Dragon Ball (All Series)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, it looks like this arc's gearing up for its final act. I could be wrong, but it feels like we're around two-thirds of the way through it just based on its narrative structure so far. So I was wondering: for people keeping up with the show, what are your thoughts on it so far?

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like it's perfect; it definitely still harbors various notable flaws that have been affecting Dragon Ball Super since day one, but as a longtime Dragonball fan, I have really been enjoying this arc a lot, and find it to be a satisfying continuation to this franchise's historied mythology. In all honesty I'd easily call it my favorite post-manga content by far, so long as there isn't a major dip in quality before this storyline ends. It has traces of Toriyama's influence in it, while also feeling distinctly different from it in a way that feels like a subtle but necessary evolution from his writing style, which is what I feel Dragonball needs to continue doing if it's ever going to survive as a franchise without Toriyama always at the helm. What I mean is that only Toriyama can do Toriyama, but quite frankly it's obvious to see that his heart is no longer completely in the series. I mean, yes, he's trying seriously, but I haven't sensed that same passion that he clearly had back when he was writing the manga and the series was in its prime, and quite frankly I don't expect to ever get that back. However, Dragonball has for all intents and purposes become bigger than Toriyama himself, and whether we like it or not it's going to keep coming back so long as it makes Toei money; and judging by the high ratings and increasing merchandise sales generated by Super, Dragonball is still incredibly popular and profitable, so I don't see it outright going away anytime soon.

So, if we're going to get more Dragonball regardless of whether we want it or not, I for one want the new content to be as good and meaningful as possible, and without Toriyama doing 100% of the work, the franchise has to be updated. For me, the current arc of Dragon Ball has essentially taken a major step towards doing that the right way. But, that's just my opinion.

[LumRanmaYasha]

While I liked the movies and the Champa arc a lot, the Black arc is by far the best story to come out of the franchise since the manga ended. As far as the involvement of Toriyama goes, he came up with the outline of the arc like he did for Battle of Gods and the Champa arc, but it's written by someone else and that's fine and works because they've handled it well without losing what makes Dragon Ball feel like Dragon Ball. Toriyama doesn't have interest in writing and overseeing every story of the series himself at this point and eventually he won't be around to create more stories anyway, so it gradually does need to leave his hands and be confidently handled by others as the franchise goes forward. Also, not for nothing, but while I loved Resurrection F for it's action and humor, the actual story of it was pretty weak. Toriyama has great ideas, but he's not always a great writer, and isn't the only person capable of writing good stories for the DB universe. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I tend to compare Toriyama's writing style to Araki's, somewhat. They are both very different writers in terms of style and content, but one similarity that they do share is focusing more on the moment-to-moment beats of their stories rather than planning things out in advance, which both have admitted to rarely ever doing. This inevitably leads to plot-holes and such since they frequently either forget about past plot points or retcon them out when it's necessary to move their stories forward, but often make up for it by keeping you engrossed in what's happening in the here-and-now and diverting your attention away from thinking about the story as a whole too much. Of course, that isn't to say that they can't come up with great storylines. In Toriyama's case, part of the appeal of the manga is how the story arcs organically flow together, with one conflict naturally leading into another, and in this way the story can be kept feeling fresh and engaging without feeling too drawn out or repetitive (the anime unfortunately suffers in this regard whenever there's an over-abundance of filler stuck in-between arcs like with DBZ), and it's easy to overlook minor potholes and inconsistencies in this case. It makes sense given Toriyama's background as a gag mangaka, treating his stories the same way as he would a typical chapter of Dr. Slump: by building his story up throughout an arc just like he would build up a running gag until it would reach an inevitable climax/punchline, but then would move onto the next chapter without any downtime, and essentially did the same with his story arcs until much later into Dragonball's run. As far as Resurrection F goes, though, I do feel that Toriyama must have struggled with trying to tell a story with a finite amount of screentime alotted to him to do so. So instead he decided to focus more on action and comedy than story beats. That said, even RF still managed to nail down his moment-to-moment brand of entertainment.

In that way, you can tell from Super's more disjointed feeling between arcs that this is Toriyama being filtered through other writers, but it does feel like the writers have finally managed to finally pin down an effective way to convey Toriyama's stories in their own style without the resulting product feeling like it's actually trying too hard to mimick Toriyama's more traditional style of writing (which I feel held back earlier movies and arcs, to an extent).

[LumRanmaYasha]

That's an accurate assessment of Toriyama's writing style, and it's also probably why Toei's consistently failed to capture that je ne sais quoi quality of Toriyama's writing in their attempts to mimic it, like with the early episodes of Dragon Ball GT and the "Golden Freeza" arc of Super. But now both Super and Toytaro's manga version of the Black arc show that Toei has finally become comfortable with letting their writers execute the story in a way that Toriyama wouldn't, while still keeping true to the spirit of the series, which is probably why the current arc has worked so well. It is different from what Toriyama would probably have written, but it's a well-told and well-realized story in the Dragon Ball universe with a lot of thought put into it that develops the lore and characters and is not trying to regurgitate or pay blatant homage to old story beats to appeal to nostalgia.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, that's also how I feel about it. Granted, since Toriyama outlined the story it does have his creative DNA embedded within it at its heart (characters like Zuno and Gowasu are VERY Toriyama), but it still stands out in its own unique way. Namely with its villains. Both Zamasu and Black are interesting in how they clash with the rest of the characters given how un-Toriyama they are. What I mean is that even when Toriyama's stories and characters got more serious, he always had a certain in-joke of sorts for each of them which was a part of their very nature, and this was also true of his villains. For example: Tao Pai Pai was very overly-particular about little things, Freeza was based off of a realestate agent and came off just as much as a crooked businessman as he did a legitimate galactic overlord, Androids 17 and 18 were just a couple of teenage brats who happened to have way too much power on their hands, Majin Buu, supposedly the ultimate evil in the Unuverse at that point, was really just a big kid at heart who needed an appropriate adult figure guiding him (cue Mr. Satan), and Beerus is a destroyer god who's honestly more interested in either eating or sleeping than actually doing his job, whereas Whis is potentially the strongest being in Universe 7 but waits on Beerus like a personal servant (OK, the last two clearly aren't villains, but they are introduced that way early on). Comparatively, both Zamasu and Black lack this quality, which is clearly an intentional decision on the writers' part in order to make them feel more distinct, and it works. They definitely don't feel like anything that Toriyama would ever write, yet they are still well-written villains all the same (at least so far), IMO.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Zamasu and Black are definitely unique in how nuanced they are, compared to the relatively more straightforwardly evil or goofy villains Toriyama tended to employ. That they have an ideological reason for doing what they do is especially atypical of Toriyama's previous villainous characterizations. Not to say they're particularly complex characters morally, but in contrast to previous DB villains, they have motivations beyond simply wanting to take over the world, becoming stronger, or having fun.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, that was....dark.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, bringing back the Mafuba is one thing, but Master Roshi teaching something to Goku for the first time in literally decades? Now that's old-school Dragonball.

[VLordGTZ]

Crunchyroll, Daisuki, and AnimeLab will now be simulcasting Super starting October 22nd.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, it's about fucking time. I'm surprised that it's not FUNimation, though.

[VLordGTZ]

Funimation is now doing all new simulcasts through Crunchyroll due to their partnership, so if Funi has licensed it, it would still be through Crunchyroll.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Funi only airs dubs on their sites now, no subs. Crunchyroll will air all subs titles Funimation owns.

But yeah, this was a long time coming.

[Lord Dalek]

Yeah but this is also going through Daisuki which Funi has no relationship with. This leads me to believe that Toei is licensing directly.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Chris Sabat's been hinting at things, and Jason Douglas posted a picture of Beerus from Super before hastily deleting it. So something's happening.

[VLordGTZ]

Daisuki has simulcasted shows that are licensed by Funimation in the past (Saiki, Dagashi Kashi, Tales of Zestiria, etc), so I'm not sure if Daisuki streaming Super prevents Funi from having the rights.