Dragon Ball

[LumRanmaYasha]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

God, I love this fight:

[Spark Of Spirit]

Kubo made a career out of that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

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.

[LumRanmaYasha]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Dr. Insomniac]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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).

[Spark Of Spirit]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Actually, Toriyama's editor during the Android arc, Yu Kondo, purportedly didn't have any problems with the androids. 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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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....

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

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?