Being offended by that is being hilariously thin-skinned.
There was no disrespect in what Toyotarou did. It was the only sensible outcome for them both in-universe and from the narrative's perspective. It feels just like how the manga would handle them, which is refreshing after the anime horribly missed the mark on that.
What's more, he gave it a purpose by tying it into the Frost subplot, both giving Frost a reason to trust Freeza and making the plot actually useful for Freeza by eliminating universe 9 and Frost with minimal effort on his part. It also makes Freeza's betrayal more sensible, as what he did was worth more than the loss of Kuririn/Tenshinhan, making it more believable that the rest of the team accepts this. It's also much more unpleasant, which suits Freeza well and preserves that callous part of him.
They are pivotal to making the Freeza-Frost subplot work. With that in mind, I'd say that this is the most effective use of them we've seen since the original manga - and it stands out even in comparison with that.
That's not the point of their elimination though. It was never meant to make Frost look competent, he achieved that much better by tearing through U 9. So they weren't used as fall guys, the inevitability of their failure was instead used to the benefit of the story.
And I wouldn't say no-one had expectations of them, because this was after the anime tried to make them out to be a big deal and Toriyama had chosen them for the team in the first place.
Edited by Saiga on Aug 14th 2018 at 10:10:00 PM
It's not about being thin-skinned, it's just incredibly disrespectful to the characters and shitty writing overall. I loved what the anime did, bringing the humans back into the spotlight by focusing on what they can do well, and their moments, especially Roshi's, are some of the best moments the series has had ever since Dragon Ball.
You don't bring back fan-favorite characters and then shit all over them, you just don't. If you're going to bring back fan-favorite characters who haven't had the spotlight in a long time, you do something with them. Something small, at least. The anime writers saw the Humans on the U7 team and thought: "okay, what can we do with these characters to do justice to them". Toyotarou saw the Humans on the U7 team and thought "LOL, what are these losers doing here?"
The anime gave me the thing I've been wanting for years, and the manga shit all over it.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Aug 14th 2018 at 5:47:35 AM
Getting offended over the treatment of tertiary characters is absolutely thin-skinned. That is a product of incredibly skewed priorities.
The anime did not focus on what they can do well. It lied. It bullshitted up some excuses of what they can do well, by completely ignoring what the series had previously established and any internal logic it had. It was a complete farce that weakened the writing and the pacing.
Meanwhile, eliminating them is absolutely not shitting on them. It's just the logical outcome to being part of a tournament with much stronger fighters. And, honestly, them being fan-favourites should not matter. Popularity should not drive a story, it already sucks that it's influencing things like Broly coming in.
What Toyotaro did with them is much more meaningful than what the anime did, even if it didn't make them look cool or shine. That's not their purpose.
Edited by Saiga on Aug 14th 2018 at 11:08:24 PM
I would be the one that say they shouldn't any form of spotlight at all beyond some Slice-of-Life filler. They don't have anything they can do well in terms of things that matter(fighting), and by drawing attention to them you only display how illogical everything is and how little effort they actually put in. Toei didn't give those moments because they gave a shit about the characters, they are just milking them for what they're worth, which is why they used blatant nostalgic imagery and lazy stock tropes (like the old master being super experienced despite every other character having faced much stronger enemy and trained under more experienced fighters). Any worth they have as characters aren't in combat, which sucks for them because this is Dragon Ball.
Okay, I wrote out a long and all-caps rant, but it was in poor taste, so I decided against it. TL:DR, and put more politely, the whole point of a battle royal tournament is to give the weaker characters a chance to shine fighting weaker opponents. If you don't do that, you're failing at writing a proper battle royal. Not even battle royal specifically, it's just massive battles in general. One Piece does it best, consistently giving each crewmember their own fight to show off what they can do and contribute, even though Luffy theoretically could defeat all their opponents with ease himself.
Give me more of Krillin, Tenshinhan, Yamcha, and Roshi fighting weaker opponents. Give me all of that, I don't care how plot-relevant it is!
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Aug 14th 2018 at 6:56:27 AM
They already failed at writing a battle royale, with the abysmal pacing, the characters all lining up against U7 and inconsistent power levels. I've admittedly never read One Piece, but I can at least confidently assume the difference between Luffy and his crew aren't that significant. Ganos was able to block Goku's punches, yet gets defeated by Roshi.
See, while I get that Frieza feeding them to Frost does help with the former gaining the trust of the latter, I don't really think it makes Frost look competent. How does defeating guys who are always outmatched and getting taken out first make Frost, who's already far stronger than them, look competent?
I've been back and forth with their use, as I acknowledge that I just liked seeing them get their day in the spotlight (especially since for the bulk of the series, their purpose was to lose to Goku or the Arc Villain to show his growth). I gotta say that even though I still don't trust Goten and Kid Trunks, they should have gone instead.
Then again, with the entire Kefla thing, maybe they didn't want to go overboard on Fusion. Plus, as I've said before, those two would become Gotenks and treat it all as a big game so they'd probably be worse.
The entire thing is just a mess to be honest.
One Strip! One Strip!I mean Tien once got knocked by Super Buu’s legs.
Like literally just his legs. The blob was bisected & Tien couldn’t even handle his disembodied legs for a second.
That was a surprise attack so it doesn't count.
That's a really over the top way of saying it fudged the gaps between power levels. And it's not really that big a deal if higher tier characters are only 200 times more powerful than lower tier characters instead of 50,000 times. Certainly not worth that kind of extreme distaste.
I don't know, it often comes across like you think consistent power levels are the most important thing in a story, when it reality they should be lower priority compared to many other things. Power levels shouldn't write the plot, the characters and story should be first and foremost. It's not an unforgivable sin that Krillin lasted a couple episodes instead of five seconds, no matter how "logical" you think it should be.
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I agree.
Toriyama kinda wrote himself into a corner as while he's very consistent with the Power Levels (and even I admit that ignoring them is kinda annoying), using characters that he knew couldn't hack it meant any attempt to portray them as useful would ring hollow, meanwhile if you just eliminate them right away (while that does make sense) kinda makes you wonder why they were there in the first place.
...I really am sure someone posted an interview of someone saying Toriyama put them in to show they could still be cool. I know it was here. I gotta see if I can dig it up.
Edited by HandsomeRob on Aug 14th 2018 at 9:16:04 AM
One Strip! One Strip!Nobody said anything about retcons here. Retcon themselves don't have to be inconsistent with what came previously either. Just throwing out things that are/were established tends weakens the narrative as a whole.
Edited by Cross on Aug 14th 2018 at 11:26:35 AM
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Marvel and DC are actually some of the examples I was thinking about when it comes to not being constrained by continuity often making things better. I of course love when continuity is used in a clever way and it can definitely be taken too far, but it's a net positive in general.
You're probably thinking about the writers assuming that's why Toriyama put them in and so made sure they had things to do.
Well the power scale hasn't been thrown out, just changed a bit. That's what I'd call a retcon.
Edited by Moth13 on Aug 14th 2018 at 11:32:41 AM
It's not like Toriyama is shy about retconning or quietly ignoring things he finds inconvenient for making the plot go where he wants it to
Forever liveblogging the AvengersIt's not like the Humans are any kind of threat to the precious Saiyans regardless. Just putting them around the same tier as the base Saiyans still doesn't have them anywhere near Goku's 7 higher transformations. Like, the Saiyans have so many transformations at this point that why not put the humans at their untransformed level, it's not like base Saiyan is particularly impressive anymore anyway.
"Krillin, how'd you get so strong?"
"Pushups, situps, and plenty of juice."
"Can I have some of that juice?"
"No."
"It turns out that this special power goo can only be taken by humans because its Earth specific!"
"Oo, can Gohan have some?"
"... noooooo."
"Dr. Brief just invented a special crossfit exercise routine that can only be done by humans!"
"How does that work?"
"SHUT UP I WANT TO BE RELEVANT"

I dont care either way about Krillin or Tien's sudden elimination, but using them as the fall guys after they've stopped being relevant for so long is hilarious (and dumb)
Like, I know the point was to make Frost look competent but practically nobody had any expectations for the humans anyway, so their quick eliminations come across as more "Of course they're the first ones out"
And it's that same reason why their Anime moments are hollow too. Like, it's nice to throw them a bone, but like...they stopped mattering decades ago.
I suppose my thoughts are more they should have never been there to begin with, since their characters don't contribute much.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.