Jiren has less character than the main villains of DBZ. Freiza was a genocidal sociopath and a lazy man-child that had an unique reason for his transformations. Cell was an experiment by a vengeful scientist with the DNA of the universe's strongest fighters, absorbed humans for power and was a narcissistic ass who wanted to rub his superiority in other people's faces. Buu is a primordial being that could not be controlled, can assimilate other individuals, including gods, into himself and the ability to transfigure people into candy to eat. Jiren is bald alien Sasuke whose only power is punch things really really hard.
edited 28th Feb '18 11:20:57 PM by Ikedatakeshi
Anime-Jiren has not once admitted that he doesn't care about anyone. At most, Vermoud has said that Jiren doesn't trust people and he threw away his own emotions in the search for more strength. Jiren says that he doesn't get the value of trust, but that's not the same as him not caring about anyone at all, and he's not a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. Jiren still has those lines where he admonishes people for not following justice. At worst, he's a Good Is Not Nice Batman-expy. I'm still sticking with my theory that manga and anime Jiren (and now Xenoverse Jiren) are all the same character, it's just that each perspective is an incomplete picture of him.
And this is just untrue. Out of all the participants in the Tournament of Power, only like 6 or so of them have been smug douchebags. Most of them are outright heroic or at least morally neutral.
Let see, excluding those who are fodder that are eliminated way too fast to have a personality, we have the Kamikaze Fireballs who are eager to show off how their love can easily beat down their enemies, the entirety of U4 except for Ganos and the last three who were eliminated, the sniper duo, Caulifla, Frost, those two who beat up Kale, U9, Paparoni, Dyspo who constantly brags about his speed and doesn't even have one moment where he's pondering about the fact that he is going to cause millions to die. The fact that anyone is freaking smiling when battling with the possibility of their universe dying or having to kill trillions of lives shows how moral these people are.
Edit: Just in case you want to be pedantic and say that's not 90%, it's obviously hyperbole. Not having a character at all isn't much better than generic Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy.
edited 1st Mar '18 3:20:02 AM by Ikedatakeshi
I fail to see how the Kamikaze Fireballs qualify as smug or douchebags. Their strength comes from love and they're playing to a crowd of their universe throughout the whole tournament, of course they're going to make it a bit of a show. Monna certainly, but what was wrong with Majora, Cawei, or Darkori? The sniper duo didn't act smug or douchey once. Caulifla's kind of smug, but her heart's in the right place. Both Frost and Freeza were among those I counted as smug douchebags. The worst person in U9 was Lavanda, and he made up for his Ax-Crazy with brotherly love. They weren't bad people just because they came from a shitty universe. Paparoni and Dyspo were smug, but I wouldn't call either of them douchebags, especially not Dyspo. That last point is subjective and based on how you think they should act, and also applies to U7.
Also, Explaining Your Power to the Enemy does not inherently qualify you as smug or a douchebag.
edited 1st Mar '18 3:46:55 AM by PushoverMediaCritic
Remember how Cell threatened to destroy Earth with his Cell games? Remember how casual everybody was treating it? No? Their home, family, friends, lives and everything they know is going to be destroyed without a second thought, and they have to do the same thing to others in a gladiatorial death match. No shit it also applies to U7, because they're acting crazy as well. If the other universes treated things seriously, the U7 group would look bad.
Edit: Let's put it this way, do you usually smile when you beat up someone?
edited 1st Mar '18 3:54:36 AM by Ikedatakeshi
![]()
Yes. I like the adrenaline rush that comes with getting in a fight.
I mean, Basil has a bit of a steroid problem (hard not to when your god is your enabler) but he seems like an okay guy. Bergamo is a straight-up hero for daring to speak up and try to make a deal with the god of gods of gods to save the lives of trillions of people.
edited 1st Mar '18 4:13:12 AM by PushoverMediaCritic
I don't think fictional characters should be expected to have realistic reactions to stuff. If they did, Gohan wouldn't be a functional adult because of his mountains of childhood trauma and this whole arc (as well as many previous arcs) would be nothing but lots of people very dramatically going through the Five Stages of Grief, with much Inelegant Blubbering involved.
Which, by the way, would be my reaction to that scenerio. Doesn't really make for very compelling tv.
I think maybe if you aren't using the threat of universal nullification for character beats then you shouldn't use universal nullification as a plot device in the first place
Just stick with the wish on the super dragon balls as what's on the line
Forever liveblogging the Avengers![]()
It'd probably be the only thing worth feeling bad about when it comes to the characters...
But downplayed reactions to threats isn't the same as not really acknowledging the threat.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.We do get it in moments. Gohan nearly has a panic attack when Goku tells him. Much is made of them not telling anyone because there'd be riots and panic in the streets, which we see in U9. U2 comes together at their end to sing kubaya together. In general, all of the universal erasures are Played for Drama and get a moment of silence afterwards to honor them.
That's super inaccurate. Bergamo was being manipulative and making himself look good. And, y'know, trying to save his own skin by extension of that.
edited 1st Mar '18 4:42:28 AM by Saiga
x4 Agreed. If no stakes are involved, then these characters make sense. And it's not like I want traumatized people quaking in their boots or anything, I want these people to treat the situation they're in as something serious. I want characters like Saonel and Pirrina, who treat it seriously and also respect their opponents, and Gohan is the only one getting to fight them because none of U7 would respect his opponent like he would.(In term of morals, not fighting ability)
Unrelated: The new DLC for XV 2 is really really cool! It's a huge step closer to what XV should've been in the first place. Fu is also a lot more enjoyable than I would've thought.
My only issue is that they don't take it quite far enough- a handful of cool things (like when Fu describes how the entirety of the future will change from one of your decisions) aren't ever shown and that would've been absolutely amazing to see. But it was also just DLC so I'll give it a pass.
Also the Supreme Kai of Time is awfully willing to let you fuck up history, which is really OOC and odd. But whatever.
I just hope that this style of story continues into XV 3 whenever that is.
"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-MaeBergamo's not wrong, though. Just because he was charismatic enough to play the gods into accepting his deal didn't mean he was wrong to make it. He wasn't planning to lose, he was planning to win and come out a hero who saved everyone. He's even horrified after his loss at the reality of the situation.
To be fair, completely ignoring the stakes of their universes being up for destruction is something that's been true for basically every single character in this tournament, villains and heroes alike.
About 90% of the problems I have with this tournament come down to "the stakes are too high" and would be fixed by the prize being a wish on the Super Dragon Balls.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"It was right after Goku and Gohan had their spar to see if Gohan managed to get his old power back. Was this real nice "I'm proud of you, son" moment.
And then Goku flew off without ever pretending to care about what the leader he named had planned. Seriously, way to humiliate your son even further.

Like look at Zamsu. Was he supposed to be sympathetic/understandable cause he & Black are written so deviously over the top that I can't tell what their going for over there. No fucking nuance written there despite how easy it be to add in.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."