked about. Battle of Gods was the culminating moment where the Dragon Ball revival became official, and it's the product of the steadily renewing interest in Dragon Ball as a franchise that had been taking place in pop culture over the years.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 8th 2021 at 10:55:55 AM

There’s plenty to like about Dragon Ball. The wild kookiness that was missing in Evolution, depth of character that GT lacked, the establishment of tropes like screaming and energy beams and transformations and fusions that all fit like a glove on Dragon Ball but would need to be carefully worked into anything else...

I still love it even if there’s a lot to make fun of (awkward pacing in the anime making for long pauses to stare at each other, redundant lines about people’s power levels, taking too long to power up while everyone else stands there, and the revealing episode titles). And yes, there’s things that might get in its way going forward (having introduced the god of the omniverse makes it hard to raise the stakes, and what are we going to do with all these humans like Tien, Krillin and Yamcha?).

It’s still a good escape. It’s a fantasy world of characters and stories and possibilities to explore. The Team Four Star abridged series and Masako X’s what-if fanfics helped me see it that way, but so did Super. I always loved watching it back in the Z days, but the intrigue of the newer content and the effort the fans have put into their projects have made me love it more now than I did then.

So yes, I am optimistic for the future of Dragon Ball, even if it doesn’t go in the same direction as my own ideas for the franchise (have Goku take Uub to Beerus and Whis’s to learn UI so that all four can be out of the plot while the rest get to work exploring their own character arcs, making Goten and Trunks the ones to step up and finally save the world). And now that I’m one of those nostalgic Millennials with income, I’m grateful for the revival of it.

That said, nobody disturb Naoko Takeuchi. If we got a funny or edgy revival of Sailor Moon, there would be no room left in my life for reality.

I would expect One Piece to get more votes, but I don't think it's super crazy that it didn't.

One Piece is more of (or at least tries to be) a more cohesive narrative and I appreciate that just on principle, but it flubs at a lot of things or gets credit for things that any halfway decent story would do because people act like Oda invented writing.

Overall it's a fun story, but it's not hard to see why someone would prefer Dragon Ball's brand of fun over One Piece's.

Someone said it best, since I feel My Hero Academia and Black Clover are a good comparison point for One Piece and Dragon ball.

One Piece and My Hero aim for much higher highs, and as a result, it makes their shortcomings much more apparent. Especially when their big moments don't really hit with everyone, which makes people feel even worse after all of the buildup.

Dragon Ball/Black Clover don't really try to be anything more than what they are, what you see is what you get with them. They may not have as much depth, but they're much more entertaining to watch on a consistent basis.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 8th 2021 at 3:29:34 PM

Personally, I wouldn't compare Dragon Ball with One Piece anyway. One Piece's peers are, like, Naruto, Bleach, and Hunter x Hunter. Dragon Ball is from an earlier era, its contemporaries are Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Fist of the North Star.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Mar 8th 2021 at 1:53:32 PM

Well given how much influence Dragon Ball has had over the medium...

Dragon Ball's only contemporary is Jojo, and Fist of the North Etar since they're the only ones from the 80's. Yu Yu Hakusho and HXH came much later.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 8th 2021 at 3:55:12 PM

Yu Yu Hakusho was 90' to 94'. And Dragon Ball ended in 95'.

But it started in 84', a full six years before Yu Yu Hakusho.

I imagine Toriyama watched it, took one look at Tarble and said "that's a neat idea. Obviously I'm not going to use it, but here's a Cabba" in a similar vein as how Super Broly came about.

Speaking of, I wish they had done more with Cabba. An arc in which Vegeta and Goku bring their families to Universe 6 Sadala, but shenanigans happen with some villain from Universe 6, is kind of a no-brainer.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 8th 2021 at 4:10:52 AM