Animation Revelation Forum

I can't believe we've never had a thread for the best overall version of this story until now.

Anyways, I mainly wanted to continue with what I was doing with other series, and give my overall impression of this series by grading its individual arcs. I'll cover the entire manga (and keep in mind that my ratings reflect ONLY the MANGA versions of these arcs), of course, including the portion adapted into DBZ. Here goes:

Emperor Pilaf- 8/10 (A fun start to a fun story)

Turtle Hermit- 8/10 (This is one of the few great training arcs in any manga; with a real Karate Kid sort of vibe to it, only funnier; this also gets bonus points for being the arc that introduces Krillin as a character into the series)

Budokai Tenkaichi I- 9/10 (A classic tournament arc)

Red Ribbon Army- 10/10 (This is really a collection of smaller arcs, encompassing a large overarching story, including stuff like Goku's invasion of Muscle Tower, his ordeal with General Blue, his encounters with Mercenary Tao, and his complete one-man assault on the entire Red Ribbon Army HQ; the bottom-line, though, is that when viewing this as one-large arc, this is really Dragon Ball at its best; its the core essence of the series all in one, with all of the elements that Toriyama was best at conveying; if you name it, its in here, including great adventure, comedy, fights, and even some truly touching character moments, along with some memorable villains, such as Tao for being a legitimate threat, General Blue for being fucking hilarious, and General Red and his lackey for their quirky chemistry and how General Red's wish ultimately boils down to him wanting to be taller, rather than doing the obvious and using the Dragon Balls to rule the world; God I love this arc to death)

Fortuneteller Baba- 7/10 (Its an OK arc, and I give it bonus points for the touching scene where Goku meets his grandfather after so many years, but overall it had the unlucky spot of being right after one of the best arcs in the entire series)

Budokai Tenkaichi II- 10/10 (By far the best tournament arc in the series; and Goku's rivalry with Tenshinhan lead to one of the best fights in the entire series, IMO)

King Piccolo- 9/10 (The first arc in the series that was almost entirely serious, with the comedy being mostly underplayed throughout the arc; in that regard, it was surprisingly effective and really brought in a truly memorable villain for Goku to face; this was also the perfect arc to pretty much close out Goku's childhood, since it was the last time point in the series where we got to see him as a kid)

Budokai Tenkaichi III/Piccolo Jr.- 8/10 (This was a mostly good arc, but it felt a bit too centered around Goku's rivalry with Piccolo, and the other characters aside from Kami seemed to be shoved to the side, which unfortunately was a problem that only got worse in future arcs)

Saiyan Saga- 10/10 (This was easily the high point of Goku's adulthood story-lines, IMO; We had the drama ratcheted up to an all time high, with Goku getting killed off right in the beginning of the arc and having Gohan taken to be trained by his own rival and mortal enemy, Piccolo; the sheer desperation of the characters in this arc really kept it feeling both tense and exciting at all times, and what I love about this arc the most is that the battles with Raditz, Nappa, and finally Vegeta all HEAVILY relied on TEAMWORK; granted that, Goku killed Nappa on his own, but his friends were only able to stall him by working together and sacrificing most of their lives in the process, and when it came time to face Vegeta, Goku clearly would have died had Gohan and Krilling not turned back to help him; this arc also introduced King Kai as well, who is my favorite master for Goku)

Namek Saga- 9/10 (It really is a great arc on the whole, and it could've been a solid 10, but the final fight between Goku and Frieza ultimately drags it down for me; even so, everything up to that point is brilliant, from the first half of the arc where Gohan, Krillin, and Bulma have to lay low and try their best to survive on a planet full of enemies much stronger than any of them are, while Vegeta has to partake in sneaky tactics to work his way around Frieza and his men in an attempt to collect all of the Dragon Balls before he does; I mean, for an arc that's accused of being composed almost entirely of mindless action, there is A LOT of plotting going on that people often seem to forget about; The arc is great in how it forces Vegeta to ally himself with the good guys only out of sheer circumstances, and things are still great when Goku and Piccolo arrive; things are fine up until Goku Spirit Bombs the crap out of Frieza, and then he turns Super Saiyan, which is cool for a little bit, but gets old REALLY fast when his fight with Frieza just drags on for way too long, and that's ultimately this arcs major weakness, but other than that, its great)

Cell Saga: Overall- 6/10

OK, I will specifically divide this one up into 3 segments:

Part I: Android Segment- 8/10 (For all of the flak this arc gets, people seem to overlook the fact that it DID have a very strong start; I loved the whole initial concept of the arc, with Future Trunks coming to warn Goku and the others of a force so great that even they couldn't hope to stop it, and the stuff building up to Cell's reveal was kept mysterious in a great way; I also enjoyed Trunks learning to really detest his father at first, and it set up an interesting relationship between them, with Trunks both being repulsed by his father, but also wanting to gain his respect; the arc certainly did start out the right way, if nothing else)

Part II: Mission to Achieve Perfect Cell Segment- 4/10 (My God was this segment so boring; it could have been better, but it killed all of the build-up and just boiled down to boring fights, and having the characters act as stupid as possibly to prolong things as much as possible; this was my least favorite part of the ENTIRE Dragon Ball series)

Part III: Cell Games- 6/10 (The only reason I even gave this a 6 is because I like the ending of the arc; other than that, though, the fight between Goku and Cell is boring and dragged out, and the fight between Gohan and Cell doesn't really get good until AFTER Goku sacrifices his life to save the planet when Cell tries to self-destruct; the ending with the beam-struggle and Goku supporting his son by speaking to him through King Kai is actually one of my favorite moments in the entire series, though, which is the only thing that put this portion of the arc above a 5, for me)

Majin Buu- 8/10 (Alright, now let me just say that this arc is SO misrepresented in the anime; This arc was the PERFECT way to close out and send-off the entire Dragon Ball series....in the manga; it was basically an homage to the older arcs, from Emperor Pilaf to the Red Ribbon Army; the tone was comedic more often than you'd expect, and even when it was serious, there was still a lot of elements that gave you a sense of adventure as well as magic and mysticism akin to the older arcs of the series, rather than going with the sci-fi vibe of the rest of Goku's adulthood tales; overall this was a really fun arc and still felt big enough to be the conclusion to such an epic manga series)

Oh boy, this is going to take a while.

Emperor Pilaf- 8/10

I watched this arc so many times as a kid because it was the only thing Dragon Ball we got licensed. The manga is more or less the same so I'll just say that it's a fun adventure arc with some wacky comedy. A good start.

Turtle Hermit- 9/10

This is my favorite training arc in all of shonen manga and anime. It's funny, clever, and introduces one of my favorite characters. This is where the manga really comes into its own as a fun adventure series.

Budokai Tenkaichi I- 9/10

The follow-up to the training arc, I like this just as much. The only issue is that some fights are just plain filler, but the finale is excellent.

Red Ribbon Army- 10/10

It just gets better and better. This is basically a series of adventure vignettes tied together by a loose theme, but they are ALL excellent! Special points for the ending where Goku finally has enough of these guys and decides to stop them. Another great thing are the villains, they really stand out here.

Fortuneteller Baba- 6/10

Ummm, I'm sorry if this seems too low, but I really just don't like much of anything in this arc aside from Gohan. It's filler, and very safe and predictable filler.

Budokai Tenkaichi II- 10/10

While the last tournament was a bit shaky at times, this was great the whole way through. Krillin really came a long way since the manga's start and it was good to see him really put it up against Goku. Every fight here is pretty great. The finale is probably the best fight in Dragon Ball.

King Piccolo- 10/10

The first serious arc is pulled off exceptionally well by starting out on such a shocking note. Though considering what Goku does to the villain I'm talking about it kind of makes said character's death a bit of a head-scratcher considering the fight they had in the previous arc. I'll just go with 'he snuck up on him'. Otherwise, this is pretty great stuff all around.

Budokai Tenkaichi III/Piccolo Jr.- 8/10

A good ending arc that brought everything to a good end. Goku finally winning the tournament was a good capper, too. It's no surprise they wanted him to bring this back, there's barely a dull moment in Dragon Ball.

Saiyan Saga- 9/10

This was an excellent start to the adult series that introduced some fun characters and played around a bit with fighting styles. I wish there were more fights in the series like the Raditz and Nappa fight, though.

Namek Saga- 9/10

So close to being perfect, in my opinion. Had this been the ending point it would have been a 10, but making Frieza not only survive the epic final battle but make the new guy kill him in one hit is just... well, silly. Frieza issues aside, everything else about this is great space opera style action and would have been the perfect place to end it.

Cell Saga: Overall- 5/10

Part I: Android Segment- 7/10

Future Trunks is a cool character, the mystery element is played up well... but every character that isn't super saiyan (and Piccolo for like ten minutes) is essentially thrown in the trash. There are some good character moments here, but on an action level it isn't as good as what came before, but...

Part II: Mission to Achieve Perfect Cell Segment- 4/10

This was just boring. Some characters act stupid, others don't do anything. This felt like total padding.

Part III: Cell Games- 5/10

Point for having someone other than Goku do the clean up, but everything else was just silly. The "set-up" was just every character having their turn against Cell or having their butts kicked (thanks for that, Toriyama!) by ugly babies. Android 16's sacrifice and Gohan's win were the best parts of this otherwise very boring arc.

Majin Buu- 5/10

Yes, I can only judge this on the anime, but... yeah, I was pretty done by this point. No golden hair? Out to the trash with you. The best part was easily Mystic Gohan who got jobbed for Goku fanboys, and the Vegitto fusion was clever. Otherwise... Eh. This might have been better if this was made right after the Namek arc instead of after Cell when they made 90% of the characters useless.

Overall, I obviously prefer Dragon Ball, but the Z series has its high points too. I just wish he handled post-Namek WAY better than he did.

It seems like you and me pretty much agree with everything about the quality of each arc of the series, for the most part. As far as the Majin Buu arc goes, I do agree that it sucks in the anime at least, so I can't fault you for its low ranking if that's the version your basing your opinion off of. Either way, though, other than that I do pretty much agree with you about the quality of the other arcs in the story.

I think we can both agree that overall, the Red Ribbon Army arc was probably Dragon Ball at its absolute best, with just the perfect mix and balance between comedy, drama, adventure, and action. On that note, my personal favorite segment of that entire arc was the Mercenary Tao ordeal, including the portion involving Goku climbing Korin's Tower and attempting to retrieve the sacred water. That's honestly just as good of a training arc as the Turtle Hermit one was, but it has a lot of serious weight to it as well.

Yeah, the Red Ribbon Army was pure adventure and had all different kinds of events going on within it. The best part? Not a second of it dragged on.

Man, I can't believe there wasn't a thread for this manga before today! After the works of Tezuka, it's probably the most influential manga of all time, for better or worse.

STORY TIME: Without Dragonball I probably wouldn't be posting here. The franchise was the first one that I was a true "fan" of. And by that I mean an obsessed, avid fan. Before Dragonball I wasn't really into television shows, much less animation, or comics in a serious capacity. The story of how I discovered the Dragonball anime franchise and the long road that followed is a tale of mine best left to the anime thread, but in any case, the Dragonball manga was the first manga I ever picked up (not counting various Pokemon comics), starting at volume 8 of the series, and the first manga I bought as well, starting with volume 18 of the Z portion of the series.

Without Dragonball, it would be safe to say I wouldn't have gotten into anime, much less action-animation, much less be as much as a fan of animation and comics in general. I only watched Toonami more because of Dragonball , which led to me watching Cartoon Network and [adult swim] more. I only watched more anime and read more manga like One Piece and Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo because I wanted to discover more stories like Dragonball . I only watched shows like Justice League and Avatar: The Last Airbender because Dragonball changed my mind on the strengths of action-animation (as for comic book comics, er, I like more of 'em now, but mostly the more cartoonish style ones with more diverse stories with a good sense of humor. AKA not a lot of the mainstream Superhero comics I've tried to read, sorry  :P). Without the fact that FUNimation dubbed the series I wouldn't have discovered what "anime" even was (and to be honest, I don't care about "anime" more so much as I care about "good animated series that happen to be from Japan"  ;) ), much less have discovered the Colors TV FUNimation Channel block, which introduced me to a shitload of shows like Yu Yu Hakusho , Case Closed , The Slayers franchise, and several others. I only discovered Toonzone after looking up information on Dragonball Z: Wrath of the Dragon , and without Toonzone, I wouldn't have discovered stuff like That Guy with Glasses and Brawl in the Family, much less be posting here, right now. I owe a significant part of my life to Dragonball . It's influenced what I like, what I know about, what I do with my time, what I like doing with my time, the things I've discovered, several memorable experiences, the kind of people I've met and hung out with, and, most crucially, it's helped shape, influence, and define who I am as a person, what I want to be, who I'm am trying to be, as an inspiring creator, as a storyteller, artist.

Gratitude and nostalgia aren't really all that important as far as how much I love Dragonball itself, though, because I sincerely, truly love this series for being what it is. When I discovered it, it was the perfect kind of story. I wasn't into superhero stories as a kid, not just because at the time I found the concept too silly to be taken seriously, but because the artwork, general idea of good and evil morality, and emphasis on "seriousness" was off-putting to me. Dragonball was like a revelation that actually got me into action stories (which of course led me to enjoy superhero stories later on), more or less because at it's core it's just a fun mix of action-adventure, clever humor, beautifully drawn artwork and fight scenes, and enough seriousness and character development to make for one hell of a ride. What I liked about Goku as a protagonist is that while he's a hero, he doesn't really set out to be. Goku cares about right and wrong and doesn't want the world to get destroyed and see innocent and good people die, but typically, he usually fights for the sake of challenging himself with stronger opponents, which is why he's more than willing to put the world at risk several times during the Z portion of the series to satisfy his own personal reasons for fighting. Most other Dragonball characters are similar, in that they usually aren't goodie-two shoes, striving to be morally right and just heroes, but are still good people (well, Vegeta kinda isn't one until the Buu saga, but still), who, for whatever reasons, mange to save the world at the end of the day. The villains in Dragonball similarity appealed to me because they could vary from the comical (Pilaf) to the ungodly villainous (Freeza), but they are always entertaining (well...maybe not Cell and 19), and while they don't always have a lot of depth they also were able to be taken seriously enough to be considered a threat that Goku and co. must stop and overcome.

Match the characters and story to great, energetic art and... I don't need to tell you guys, you know. I just wanted to explain just how much I love this series, and for all I wrote I can write much, much more.  After 8.5 long years, it's still a big, personal favorite of mine and the single piece of fiction that has played the most influential, important role in my life. I consider it my second favorite manga, after Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, and for the kind of story it is, it's easily the best, and my favorite, and for all the things it's influenced in the shonen manga industry, nothing has topped it, not even One Piece (don't get me wrong, I love One Piece more than anyone else here. I just love Dragonball a wee bit more  :P).

So with all that out of the way, how do I feel about the individual arcs in the series? Hmm...

Emperor Pilaf - 8/10. As far as the manga goes, this may better be called "Search for the Dragon Balls," since, unlike the anime, Pilaf and his crew don't play a role until the very end of the arc. I prefer the anime adaption of the arc, enjoying it's minor changes that, I think, benefit the arc overall, but the manga version is still a TON of fun. It's the perfect introduction to the kind of whimsical, martial-arts adventure story that is Dragonball , with memorable moments a plenty. You can tell Toriyama wanted to keep the story as somewhat as a gag manga, at this point, because humor wise it's pretty similar to most of the Dr. Mashirito and other slightly more action-packed stories from Dr. Slump , but by the end, and I mean the very end, it definitely begins officially straying into a more distinct sense of humor and story than Dr. Slump , which would begin the path towards a more serious focus on the martial-arts/adventure portion of the story that makes Dragonball truly, distinctly Dragonball . In other words, it's a great beginning.  ;)

21st Budokai Tenka'ichi - 8.5/10. I don't consider the training with Master Roshi separate from the tournament, mainly because the thought of separating the two never occurred before because FUNimation always calls this the World Martial Arts Tournament saga and I'm used to that and whatnot. Anyway, this is another arc that I fid even more enjoyable because of the extra stuff added in the anime adaption, but obviously it's still really, really good here. The training with Master Roshi here is my favorite training arc portion of any anime or manga ever. The structure of the Budokai itself is more obvious but these are easily the most humorous set of fights in the three tournaments, Goku v. Giran and Krillain v. Jackie Chun being my personal favorites. Just a fun arc, through and through.

Red Ribbon Army - 10/10. The best arc in the manga, as it's the perfect combination of adventure, thrills, action, martial arts training, and memorable villains that make Dragonball as good as it is. Most of my favorite parts of Dragonball as a whole are in here, with Goku v. Colonel Silver, the entire escapade in the Pirate's Cove, Tao killing Blue with his tongue,
Goku training with Korin, Goku's battles with Tao, Goku storming the Red Ribbon Army base and totally wiping it out, and, as a less appreciated by some moment, Arale kicking the crap out of General Blue during the hilarious Dr.Slump crossover at the end of the General Blue portion of the series. This arc is the highlight of the entire manga, in my opinion, and I never tire of reading it.  ;D

Fortuneteller Baba - 9/10. Clever, funny fights, love the twists with Gohan and Pilaf, for a breather arc, it's one of the most entertaining there is!

22nd Budokai Tenka'ichi - 10/10. The best tournament arc in terms of story. Tenshinhan's moral struggle is great, the fights are great, Shen is a villain you love to hate, and Goku v. Tenshinhan is one of the best fights in the entire series. Just awesome stuff here, and a perfect lead into...

King Piccolo - 10/10. The first really serious arc in the story, and it shines. Master Roshi and Tenshinhan have great moments and character development here, and this arc is where both characters are truly at their best. High stakes make the losses incurred in this arc feel devastating, and Goku's confrontation with King Piccolo truly intense, more intense than the fight with Freeza, in my opinion. And Goku blowing a hole through King Piccolo's chest with the Super Dragon Fist is the single most badass moment in the series.

23rd Budokai Tenka'ichi - 8.5/10. A solid arc. Goku v. Piccolo Jr. is one of my favorite fights in the series. It's a nice finale for Goku's younger adventures.

Saiyan - 9/10. Teamwork-focused battles, high intensity drama, heat-wrenching emotional moments, and some of the most killer, energetic, intense fights in the series. Epic stuff all around.

Namek - 10/10 - Everything builds up and up into something truly fantastic, probably could have been a good ending point for the series as a whole (of course, if Toriyama had his way the manga would have ended as far back as the end of Pilaf). I never liked it much in the anime, but in the manga? It feels like the series was building to this, and everything pays off in the end.

Artificial Human - 7/10. This arc is all over the place. It can't keep a consistent focus on a major character all the way through, and while Gohan's character arc closure is nice and all, it feels like it comes out of nowhere considering he does nothing in the beginning and middle portions of the arc. Cell is also the least interesting major villain in the franchise, his motivation basically being "becoming complete, then proving I'm the best." I like Hercule, 16, 18 and Krillan, Piccolo's fusion with Kami, and even Cell to an extent before he became complete. But this is still easily the weakest story in all of Dragonball , and the point where Super Saiyans and power battles dominate the action to the most bothersome degree. My least favorite arc.

Majin Buu - 9.5/10. I honestly still like the anime version of the Buu arc. I didn't think it was taking things too seriously at all. Buu, the good one, was the most interesting villain in the series to me because for one thing, he didn't look like what you'd expect a powerful, murderous villain would look like and he acted like an innocent little kid. He's easily my favorite villain because of how he's so crazy powerful while all he's really doing is just dicking around with everyone and having fun the only way he knows (and was told) how. The later Buus are also cool, Super Buu is easily way more interesting in terms of personality than Cell ever was, and Kid Buu, a being who lives solely for the thrill of battle, feels like the perfect villain to end the series on, as a parallel to Goku's similar desire to fight strong opponents (this connection is why I think Goku wanted Kid Buu to be reincarnated as someone kind, as he is pretty much the perfect sparing partner for Goku aside from the fact he's perfectly insane and likes to blow things up for kicks). Anyway, a lot just works in this arc. This arc is the perfect closure for both Vegeta and Goku's character arcs and rivalry, and Goten and Trunks are very entertaining protagonists in their own right, and Hercule and Buu? The episodes in the anime where Hercule befriends Buu are the ones I've rewatched the most in the entire anime, and of course it's just as good in the manga and one of my personal favorite parts of the series. This arc brought the story back to it's roots, and some misteps aside (Gohan being pushed out of focus in favor of Goku works in the grand scheme of things, but feels sudden and rushed as it happens), it's a great ending to the series. I still don't care for the actual, actual end of the story, but I definitely think it works, and in a way, the idea that Goku is off somewhere with Uub, continually attempting to push his limits even further than they already are, is just so like him, so perfect for his character in terms of the whole story, that I can ignore my personal problems with it and enjoy it for what it represents. I think the Buu arc, both anime and manga, is pretty underrated, and overall I couldn't think of a more perfect story to close out the series than it. Toriyama, thank you. It was one hell of a ride, and I loved every second.  :cry:

Emperor Pilaf 8/10
21st Budokai Tenkaichi 9/10
Red Ribbon Army 9.5/10
Fortuneteller Baba 7.5/10
22nd Budokai Tenkaichi 9/10
King Piccolo 10/10
23rd Budokai Tenkaichi 8/10
Saiyan 9/10
Namek 9.5/10
Cell 7/10
Majin Buu 10/10

A new interview with Toriyama has surfaced. (http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/episode-bardock-akira-toriyama-super-qa/)

Most interesting Tidbits:

- Goku's mother is named Gine. She was once a member of a four-man team alongside Bardock, but because she was too gentle, she eventually ended up working at Planet Vegeta's meat distribution center instead. She will appear in the bonus chapter of the Jaco the Galactic Patrol Man volume that will be released in Japan in April.

- Freeza and King Cold are actually mutated life-forms. Even among their race, they are the only two with abnormal battle power and cruelty.

- Saiyans don't have a concept of family. Bardock and Gine's mutual caring relationship was special, but their family was never together. Vegeta's affections towards his family are also unusual, and in a way that makes him a stranger saiyan than Goku, who doesn't have a sense of family and sees them more as companions.

- In the event of another movie, Toriyama would like Vegeta to play the main role.

One thing's for sure, I really hope that Jaco the Galactic Patrolman volume gets released in the U.S. sometime soon. It is a prequel to Dragon Ball, after all.  :humhumhum:

I am also waiting for it as well. Considering I read that Jaco will be out in April in Japan... I can at least see it coming a couple of months later in America. Provided, I am vaguely remembering what Stephen Paul said over at Arlong Park about why it takes a little bit longer to get a physical manga copy released over here compared to the digital works of Viz's Weekly Shonen Jump.

But still, that is some interesting info. Provided Dragon Ball does open itself to plenty of fan interpretation, those are some pretty neat information about the Saiyan race and whatever the hell Freeza's race is.

 Viz will release Jaco the Galactic Patrolman in January 2015 (http://www.kanzenshuu.com/2014/03/04/viz-announces-english-jaco-galactic-patrolman-jan-2015/).

That seems like an oddly long wait considering the japanese release is next month. I would have thought for sure a fall release would have been feasible. Still, glad to know that Viz is releasing the volume at all anyways. It'll be worth the wait.

Since it's officially part of the manga's canon (I may be mistaken, but I believe that Toriyama confirmed that it was in an interview), I might as well add my rating for the movie:

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (7/10)- For what it is it was pretty entertaining, but it felt like it should have been a TV special rather than a full-length movie. I do like that it was actually trying to call-back to the original Dragon Ball by being mostly humorous (and feature Emperor Pilaf and company, no less), but the humor wasn't quite as tight as classic Dragon Ball, and if it really was trying to be an homage to the early years of the series, it should've been a fun adventure story, but then there was the part of it that was also trying to pay homage to DBZ, so we had the overpowered villain and the whole Super Saiyan God ordeal, and to be honest the combination of tones didn't quite mesh that well. Even so, what we got was still surprisingly watchable in a way that wasn't as engaging as Dragon Ball would be at its best, yet it was still undeniably entertaining to see. It's an OK movie, but if they ever do a sequel (which is unlikely, but who knows what could happen), they'd do better to pick a tone and stick with it.

 It turns out Toriyama doesn't like the Majin Buu arc. (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-03-31/toriyama/became-disinterested-in-fighting-manga-during-dragon-ball) He felt that the battle against Buu lasted so long and that it was too violent and repetitious, and he came to hate drawing it, which turned him off from trying to draw battle manga ever again. Well, I love the arc, but I can understand his reasoning. It also explains why every manga he drew since Dragon Ball was a gag or comedy-adventure series.

Besides, it's clear Toriyama's talent and passion was in gag manga. Dr. Slump is arguably more creative and unrestrained than Dragon Ball is. Dragon Ball itself didn't start out as a fighting manga, but more of an adventure-comedy. Toriyama was talented in how he can effortlessly create really fun and exciting fights, but I can see how it got boring for him to draw long battles and story arcs by the time he was working on the Buu saga, when it's clear he'd rather work on shorter-length stories with comedic character interactions.

The end of Namek was the best time to end it, honestly. I know a lot of people like Cell and Buu, but they have always felt extraneous to me. The Saiyan and Namek were one long story that had an end and the other two were self-contained and not much of value would have been lost without them.

But yeah, he has said that by Dragon Ball's end he had no desire to ever make a long running series again and it's amazing how long he has kept true to that word.

I find it funny that he says that about the Buu arc when that was far mor gag-oriented than any of the previous "adult" Goku arcs. He should've said that about the Cell saga instead.

Also, the Buu arc was shorter than Namek in the manga, and I still feel that it's problems mostly stemmed from the anime version.

I guess that's the reason he wrote it so comedic, because that was what he preferred to be writing instead of what he actually was writing.

But everyone already knows about how pushy Jump can be when they have a hit.

I still think that's what Bakuman was referencing in regard to the second arc of Death Note. I can totally believe that Ohba and Obata wanted to end things with the L arc, but ended up being forced to continue by the Jump editors due to the massive popularity of the series at the time. And keep in mind, this is coming from someone who actually still liked the second half of Death Note despite its problems. But still, I have to admit that the series would have been much better off with the same set-up of an ending, only with L in the place of Near, having defeated Light as I'm sure that Ohba probably would've preferred. But then along comes Jump to milk the series as much as they possibly could, and in that circumstance I think the duo really managed to make the best of a bad situation, but the drop in quality was still unavoidable.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 31, 2014, 04:53:51 PM
The end of Namek was the best time to end it, honestly. I know a lot of people like Cell and Buu, but they have always felt extraneous to me. The Saiyan and Namek were one long story that had an end and the other two were self-contained and not much of value would have been lost without them.

Well, if Toriyama had it his way,  the series would have ended after the first year of it's serialization (http://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/dragonballs/). After he decided to make the series into a more of a tournament-style format, drawing inspiration from the reader-reception to the Penguin Grand Prix races in Dr. Slump, the series started to become very popular, so naturally it was decided to continue the series for a while longer (though he didn't realize just how long that'd ultimately be  :lol:).

Anyway, my point is that Toriyama never really had a plan for Dragon Ball's story. He really just made it up as it went, so I personally don't feel that the Cell and Buu arcs are any more extraneous than any other parts in the series. Quite frankly, a lot of good stuff, especially Vegeta's character development, came from those parts, so I can't imagine the series without them, myself.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on March 31, 2014, 05:08:59 PM
Also, the Buu arc was shorter than Namek in the manga, and I still feel that it's problems mostly stemmed from the anime version.

The Buu arc is 99 chapters long. The Namek arc is 88 chapters. The Buu arc is longer.  :P

Is that also counting the pre-Namek stuff, or just when Bulma and crew land on Namek and on from that point?

Also, 11 chapters is like 3-episodes worth of difference in terms of length. You really can't say that it's THAT long compared to any other major arc of the series.

That's counting everything from after Vegeta leaves earth. The Namek arc comprises chapters 242-329 of the manga. The Buu arc is chapters 421-519.

And I did not make any suggestion that I consider the Buu arc to be significantly longer than the Namek arc. All I was pointing out was that it is longer, which is true.

Quote from: Cartoon X on March 31, 2014, 05:24:36 PM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 31, 2014, 04:53:51 PM
The end of Namek was the best time to end it, honestly. I know a lot of people like Cell and Buu, but they have always felt extraneous to me. The Saiyan and Namek were one long story that had an end and the other two were self-contained and not much of value would have been lost without them.

Well, if Toriyama had it his way,  the series would have ended after the first year of it's serialization (http://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/dragonballs/). After he decided to make the series into a more of a tournament-style format, drawing inspiration from the reader-reception to the Penguin Grand Prix races in Dr. Slump, the series started to become very popular, so naturally it was decided to continue the series for a while longer (though he didn't realize just how long that'd ultimately be  :lol:).

Anyway, my point is that Toriyama never really had a plan for Dragon Ball's story. He really just made it up as it went, so I personally don't feel that the Cell and Buu arcs are any more extraneous than any other parts in the series. Quite frankly, a lot of good stuff, especially Vegeta's character development, came from those parts, so I can't imagine the series without them, myself.

Well, he kind of had to have an idea for Namek when he started the Z half, since ending it at the end of the Saiyan arc would have left an untold number of holes and would have been rather lame. The point is that the story from Raditz's arrival to the Frieza's defeat is basically one long story that has a definitive end (Vegeta even gets a second chance at life, which is good enough for me, honestly) and with the appearance of the strongest warrior in the universe. As far as I'm concerned, it was a fine enough ending.

Cell and Buu are not really connected nearly as well as Saiyan and Namek are. Honestly, they could have cut Cell out entirely and the Buu arc still could have happened with slight adjustments. I'm not decrying their mere existence or anything, I'm only saying that they are simply not as well done as the first half of the series.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 31, 2014, 05:37:27 PM
Well, he kind of had to have an idea for Namek when he started the Z half, since ending it at the end of the Saiyan arc would have left an untold number of holes and would have been rather lame. 

No, not really. This article highlights some problems with assuming that. (http://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/saiyan/) There are many contradictions to the original motives and backstory of the saiyans that appear later on in the Namek arc that indicate Toriyama had not thought up of Freeza, his organization, or super saiyans and whatnot until he got closer to the end of the Saiyan arc. When Kami first showed up, Toriyama did get the idea that he and Piccolo would be aliens, but that doesn't necessarily mean he at the time was considering making an arc about visiting their homeworld. I agree the Saiyan and Namek arcs blend flawlessly, but that is more of a happy accident and stoke of good writing/ret-conning than actual planning on Toriyama's part.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on March 31, 2014, 05:37:27 PM
The point is that the story from Raditz's arrival to the Frieza's defeat is basically one long story that has a definitive end (Vegeta even gets a second chance at life, which is good enough for me, honestly) and with the appearance of the strongest warrior in the universe. As far as I'm concerned, it was a fine enough ending.

Cell and Buu are not really connected nearly as well as Saiyan and Namek are. Honestly, they could have cut Cell out entirely and the Buu arc still could have happened with slight adjustments. I'm not decrying their mere existence or anything, I'm only saying that they are simply not as well done as the first half of the series.

I can agree that they were not as well done as what came before, and that they operate more stand-alone than Saiyan and Namek did, but I still think a lot of value came from those arcs as well. I just don't think they can be considered extraneous because Dragon Ball was never a manga that was planned to go to one, specific ending, and Toriyama didn't plan to stop at the Namek arc in the first place. 

I didn't mean it was perfectly planned out, few stories are written that way, just that he saw it as an obvious end point when he came to it which is why the Frieza battle was played up like was (and unfortunately infected every other battle manga from that point forward) and the ending was framed out like it was. I don't think either Cell or Buu had that much put into them compared to the rest and don't think they offer nearly as much as the first half does. That said they're fine, but I'm never going to consider them as good as the first half. Which... makes sense, since Toriyama himself apparently didn't like them as much as the earlier stuff.

They're not manga-"Three Kings" level of awful, I just don't find them very interesting story-wise.

It's still debatable whether or not he ever was planning to end the series with the Namek arc, since he has never said a word supporting that assertion in interviews, and despite how climatic the ending of that arc feels and all the build up to the battle with Freeza, it's not like he was suddenly told by his editors he couldn't just stop the series when he was drawing the end of it or something, so he was probably already planning what he'd do for another arc by the final few chapters of the Namek arc.

And as far as ending points go...Toriyama was always saying he'd end the series "soon." As I said earlier, he originally wanted to end it in the first year. Then he wanted to end it after 10 volumes. And so on, and so on. The Namek arc was no more obvious an ending point to him than any of the previous or later arcs. He ultimately just kept drawing because he still felt like it, be it because of the fan support, the money, or some other incentive, and stopped when he jut couldn't do it anymore, and no one desired to force him to.

I still say Buu is underrated. Never cared for Android/Cell, though. Just read the Gotenks vs. Buu fight in the manga and tell me that it's not comical on the level of early Dragon Ball style gags. And all of the moments between Mr. Satan and Buu were hilarious. If you're judging the arc purely compared to Saiyan and Namek, no, it's not as good in terms of being plot or character-driven, but if that's the case than you're completely missing out on the "fun" of the arc. It was a clear attempt for Toriyama to return DB to it's early day roots while keeping some of the "action epic" elements of the later parts of the story in-tact. It wasn't by any means a perfect blend of the two, but it still ended up coming together better than Toriyama himself is willing to give it credit for, and IMO is certainly the most unique story arc in the series in a really good way. Needless to say I'm only referring to the manga version, here. I still don't care for how it was handled in the anime.

I'll always stand by my belief that Vegeta's character arc was perfectly finished in the Buu saga. I think he'd be a far less developed character without it. And Majin Buu himself I've always loved in concept, since his first form is completely unassuming of what you'd expect a powerful villain to be, and his motivation for doing what he does is not malicious, but simply because he didn't know he could do anything else because that was never an option for him. Mr. Satan and Buu becoming friends is still one of my favorite parts of all of Dragon Ball, and are the only parts of the anime that still hold up well for me to re-visit. The later Buus are just fun for being fucking insane, and I love insane characters. And of course, I love the return of the balance between action and humor in the series that had been missing since arguably the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. I personally find the type of gags used in the arc (especially in the Gotenks fight) feel more late-Dr. Slump than early Dragon Ball, but that's a really, really good thing and actually worked really well with the high-action spilling over from the previous arcs.

While I feel that the Namek arc is the highlight of the "Z" portion of the manga, I'll always stand by the Buu arc, and I'm glad it was made.

Toriyama has revealed some new facts about Androids 17 & 18. (http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/05/02/dragon-ball-creator-reveals-android-no-17-and-18s-names) What, you ask? Their names. #17's name is actually Lapis, and #18's is Lazuli. Weird names, but it's nice to know they actually have ones.

Also,

Quote
Toriyama also revealed that after the Cell arc No. 17 becomes a park ranger at a nature preserve. He's well suited to the work and shows no mercy to poachers! In this happy ending, he's well paid and married to a zoologist with two adopted children.

Well! I certainly didn't expect that.  :D

Quote from: Cartoon X on March 31, 2014, 04:46:52 PM
It turns out Toriyama doesn't like the Majin Buu arc. (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-03-31/toriyama/became-disinterested-in-fighting-manga-during-dragon-ball) He felt that the battle against Buu lasted so long and that it was too violent and repetitious, and he came to hate drawing it, which turned him off from trying to draw battle manga ever again. Well, I love the arc, but I can understand his reasoning. It also explains why every manga he drew since Dragon Ball was a gag or comedy-adventure series.

Besides, it's clear Toriyama's talent and passion was in gag manga. Dr. Slump is arguably more creative and unrestrained than Dragon Ball is. Dragon Ball itself didn't start out as a fighting manga, but more of an adventure-comedy. Toriyama was talented in how he can effortlessly create really fun and exciting fights, but I can see how it got boring for him to draw long battles and story arcs by the time he was working on the Buu saga, when it's clear he'd rather work on shorter-length stories with comedic character interactions.

Yep, the Buu saga sucks.

Quote from: Cartoon X on May 02, 2014, 06:06:08 PM
Toriyama has revealed some new facts about Androids 17 & 18. (http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/05/02/dragon-ball-creator-reveals-android-no-17-and-18s-names) What, you ask? Their names. #17's name is actually Lapis, and #18's is Lazuli. Weird names, but it's nice to know they actually have ones.

So... they're named after a gemstone? Makes as much sense as any other pun in this series.

So, I've started reading Dr. Slump, and currently managed to finish the first volume. It's enough to know that I'll probably enjoy this series, as it's classic Toriyama humor, and I just love his sense of humor. I rarely ever read pure comedy manga, but I've always found that there's nothing like Toriyama's gags. Too many other manga kind of feel like they are going with by-the-numbers jokes (something that Oda is really guilty of, lately), whereas others I just flat out don't find funny, either because it's badly written or it's just a cultural thing which I don't understand. Now, there are still plenty if stuff where I do enjoy the humor, like OHSHC, FMPF, and and the little that I've read of Excel Saga, among others, but there's just a certain quality to Toriyama's gags that just make them feel so memorable, and incredibly well-suited for comics over any other medium.

Anyways, I did notice a rabbit (or cat?) mask turn up in DS in one panel that looked remarkably similar to the one that Grandpa Gohan wore in DB. I just love little recurring details like that between different works from the same creator. It reminds me of that panel in Rurouni Kenshin where the Straw Hat Pirates logo shows up, before OP was even serialized; though, the one shot had already been out for a while, and in this case Oda worked as an assistant to Watsuki prior to OP's serialization (and this was also a case of 2 series by different creators, but it's still really neat).

Anyways, I've also been re-watching and re-reading my favorite bits from Dragon Ball. I just adore this series. I almost feel offended that it has been stuck with this "mindless action series" label that just really isn't true of the series at all. I really do wish that more people experienced this series via the manga first rather than the FUNimation dub (which is, and always was, awful, even though most of those VAs have improved tremendously over time). The series is really a brilliant comedy at first, and even when it does start to get more serious, it never feels like it takes itself too seriously to the point of losing its over-the-top charm. Sure, none of the serious story arcs are story-telling gold, but they aren't meant to be. They are kept engaging by presenting you with a very odd but unique tone, like something out of a superhero comic, except with Toriyama's spin on it with his sense of style and humor.

I often see this series getting compared to Avatar just because it was the most popular anime during that show's run, but I've always disagreed with the comparison, myself, because both series are incredibly different in terms of their tone and focus. Even comparing the more serious portions of the series, I just don't feel that they are similar, so the comparison is pretty moot. Now, would I say that Avatar is a better written story with deeper characters than DB. Absolutely. But DB was never meant to be that kind of series in the first place, and on a personal level, I enjoy it far more on re-watches because it was always more about delivering on the "moment-to-moment" entertainment value (whether it be gags or action), as opposed to being something that you could appreciate more when looking at the bigger picture (which is what I consider Avatar to be). In short, I could re-read or re-watch any select bit of any DB arc that I like, completely out of order, and still find it immensely enjoyable (which is what I've been doing, lately). With a series like Avatar, I'd need to re-watch it from start to finish to really enjoy it again, which is why I haven't gone back to it in quite some time.

Basically, though, I'm just trying to point out why DB appeals to me so much, even though there are technically much better written action shows and comedies out there. It's just the odd stand-out nature of the series, which can't possibly be replicated, which is really what keeps drawing me back to it. It's easily my 2nd favorite Jump manga (and could have easily been my favorite were it not for some of the weaker arcs).

Also, I found this video series that's doing a pretty damn well-done retrospective of Dragon Ball:

http://youtu.be/C6vtdSgKQF8

It's definitely worth a watch if you have the time for such lengthy videos.

Oh man, I almost forgot, but today's the 30th anniversary of Dragon Ball! :joy:

I would start re-reading today in celebration it if I could, but I don't have the time tonight. I definitely should do it sometime before the year is up, though. It's been a while.

happy birthday, db!

Happy 30th Birthday to the 2nd greatest Shonen Jump manga of all time!

I've already been re-reading and re-watching it in bits and pieces.

i need to watch the anime. i've been planning to since the beginning of this year.

A few years ago, I started reading the manga all the way through, but I only got up to the 80's for whatever reason. Now seems like a good time to start again, and I'm thinking of saving some money aside to collect it all.

You should probably go for the Viz Big editions in order to save some money.

I've also wanted to collect the Dragon Ball Z Full Color volumes, myself.

One day, when I have the money, I will collect the entire series.

Anyways, the manga is excellent. I know I said that I prefer the first anime for Dragon Ball, but over time it has changed to me appreciating the thoughtful content of the first anime, yet I ultimately prefer the manga on the whole for its seamless pacing and excellent artwork, which has a liveliness to it that Toei's limited animation simply wasn't sophisticated enough to capture.

I finished collecting the entire series in Viz Big editions earlier this year, myself. I also still have normal volumes of the series - the first Dragon Ball volume and volumes 17-26 of Dragon Ball Z. Fun fact: DBZ volume 18 was the very first ever volume of manga I ever bought, back in the March of 2005. I remember being confused reading parts of it because I wasn't used to reading unflipped manga back then. Ah...fond memories. Dragon Ball has given me so, so many fond memories...

I'm not really interested in collecting the Full Color editions, myself, mostly because I prefer manga in black and white, outside of a few exceptions (part 6 of JoJo's, for example, looks incredible in color). I have read the first few volumes of it, though, and they look solid, but at the same time I did feel something was lost in the digital coloring process from the original, but maybe that's just me being biased.

While I do still like the first anime, a lot of it for sentimental reasons, a lot of it because it does hold up as a fine adaption, there is definitely a cheapness to it that really weakens it and makes it feel less lively and energetic compared to the manga. The first Dr. Slump anime is the same way, though worse, since by slowing down the pace of that series Toei weakened the effect of a lot of it's humor. The Dragon Ball anime, in contrast, still managed to preserve the spirit of the show despite it's limitations, and even went out of the way to try and flesh out parts of it, much to great effect, which is why I still appreciate it, and why it's still one of my top favorite anime.

I love the Dragon Ball anime (I really don't like Z, though), and the filler is actually mostly great, but I just always end up going back to the manga as my preferred version because of the gorgeous artwork and style which I feel that Toei could never quite capture with their budget animation.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 20, 2014, 10:36:29 PM
You should probably go for the Viz Big editions in order to save some money.

Yeah, that's the plan!

I think I'll get all of DB's first, then go for Kenshin's, since I've read all of the latter, but I have yet to fully experience DB in its original form.

read samurai executioner.

Oh, and on the subject of Dragon Ball Z in full color, while I agree with CX that the original art was perfect the way that it was, I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment that it loses something but doesn't add anything when published in color. Rather, it has a different, novel quality to it entirely, and one that I find to be very appealing in its own right.

It's sort of like a really well-done blend between the style of manga and Western superhero comics, which I find to be appropriate if only because the later parts of DB, while unquestionably very Japanese in execution, always had a quality to it that did often remind me of something I'd find in a silver age superhero comic rather than a typical shonen manga. I specifically mean more of the Sci-Fi elements, including how parts of Goku's backstory feel similar to Superman's (while still being its own thing entirely), the heroes fighting an Alien overlord on an exotic planet far outside the confines of their own galaxy, a plotline involving a hero from an alternate timeline teaming up with the main group to take down artificial humans and a bioengineered life form created by an old enemy. This is stuff that you just don't see in any other manga that I can think of, and if you were to just describe it to me without me actually ever having even heard of Dragon Ball before, I would think that you were talking about a comic book rather than a manga. Of course, in execution, it's unquestionably nothing like a superhero comic book, but some of that vibe is still there, and seeing the manga in full color kind of brings that out a bit more, and I just kind of like that for some reason. I'd honestly own both the original black and white version if I had the money (I'm really a massive Dragon Ball fan, so it'd be worth it for me) but right now I can't afford either, so it's a moot point, anyways.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, CX, I know that none of that stuff was ever Akira Toriyama's intent. I've read as much in some of his interviews, and if anything American ever influenced his work, it was classic Sci-Fi films rather than any comic book. My basic point being that, regardless of what his intentions were, it still came off to me the way that I described above. So there's no need to "correct" me on that bit. :humhumhum:

Well, who knows, maybe he was inspired by some western superhero comics. He was at least familiar with them. I mean...

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.narbonic.com%2Fslump_suppa1.jpg&hash=fb128f23ac5f148164c34fcbd1e492a7fa76947f)

...is a major recurring character in Dr. Slump, after all.  :D

He also had a cameo in the Penguin Village arc of Dragon Ball, as well.

That said, from what I've gathered from interviews, Toriyama didn't consider himself to take a substantial amount of influence from superheroes, but I could be wrong as I'm thinking of some stuff that I read a few years back.

Fun (Unrelated) Fact: Nobuhiro Watsuki actually did take some influence from American Comic Books. I'm pretty sure I've already said this multiple times before, but Aoshi's costume design was directly modeled after Gambit's iconic coat, and Yatsume's mask was designed to resemble Venom's head.

i was going to mention watsuki. i had no clue aoshi's design was based off of gambit's. he is a big fan of jim lee. i believe kujiranami is supposed to look like apocalypse and otowa appears to be a combo of the joker and mr. sinister to me. also, the turtles straight up have cameos in early chapters.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 22, 2014, 12:48:03 PM
He also had a cameo in the Penguin Village arc of Dragon Ball, as well.

That said, from what I've gathered from interviews, Toriyama didn't consider himself to take a substantial amount of influence from superheroes, but I could be wrong as I'm thinking of some stuff that I read a few years back.

He cameoed in that arc because he is one of the main characters in the series and Toriyama had all the main characters make brief cameos in it. But in general Toriyama loved the Suppaman character. Originally he was the antagonist of a one-shot he did and he later wanted to make a series around him, but his editor shot it down, so he later ended up incorporating him into Dr. Slump instead.

He certainly didn't take a huge amount of influence from superhero comics, but he must have read some or watched film adaptions of them, so I'm sure some elements from them could have seeped into his work. Of course he's admitted to not being much of a manga or anime reader/viewer in general, and mostly was just inspired by television and movies, primarily of the sci-fi and martial-arts/action variety.

I know that he's a fan of Alien, among other films. I do distinctly remember him stating that in one of his old interviews, claiming that it was one of his early influences, and Freeza's 3rd form was also clearly paying tribute to the general design of a Xenomorph.

Personally I think that it's really cool when writers take influence from the works that they love from their childhood, not just from their own country, but from others as well. It makes their own indifividual works come off feeling more dynamic and unique. I think that's why I'm personally more attracted to series like Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Rurouni Kenshin, and various other classic shonen series from the 70's to 90's than I am to most modern shonen that I try to get into. That doesn't mean that the influences aren't there, but I can't help but feel that a lot of modern mangaka (not all, but still a fair number) seem to take most of their influence just from other manga, video games, and exclusively Japanese products, which isn't by any means a bad thing in and of itself, but a lot of their series tend to feel a bit less dynamic to me, personally.

For instance, I like Kuroko no Basket on the whole, but when you compare it to Slam Dunk, where Takehiko took WAY more influence in his work than just manga, you can see which series is clearly the stronger for it. Either that, or I'm just too biased, but that's about how I feel.

Also, what I said applies to Western series as well, of course.

Also, while we're on the subject of writers and their foreign influences:

Eichiro Oda- A huge fan of early Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino, and I would argue that you could probably see a tiny bit of the former's influence in his work, but not really any of the latter.

Osamu Tezuka- Was heavily influenced by the early works of Walt Disney (but that one was obvious).

Hirohiko Araki- A huge fan of Western music, with many references to his favorite songs, albums, and artists dispersed throughout his work.

I know that I'm missing plenty, but that's just what I can say off the top of my head. Does anyone have any to add to this list?

I figured that I'd just rank the arcs inthe series in order of my least favorite to my favorite.

12. Cell
11. Fortuneteller Baba
10. 23rd Budokai Tenkaichi
9. Emperor Pilaf
8. Turtle Hermit Training
7. Majin Buu
6. 21st Budokai Tenkaichi
5. 22nd Budokai Tenkaichi
4. King Piccolo
3. Namek
2. Saiyan
1. Red Ribbon Army

For me, it's:

11. Artificial Human
10. Emperor Pilaf
9. Fortuneteller Baba
8. 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai
7. 21st Tenkaichi Budokai (I do not consider the training with Master Roshi as a separate arc)
6. King Piccolo
5. 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai
4. Majin Buu
3. Saiyan
2. Red Ribbon Army
1. Namek

I should point out that, for such a long series, it holds a great distinction of not having any downright bad story arcs, so long as we're talking about the manga. The Cell Saga is lackluster more than it is bad, and even that arc has its highlights, like the mystery elements in the first third, and Future Trunks, who is an awesome character and has arguably one of the coolest introduction scenes of any character in any manga that I've ever read.

Everything else ranges from good to great. And yes, the Majin Buu arc is great in the manga.

12. Cell
11. Fortuneteller Baba
10. Majin Buu
9. 23rd Budokai Tenkaichi
8. Emperor Pilaf
7. Turtle Hermit Training
6. 21st Budokai Tenkaichi
5. Saiyan
4. 22nd Budokai Tenkaichi
3. Namek
2. Red Ribbon Army
1. King Piccolo

Hard to choose, but a lot of great stuff.

BTW, Were you guys aware that we're in the minority on not caring for the Cell Saga all that much? The general DB fan base actually considers it to be one of the best arcs in the series. Mind you, most of see people are bigger fans of DBZ than they are of DB's early arcs, but even then, I've seen plenty of people who claim that it's the best arc in the series, even better than Namek, which personally I'll never be able to understand.

I liked portions of the Cell saga. Future Trunks, Cell's first form, Gohan saving the day, the android stuff, and especially 16. But I don't really like where any of it ended up.

The first third of the Cell Saga (like, before Cell was actually revealed), was actually quite good. Tying it back with the RRA arc (my favorite arc in the series) was cool, the Androids were very unique villains who were both legitimately threatening AND also a ton of fun to watch, Future Trunks was an interesting new character and brought both the concepts of time travel and alternate Universes into the series (which are VERY comic book-esque plots) and the mystery element building up to Cell's reveal were actually really intriguing. On top of that, Cell was actually a very interesting villain at first with a lot of potential.

....Unfortunately that potential was completely wasted as he just boiled down to a villain who wanted to beat everyone else just to prove that he was the strongest. The only people who could even stand a chance against him were Super Saiyans, and the fights themselves just felt boring and dragged out. To me, the only saving graces past the first third were Android 16, Mr. Satan, Piccolo fusing with Kami in a genuinely sentimental moment, that one scene where Tien (an actual human character) manages to risk his life to successfully hold off Cell, and the ending where Gohan kills Cell in place of Goku (and Vegeta helps). Everything else was just so fucking boring and tedious to read (or watch).

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on December 24, 2014, 03:28:13 PM
BTW, Were you guys aware that we're in the minority on not caring for the Cell Saga all that much? The general DB fan base actually considers it to be one of the best arcs in the series.

...You mean to say you weren't aware of that until recently?  :P

Anyways, the part of the Cell Saga that doesn't work for me is the last third. Cell was interesting in his imperfect form, where he had to use guile and trickery to evade the heroes until he was strong enough to fight them head on and absorb the androids, and then later to exploit Vegeta's ego to let him achieve his perfect form. But once he becomes Perfect Cell...that's it. He had no motivation beyond achieving his final form. So while I can believe he might have wanted to test his power, he just had no reason to want to destroy the earth/conquer the galaxy/whatever that vague threat that was somehow written about him came to be. And that, and the fact he pretty much loses any personality beyond acting like Freeza 2.0 except less effective, just made him uninteresting. Not to mention that the premise of the Cell Games was a complete waste of time. The only characters who could fight Cell were Goku and Gohan anyway. It was basically a set-up for the sake of writing a way for the characters to meet and fight in a not random way. The only thing that comes out of it was the introduction of Mr. Satan, and even then, that could've probably have been done in some other way. Also, I'm sorry, but Gohan suddenly becoming the hero at the last minute does not work as well as it should have. It was only set up in maybe two scenes within like 20 chapters before the reveal when Gohan was otherwise minimally involved in the arc up until that point and hadn't even met Cell until the day of the Cell Game. There were good moments to the final battle, and Android 16's sacrifice and Gohan's transformation into SS2 is one of the best scenes in the series, but the whole thing feels thrown in at the last minute just to get the arc to a conclusion. The Cell saga has a lot of writing moments like that, where things go in one direction but then swerve for no reason in another. Buu was like that too, but with Buu, partially because Toriyama wasn't taking the story too seriously, it worked out pretty well for the most part to the point only the fact Gohan was subbed for Goku as the hero of the arc in the last third is noticeable as something not being planned beforehand. With the arc, the points where Toriyama just changed things up at the last minute come across at lot more obvious, imo, and that doesn't do it any favors. I still like the Cell arc overall, but it's just the weakest put together and Perfect Cell is a plain and disappointing villain who's only redeeming qualities are his iconic voice and design, and that's why it's my least favorite overall.

I'm not saying I liked the way Gohan was set up to save the day. Heavens, no. That was some of the worst stuff in the arc that got him to that point.

I just like the fact that he was the one to do it.

Actually, as someone who doesn't like DBZ as an anime, to its one credit it managed to improve on the Cell arc in 2 small ways. One was about how Gohan was the one to defeat Cell. There were a lot of added scenes and filler in the anime that effectively foreshadowed that Gohan would undergo a massive increase in power, and also hinted that Goku himself was realizing Gohan's untapped potential as they were training together. It felt less out of left-field than it did in the manga, IMO.

The other minor improvement is how Goku is actually portrayed negatively in having forced this burden on his son so suddenly in the first place. In the manga he's basically telling his own kid out of nowhere that now he has to save the world on a moment's notice, and that he has to fight an opponent on a level that is way above anything that he had ever even come close to facing before. In the anime Piccolo actually scolds and criticizes Goku for this (which is so appropriate considering his relationship with Gohan), and as I recall, Goku even shows some regret at this decision in a "what have I done?" sort of way at the point that Gohan is getting his ass kicked.

Of course, the anime being Toei's usual fair manages to screw up a lot of other things, so it doesn't really make the arc any better in the long-run, but since you brought up that criticism, I just thought that it'd be fair to point out the one thing that Toei's adaptation did right.

Another thing I wasn't a fan of is that the Cell Saga was so focused on one on one fights (for obvious reasons, but still) to the detriment of said fights. They were all pretty much the same thing over and over.

Nothing like Raditz Vs. Goku and Piccolo; Nappa Vs. Gohan, Tien, Piccolo, and Krillin; Vegeta Vs. Goku, Gohan, Yajirobe, and Krillin; or The Ginyu Force Vs. Vegeta, Gohan, Krillin, and Goku. It says a lot, but those are basically my favorite fights in the Z half of the series.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on December 24, 2014, 10:27:50 PMI'm not saying I liked the way Gohan was set up to save the day. Heavens, no. That was some of the worst stuff in the arc that got him to that point.

I just like the fact that he was the one to do it.

While there was really no set-up for it inthe manga, it doesn't really bother me as much as you guys.

Toriyama is the king of doing things out of left-field.

Need I remind anyone of how he basically reveals that Goku is an alien mid-way into the manga, and that he has an evil brother, and that he comes from a race of warriors who worked for a galactic overlord. Before he destroyed their planet? There were no hints or clues to this at any point earlier in the series because quite frankly Toriyama hadn't thought of it yet. It was just another new story idea when the time came for it, with no build-up whatsoever. And surprisingly....it worked. Just chalk it up to good execution, I guess.

Anyways, my point being that, compared to that, I can hardly complain about something like Gohan surpassing his father, especially since it was at least established (or hinted at) back in the Saiyan arc that his potential was greater that of most pure-blood Saiyans, and that he could surpass his father when he actually overshot his power level at that time to deal a single major blow to Nappa. If we're talking about Deus Ex Machina with Gohan, then it happened way before the Cell arc.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on December 24, 2014, 10:36:10 PM
The other minor improvement is how Goku is actually portrayed negatively in having forced this burden on his son so suddenly in the first place. In the manga he's basically telling his own kid out of nowhere that now he has to save the world on a moment's notice, and that he has to fight an opponent on a level that is way above anything that he had ever even come close to facing before. In the anime Piccolo actually scolds and criticizes Goku for this (which is so appropriate considering his relationship with Gohan), and as I recall, Goku even shows some regret at this decision in a "what have I done?" sort of way at the point that Gohan is getting his ass kicked.

...This scene was also in the manga.

Honestly, I don't remember that arc in the manga too well, but perhaps I just liked the delivery of it better in the anime (one of the rare cases of that). Either way, my point about the filler and Gohan's limitless potential being pre-established still stand.

Top 10 Fights:

10. Gotenks vs. Buu (So underrated; great use of comedy)
9. Goku vs. Tao Pai Pai (all fights)
8. Goku vs. Murasaki
7. Vegeta vs. Freeza
6. Goku vs. King Piccolo
5. Goku vs. Jackie Chun (Master Roshi)
4. Gohan/Krillin/Vegeta vs. Ginyu Force
3. Goku vs. Freeza (pre-SSJ)
2. Goku/Gohan/Krillin/Yajirobe vs. Vegeta
1. Goku vs. Tenshinhan

Honorable Mention: Goku vs. Gohan Sr.

No real surprises, here. Gotenks vs. Buu is my favorite fight from that arc thanks to the excellent use of comedy (even more so than Vegetto vs. Super Buu, IMO). Tao Pai Pai serves as a classic because of how it's the first time some one dies because Goku isn't strong enough. Vegeta fighting Freeza is a really great development for his character because of how one-sided his defeat is. The rest are just classics, IMO. Goku's clash with Tenshinhan is the perfect combination of comedy, strategy, and character development. It has always been and still remains to be the most entertaining fight in the series, to me.

Nice list! Mine would be:

10. Vegeta, Trunks, and Goten vs. Majin Buu
9. Gohan vs. Cell
8. Goku, Vegeta, Mr. Satan, and Majin Buu vs. Kid Buu
7. Goku vs. "Jackie Chun" (Master Roshi)
6. Goku vs. King Piccolo (rematch)
5. Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Tenshinhan, and Chiaotzu vs. Nappa
4. Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, and Krillin vs. Freeza
3. Goku, Gohan, Krillin, and Yajirobe vs. Vegeta
2. Goku vs. Piccolo
1. Goku vs. Tenshinhan

Great list. Dragon Ball has so many great and classic fights that pretty much any of the stuff on your list that weren't featured on mine were stuff which I still remembered and considered putting on mine.

Probably the only questionable choices on my list are Gotenks vs. Buu and Goku vs. Murasaki, but I already explained the previous one, and Goku's "fight" with Murasaki is one of the most genuinely hilarious uses of slapstick that I've ever seen in a manga. It's brilliant, IMO.

The Gotenks and Murasaki fights are both great. Easily two of the funniest comedy-based fights in not just DB itself, but in a battle-shonen manga in general.

10. Gohan Vs. Super Buu
9. Goku Vs. Krillin
8. Vegito Vs. Super Buu
7. Goku Vs. Jackie Chun
6. Nappa Vs. Gohan, Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu, Piccolo, and Krillin
5. Vegeta Vs. Goku, Gohan, Yajirobe, and Krillin
4. Goku vs. King Piccolo
3. The Ginyu Force Vs. Vegeta, Gohan, Krillin, and Goku
2. Freeza Vs. Goku, Piccolo, Vegeta, Gohan, and Krillin (problems in the anime version aside)
1. Goku Vs. Tenshinhan

Great stuff, Desen! :thumbup:

Goku vs. Krillin just narrowly missed my list.

I was originally going to put Vegeito vs. Super Buu on my list as well, and the manga version of that fight was also played up to some good comedic moments. Upon looking back on it, though, I found Gotenks vs. Buu to be the better fusion battle in that regard because of how perfect the comedic timing was, but most people seem to forget about it which is why I find it to be so underrated. I feel like the anime was really off with the spot-on timing required to make much of the humor actually work.

Nice list, Spark! Goku vs. Krillin narrowly missed my own list, and Gohan v. Super Buu was a great moment of badass on Gohan's part (before Buu absorbed Gotenks and Piccolo and turned the tables, of course).

Quote from: Cartoon X on March 24, 2015, 12:29:50 PMGohan vs. Krillin narrowly missed my own list

When did this happen? :thinkin:

Typos happen.  :bleh:

You know, the funny thing is that Gohan made a better best-friend to Krillin than Goku did, IMO. I mean, they were pretty tight in the early DB arcs, but after one of Piccolo's minions kills Krillin and he's resurrected later, he and Goku don't have quite the same chemistry between them, and don't even interact that much.

In the Saiyan and Namek arcs, you really get a good sense of Gohan and Krillin working together, since neither of them are incredibly strong compared to their enemies by that point in the series, and if anything Krillin has way more experience and sort of acts like a guide for Gohan while Piccolo isn't around.

I think that's largely a consequence of Goku doing stuff away from the bulk of the other characters in most later arcs. The characters he mostly frequented interacted with in the Z half tended to be Gohan, Piccolo, and Vegeta, with all the other characters just not being around him much most of the time. I agree I saw a stronger friendship bond between Gohan and Krillin than I do with Goku and Krillin. I felt Piccolo sort of become more of a best friend figure to Goku during the Android and Buu arcs, and by the end of the series (and in post-Buu arc placed canon anime material like the 2008 special and BOG), Vegeta seemed to take his place as that too.

Krillin and Gohan were a great team up to the end of Namek. That's one of the casualties of the whole "Super Saiyan only" mentality of Cell and onward was that we didn't get to see them team up anymore. Their friendship seemed like an extension of the one Goku and Krillin had before King Piccolo showed up, and gave him the guts to finally step out of Goku's shadow and become a worthy fighter in his own right.

On the plus, he's apparently the strongest human in the universe at the end of the series, but when you have all sorts of aliens completely outclassing him, it takes the wind out of the sails a bit. At least he didn't up forgotten like most of the characters from the old series did.

Well, technically Android 18 is the strongest Earthling by the end of the series, but just talking about pure humans, Krillin is definitely the strongest among them.

So, after waiting for over half a year, EmSee Squared has finally uploaded part 3 of his Dragon Ball Retrospective:

http://youtu.be/sRDT00Ehq2Y

I enjoy this series, even if I already know most of what he covers. It's just interesting to see the series covered from another fan's perspective, and you can tell that he puts a lot of effort into these videos.

I'm so glad that he brought a lot of attention to the Murasaki fight, as it's one of the funniest parts of the series, and I also like how he's been covering the filler, both in terms of what it does wrong but also what it gets right and why it's still so enjoyable.

I'm also glad that he's splitting the Red Ribbon Army arc (my favorite in the series) into multiple parts, as it's really massive in terms of both length and scope, yet deserves a thorough look through as every aspect of it is great.

Apparently Torashima thinks that the series should've ended with the Namek arc. (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2015-06-04/dragon-ball-manga-editor-series-should-have-ended-after-frieza/.88918)

He's always been vocal about how much he hates the Android arc, so that's not really much of a surprise.  :il_hahaha:

Well, I can certainly understand not liking the Cell stuff, myself, but I still hold the opinion that the Majin Buu arc was great in the manga, and the perfect final arc for the original run of the series.

Torashima doesn't hate Cell so much as he hates the Androids. 19, 20, 17, 18, & 16 - it's been on record that he chastised Toriyama for making them the villains, which is why Toriyama came up with Cell, who he found more acceptable.  :D

Oddly enough, I prefer the androids to Cell, myself. That arc was shaping up to be much more interesting than it ended up being once Cell finally appeared. Androids 16, 17, and 18 were a fun trio with very unique attitudes and weren't completely evil (they were bad guys, but mostly just wanted to enjoy their freedom and have fun....at the expense of innocent lives), but then Cell comes in and he's such a boring villain with such a boring motivation and such a boring goal, IMO.

Best part of Cell was Future Trunks and the early build up of the arc up to Cell's first reveal. Once Cell takes center stage, I lose pretty much all interest in the arc.

Of course I'd personally prefer Namek being the end, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy later parts of the series. It's part of why I'm hoping Super is worth it.

I've been re-reading Dragonball over the past few days (no particular reason, I just felt like revisiting a classic). I'm up to Muscle Tower right now:

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Toriyama really doesn't get enough credit for what a brilliant cartoonist (and artist, as well as comedic writer) that he was. That's quality slapstick humor on the level of any great Looney Tunes short. The best thing about that humor is that it's universal in nature. It transcends a language and cultural barrier by not relying on pop-culture references or language-based puns. Anyone from any country and any generation could understand what's going on in those pages and panels with or without the ability to read the dialogue accompanying it.

And of course he's also great at action scenes, but I always associate him more with comedy.

There's a reason he's one of the best.

Thanks for reminding me that I should add the DB manga to my list.

Has anyone else been keeping up with Dragon Ball Chou (DBS manga)? It does a fairly good job of mimicking Toriyama's art-style (though nobody can truly do Toriyama but Toriyama himself), and IMO is wisely getting through the events of BOG at a fast pace and has even started building up a future story-line with Champa (who still has yet to even be revealed in the filler-infested anime). You could argue that it's too rushed, but I've aleady watched BOG multiple times and am glad to mostly skip Bulma's birthday party shenanigans, which weren't even very funny to begin with. What's more is that by cutting down on the lame humor, it has the effect of making Beerus come off as a legitimate threat. In just three chapters it's already past where last week's episode of the anime left off.

Perhaps if the anime turns out to be a big dud, this version might be worth sticking around for if it continues.

I've read it. Toyotaro can ape Toriyama's artstyle well-enough, but it's clear his drawing skills aren't nearly at his level, and that makes for some boring and vanilla-looking scenes. Pacing-wise things are about on par for what you tend to get with these tie-in manga; they rush through the plot points to tell the story in as fast a manner as possible, without giving enough time to really give any weight or impact to anything. It might have gotten through more in 3 chapters, but it's also a monthly series, and by the time the next chapter comes out the anime will be farther ahead again, and the cycle will just repeat like that. I do appreciate it building up Champa already where the anime hasn't shown him even once yet, but for me it just feels like a tie-in manga spinoff than something in it's own right, so far.

I think that the anime is way too filler-heavy, though, and to be honest I haven't enjoyed it at all so far.

As for the manga, to be fair, it's only three chapters in and has been rushing through the BOG story-line because let's face it, most DBZ fans don't want to retread the same exact ground again. It's entirely possible for it to slow down a bit once new material comes up. But even more than that, I can't stand the lack of any tension in the anime. With the manga, I at least feel that it's giving off the vibe that Beerus is a legitimate threat. Additionally, it changes around several key events from BOG, making it feel not as much of a tie-in as it otherwise would be.

Not saying that either version is great. Just that the manga's honestly been more enjoyable than the anime, which is really a testament to Toei's clear lack of effort, so far.

I don't find either particularly enjoyable right now. The manga to me feels like Toyotaro is being told by Toei and Shueshia what plot points he needs to put in each chapter, so he does, but the story doesn't flow and isn't effectively told as a result. I feel that the manga is obligated to always stay around where the anime is, and it feels like it's going through the motions without any soul to it or weight behind what's being depicted. The only vibe I get from it is a cheap manga cash-in.

I don't agree with you about it feeling like a cheap cash-in. And believe me, I'd be quick to call one out. The Episode of Bardock (also by Toyotaro) and DBSD are both cheap cash-ins. I was expecting this to be the same, but surprisingly upon some analysis, it has a strange tonal contrast to BOG. Whereas that was more about humor (not great humor, though) and a send-up to nostalgia, this one has the effect of making the situation seem more serious a dire.

It's nowhere near the quality of classic DB, obviously, but it at least seems to be trying to set up a story while not relying on just following the movies beat for beat. And honestly, the story flows better than the anime because it cuts out all of the filler (I never enjoyed Bulma's birthday party stuff, not even in the film; it was neither funny nor meaningful in any way). Really, all this manga effectively does is to showcase how thin the plot of BOG really was when you cut out the excess baggage. To prove my point, can you actually point out anything that it cut out that actually leads to any big plot-holes in the story?

And I'm not trying to hate on BOG, here. I think that the movie is OK, just not near as great as so many people seem to give it credit for, hence why I don't view the manga skipping over it as a downgrade, as you would.

Don't get the wrong idea, either. I'm not saying that I think it's very good manga, but more that Toyotaro at least seems to put in some effort to even tell a story, even if it is restricted to a pre-planned plot by other writers. Toei just seems content on dragging out the series as long as possible for some easy money.

Of course I'm not happy with the state of the current franchise outside of the movies, either. I just think that it's sad that the manga tie-in is more tolerable than watching the anime. Then again, also keep in mind that I don't like DBZ as an anime, either, and feel it to be a downgrade of Toriyama's original work.

I guess I don't see it in the same way you do. I suppose it's a little more serious because they took out all the comedy filler scenes and reduced the banter, but that alone doesn't really mean anything to me since I don't think the way the events are presented effectively convey that. I felt more tension in Vegeta's attempts in appeasing Beerus and in the fight scene following Beerus getting pissed at Buu for eating the pudding than the corresponding moments in the manga. Most of the party scenes at Bulma's was fluff and I don't mind any of that being excluded, but I definitely feel there's something lost by removing Vegeta swallowing his pride and prostrating himself in order to keep Beerus happy in order to protect his family and the planet, which in turn was better build up for him snapping when Beerus hit Bulma and added a lot more emotion and intensity to that, which I just don't get any sense of at all from the manga version.

I don't think the Super manga is as bad as the anime, and it is only three chapters in so it could become it's own thing later on. Right now, though, I just think that the execution of it is mediocre and standard of previous tie-in manga I've read, the essential beats of the story are not presented as well as they were in BOG, and feel that it's obligation to stay around where the anime is limits it's ability to tell a much better story than it could.

As for the Vegeta thing, it's a good scene, but I certainly never felt any tension from it (we knew that nobody was getting killed off in the first DBZ movie in years). I didn't feel that it was a huge loss of a scene or anything (it's nothing like Vegeta sacrificing himself in the Buu saga).

And yes, it's only three chapters in. I'm not saying that it's good or bad, but that I could see it being good later on. What I mean is that, it's still at least trying to act like a story arc is being set-up. The fact that it has been able to reveal a presumably major new character and plot-point before the show, as well as how certain events are somewhat different from the anime, leads me to suspect that it might not be a complete carbon-copy of that version.

What's happened so far is fairly mediocre, yes, but that's only an extension of being bound to the BOG story-line so far. I'm curious to see what happens after the movie material is passed.

You know, I thought GT had a lot of good concepts for stories. The problem was that none of their writers were Toriyama or even close to him. Reading the story descriptions for GT is more entertaining than how it was executed.

Unless he were to be more involved like he was in the recent films, I can't say I have much interest in Dragon Ball.

GT had some good ideas for how to continue the story. Turning Goku into a kid wasn't really necessary, IMO, but exploring new planets for the Dragon Balls brought the series back to its adventure roots, and attempting to expand upon the mythology of the Dragon Balls also felt like a rich concept. Unfortunately, the execution was just so off. It's clear that the writers didn't truly understand these characters, nor did they have Toriyama's sensibilities to make a story flow in an interesting way.

This reminds me that I need to get back to reading Dr. Slump:

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Also, it's hilarious to think that this was years before this series actually took an iconic plot turn that makes it impossible not to compare it to Superman.

Ah man, do I ever love Suppaman. His appearances in Dr. Slump never fail to make me laugh. Making a superman parody character that is completely pathetic and downright villainous was just a brilliant concept on Toriyama's part, though it's a shame that he, as well as other secondary characters like the series' other Superman expy, Bubbinaman, appear a lot less often after the Tsuns and Obatchaman are introduced half-way into the series.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but having recently re-visited both series in both anime and manga formats, I'm leaning towards Dr. Slump as my favorite of Toriyama's works. It feels like he put more of himself into it (and technically, he literally did), and is his most personal, consistent, and most creative work, which is saying something considering how great DB is. Of course, I like manga comedies, especially ensemble manga comedies like Dr. S is, so I can see why most would prefer DB more since it has more of a story to it. But when I think of Toriyama, I find that Slump is the series of his that comes to my mind first, and I think it represents his comedic sensibilities, as well as his talents and range of interests as a mangaka, even better than DB does.

I still need to read more of Dr. Slump, so I can't really compare myself, but I love almost everything that I've ever read of Toriyama's work. Putting my general "meh" feelings about the Cell arc aside (and most people actually like that arc), he's never written a lackluster story or comedic scenario that I can think of.

That said, while I do prefer his humor, I don't want to undersell that he still does excellent action. For someone who never even wanted to write a battle series to begin with, perhaps the funniest and most ironic thing of all is that he was one of the best at it.

God, I love this fight:

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Kubo made a career out of that.

So, I was listening to TFS members talk about their thoughts on Goku during an LP commentary, and they all seemed to agree that he's fine during Dragon Ball and up to the Namek arc of Z, but they all hated post-Namek Goku for various obvious reasons. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I hate him as a character (he's actually among some of my many favorite protagonists), I have always agreed that he's much less appealing after he achieves SSJ status and pretty much dwarfs any other human characters in power. It's not his strength that's a turn-off for me, though. Rather, it's something about his attitude and lack of sympathy for his friends.

Some people have described Goku as a man-child who doesn't grow up or change throughout the series. I find this statement to be somewhat incorrect. Goku definitely isn't very mature as an adult and has his flaws, but he does change throughout the series, just not for the best. Kid Goku could be a little selfish, but also had a very child-like innocence to him, and generally was a lot more kind-hearted than what some people give him credit for. Post-Namek Goku really developed a sense of cockiness and arrogance that he never used to have, and also had a tendency to endanger other people's lives on his own whims. To be fair, you could say that he had done that before (such as with letting Vegeta go after their first battle), but something like throwing Gohan into a fight with Cell without having told anyone his plan or having mentally prepared Gohan for it was reckless enough to cost the destruction of Earth right then and there (and pretty much almost did....twice).

Now, clearly Goku was not intentionally being a dick, but the fact still stands that he had become a much less sympathetic main character.

That brings me to my next point: would Gohan carrying the torch as the new main protagonist have been a good direction for the story to go? Now, obviously the series has long-since finished, so this is merely just hypothetical (and I highly doubt that the writers of Super would have the creativity needed to take a risk like that). I would also like to point out that the Majin Buu arc was a very good closing arc, IMO (and to be fair, Gohan still got his moment to shine for a bit). "Some people" may see it differently, but they also only only base their opinion of it on a bad dub of a mediocre anime adaptation that they watched years ago, so I choose to disregard their thoughts on it. :bleh:

Still, my point is that a part of me does wonder what Gohan would have been like as a main character for an extended period of time (meaning that the series would have gone on for even longer). As happy as I am with what we got past the Cell saga, I really do wish I could have seen a version of the series that goes in that direction. I feel that Gohan would have made for a fairly interesting lead character, certainly very different from his father, and this new dynamic really could've shaken up the formula enough to keep the series feeling fresh for at least a few more solid years. For example, Gohan could take a diffetent approach to fighting villains, act as a father-figure to his younger brother and train him like Piccolo and Goku did for him, and seeing him try to also live a normal life by attending school would be pretty amusing for more than just the few chapters that we got. I'm also just personally intrigued by the concept of role-inheritance and legacy in fiction, even for something as simple and straightforward as Dragon Ball.

At any rate, those are just my personal thoughts on the matter. I don't actually expect anyone to agree with them. ;)

Well, Goku never made the pretense of being a righteous person, or interested in heroics. He's kind-hearted, so he was always quick to help people he liked out, but never because he thought that was the morally right thing to do or whatever. He always just did what he wanted to. It just wasn't until the Android arc that him doing what he wanted to started to endanger others. All of Goku's bad decisions, including with Gohan, tend to come from prioritizing having a good fight first and protecting the earth and his friends second, on the assumption that the Dragon Balls would deal with any damages that'd come as a result. In that regard he's a consistent character, but there is much in the series that could have been prevented (hell, Buu would probably never have been revived in the first place if he just knocked Vegeta out with SSJ3 right off the bat), if he cared less about satisfying his desire to fight strong opponents.

Gohan could have been an interesting protagonist. It certainly might have been fun to see more Great Saiyaman shenanigans balanced alongside him having to deal with more serious threats. But at the same time, I really can't imagine the series ending any other way than how it did, and it being anything other than Goku's story from the first page to the last. Gohan would really have needed a much more interesting character arc to deal with and settle for the series to end as strong as that with him in the lead, and I think Toriyama shifted focus away from him and towards Goku in the middle of the arc because he felt there wasn't much more he could do with Gohan as opposed to Goku, and it'd make for a more satisfying ending for the series to bring some closure to the Goku/Vegeta rivalry and have his most powerful attack finally work, with the support of all the people on the earth contributing to taking out the universe's greatest threat.

I agree that we got a great ending as it is, but I don't necessarily agree that there was nothing more interesting to be done with Gohan's character arc. Toriyama himself may not have been able to come up with one, or may have been pressured to shift the focus back to Goku by his editor (I can't really pretend to have any understanding of his actual thought process as a writer), but it doesn't mean that there was nothing interesting that could have been done with Gohan simply because it wasn't written.

Secondly, as for Goku, while I did say that he doesn't really mature throughout the series, I do think that it's fair to say that the character changes at least a little over the course of the manga. For example, I could never imagine a younger Goku forcing anyone else to fight in his place (and on such short notice, at that), let alone his own son, in addition to allowing the enemy to heal and be at full strength. Letting Vegeta live to fight him later with his own strength made sense to me given how his character always was. But specifically training Gohan (and later Goten and Trunks) to fight an enemy in his place (and with Buu, as you mentioned, he could have easily prevented the situation from even occurring), is taking his obsession with fighting to a whole new level that we previously never saw from him, IMO.

And once again, unlike TFS or other fans, I don't actually hate post-Namek Goku at all. I just find him to be a less endearing lead than what he used to be.

I think that's why I find Beerus to be such a fun villain, because he's what happens when you take all of Goku questionable traits and turn them on its head.

I love how Beerus isn't even really a villain when you get down to it (at least not in the movies, as I can't speak for Super just yet). He's very similar to Goku in his love of fighting strong opponents, but because of that he can see Goku's flaws and points them out to him. Villain or not, he breaks convention by both antagonizing and mentoring (in a sense) Goku at the same time. Also, he isn't just killed off and forgotten about after one movie (something that the MCU could stand to learn from).

But the Cell arc had many problems that go beyond Goku's characterization. I have to wonder if Toriyama was simply rushed at the time to raise the stakes over and over again, it would certainly explain why the Cell arc constantly has the feel of "oh look, a stronger opponent" repeatedly. By the Cell Games, short of giving Goku a new transformation, I'm not sure what else he could have done to put any dramatic tension in there. He sort of painted himself into a corner by making everyone else useless against Cell. The Cell Jrs were just embarrassing for a lot of people's favorite characters in how they were so thoroughly made useless, that they left no doubt that none of them could even scratch Cell.

Short of Gohan pushing his dad aside and taking the fight, there was no way for him to finish the arc. And Gohan is a lot of things, but he's not pushy or disrespectful.

Personal opinion: I can't see the Goku who stormed the Red Ribbon base to stop a bunch of monsters who repeatedly attacked innocent people as the same one who risked his son's life and everyone else on the planet's for a small percentage of victory as the same character. Sure you can argue that it was simply how Goku changed, but this whole arc was centered on how the world is destroyed because Goku wasn't there to protect it. And here he is risking it all for such a shoddy reason. If he is that ignorant, then that just makes him less likable, honestly.

It might be proper growth for him, but it's not a character I care one whit about.

Well, as the story goes (from what I've read), Toriyama originally intended for Androids 19 & 20 to be the main antagonists of the arc. His editor disliked them as the antagonists and made Toriyama replace them, which he did with 17 and 18, but his editor still wasn't sold on them, and thus he had to try again. Finally he came up with Cell, who persisted throughout the rest of the arc.

In a way though, it would explain why the android part of the Cell Saga was the best part of it. There was a sense of mystery and unpredictability with how the game kept constantly changing. It's after Cell shows up and Toriyama finally sticks with one villain that the arc becomes a long slog to get through, IMO.

As for the Red Ribbon army example, though, don't forget that they had the last couple of dragonballs which Goku needed to make his wish, so he had an ulterior motive. That said, you could also say that he wanted to take them out for good after how much trouble they had caused around the world. But I agree that the Goku of that era wouldn't have endangered everyone else's lives quite so readily just to satisfy his own selfish desire to fight. Though, then again, he wasn't dealing with cosmic villains who could easily wipe out an entire planet back then, either.

Actually, Toriyama's editor during the Android arc, Yu Kondo, purportedly didn't have any problems with the androids.  (http://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/cell/) It was Toriyama's first editor, Torishima, who told Toriyama that he thought they sucked. So Toriyama wasn't really forced to change the androids as the antagonists of the arc, but for whatever reason, probably due to his long relationship with Torishima and having been used to take his advice, he went ahead and changed them until he got to Cell. Interestingly enough, Cell was a character Kondo had problems with. Toriyama liked his first design just fine, but Kondo didn't, so he had Toriyama give him the ability to transform. He then complained that the second form looked stupid, and told Toriyama to expedite him reaching his perfect form, even though Toriyama personally liked the second form's design and wanted him to play a more active role.

Goku stormed the Red Ribbon Army's base both to procure the remaining dragon balls so that he could revive Bora and to take them out. Whether he meant to bring their entire organization down because he thought they were a threat that to be stopped, or if he did it just to settle some scores, is not made clear. But he does specifically kill Staff Officer Black when he tries to flee because he didn't want to let a bad guy like him get away. Kid Goku was definitely more keen on getting the job done and stopping his enemies immediately, as opposed to when he's an adult and he's much more lenient with his foes, despite them repeatedly doing horrible things and proving they can't be trusted.

Yeah, I'm glad that they addressed that issue in ROF.

Spoiler

Though I'm not to keen on him having gotten a get out of jail free card immediately after Freeza destroyed the planet.

[close]

As for letting his enemies live, I think it mostly only became a problem later on. When he let Piccolo Jr. live, he may have wanted to keep him as a rival, but he could also justify it as being not entirely selfish since killing Piccolo would also mean killing Kami and losing the Dragon Balls. When he let Vegeta live, it was very reckless, but he did at least intend to finish him off later at that time, just with his own strength. And Freeza always sort of struck me as unintentional on Goku's part. Granted, he gave the guy way too many chances to live, including letting him power up to max and destroying planet Namek, and even after all of the shit that he had pulled he gave Freeza some of his energy to give him a chance to live, which was beyond stupid. That said, his last Ki blast seemed to be intended to finish Freeza off, so Freeza surviving that was mostly a fluke.

What's interesting is that in the Cell arc, Goku's recklessness started having dire consequences, but to be fair, there are actually two instances in which other characters jeopardize everyone else for selfish desires....and in both cases they are Saiyans. Hmmmm....:thinkin:

I found this episode of Death Battle to be amusing: https://youtu.be/68Ep26Ssrxc

I just love their joke fights. Too bad that TFS hasn't gotten to voicing this character, yet, otherwise they could have had one of their VAs participate in this episode. What we got was fine, though.

If I wanted to collect the original DB manga, which release is the one I should go for? The VizBig volumes, or the 3-in-1 volumes?

It''s not that I don't like the DBZ half (well, parts of it), but for now I'm only interested in the original half. Which is the best version to go for?

It depends. The 3-in-1's are cheaper ($15/omnibus vs. $20/omnibus), but the VizBig editions are of higher quality in terms of the paper and ink (the art looks noticeably sharper), and the color chapters are presented in their original format.

If you don't mind somewhat cheap material and a smaller print booklet, then go for the 3-in-1's and save some money. If higher quality print does matter to you, then you'll want the VizBig editions. Personally, I'm fine with the 3-in-1's, myself.

I own the VizBigs, and I think they are definitely the way to go. They are also three-in-ones, but are printed on much larger, very high-quality paper, and it is the only english release where most of the original color pages are reproduced. Some censorship aside, it is pretty much the best release of the DB manga on the market. The price difference is worth it, imo, especially since you can get them for only around $13.50 off of Rightstuf.

I think the higher quality pages might sway my choice. Not that I'm rough with them, but I just can't stand cheaper paper. I can't help getting paranoid about tearing them.

Thanks, guys!

So as of my last post, I got the first VizBig edition as a present for Christmas. I gotta say, I'm a fan. I like the spine art, the color pages, the extra pages at the end, the page quality, and the size. It's certainly an improvement from the old comics I used to collect. I'll definitely be getting the other four as soon as I can. It also has me on the lookout for other similar editions like for Rurouni Kenshin.

I wasn't aware these were based on the kanzenban editions of the manga, but I also just noticed that the Ushio & Tora manga was just re-released in kanzenban format this year in the usual 3 in 1 format and everything. I'm really hoping if Viz does license the manga due to the anime that they use this version as well.

Also, here's a random online comment I think everyone can appreciate:

QuoteDragonball is pretty old and only appeals to old people its not relevant or good enough to be read over Naruto to people of this gen. Kishimoto reinvinted the genre and did more than Toriyama has done so its clear why people wouldnt be into Dragonball manga in 2015.

Hilarious stuff.

I needed that Christmas laugh!!

Yeah, the whole "it's not good because it's old" argument starts to lose steam once one matures past the age of 12, so I don't take these kinds of comments seriously. They do in fact provide a good laugh, though.

I've mentioned Dragon Ball Dissection and Dragon Ball Culture before on Manga Mavericks (plug (http://all-comic.com/2016/manga-mavericks-ep-8-meet-fast-food-fanatics/)), but I wanted to make another post here.

Dragon Ball Dissection and Dragon Ball Culture are two of the most impressive and intelligent discussion pieces on Dragon Ball that I've encountered. Dragon Ball Dissection (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Lp8PYmep4&index=5&list=PLE5173C4BDB42C758) is a retrospective series created by youtuber MistareFusion that's been breaking down each arc in the series from beginning to end. While I've seen many attempts by other youtubers to do the same thing, MistareFusion's is easily the best, not only because he uses the manga as the basis for his retrospective and not the anime, but because instead of simply making jokes and recapping the story, he actually spends time breaking down how Dragon Ball's narrative functions structurally, how Toriyama's art flows and evolves during the course of the series, the cultural and historical background influencing the series, and various minutia about the strange oddities and incongruities in the series and how they might be contextualized and explained. His preferences when it comes to the arcs mirrors those held by members here, but he breaks down both the strengths and weaknesses of each part of the story in a thorough and fair manner, highlighting problems in the arcs he likes best and the strengths of those he likes least. I find his videos very thoughtful, often informative, and incredibly entertaining. He's recently started dissecting the Freeza arc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ZIT2VM3pw), and considering how many videos and how in depth he analyzed the Saiyan arc, it'll probably take him until the end of the year to complete it going on a monthly schedule and his annual DBcember schedule, but it's a wait well worth it for videos of this quality.

MistareFusion's videos also introduced me to Dragon Ball Culture (http://thedaoofdragonball.com/books/), a book series written by Derek Padula, who prides himself on being the only "Dragon Ball Scholar" in the western world. Padula's books explore the history and cultural background of the series in incredible detail that MistareFusion's videos simply couldn't thoroughly breaking down the series' inspirations, themes, and legacy. I've been reading his first book, which pieces together various interviews and statements made by Toriyama and people who've known him to provide a telling and fascinating history of the man, and his career before, during, and after Dragon Ball. For a longtime Toriyama fan like myself, reading this book was a revelation, and I'm eager to read the remaining books in the series. In addition to the main Dragon Ball Culture books, Padula's also written a book explaining the "Over 9000" meme and phenomenon, as well as "Dragon Soul," a book that compiles reflections from Dragon Ball fans from all over the world about how much the series means to them, and is a emotionally charged and fascinating read, especially in regards to thoughts from Christopher Sabat, Sean Schemel, and others who've been involved in the dubbing and production of the franchise.

Ultimately, both Dragon Ball Dissection and Dragon Ball Culture are just really cool explorations of what makes the series so great, and even though I've been a fan of Dragon Ball and Toriyama for over a decade, I've really learned a lot by watching/reading them. I think most people on this board would get a kick out of them and I highly recommend them to any DB fan who really wants to dig in deeper into just what makes the series so endearing and enduring after all these years.

I've also been following Dragon Ball Dissection, which I found out about a few months ago, and I've heard of Dragon Ball Culture before, so maybe I'll check that out eventually, once I finish some other books on my backlog.

Anyways, I really love DBD. In-depth retrospectives done by passionate fans are really interesting to me (for instance, the Digimon retrospective is easily the most appealing thing that JO ever did, IMO), so I especially enjoy a retrospective of one of my favorite manga of all time. The guy who does DBD does a good job of really nailing down how Toriyama's writing process works, and how it can both help and hinder his stories. I also like that he's not afraid of criticizing the series for its faults, because after all, if you're truly a fan of something then that means you accept it for what it does wrong as well as what it does right (something that most Hunter X Hunter fans could really stand to learn from).

And thus Dragonball enters the realm of Franchise-mania: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-10-13/shueisha-establishes-new-department-focused-on-dragon-ball/.107591

Now, on the one hand I'm hesitant at the idea of pushing out tons of new content at the risk of most of it being sub-par cash-ins. On the other hand, this is Shueisha, not Toei, and that gives me at least some hope that there will be a more consistent level of quality-control since this mostly looks like new manga content. And I can't lie, even without Toriyama's direct involvement, I can't help but get a bit excited at the prospect of new Dragonball content. At its best, this could be sort of like the Star Wars Expaned Universe of DB.

One good sign is that they only announced that they are in the planning stages right now. Contrast this with Toei who basically just announced Super a mere two months before it aired and only rushed it out the door because RF's ticket-sales were high and they realized that they could profit off of a new toy-line. Super has since been improving, and the ratings are apparently still really strong, but the fact of the matter is that Toei screwed up royally in pushing this out so fast. If Shueisha's approach is to be more thoughtful about the new content that they generate, and similar to Star Wars, hire writers that are actually passionate about the project rather than just doing this for a paycheck, then this could turn out rather well for DB fans such as myself.

Like it or not, we live in an age where anything popular is franchised out like crazy, and the recent movies, manga, anime, and toy sales have proven DB to be just as popular and profitable as ever, so we're going to get more of it regardless. My only hope in that case is that the content that we get is at least good, like the movies or the current arc of Super.

But yeah, this is pretty big news, though probably not that surprising.

The manga market has a lot of competition these days. Getting a new seller on the level of One Piece, Dragon Ball, or Naruto, is almost certainly not going to happen any time soon. Shueisha has been smart in how they've been pushing their legacy series recently with Boruto and their JoJo, Kochikame, and One Piece merchandising, and the series they own with the biggest worldwide appeal is without a doubt Dragon Ball. If they didn't do this they would be crazy.

On the other hand I do wish they would also push more legacy franchises. Fist of the North Star, City Hunter, and Ring ni Kakero, would benefit highly from new anime series, ones closer to the original manga series, to raise their profile up to where they were at their peak. It can be done.

But speaking only of Dragon Ball? It's a good idea. There's a lot to mine in the universe and a whole lot of ways to take it. I'm really interested to see what they can do.

A lot of people complaining about milking, but I mean the series is decades old. If it hasn't happened by now it's not going to. They're still creating new series and pushing new authors on top of it so I don't see any downside here.

What I find silly is the people complaining about how the story will continue when the characters are already ridiculously powerful. Firstly, power in and of itself has ceased to be as immediately relevant as it once was with characters like like Hit and Black not being able to be taken down by normal means. Furthermore, though, people seem to miss the point that expanding the franchise means that, most likely, just like with Naruto, they will generate a lot of spin-off material rather than just focusing on Son Goku's story. Characters like Jaco or even some of the DB supporting cast could get more focus this way, or they could flat-out tell brand new stories with characters from any of the other twelve Universes. There's literally limitless potential for future DB content thanks to the massive world-building setup by Battle of Gods.

I'd love to see a spin-off centered around Piccolo and have him get some new victories for a change. I feel that he hasn't received the best treatment lately by getting killed by Frieza and losing to Frost. I haven't watched anything past the Universe 6 arc of DBS, though.

He just got the shafts in the most recent episode as well when....

Spoiler

Goku blows off his offer to teach him the Mafuba and goes to learn it from Master Roshi himself. :D

[close]

Considering that Piccolo is easily one of my favorite DB characters, I'd also like to see him back on the spotlight again at some point in time.

I would dig an arc that focuses entirely on non-Saiyan characters who have to deal with a problem on their own. Of course it'll never happen, but it would be nice.

This is a pretty clever idea. (http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2016/12/11-1/dragon-ball-spin-off-imagines-a-world-where-yamcha-totally-rules)

That sounds fucking brilliant....:huh:

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on December 12, 2016, 04:07:43 PM
This is a pretty clever idea. (http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2016/12/11-1/dragon-ball-spin-off-imagines-a-world-where-yamcha-totally-rules)

Viz NEEDS to translate/release this.  :lol:

This would be great content for them to add to the Shonen Jump website!  :swoon:

So, I'm still being really cautiously optimistic, here, but three chapters in and I have to say that the latest arc of Dragon Ball Super has been to my liking so far. It especially feels like a breath of fresh air after the boring, exhausting, dragged-out test of patience that was the Tournament of Power arc.

I think what has won me over here, though, was the change-up from the established norms for Dragon Ball Super and the expanded world-building. I'm one of those people who genuinely enjoyed the Jaco manga and wanted to learn more about the Galactic Patrol and their role in the Dragon Ball Universe, which we are getting quite a bit of in this arc. I also really love the concept of Vegeta returning to Namek after all of the character growth he has experienced up until now, and is actually seeking some form of atonement for what he did on old Namek in the past.

And after the dull, soulless excursion of an antagonist that was Jiren, I'm finding Moro to be incredibly refreshing. For one, it's nice to once again have a big Dragon Ball antagonist who's power is based more in magic than in just raw Ki. And the fact that he can use the energy of the planet in his attacks is really interesting and inventive with him creating earthquakes, title-waves, and shooting out what I  assume is supposed to be magma from the ground (I can't tell for sure since it's not colored). It's a really nice change of pace from simple energy blasts.

About the only thing that I don't like so far is that Vegeta is once again jobbing to the new big bad to hype him up. If Toriyama isn't careful he's going to give one of his best characters a bad case of Yamucha-syndrome. Like, seriously, subvert expectations for once and give Vegeta the major win over Goku....but, you know, of course that'll never happen. :sly:

Of course, these are all initial impressions and I'm not entirely sold just yet. After all, the Goku Black arc started out similarly very good as well, IMO, and had a lot of interesting things going for it for at least the first half, but looking back on it I do think that the story fell to pieces by the second time they traveled into Future Trunks's version of the timeline. I'm hoping that there is at least some level of planning or forethought put into this arc so that it doesn't become a complete mess like the Goku Black arc did by the end, or just drag on aimlessly until it wanders into a climax like the Tournament of Power did. I'm holding out at least some hope, though.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly is getting a manga adaptation. (https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/04/04/dragon-ball-super-broly-movie-manga-first-look)

Comicbook is far from a reliable news source for anything.  :sweat:

That being said, it is specifically an ani-comic so it will basically just be screenshots of the film in a manga format.  It's a pretty common thing for Dragon Ball (GT still has an ongoing one in Saikyo Jump for instance).

Akira Toriyama is nominated for an Eisner Award. (https://bookstr.com/article/dragon-ball-creator-nominated-for-most-prestigious-comics-award)

It's good to see manga creators getting more recognition from the Eisner awards. This isn't the first time that a Japannese creator has been recognized (Blade of the Immortal won an Eisner award well over a decade ago), and there are at least a few other examples, but it's nice for it to become more commonplace as the years go on.

Toriyama has been knighted. (https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2019/05/31-1/france-knights-dragon-ball-creator-akira-toriyama)

France shows much more appreciation for manga than most other Western countries.

Totally Not Mark just started a video series examining early Dragonball: https://youtu.be/h5O29LqZx14

I'm really glad to see a relatively big YouTuber cover this for a change. While early DB was always thought of as the secondary or lesser part of the series by the bulk of the fanbase, over time it has now become even less discussed. And when it comes to general anime and manga YouTube channels, it's rarely ever discussed in the grand scheme of notable shonen series to the point of almost feeling non-existant.

It has always largely annoyed me that any strengths or weaknesses of DB as a series and franchise, and of Toriyama's ability as a story-teller and artist, is almost exclusively applied to the Z era and onward. Anything before that is a footnote at best, and Dr. Slump is basically an obscure relic as far as Western anime and manga fans are concerned.

Every time I revisit early DB I'm still always impressed by how efficient and charming Toriyama's art and writing are, and while the sexual humor is an understandable turnoff for a lot of people today (it's not nearly as bad or predominant as some other popular shonen series, though), there is a lot more that Toriyama brings to the table than just that. There is so much creativity to his panel layouts and use of spacing and in how he portrays motion by using different perspective shots, and there is a personality to all of it that few other series can match, IMO. Even some modern stuff with overall better writing and well thought-out characters and worlds (MHA, KnY, WT, etc.) still don't quite manage to match Toriyama at his peak in this specific aspect.

It's nice to at least have someone with a large enough voice in the community give this era of the series the proper credit that it deserves.

To show y'all how stupid I am, I got this manga app on my phone. Cool. Had it for about 3-4 years now, not to mention Super is going on in the midst of all this, especially while I'm playing Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and it still don't hit me. As far as I knew there was only Super for the anime and it was at the end of Goku Black arc or something like that and Dragonball Fighterz is probably out at this point now or coming out.

Fast forward to, we'll say roughly 4 days ago. I'm in the mood for some Dragon Ball Z (Hell Evo happened, and had a great grand finals for DBFz). Go to the app on my phone. I see Dragon Ball. Alright, cool (here it never dawned on me why it had shorter chapters than the Bleach's, Naruto's, and One Piece's etc, so I'm thinking these chapters are gonna be long. Thinking I'm gonna be getting 71+ pages).  Go to the last chapter because in my mind I don't know why I'm thinking they're trying to play catch up. I see characters I don't know. I recognize Goku and Vegeta. I recognize Beerus and Whis. Who the hell are these other characters?  I go back to about chapter 40-ish. I'm like wait, ain't that Toppo? What the hell? I am reading Dragon Ball Z right? I come all the way out and scroll back to what I thought was Z and low and behold that shit says SUPER. Parent's, brother, niece and nephew hears a loud WHAT THE FUCK!!!

Ahem, I say all that to say that this is my reintroduction to Dragon Ball because I haven't given Super a full watch, and the manga at the moment has caught my full attention. Minus the abridged version, it's literally been years since I've watched Dragon Ball Z. I think I may've tried to watch it again in 2019 but it wasn't happening. And then I remember folks at Toonzone being overzealous about Dragon Ball Z back in like 2009-2010 (hell I thought I was the biggest fan. One dude there put me to shame and made me sick and tired of Dragon Ball fans to the point where I said bump all of them).

Anyway, I'm currently on chapter 13-14. Seeing some things/people that can be used for a DBFz 2 (heavy talks/rumors about it) or a DBX3. I'll be fine with either. I just don't want to see x amount of Goku's and Vegeta's. I'd rather see transformations or installs. I don't want to turn this into a game topic, but it was DBFz that got me back into it again.

I gotta talk about this artwork. While it's not Kubo (his designs are terrible but the way he draws the characters are great), it works for Dragon Ball, to a certain degree where it just wouldn't feel right if the characters didn't look the way they look. Like, lets say Kubo tries his hand at drawing Goku and Vegeta in his style. It wouldn't work for me. I'd probably even call it ugly if that were to happen. Anyway, I still hate Goku.

The first post-Toriyama chapter of Dragon Ball Super (chapter 103) is now up on the Shonen Jump app.

https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/dragon-ball-super-chapter-103/chapter/41904?action=read