Man, how much we can disagree? Should I dissect all the problems with your review or should I give you the quickie? Because pal, it really shows that your entire problem with Super boils down to one word: Nostalgia. Yeah, nostalgia, because all the problems you have with Super actually started with Z, yet you don\'t want to admit so. Super is flawed, yeah, but its flawed because Z was flawed as well.
- shrug* Even if that\'s true, Z being bad wouldn\'t make Super good. And I speak as someone who hasn\'t watched Z in years and hasn\'t watched Super at all, and so has no dog in this fight.
Plus, he doesn\'t talk about the ways in which Super is bad because it\'s not like Z. He talks about the ways in which Super is bad. From that perspective, your comment isn\'t very helpful and comes across as defensive and reflexive. I may not be some mythical impartial third party observer, but as someone without a dog in this fight I\'m sure a lot more sympathetic than him than to you after reading what you\'ve both written.
Thing is that the problems he brings up are problems that already existed in Z, people just didn't care that much back then.
So, you want the detailed version? Okay, here it is:
And it also helped expand the lore of the DB Universe by adding in new characters that explain how everything works, adding higher layers of hierarchy to the godly realm and also expanding the roles and evolution of some characters.
Highly disagree. In the movie, it didn't took long for Beerus to blow up the handle, meanwhile in the show not only it took longer for him to get really angry, but he also gave The Earth enough chances to be saved.
Save for the fact that said moments are also in Super. The only character whose moment was taken away was Jaco, but he has an entire Manga seriesto his name so it is no problem.
[[quotteblock]]Actually, Super goes the extra mile to make Gohan even shittier by having his only use be nearly kill himself trying to call Goku to the battlefield...[[/quoteblock]]
Actually, this moment shows, in a cleverly sneaky way, that Gohan is stronger in the anime, after all, in the movie Goten and Trunks were also needed to call Goku, yet in the anime Gohan did so alone.
Dude, Super happens in-between the death of Kid Buu and the last Tenkaichi Budokai of Z, there was no way for there to be any tension at all. That still doesn't mean that the fights were less fun, though.
Why?.
And this is a problem why...?.
Reminder that, by own admission, you didn't finish Super, so you don't know if its characterization improves or not.
But the thing is that this argument exactly shows why you didn't like Super: Because you prefered Toei's modified version over the Japanese original. Of course you didn't like Super, it was trying to be more faithful to Toriyama's original idea, not what Toei did in the amrican dub.
Why?.
Explanation, please.
Yet it does improve the longer you watch, with the fights against Zamasu, Anilaza, Hit and Toppo being fan-favorites, even among those that despise Super.
Oh yeah, because Red Panther with Mascara Goku was better, right?. Sometimes, less is more.
Which retcons? Why are they bad?.
Like in Z?.
So, are you really saying that a show that could be summed up as Goku Time because nobody else did anything meaningful is better than one where more characters than Goku, no matter if they were new or old ones, were given the spotlight? Okay...
\"Yeah, nostalgia, because all the problems you have with Super actually started with Z, yet you don\'t want to admit so. Super is flawed, yeah, but its flawed because Z was flawed as well.\"
Pffft, hahahahahahahahaha. Do I look like I enjoyed Z? The Saiyan Saga was cool... until Nappa arrived and proved everyone else but Goku sucked so hard they committed suicide attacks and couldn\'t even scratch the enemies. The Namek arc was fantastic... until the battle with Freeza started and made me question why I was wasting precious time of my life watching a 30+ episode battle for a single villain. Then the Android Saga happens and DB easily turns into one of the worst animes I have ever had the displeasure of seeing in my life.
Z was not good either, but Super manages to be even worse. I didn\'t think it was possible, but here we are.
Settle down, Dragon Ball fanboy.
As much as you accuse me of reviewing based on nostalgia, it\'s very clear you\'re the one defending a bad series out of nothing but worship for said series. These comments specially:
\"Reminder that, by own admission, you didn\'t finish Super, so you don\'t know if its characterization improves or not.\"
\"Yet it does improve the longer you watch, with the fights against Zamasu, Anilaza, Hit and Toppo being fan-favorites, even among those that despise Super.\"
So, let me get this straight: Bad characterization, pacing and storytelling for 87 episodes, a mark that surpasses GT by itself, is perfectly fine, but the fact that I didn\'t finish all 130+ episodes of this series makes my review for more than half of it invalid?
Okay, our discussion ends here, have a good day.
Dude, then how did you expect for Super to be better? After all, Super just continued on where Z left off. You were asking for the impossible.
Dude, this is called "increasing the stakes". Or what? Were you really expecting for the heroes to win without the assistance of Goku? That would have made both Nappa and Vegeta way too weak and pathetic.
Explanation needed. I cannot read your mind to know why you think this.
Same as above.
Things that I already explained why I disagree with.
Only because it was canceled earlier. Heck, this by itself makes it worse because it means that they cut out scenes and arcs that could have made GT even better (like Pan going Super Saiyan, to give but one example).
Yeah, because now you are judging an entire series before finishing it, ergo, you are basically judging an entire product ignoring any kind of improvements it could have had later down the line simply because you don't want to bother, tell me: How is this a fair review at all?.
\"How is this a fair review at all?\"
Because so far, there have been 5 arcs. The first 3 were terrible, the 4th one was surprisingly good, then the 5th one went straight back to garbage.
I didn\'t like how the setup was moved by sheer character stupidity, and I surely don\'t like the current set of episodes because the setup made me hate the characters with a passion, so I don\'t even care about what happens to them in the end.
Even if the Tournament of Power arc somehow turned out to be good in the end, it still wouldn\'t excuse how the first three arcs of the anime are inexcusably terrible.
\"Dude, then how did you expect for Super to be better? After all, Super just continued on where Z left off. You were asking for the impossible.\"
It\'s not impossible. The movies were excellent, despite being continuations of Z. Super is just bad.
Disagree with your first and third point.
Yet another sin that originated in Z. See how often the root of Super's problems lies in Z?.
Explanation? What was wrong with the setup? Why did you hate the characters?.
So what you are saying is that it is fair to ignore the last season? Okay...
However, both movies were an hour or so long, not enough to create an entire background for an anime. The lore needed to be expanded if an anime was to be made, there was no other option.
\"Explanation? What was wrong with the setup? Why did you hate the characters?.\"
Bergamo: \"Holy shit, I almost fixed this entire problem and you just had to blow it!\" Goku: \"I don\'t care, I can\'t wait to fight all of you guys in the multiverse and doom you all to cessation of existence, yay! :D\"
Nah, characterization is fine, nothing wrong here whatsoever. I can totally root for Goku and be sympathetic towards Universe 7... Oh wait, I can\'t.
Oh, but I know what you\'re gonna say next:
\"Yet another sin that originated in Z. See how often the root of Super\'s problems lies in Z?.\"
I will say this as nicely as possible: Z is not good, and Z being not good doesn\'t excuse Super being terrible when the movies it is based on are not.
In fact, this problem already existing in Z makes me think badly of both Z and Super, it doesn\'t make Super look better by comparison.
I honestly can\'t understand how someone can take one good look at the movies, then look back at Super, and say in all seriousness it doesn\'t have gigantic problems with characterization, pacing and storytelling.
You do know that Zeno-sama was already planning to eliminate all the weak Universes anyway, right? If anything, all Goku did was give them a fighting chance to survive. Heck, at the end we learn that the entire Tournament was a Test of Character Zeno-sama did to see how kind all Universes really were. If the winning Universe didn't as for a kind selfless wish (the revival of all Universes fallen during the Tournament) Zeno-sama would have erasen said Universe as well.
Love how you ignore everything I said about this point. I don't even want to repeat myself.
Maybe because I don't see said problems?.
\"You do know that Zeno-sama was already planning to eliminate all the weak Universes anyway, right?\"
And that excuses Goku and most of Universe 7 being unsympathetic characters who I stopped giving a damn about because...?
\"Maybe because I don\'t see said problems?\"
Yeah, that\'s the thing: you. Good thing each individual opinion is different. And mine is this: Super is as exciting as watching paint dry. From everything I watched, it had exactly one good arc. Comedic filler is also pretty good, but everything else is nigh unwatchable.
You\'re free to make your own review saying how Super is wonderful, though.
Because there was nothing Goku or the rest of Universe 7 could have done to avoid this. Heck, had they tried to reason with Zeno-sama, Universe 7 could have been deleted in an instant. Remember that Zeno-sama is basically a kid with the button for the Nukes on hand.
What else were you expecting?. I also wanna ask: What was your mentality when you watched Super? Were you already expcting it to suck? Or did you watch it with a neutral mentality? Because if it was the former then Super had no chance to get your attention.
\"What else were you expecting?. I also wanna ask: What was your mentality when you watched Super? Were you already expecting it to suck? Or did you watch it with a neutral mentality? Because if it was the former then Super had no chance to get your attention.\"
My mentality with just about any anime, including Dragon Ball, is this: I want to be entertained. If the anime fails to entertain me, it\'s a bad anime.
I don\'t care about the fandom\'s issues with \"the true vision of Akira Toriyama\" or \"the deviations of Toei\'s adaptations of the story\" or any of that. I\'m just watching to be entertained and that\'s all that matters to me.
If I find something to be good, then I think it\'s good. I can simultaneously adore Toriyama\'s characterization of Beerus while hating his characterization of Goku and vastly preferring Toei\'s version of Bardock.
Before I started watching Super, I had dropped Z during the Android Saga, which I didn\'t like either and felt it was the anime with the worst writing I had ever watched in my life. A friend then recommended me watching the Super Broly movie, which I did enjoy a lot.
I then started watching Super, without watching the movies it was based on, to get a clear vision of things. My initial impressions were not good. Super had turned out to be an extremely boring watch. The characters felt like they were being annoying for the sake of being annoying. The music felt lackluster. The animation was inconsistently bad. The stories were uninteresting. It was just a drag to watch.
It was only after watching the corresponding movies that I realized Super\'s problems were not with the stories per se, but with the way it executes said stories. The movies convey about 95% of the exact same story that Super conveys with much better pacing and characterization.
I found Movie!Beerus to be an absolute delight to watch while I found Anime!Beerus to be an atrociously annoying character. I also found Movie!Goku to be much more serious and tolerable than Anime!Goku. The numerous filler scenes with the Pilaf Gang in the Anime version also amount to absolutely nothing, whereas in the Movie, at last they established Mai\'s relationship with Trunks, something that didn\'t happen until the Zamasu arc.
It\'s only after watching the movies you realize Super has an evident big problem with pacing and character that makes the first three arcs inexcusable slogs to get through. I can respect if someone likes it the way it is, but for someone like me who\'s only looking for a good source of entertainment, Anime!Super doesn\'t cut it. It\'s slow, it\'s boring, it\'s repetitive and I feel more frustrated with its characters than having fun with them as I had with the movies.
Explanation. Why were all characters (besides Goku, because we already know what each other thinks of him) annoying?.
Agree to disagree.
The movies, alone, wouldn't be able to further develop the lore of Dragon Ball at all. The anime needed to expand upon what the movies already started to do.
Again, the version of Goku you like was a false one created by Toei, the real Goku from Z is not as different from the one seeing in Super.
And no, Super couldn't use Toei!Goku because not every localization had Goku be like that. His personality would look way out of place in the Latin American dub were Goku was dubbed closer to its original incarnation.
Talk for yourself. As you can see, I don't agree, at all. I loved to see Goku and co during peace time, it showed what they did that had no connection with saving the Universe, such scenes showed that they did have a life.
Again, it was trying to setup the characters as more than these punch-kick-and-energyball machines. Maybe the real problem is tha you simply don't like the slice-of-life genre, the genre Super was trying to introduce?.
\"The movies, alone, wouldn\'t be able to further develop the lore of Dragon Ball at all. The anime needed to expand upon what the movies already started to do.\"
The anime didn\'t need 15 episodes to convey the same events of a single movie, but did so anyway. Absolutely nothing in the anime version of the movies add anything the movies didn\'t add and better. Whether they wanted to expand the lore or not, the pacing they chose to go with was atrocious. Pure and simple.
\"Again, the version of Goku you like was a false one created by Toei, the real Goku from Z is not as different from the one seeing in Super.\"
...I love how you still think I care about \"what is the TRUE iteration of Goku.\" I don\'t share your Creator Worship and your love for canon. Goku in Super sucks. If your only defense for his atrocious characterization is \"But that\'s the true iteration\", then the true iteration always sucked to begin with.
\"Maybe the real problem is tha you simply don\'t like the slice-of-life genre, the genre Super was trying to introduce?\"
You mean the same genre the movies introduced and better? Okay.
\"Talk for yourself. As you can see, I don\'t agree, at all. I loved to see Goku and co during peace time, it showed what they did that had no connection with saving the Universe, such scenes showed that they did have a life.\"
Perfectly said, talk to yourself.
If I may intrude in this conversation a bit late....
[quote]Dude, this is called \"increasing the stakes\". Or what? Were you really expecting for the heroes to win without the assistance of Goku? That would have made both Nappa and Vegeta way too weak and pathetic. [quote]
I have personally been pissed with this as much as Alinho, so allow me to say: they could have found a middle ground and made the characters at least manage to hurt Nappa somewhat, weakening him until Goku arrived. Or better yet, have them manage to defeat Nappa using tactics and clever cunning, while Goku would have been the one facing Vegeta. Both options would have allowed to still make the two Sayians look like genuine threat while not giving the impression Goku is the only one who can do anything in that show.
This conversation is getting really long and unnecessary, and I have more important real-life matters to attend, like my job. So, one last thing before I go, because I think this is the biggest issue with our disagreements here:
I don\'t care about Toriyama\'s canon, the only thing I only care about is if the anime is entertaining enough.
Toriyama, just like any other human being on this Earth, is not perfect. I can love certain aspects of his writing while simultaneously hating other aspects of his writing. How he gives most characters exactly one arc of competency before they\'re mostly reduced to canon fodder, his treatment of Yamcha, the way he retconned Lunch out of existence, the way he wrote Vegeta post the Namek saga and the other characters\' leniency on his constant outbursts and death threats, how much time he spent building up Gohan to take Goku\'s torch, only to take it back immediately after, other than my aforementioned dislike for his writing during the Android Saga.
Goku\'s characterization is just another aspect of Toriyama\'s writing I dislike. It\'s something that makes the main character impossible to sympathize with and to root for. It\'s not just about Dragon Ball, but entertainment in general. To have a good story, you must have a character you must sympathize with. If you can\'t sympathize with the character, you stop caring about it. And if you stop caring about the character, you automatically stop caring about the story, because you don\'t care about what happens to said character anymore.
I am obviously not the only person in this world who thinks Super\'s characterization of Goku, and by extension Toriyama\'s, is obnoxiously unsympathetic and immature, given the numerous articles on numerous websites out there discussing this subject. Arguing that \"But that was Toriyama\'s true vision and canon version of Goku\" does not make me think the character is any less obnoxiously unsympathetic and immature, all it does is make me think Toriyama\'s characterization was always bad to begin with.
Again, I don\'t share your love for canon and your Creator Worship. Dragon Ball to me is just another piece of entertainment, I don\'t take it any more seriously than that. And as far as Super goes, I think it\'s bad. If I didn\'t think it was bad, I wouldn\'t have dropped it. And arguing \"You can\'t say it\'s bad because it gets better later on\" doesn\'t make me think all the painfully boring episodes I had to sit through up until this point were any less bad.
Of course, I know this is my review and opinions are very subjective. The very same episodes I found to be excruciatingly boring might be appreciated by someone else. I won\'t force anybody to agree with me. If you can find any happiness watching Super, I\'m glad for you. But as for me, the show did a terrible job and I can\'t see myself continuing based on what I\'ve already seen.
That being said, gotta go.
Just let it go. He never will. You’ll know in your heart who’s right.
^I concur. Now I see why it was definitely a waste of time to argue against him with Generator Rex. He just doesn't understand things like the difference between criticizing what the show tries to do and criticizing whether or not the show is internally consistent. And how you can't deflect criticism by bringing in other shows that the original criticism made no mention of. I can rebut these arguments without even having watched Dragon Ball Z or Super.
>"until the battle with Freeza started and made me question why I was wasting precious time of my life watching a 30+ episode battle for a single villain." "Explanation needed. I cannot read your mind to know why you think this."
the notion that he/she needs to explain this... lol
>Alinho Alison: Am starting to get bored of this so, unless you bring something good, this will be the last one:
Agree to disagree. I don't see how they could have improved the pacing of the anime without eliminating interesting points of trivia that were added in during those "slow-times".
[[quoteblock]] If your only defense for his atrocious characterization is "But that's the true iteration", then the true iteration always sucked to begin with.
Yeah, that is my excuse combined with the one I brought prior about Toei!Goku not being the same as canon!Goku means that, unless they decided to pull a redub of Dragon Ball in every other language using Toei's script as a basis, Super simply couldn't use said Goku for consistency sakes.
Yeah, I do mean the same genre that only was like 20%-30% of the entire run of both movies. If you really think the movies did it better then that just proves my point that you dislike the Slice-of-Life genre to begin with because the movies barely used said genre.
How was this wrong? Vegeta, slash that, nobody changes 180 from day to night, it was realistic to see Vegeta act as an asshole during Z because he was still in the process of change.
Thing is that Gohan being an scholar was always the idea. He is not Goku, he is a pacifist that dislikes fights. What he does during each period of peace is study. So Buu Saga Gohan is not Toriyama backpedalling on what he did prior, but instead the culmination of what Gohan was build up to be.
Those are my last points of contention with you. For the rest, we can agree to disagree.
> Theokal 3:
And I 100% agree with this viewpoint. I don't think Z is perfect at all (as seen with how I often say that most problems in Super started in Z). Maybe this could have been, indeed, a good way to keep the humans relevant.
>Recynon: Oh, so I see that somebody likes to hold grudges, eh? Okay...
Hmm, I would like to know why you think this is the case?.
Save for the fact that Z is not just any other show, but the prequel to Super so anything that Z did will have an impact upon Super's quality as well. Why should I ignore Z when reviewing Super?.
You are free to do so (but please, through P Ms because this page is getting quite long).
The notion that I can read his/her mind to know why exactly he/she thinks this of the Frieza fight... lol.
I already said it was a waste of time to debate with you and I\'m not going to make the same mistake again. Seeing as people pointed out the same flaws in your arguments here as I did before, I or anyone else can debate with you a thousand times on a thousand different shows and you still wouldn\'t see where you\'re wrong.Enjoy your overpowered center-of-the-universe protagonists
Let's fully ignore how I 100% agreed with Theokal 3 on that same comment, right?.
So are you admitting your rebuttal to Alinho Alisson's original point was just wrong?
No, why should I? I simply don\'t agree with him.
Because on that specific point you were dead wrong
And I was referring to your rebuttal for that point not his set of points.
On that one alone? Yeah, I was wrong. On the entire debate at hand? No, he hates Super, yet I find it pretty good. Not perfect, mind you, but I cannot give it anything lower than a 7.
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Mostly atrocious, incredibly boring and uncreative as hell... Mostly.
Before I start this review, I will say this: I haven't watched the entire series. I have watched up until episode 87, after which I have concluded this show was not worth continuing. I have heard comments that it gets better, but I don't want to wait another bunch of painfully mediocre episodes until I get there.
As for the previous 87 episodes, I can say without a shred of doubt this show is an absolute mess. It essentially takes the worst flaws of the franchise and amplifies them a million times fold. Let's start with an easy example: the pacing.
For some reason, Super thought it would be a great idea to take 2 self-contained movies and stretch the fuck out of them into two separate arcs of roughly 15 episodes each. The result was, predictably, a series of boring repetitive events that made virtually every single character more annoying.
But no, Super is not just content with stretching out two movies to hell, it makes them worse. In Battle of The Gods, Beerus was a perfectly likable and reasonable character. In Super, Beerus comes off as a petty asshole who keeps going back and forth between "I'mma do this, no wait I won't, yes I will, no wait I won't."
In Resurrection F, there are moments where other minor characters prove themselves useful. Those moments are absent from Super. Actually, Super goes the extra mile to make Gohan even shittier by having his only use be nearly kill himself trying to call Goku to the battlefield... I wish I was making this up. And after the retellings are over, it doesn't get much better from there.
The following arc is a tournament with another universe where there are no stakes or tension whatsoever, it kinda tries to bring back that old-school Dragon Ball feeling with fake ring-outs and joke characters, but fails hard. I couldn't find myself caring about any of the new characters, and most of it happened just the way I predicted. Overall, not interesting.
Now, the arc after that is admittedly a huge step-up. I love the Goku Black arc, it actually feels like a story is unfolding. There is mystery, emotion, stakes, character development, a compelling antagonist and other characters not named "Goku" or "Vegeta" being relevant and taking the spotlight for a change.
...But then, "Tournament of Power" happens and I can't find myself being able to finish this series. And now, I present perhaps the biggest problem of Dragon Ball Super: The characterization. And before someone comes to me and tells me "But Goku was always like that, the dub/anime made him more heroic", I don't care.
Goku is unbearably annoying in this show and nigh-impossible to root for. You can throw me all "It was always meant to be like that" you want, characters being annoying and plot being pushed forward by sheer character stupidity doesn't make it good or watchable. Why should I be watching a story about characters trying to save themselves if I don't like said characters and don't care about what happens to them?
This aspect alone makes most of Dragon Ball Super simply unwatchable. There is not enough compelling characterization or storytelling to save this show from being an absolute boring mess to watch. Adding to that, the animation is simply ugly, the transformations are uncreative as hell and boil down to simple hair color changes, and the retcons to justify Super's existence simply don't sit well with me.
"Oh look, here's some new characters and new gods that were never mentioned before, but we swear they were always present even before the franchise began!" Yeah, no.
There aren't many positive things I can say about Super, but I did like the Goku Black arc. And the comedic filler episodes like the Dr. Slump crossover, the gang playing baseball, Vegeta trying to cook for Whis and the other slice-of-life episodes are usually god-tier. But the rest? Ehhh. Music is generic, animation is supbar, battles are uninteresting, plot is usually an excuse setup and basically non-existent, characters are unlikable...
As much of a mess GT was, it was never this bad. I'll take another thousand episodes of GT before I ever have to sit down to watch another episode of Super.
Rating: 1.5/5