If you're new to the blog, then you probably won't know about my "A Dragon Ball Fanboy vs. Akira Toriyama and Toei" posts, of which I have many. You can find them with a simple google search. Those posts are usually directed at Dragon Ball Super's many missteps and missed opportunities. But lately, I've found myself enjoying Super more and more, but why is that? Well that's just what I'm here to explain.
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| By Rondon2020 |
It started with the Future Trunks/Goku Black arc. The darker tonal shift to the series was awesome starting from Trunks' very first appearance. Black was a formidible and epic villain that I loved to hate with the most complex motivations of any DB villain to date, and it was nice to get another hero character other than Goku and Vegeta who was reasonably useful in combat. That's all it took for me to stop skipping episodes and entire arcs of the show (Golden Frieza and Pontefidoodoo arcs). Now the Goku Black arc did still have plenty of plot holes and face palm moments mostly to do with Trunks' new Gary-Stu tendencies, some time travel spamming, and those last three or so episodes of the arc, but overall I must say that I enjoyed myself immensely.
I've always thought that Super's slice-of-life episodes were the best thing going for it since the beginning and so I enjoyed those 9 weeks of "filler", but what surprises me is that the run up to the Tournament of Power is just as good and there seems to be a consensus that Super is hype as hell right now and why is that? It's the sub-characters stupid! I imagined I was saying that to Toriyama san (respectfully of course) and Toei's staff.
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| By: M-A-N42 |
First off the new characters are still pretty cool. I think Toriyama san has always had a way of introducing new characters that get you invested just from their appearance alone. The Trio of Terrors was a very interesting addition with some cool abilities. Then there are the many many new gods introduced and characters like Toppo and Jiren, but again Toriyama is good at hyping new characters up. Just look at the Supreme Kai and Kibito when they were introduced. But what really shocked me was their treatment of Buu and Gohan in those skirmish matches, which was much better than Piccolo's treatment in the U6 tournament arc. The fights were amazing to see and gave me much hope for the Tournament of Power until I heard they only had 48 hours to prepare.
But then we get some great episodes of Goku recruiting his 10 man team. He starts with his best friend Krillin and Krillin's powerful wife, #18. We are also taught the rules of the tournament, which will involve more strategic thinking and cooperation over brute force. This gives weaker though more experienced characters like Krillin a chance to actually contribute in the upcoming tournament and not only that but Krillin is shown to have powered up significantly as well as developed powerful new techniques. Where the hell was this development all along? I love it! They even put a nice bow on Krillin's overall arc. His weakness was all in his mind. His PTSD from getting killed by the likes of Tambourine, Frieza, and Majin Buu placed mental blocks on him and diminished his fighting spirit which limited his power all these years. It was great to see him break those limits and stand toe to toe with Goku. There's some controversy with him clashing beams with Super Saiyan Blue Goku but it's well documented that Goku was holding back in this fight. Krillin's strong as hell, but he's not at that level ... yet.
The next big surprise we get comes from Buu who in two hours has transformed and gotten a lot stronger. This was kinda silly and reminded me that the 48 hour limit was pretty dumb. I like that the characters are getting stronger but feel they could've done this a lot more organically, like having them train before big events like this comes up, you know, so that they can reasonably keep up. It's not like the Earth is at a loss for planet destroying bad guys. You'd think they'd all prepare more.
