I think the reason we cut straight to the Beam-O-War between SSJ 2 Gohan and Cell is simply because Toriyama realized the fighting had kinda dragged out a bit at that point and it was better to just close things up.
And in fairness: it was a really good Beam-O-War. Ionically, the first time in the series a Beam-O-War actually settles a fight, unless there's some OG Dragon Ball fight I'm forgetting about.
It's pretty much the same thing.
Though Boo's only pushing it back, Kakarrot literally couldn't do anything until they wished his energy back.
Edited by randomness4 on Dec 30th 2019 at 5:09:37 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Cell comes back, wounds Gohan and then starts a Beam Struggle
The Fighting in the Cell arc pretty much plummets the moment Goku gives up.
Which changes the flow of battle from "Gohan obliterates Cell effortlessly and with zero challenge."
The moment Cell's self-destruct enters the plot, Gohan being an invincible unbeatable ultra-hero ceases to be a factor. The self-destruct reintroduces tension to what had, to that point, become an effortless curbstomp. Defeating the self-destruct, in turn, comes down to Goku sacrificing himself through a well-established non-combat technique rather than Gohan just blasting Cell harder.
Perfect Cell's run ends on a high note. SSJ2 Gohan's beatdown of him is short and sweet ending in the sudden unexpected ramping up of tension, then followed by a bittersweet release that utilizes an existing gun in Chekhov's Armory in a new way.
Then, just as everyone's in the midst of basking in the bittersweet win, Cell abruptly returns and reveals that Gohan's SSJ2 form isn't invincible anymore. Kills Trunks (shit is officially real), effortlessly puts down Vegeta, and injured Gohan. Goku's sacrifice won a combat exchange, but now the real final boss battle is here.
A boss battle that takes Goku and Vegeta's remaining efforts to help Gohan drive home a win. Sure, it's just a Beam Struggle. But it's a Beam Struggle with more tension and excitement than the entire fight that preceded it. The Beam Struggle is the actual ultimate confrontation between Cell and Gohan.
I maintain that the Frieza fight is better than the Cell fight in large part because the Frieza fight was a Chekhov's Armory battle much like the Vegeta fight, which is the best fight in the series. But Cell made better use of a new Super Saiyan form than Frieza did, because his fight actually gave Cell ways to still be threatening to Super Duper Saiyan Gohan instead of just having 87 chapters of Gohan punching him in the kidneys.
When people think of Gohan, they think of that Beam Struggle. It's the single most iconic moment in his entire history as a character.
When people think of Goku, they often think of that transformation; not the fight that followed it. Because the transformation was cool, but it didn't lead to anything interesting or exciting. There's nothing even remotely comparable to Gohan and SP Cell's Beam Struggle past that point.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 30th 2019 at 8:23:09 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Remember the bit where Piccolo jumped in front of that beam to save Gohan? It's often said that the better play would be to grab Gohan and move out of the way. I'm wondering if there is a situation, not necessarily in Dragonball, where standing in front of an attack, or something similar, would be the smart play.
Piccolo's sacrifice is an interesting instance where it's not so much the anime's pacing as it is the simple fact of animation that hurts it.
The sacrifice in the manga plays out through still frames. So it creates the idea that you're seeing all these reaction shots at once, with no time passing between them. Thus, the idea is communicated that Piccolo jumped in front of the beam and it instantly hit him; there was no time for anything more complicated than that.
The anime also wants to show you each of these reaction shots. For this reason, it translates each panel onto the screen. But in order to do that, time has to progress from reaction to reaction. This necessarily slows down the action of the scene such that Piccolo is standing in front of Gohan for several seconds while everyone reacts to the beam.
This time delay creates the impression of an unnecessary sacrifice, which kinda hurts the moment. I can't really think of another way to do it, though.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 2nd 2020 at 12:13:23 PM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
Yeah, that is basically the main reason I prefer to read action shonens than to watch them. A lot of people find my position weird since action is sorta the main drawnote , but I often find action work between in manga because it was written for manga, and so it structure and flow is centered around the way people read, not the way people watch. And this is mostly obvious with the constant time fuckery of simultaneous action. In manga, for example other characters watching and commenting on the action is not as glaring because you can just assume it is simultaneous to the action. Similarly Talking Is a Free Action looks a lot less dumb if the time passing during a single panel is ambiguous. In Dragon Ball, the most obvious example of this is, of course, the 5 minutes of Namek, which is completely absurd in motion, as it passed a lot more than 5 minutes, but less so in manga, where the is not time passing indication.
Of course, this is so predominant in action anime than there are conventions that both the show and the audience know that kinda goes around it. At some level we do know that the flow of time is not as direct as what we are experiencing. Sports shows like Haikyuunote different matches flow according to the narrative and thus can last from less than an episode to even a whole season without being to weird, because we are familiar to that. But that is still less convincing, to me at least, than reading the same stories on paper, because these stories were originally meant to be read, not watch, so its flow was constructed with that in mind.
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Split Screen reactions are definitely the go to for that, it's kind of odd they didn't do that.
Nah. I feel that. I hate several fight sequences in Naruto because of how much talking/reaction happens during them. It's weird but, to look at Naruto vs Neji in the manga, it seems shot-for-shot, and I'd imagine that reading the thoughts of these characters amidst the action is neat, but when it's animated we go from an awesome flip or kick to... audience member explaining how the fight is progressing.
But I know it's not impossible for anime to make these sequences look cool - pretty much any fight Goku has in the movies, or Yusuke fighting Dr. Kamiya in Yu Yu Hakusho, or heck most fights in Fullmetal Alchemist in general look fine to me.
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!Most modern action shows have better pacing. Some fights even translate from manga to anime and are VASTLY improved by it, such as some fights in Jojo, ESPECIALLY King Crimson.
King Crimson is actually a great example of the opposite thing you were describing, Tobias. In manga, time is subjective, you can read as fast as you want and decide how much time passes between each panel. This means that reaction shots can all happen at the same time, but it also means that an ability to skip ahead in time in-universe is extremely hard to communicate because your brain will automatically fill in the movements between panels.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jan 2nd 2020 at 5:39:52 AM
So are they really doing the entirety of the Buu Saga with the Dragon Shortz animation.
Because that sounds f-cking ridiculous but I swear I read it here somewhere.
Edited by Soble on Jan 6th 2020 at 8:21:27 AM
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!Goku: Let's Go han, Gohome. It's almost time for Dikfast.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Lord Slug, but then again Lord Slug was just the best DBZA mov-WHAT!?!
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them."In the end, Freezer was cooler. And Cooler was Freezer."
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

It's far shorter due to just being a movie, but that's still a pretty long time.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.