Makes sense.
Goten and Trunks are too young, Buu might not be too reliable, and even though she's stronger, 18 is a woman, so obviously, she's going to be left out.
One Strip! One Strip!Frieza didn't keep his body. His soul in Hell is depicted as a head in a cocoon but that's not his body. If it was, he wouldn't have been resurrected as giblets flopping about on the ground.
Letting Frieza have his body would probably be a terrible mistake. Like, there's a reason the afterlife deities can get away with being so weak: you only get to keep your power if you kept your body, so the fact that Frieza could probably outmuscle everyone in the afterlife never becomes an issue.
That filler of Goku and Pikkon having to stop Cell and Frieza from breaking out of Hell, that is exactly why Frieza doesn't have his body.
edited 17th Nov '15 8:02:33 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Most likely.
Also, I just want to get back on this topic again:
See, I can kinda understand that, but.....
Gonna have to agree with Saiga on this one. Yes, it can be hard to get a character to do as you want if it goes against their personality and all that, unless you derail them but if you put the effort into developing them and other stuff, it's more than possible.
Toriyama could have made Chi-Chi more likeable, but didn't seem to actually want to do so. Hell, if we're going by the manga, she'd only appeared in the story during the Fire Mountain arc, and then again as an 19 year old. There was a lot of room to fix her, but he instead chose to make her a insane educational harpy.
So maybe if you don't like Chi-Chi there Akira, the problem is you.
edited 17th Nov '15 8:17:16 AM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!Imma take the middle ground. It's true that characters often take on a life of their own, but it's also true that it's the responsibility of a writer to be able to move the story in the direction it needs to go in. There is no such thing as atheist fiction; characters are not born, they are defined from the ground up by their writer.
If you can't find a way to move a character where you need them, that's on you for not crafting them as the kind of character you need for the story you want to tell. You can either take the time to develop them such that it would be an organic direction for them to go in, or you can use a different character. There are always solutions.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'll take the middle ground too; Writers should stay true to a character's personality, but a character's personality is entirely dictated by the author. So whether they're dynamic and rounded or static and flat depends entirely on the author's (mis)handling of them.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Exaxtly.
It doesn't help that he's grown bored with a large number of his characters beyond Goku and Vegeta, or that he let Power Levels swell to the point where some enemies were so strong certain characters became completely useless.
He created them, then just abandoned them without really making an attempt to develop them (or completed their arcs in the same storylines they were introduced in, thereby meaning there was nothing else to do with them).
I mean, if we hadn't watched the entire series, how many would have guessed that Yamcha had been around since the very first arc what with how much Toriyama loves him.
I feel like only some characters are actually characters, while others are merely tools for steering the plot the way he wants it to go.
One Strip! One Strip!Ok, I'm going to throw the devil's advocate here but I really feel like the fandom oversells the supporting cast sometimes.
They do have character arcs that did have a resolution: Yamcha got a girlfriend...and lost her, but he achieved his goal at least and settled for just living a normal life, Krillin got a hot ass wife and a child and gets to be one of the strongest non-alien/god characters in the series, Piccolo fused with his other half and achieved peace, etc etc.
Toriyama did not have any obligation to use them afterward if he felt they couldn't add anymore. Yes, a lot of fans disagree with that, but they're not the ones writing this series :V Some characters are just meant to be minor and unimportant and there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. If Toriyama wants to make Goku & Vegeta (and their family members to a lesser extent) the focal points of the series, then that's his choice as an author to make.
It sucks if your favorite character isn't Goku or Vegeta, but (shrug) Not saying people shouldn't be upset, but I'm kind of tired of the complaining about supporting characters, its like I'm back in the Sonic series.
edited 17th Nov '15 8:49:53 AM by BlackYakuzu94
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Fair enough.
I guess I never looked at it that way.
Hmmm. In fact, looking at it that way makes it a little better for me. I need to think on this one a lot.
One Strip! One Strip!I agree with Saiga too, there's no middle ground that I can see on this subject unless you write for a Shared Universe.
edited 17th Nov '15 9:11:38 AM by VeryMelon
There's no such thing as atheistic fiction.
edited 17th Nov '15 9:17:35 AM by unnoun
They do have character arcs that did have a resolution: Yamcha got a girlfriend...and lost her, but he achieved his goal at least and settled for just living a normal life, Krillin got a hot ass wife and a child and gets to be one of the strongest non-alien/god characters in the series, Piccolo fused with his other half and achieved peace, etc etc.
Toriyama did not have any obligation to use them afterward if he felt they couldn't add anymore. Yes, a lot of fans disagree with that, but they're not the ones writing this series :V Some characters are just meant to be minor and unimportant and there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. If Toriyama wants to make Goku & Vegeta (and their family members to a lesser extent) the focal points of the series, then that's his choice as an author to make.
It sucks if your favorite character isn't Goku or Vegeta, but (shrug) Not saying people shouldn't be upset, but I'm kind of tired of the complaining about supporting characters, its like I'm back in the Sonic series.
This is also true.
The Z Warriors are not Team Cannon Fodder because there was never actually such a thing as the Z Warriors. The uselessness of Goku's superhero band of sidekicks isn't on Toriyama, this is on the localization crew for inventing that entire concept of a superhero band of sidekicks. For manufacturing the illusion that characters like Yamcha and Tien are valuable and equal members of the protagonist team of superheroes at a time when both characters had already completed their arcs and were all set to go f*ck right off like so many other side characters have done. For even insinuating that this is a team show, and not the adventures of Goku and whatever sidekicks he has on-hand at the time.
As their narrative role goes, Yamcha and Tien have more in common with Jimmy Olsen than Sailor Mercury. They're sidekicks, not co-stars.
edited 17th Nov '15 9:26:41 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The character that's gotten sold the shortest in all post manga material is Majin Buu, with the sole exception being Dragon Ball Online. Otherwise my only problem beyond the interquel nature of the three movies putting off Uub and Pan's entry into the plot is that no other character has lasted as long in the spotlight as Vegeta and I really don't care much for him.
In just the manga, Piccolo and Gohan spend as much time around so whatever but I really think Buu should have displaced Vegeta by this point. The ass pull nature of his power ups after being surpassed by Goku, Gotenks, Gohan and Buu in the last saga don't help. Even then, it didn't stop Battle Of Gods or Revival Of F from being enjoyable. I've never hated Vegeta, I just find all the comparable heroes more compelling with the possible exception of Gohan. Hell, Goten, Trunks and Beerus might wear a little thin after awhile too but at least they're new and thus haven't had the time to yet and Beerus introduces a lot as far as cosmology and world building though, so I could see keeping him around for a bit. I think Vegeta's last big contribution was showing that there were mutants who had been raising their power levels in a manner similar to the Earth dwellers in other parts of the universe and he didn't even have to be alive for that, much less stronger than Buu, Gotenks and Gohan.
edited 17th Nov '15 9:28:57 AM by IndirectActiveTransport
Buldogue's lawyerTruth be told, the non-Saiyans never really did much outside the early tournaments. As far back as the Red Ribbon Saga how much stronger Goku was than the rest of them was being played for laughs. Roshi, Chaozu, and Tien all jobbed to King Piccolo, too.
Can't say that I'd mind Piccolo pulling another powerup from who-knows-where though. Because as we've discussed several times in this thread, Namekian biology is horseshit.
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Its not like they need to stop showing up, they're just important minor characters is all.
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I do have to agree with this to an extent, I'm not particularly invested in Buu so I don't really care for any focus on him, especially since my favorite incarnation was Super Buu and he ain't coming back. But yea, the fact that Vegeta has been given power up after power up in order to keep him up with Goku is a bit much in my eyes. I can buy him still wanting to surpass Goku despite accepting him as the better fighter, but the fact that he has been consistently outperforming characters that he should be weaker than is kind of bullshit to me.
But whatever, Popularity Power. The hero's rival is almost always more popular than everybody else in the cast except the hero himself in Shonen, so Vegeta getting a boost to keep him relevant doesn't surprise me.
edited 17th Nov '15 11:11:04 AM by BlackYakuzu94
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Just because they aren't important to fights doesn't mean they aren't important period. Dragon Ball may be mostly fighting but it isn't nothing but that.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!I'd rather they didn't. That has never made a lick of sense. They're the same person.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

That would be interesting, but Toriyama just does not care for any humans who aren't Mr. Satan, and maybe Krillin.
One Strip! One Strip!