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Post by Conqueror Geng on Aug 1, 2018 3:53:53 GMT
I can't believe Roshi is still in it. I can't really imagine he will get the same type of spotlight that he got in the anime. I wonder why he is still in it. It doesn't even look like fighters with cool abilities won't even be a factor here, which kills Roshi's purpose. Sort of wish the manga dropped the battle royale idea and just had a more traditional tournament only using teams over single fighters. It would take a bit longer, but it would have given everyone a chance to shine and the opportunity to develop these other fighter. In b4 Roshi mafubas the shit out of Kefla.
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 2, 2018 3:22:24 GMT
I can't believe Roshi is still in it. I can't really imagine he will get the same type of spotlight that he got in the anime. I wonder why he is still in it. It doesn't even look like fighters with cool abilities won't even be a factor here, which kills Roshi's purpose. Sort of wish the manga dropped the battle royale idea and just had a more traditional tournament only using teams over single fighters. It would take a bit longer, but it would have given everyone a chance to shine and the opportunity to develop these other fighter. In b4 Roshi mafubas the shit out of Kefla. I wouldn't mind seeing that actually. It would be a cool way for Roshi to contribute.
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Post by Solus on Aug 13, 2018 15:01:24 GMT
Mafuba would actually be way more effectiv in a tournament setting like this. You can't possibly fail to hit the abyss with it, once you caught your opponent in it. On another note: Doesn't Kefla look a lot like Bra SSJ2? And will Gohan be able to beat her? If we would assume the DBM power scaling that would actually be possible. Gohan was stronger than Gotenks - by a great margin. Since at least Caulifla is a lot weaker than Goku and Vegeta in Buu Saga (to take Vegetto as a reference) the fusion itself should also be weaker than Vegetto. And though Caulifla (?) and Kale are stronger than Goten and Trunks, their fusion doesn't have SSJ3 like Gotenks. I guess, Mystic Gohan could own her.
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Post by The Retro Kakarotto on Aug 13, 2018 17:54:55 GMT
Calling it now, the Manga's unexpected ToP Ending: Roshi Mafuba Jiren. Opposed to Anime's unexpected ending, a Frieza and Goku team up.
I mean, why else has Roshi lasted so long compared to Krillin and Tien who got one shoted in the manga?
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 14, 2018 3:55:18 GMT
Mafuba would actually be way more effectiv in a tournament setting like this. You can't possibly fail to hit the abyss with it, once you caught your opponent in it. On another note: Doesn't Kefla look a lot like Bra SSJ2? And will Gohan be able to beat her? If we would assume the DBM power scaling that would actually be possible. Gohan was stronger than Gotenks - by a great margin. Since at least Caulifla is a lot weaker than Goku and Vegeta in Buu Saga (to take Vegetto as a reference) the fusion itself should also be weaker than Vegetto. And though Caulifla (?) and Kale are stronger than Goten and Trunks, their fusion doesn't have SSJ3 like Gotenks. I guess, Mystic Gohan could own her. Not really sure. Even in the manga those two seem to be much stronger than the U7 counterparts. Caulifla with just SS1 was able to give Freeza a run for his money before Freeza went golden to fight her. It is hard to judge here, because its not clear if Freeza could have still won without going golden or if he merely did that just to show how big of a difference there was between Caulifla and him. Kale in her Berserk Super Saiyan form was able to thrash Golden Freeza good and even give SSB Goku problems. A fusion between them could still potentially be much stronger than the original Vegetto that fight Majin Buu. The manga hasn't shown us how strong Gohan is or has gotten. I want to believe he is at least stronger than the original Mystic Gohan was saw in the Buu arc, but who knows what is going on since he hasn't gotten much screen time compared to his anime counterpart, who we know for sure got way stronger than his level in the Buu arc.
I'm not sure how Toyotaro feels about Gohan or what plans he has. He could be thrown under the bus like Krillin, Tien, Piccolo, and 18 to build up Kefla more or he might actually get a great fight where he loses, but it could have gone either way, or actually wins and gets his awesome moment in the tournament before he is defeated. As a Gohan fan I would hope he wins, but given how things have played out with this tournament I don't expect much. It hasn't really been able to give all the characters at least some awesome moments like the anime did before knocking them out to hurry things along.
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Post by Kirasha on Aug 17, 2018 20:02:54 GMT
Summary for the upcoming chapter:
-The chapter starts with a summary of the situation in the Tournament. Gohan vs Kefla, Vegeta vs Toppo and everybody else is just watching. -Vegeta and Toppo are pretty fucked up, Toppo even tears the top of his uniform off because his uniform's ruined. -Kefla attacks Gohan with a punch that he obviously dodges, he responds but she dodges too -Kefla jumps back and grabs Gohan by the arm to throw him, and then jumps onto him to stamp him into the ground (we saw this already) -Kefla's overconfidence is exploited by Gohan, who grabs her by the ankles and kicks her in the spine (fucking brutal) -Goku's surprised with how calm Gohan is in this fight. From the stands, Piccolo and 18 are praising Gohan's skill and leadership. -Goku and Jiren talk for a bit and then they start fighting again, with Goku going SSB -Vegeta and Toppo keep trading blows, but they're both exhausted with Toppo just burning through his ki to keep on fighting, Vegeta does the same -17 and Roshi talk amongst each other with them not wanting to stay on the sidelines, so they rush Dyspo and the other remaining member of U11 -Frieza sticks to the side and returns to his base form to recover his energy. -Kefla vs Gohan is mostly off-panel, with the next shot of them being injured and their clothes torn. -Champa looks serious for once, talks with Vados and moseys on over to Beerus. -Gohan and Kefla knock each other out. What a surprise. -U6 is eliminated, but Champa yells at Beerus for him to win before he disappears. -We go to Goku vs Jiren, with him doing the eponymous jobber ki barrage, while Jiren doesn't even bother to dodge them. He tries to punch Jiren, but he stops that too. -Goku burns through his ki and launches at Jiren again, with Jiren claiming that his punches feel like that of a mosquito and he just backhands Goku away. -Roshi starts fighting with Kahseral and actually manages to corner him to the edge of the ring. -Kahseral attacks, but Roshi stops his hands and knocks him off balance with a kick, and throws him out of the ring with a gust of wind. Kahseral's out. -Goku keeps getting his ass kicked and lands near Roshi, with Roshi telling him to remember the basics of CQC -Goku thinks back to his training. -Roshi literally says to leave Jiren to him and for Goku to rest for a bit -Roshi attacks Jiren who attacks back, but Roshi (fucking get this) dodges it automatically, as if by instinct -Roshi keeps fighting him and keeps dodging as Jiren attacks. After a bit, Roshi's finally at his limit and Jiren nails him.(edited) -Roshi asks Goku if he got to look at what he did real well, before launching one final assault at Jiren that he easily repels. Roshi's out. -Goku unlocks Ultra Instinct Omen. Everybody's pretty shocked as Whis explains everything. -Goku quickly loses the form after fighting with Jiren for a bit, and he's pretty fucked up too. -Whis tells him if he's not capable of remaining completely calm and controling it at 100%, Ultra Instinct is useless. -Jiren finna fuck him up.
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Post by Masvan on Aug 17, 2018 20:44:37 GMT
Here is a page of Roshi This here is ridiculous
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Post by Conqueror Geng on Aug 17, 2018 20:53:31 GMT
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA WTF. Roshi outdoing Hit?
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 17, 2018 21:11:58 GMT
Well if the Black arc didn’t do it already this arc destroyed the last sliver of the manga at least trying to keep to a more accurate power scale than the anime. I love Roshi as much as the next guy, but I’m not seeing how his technique can be so polished that it lets him dodge someone much faster than him. I could have bought if someone like Piccolo or Krillin had developed a technique like this through several years of training and wanting to do more to help out. It would still be a stretch, but I would be willing to buy it if helped those two become more prominent again, but Roshi. He is immortal and a master martial artist, but he stopped training a long time ago and him catching up to even Chaozu the weakest Z-fighter seems like a stretch, let alone him doing better than Tien or Krillin who are as skilled and much stronger than him. It can’t really be that hard to just make up a new human power up to close the gap with the Saiyans if we want them to do more. I would even welcome a new version of Super Holy Water to make humans comparable to the Saiyans again as a reason. This Roshi moment feels way off.
I’m surprised Gohan actually fought the U6 fusion to a draw. I expected him to get beaten early on. It sucks that most of it is off screen. It sounded like it could be a good fight. I guess this arc is going to end in a few months. I can’t imagine we have more than 12 chapters left in this arc. Sounds like the anime soundly beat the manga version of this arc hands down.
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Post by Kirasha on Aug 17, 2018 21:49:55 GMT
I mean, what do people expect from the man that wrote AF, had West Kaioshin somehow still be alive (despite that she got killed by Buu) and got her pregnant with Goku’s child through some convoluted way (despite that Kaioshin don’t reproduce, they grow from trees) and gave birth to one of the biggest edgelords ever. Toyotaro always has been a hack writer, but now that he’s largely on his own with the ToP arc (Toriyama's busy with the movie, editors dont give a fuck since the anime's already done), we finally get to see that side in full “glory”.
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Post by Andres on Aug 18, 2018 1:27:33 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2018 2:40:22 GMT
I'm surprised Gohan was able to stand up to SSJ Kefla. Is she meant to be weaker than Buu saga SSJ1 Vegetto here? In the manga, Caulifa is only a SSJ1 and Kale had lost a lot of power by the time they fused so I guess that might be what he had in mind. Master Roshi lasting more than a second against Jiren is a major asspull. It doesn't matter how skilled Master Roshi is at dodging if Jiren is literally trillions upon trillions of times faster than him. It's difficult to convey the level of asspullery that is. It's like if a dinosaur was a Master Roshi fanboy, decided to write a DBZ fanfic, pulls something out of their ass and it results in something like this due to their ass being so big. There's probably a better way to word this but that's my initial reaction. I mean, what do people expect from the man that wrote AF, had West Kaioshin somehow still be alive (despite that she got killed by Buu) and got her pregnant with Goku’s child through some convoluted way (despite that Kaioshin don’t reproduce, they grow from trees) and gave birth to one of the biggest edgelords ever. Toyotaro always has been a hack writer, but now that he’s largely on his own with the ToP arc (Toriyama's busy with the movie, editors dont give a fuck since the anime's already done), we finally get to see that side in full “glory”. To be fair, I think Toyotaro handled the preliminary round and recruitment arc better than Toei. I felt there were a few WTF moments in the manga in terms of power scaling but not as much as Toei overall. I believe the tournament had a decent first few chapters but then he started rushing through it when he got to Jiren vs Hit. To be honest, I don't have a lot of faith in Toyotaro continuing the series on his own though. I do hope they decide to end the series once Toriyama retires or they realize that it might flop without his name being associated with it.
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 19, 2018 4:58:37 GMT
The one thing the manga had over the anime was it felt like it was paying more attention to a power scale and eliminated some other things to streamline things. I felt like getting rid of Saiyan Beyond God state (the form where Goku and Vegeta base forms are powered by god ki) was a good idea. It eliminated the confusion of why Goku and Vegeta even bothered with lower Super Saiyan forms or why can defeat SS3 Gotenks with their bases, but than have problems other characters. It streamlines things better to have Goku and Vegeta entering god forms when they use god ki. Like I said before while Hit not being as strong as his anime counterpart was a major disappointment I felt having him weaker than the god forms did make god ki/god forms still feel special. That was another reason I liked how Toppo was given god ki from the outset, since it kept the strongest fighters all possessing god ki of some kind.
It feels like he dragged Zamasu arc out and is rushing the ToP arc. The former should have been shorter and the ToP should have been longer to give more characters things to do. If they insist on having 10 man team there needs to be a lot of time devoted to the story to give each one of them a decent amount of screen time. The manga already changed things from the anime and by the time things got going the anime was near its end or already ended. It feels like Toyotaro changes haven't really added to the story much. The action is meh and DB series were the action is meh isn't a good thing. Hate it or love it a lot of people had some favorite fights from this arc in the anime. I can't see someone saying the same thing about the manga. If the only real highlight is that the manga is at least not dragging itself out, but nothing else than the story has failed. The sad thing is I think a lot of us expected this arc to only focus on U6, U7, and U11 just based on how all the chapters leading up to the arc only focusing on them. Even looking back on it they haven't really gotten too much screen time either. Vegeta and Toppo fight sounds like it will be mostly off screen the same as Gohan and Kelefa fight. Jiren getting earlier characterization than his anime counterpart and fighting from the start hasn't really amounted to much either.
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Post by Symbiotic on Aug 19, 2018 11:07:39 GMT
Thanks to Super there are so many fanfic authors I need to apologize to, and now the one who had Roshi equal Kid Buu after a few months of training is one of them.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 14:59:19 GMT
Thanks to Super there are so many fanfic authors I need to apologize to, and now the one who had Roshi equal Kid Buu after a few months of training is one of them. The longer the series goes on, I think the harder it will be to distinguish between DBS and Heroes. At this point, the main difference is only one of them has full-length anime and Toriyama's involvement. They've both covered almost every fanfic trope imaginable so they'll eventually run out of that and callbacks to DB moments.
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Post by Axalon on Aug 22, 2018 17:34:32 GMT
So lo and behold a new DBS chapter is out that had the interwebs all in a fluster, so I decided to swing back into the world of DB to see what all the fuss was about. www.viz.com/shonenjump/dragon-ball-super-chapter-39/chapter/8485... ...... I actually have no issues whatsoever with Jiren vs Roshi. No really. Jiren is clearly doing what Jiren has always done, and he's lowered himself to fight on Roshi's level. He did it with Hit in both continuities, he did it with Anime!Vegeta when he was so weak he couldn't even go SS1, and he's been doing that to Goku for the entire ToP. The way I see it, Roshi was able to move better than Jiren initially anticipated and was thus able to dodge him. Jiren amped it up ever so slightly and started to tag Quasi-Ultra Instinct Roshi a couple of times, mercifully let Roshi give Goku a pep talk, then just straight up ended it with a single karate chop. The only way this would be nonsensical is if Toyotaro is actually implying that Jiren is actually going at him with a strength of at least Nappa-level or higher, which I don't think is the case. But that's for the actual fight itself. What comes FROM the fight is where I take issue: 1) Goku tapping into UI by watching the hilariously slow Roshi dodging a hilariously accommodating and slow Jiren is stupid. Like, I'm legitimately debating on if this was dumber than the anime's imploding spirit bomb vortex that sucks you into some alternate dimension levels of dumb. The latter at least is immense physical and mental life-or-death strain to the point of breaking, the former is watching two really slow people fight each other and picking up the ultimate (for now) technique that even the GoDs haven't mastered in a million years. WTF? I know that's kinda Goku's thing since that's how he learned the Kamehameha, but Roshi didn't even do Ultra Instinct, just something similar! So that lets Goku tap into something thousands of levels beyond? WHAT?! 2) UI Omen, previously a thing Toei had made up as a middle ground to the real UI, has now shown up in the manga. ...Interesting. 3) Goku going for PURE POWAH regardless of the effects on the body is absolutely absurd. I'm convinced that Zamasu made an unmentioned THIRD wish to the Super DBs at some point, and was the complete destruction of Goku's brain. Is this seriously the same character who REJECTED pure power in the Cell Saga? It's completely contradictory to Goku choosing the more stable path of mastering SS1 (seriously why has this seemingly been forgotten by Toeiyama/Toritaro?) and just rushing to gain MORE POWAH in his pursuit of a higher power level. He's literally pulling a Future Trunks. Cell is no doubt rolling over in his grave at the absurdity of it all. Jiren even calls Goku out on it and says focusing power like that is unwieldy...WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT GOKU AND CELL BOTH SAID WHEN TRUNKS INITIALLY PULLED THIS OFF IN THE CELL SAGA FFS. The whole point was that Goku (and Cell) were wise enough fighters to know this was a bad idea and why, now thrown out in the ToP because Goku wants an even bigger number because he doesn't like how small his number is compared to Jiren's bigger number. Again, this is literally the rookie mistake Future Trunks did, who had no one but Gohan for a few years and then a couple of Androids who don't even have ki to sense. Future Trunks can be forgiven, unlike some people... 4) Whis priding Roshi on his age for figuring out a not-quite UI but something kinda similar makes no sense given that Hit is over 1,000 years old and doesn't have anything like it. Beerus is millions of years old and only has a partial grasp of UI, the other GoDs don't even have that. Age alone cannot be a factor in this. At any rate. Gohan vs Kefla: 1) I have no idea why Gohan is priding himself on his "human" path that he's pursued. This also makes no sense. He is the way he is because of his goddamned Saiyan genes letting him cheat his way up the power level ladder, ON TOP OF having a godly dance ritual draw out his latent potential. There's nothing human about it. Humans suck in DB. That hasn't changed. Gohan's power is a result of his Saiyan heritage and Elder Kai's ritual, with a dash of Piccolo and Goku training him. Roshi's final big moment in the manga only happened because Jiren chose to let it happen, nothing else. Gohan even introduces himself as a Saiyan from Earth! Not a human! A Saiyan! 2) Piccolo outright confirms that all he's been able to do pre-ToP is make Gohan think like a goddamn fighter again, then says Gohan just had a random powerup DURING his fight with Kefla. WTF? This must be why Goku gets so frustrated afterwards with Jiren. Goddamn prodigy Gohan over here just randomly getting powerups with no training at all because "muh potential" to equal a potara fusion while he's stuck with SSB! It's not fair! Gotta get MORE POWAH! 3) Aside from the initial punches/kicks and the end of the fight most of it is off-panel. I am disappointed. 4) NO CHRISTMAS BEAM? SHAME ON YOUUUUUUU 5) And just like that Kefla and Gohan are both already out. 6) No Tokyo Drift Kamehameha to beat her either. Double shame!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 20:55:32 GMT
-I didn't like Gohan's line about him choosing "evolve as a human and not as a Saiyan" as to why he doesn't need SSJ anymore. You don't need SSJ because a god magically unlocked your potential which comes from being part Saiyan! If Tien and Krillin undergo Old Kai's ritual, they likely aren’t getting anywhere close to Ultimate Gohan’s power.
-So Master Roshi has some kind of incomplete version of Ultra Instinct. Where was this during his battles as Jackie Chun against Goku and Tien? If he could dodge anything from Jiren, those two shouldn’t have been able to land a hit on him! He didn’t seem to have it against those Freeza soldiers in RoF so he would’ve had to learn this between RoF and the Universe Survival saga.
-I like the idea of his wisdom helping Goku but it just makes Goku look like an amateur martial artist for forgetting all this. It’s the same with the getting caught off guard flaw and is something he should’ve overcome years ago. I guess what Toyotaro was going for is that reviewing all of Goku’s teachings from his previous masters was to build up to him achieving Ultra Instinct, the final lesson from his most recent master. The main point of moving on to a new master is usually because the previous one has nothing left to teach you. In the anime, Goku getting overwhelmed and reaching his limit somehow triggered the transformation which is similar to how a few of the earlier forms were unlocked. I curious if Toriyama even specified how the form was supposed to be achieved or if he just designed it and left it up to Toei and Toyotaro. What's funny is that Toriyama's drawing for the mastered Ultra Instinct was just his drawing for SSJG but with white hair.
I’m honestly confused what UI was supposed to be.I assumed it was intended to be more than just another, more powerful SSJ form since it comes with an auto-dodge ability that the Gods of Destruction struggled with/never achieved even after all their years of training. Do other races get a transformation or change of hair color when they master the ability or is it something exclusive to Saiyans? It seems that way since all the various races that make up the Gods of Destruction can use God ki and reach that level of power without transformations while Saiyans needed multiple transformations to get that powerful.
-I’m glad Goku forcibly trying to raise his power was said to be like Kaioken and not the actual technique itself. The main reason I didn’t like it in the anime is because SSJB was already combining two transformations so multiplying that by a power draining technique is just overkill.
-Vegeta and Toppo are already in bad shape so it looks like Toppo is getting eliminated next chapter. #17 and Freeza might have to work together to defeat Dyspo so I guess that leaves a chapter or two for the final battle against Jiren and the ending.
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Post by Conqueror Geng on Aug 24, 2018 3:54:59 GMT
It is hard to put into concrete words what I felt upon reading this, since my reaction was just visceral and primal confusion and cringe. If you were to place a picture in the dictionary entry of "contrived" the cover artwork of this episode would suffice really well. This episode is rampant with unnatural flowing situations and unrealistically placed "revelations". Really... wtf... What the hell was this Gohan interaction with Kaulifla? Everything seemed too fake about it. Her taunting him "can you even go SSJ" right after he was fighting full on with her in "base" should not cause her to mock him, but to actually fear for her life. She's fucking fused with a LSSJ, has eliminated 4 universes on her own, and this little nerdy Clark Kent lookin mofo goes and almost puts an end to her rampage in what she could only perceive as BASE FORM. Then this stupidity is outdone right after: Gohan goes to say "nuh-huh, I prefer muh human side thus I don't need to go ssj anymore". No nigga, you are an hybrid which is stronger than an actual Saiyan and on top of that you received a top-Kaioshin power up that made SSJ3 seem like child play back in the day. Then we get Roshi ultra instinct. Really? This is where the unrealistic exposition comes in full circle. I don't want to delve to deep in this. Axalon already did it. Man, I don't know if I can even blame Toyotaro anymore. I think at this point we can truly say manga ToP is inferior to the Anime. But Anime wasn't particularly good either. I think we can chalk it up to ToP's Arc structure being so fundamentally wrong it can't stand on its own in any way. GokuBlack/Zamasu was better structured and Toyotaro had a lot to do with the fan fics this saga was taken from, so he could fix and make things work better. But this is not the case in the ToP where all the other universe's fighters (including some like Kale) were designed on the run by TOEI. This is why Zamasu arc felt so much better with Toyotaro. In this case he's half assing it because most of these characters are TOEI creations. However, many of the Hakaishins were designed by him, and although they received some development during the Exhibition Match, most were half assed in the ToP itself too. Axalon@skar I think we should give an update to the GT vs. DBS thread. The way the manga is progressing now, and how passé the Jiren, Toppo, Dyspo, etc.. are going to feel once Broly movie comes... I think we could truly say nothing remarkable happened on DBS. I am starting to be further swayed to GT side (I already was but not this much). At least some relevant stuff happened in GT. Everything in DBS just happens for the sake of it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2018 16:47:49 GMT
I think a saga of this magnitude requires more planning. When Toriyama had Zeno announce he wanted to hold his own multiverse tournament back during the Champa saga, I don't think Toriyama considered how much work such a huge tournament would be. We find out he only designed some of the new gods, only the three main Pride Troopers, an unknown number of other contestants, and how some major characters get eliminated. Based on all the differences between the two versions, it seems like he left a lot of the story up to Toei and Toyotaro. The manga ToP is only going to be 15-16 chapters vs the anime having 55 episodes! If Toyotaro is able to include everything in Toriyama's outline while also incorporating his own ideas and some from the anime and still barely a third as long as the anime version, that shows little overall contribution Toriyama had.
The anime had great animation for the major battles but I can't say I find anything else memorable about it. If I read a detailed synopsis for the episodes and imagine it as just a fanfiction without flashy animation then the writing feels like it's all over the place. I don't think the writing holds up very well in comparison to any above average anime or Dragonball fanfic. It doesn't feel like there's a head writer or much supervision and more like several writers adding their ideas with little concern how it fits together. It's like if an author has a team of writers working with him on a novel and says "Alright, here are the major plot points you need to cover. Each one of you works on a few chapters and add in your own details. We don't have a lot of time to look over them so we'll put them all together and hope for the best". A lot of it ended up being filler and you could probably reduce it down to 25-30 episodes without losing any relevant scenes.
The manga suffers the opposite problem of being too rushed. I think this is a problem with the battle royale concept and there begin such a huge power difference between the contestants. In DBZ, it's established that a powerful character up against several weaker opponents could easily dispatch them. In a free-for-all, the fodder contestants are either quickly eliminated once they come into constant with someone much stronger or you're going to have several of the most powerful characters standing around waiting their turn so that everyone in U7 gets a chance to have a few eliminations like in the anime. What I liked about the current Majin conflict in DBM is that it tries to account for all the characters and it feels like an actual battle royale. The strongest contestants are teleported away and everyone still present is engaging in battle. The fights aren't isolated from everything else that's taking place and they could be interrupted at any moment if they're not careful. Imagine if none of the participants were teleported away and we see guys like Vegetto and Zen Buu standing still while the Majin guys line up to mainly fight U18.
Another issue is that I don't think there was a lot of thought put into the premise. Zeno wanted to reduce the number of universes and is offering a wish from the Super Dragonballs to the winning universe. In DBZ, they always tried to keep the Dragonballs safe in order to use them after defeating the enemy. There's nothing preventing the Z fighters from using the Dragonballs after they win. In this saga, even if they win the tournament they're still at the mercy of the most powerful god in the multiverse. No one even questions if Zeno would allow them to resurrect the erased universes. The only character to bring up resurrection was Vegeta but only for U6 so he doesn't seem to care about the countless innocent inhabitants of the other universes. All the other times someone brought up their wish it was treated as a gag. It's like Toriyama thought that having the characters question Zeno would be too much work so he'll have the winner assume it's okay and have it as Zeno's plan all along.
Maybe Toriyama realized that having a short-tempered mentally challenged child as the most powerful God wasn't a good idea so he decided to reverse course with Zeno. I think that's a little late considering he destroyed an entire timeline last saga and was mentioned to have destroyed six universes earlier over a minor offense. I think the anime tried to do some damage control by having Zamasu turn into a multiversal dark cloud to suggest that Zeno didn't have a choice but I'm pretty sure Toriyama's intention was that Zeno was annoyed and decided to destroyed everything. Earlier in the saga, Goku asked if they could have Zeno deal with Goku Black but Beerus mentioned that Zeno would potentially destroy the multiverse if he was upset. I'm honestly not sure how we're supposed to interpret the ending of the ToP when we take all his past behavior into consideration. I interpreted it as Zeno viewing the mortals as pawns for his amusement. If the winner is nice enough to ask for the other universes to be resurrected, that's great but if not then he'll wipe out the entire multiverse. Usually if a god is powerful enough to wipe out all of existence, they're also nearly omnipotent and able to start over with a new universe. I don't think that's the case with Zeno. When Goku went back to retrieve Future Zeno, he was just floating in the empty void so I don't think he even has any idea of what he was going to do next. If the winner of the ToP made a selfish wish and Zeno destroyed everything, would both Zenos just float around in the void of nothing for all eternity waiting for another big bang?
I think another big problem was Jiren. This is the first time that an antagonist was after the Dragonballs and the wish was apparently so unimportant that we never find out what he planned to wish for. It's like his backstory and motive were done at the last minute since it was revealed so late into the tournament. Originally, Toei was going to depict Jiren as more of a superhero and Toriyama said he doesn't speak or something like that and it was then that he made up his backstory. I guess by "doesn't speak" he meant "doesn't say anything of importance" since Jiren mainly told his opponents to get lost and occasionally taunted them. I think Toriyama wanted to play it safe and reveal that Jiren was an asshole who doesn't care about his friends to give the Z fighters the moral high ground so the audience roots for them. I believe it would've been more interesting if Jiren was a noble hero and they show how Pride Troopers and Z fighters were conflicted with having to sacrifice other innocent contestants to save their own universe. Overall, I think Jiren ended up being probably the most boring and forgettable antagonist in the main series.
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 24, 2018 22:17:15 GMT
This just needed to be thought out more and executed better. Leaf had a great idea on how to do the battle royale in a way that eliminates the weaker fighters just getting eliminated right away and makes team aspect matter. Dividing up the tournament into 10 rounds to have each of the 8 competing universes send one member from the ten man teams to compete in each round was a good idea. It eliminates one universe skirting by relying on one or two of the strong members while the rest of the team does nothing to survive. It slows things down enough to create a long arc organically, while limiting the field 8 main fighters for each round. That only secures that every fighter from U7 would get character focus for the round they are in, but also allows the other universes' fighters to get character focus and development. The Hungry Games style leaf suggested months back would have even allowed characters from other universes to team up, make alliances, break alliances, and betrayals a factor in this game more and make it interesting. People could potentially see their heroes make new friends only to be forced to fight them in later episodes for the sake of their universe' survival.
They could have just gone with traditional tournament format only with teams instead of individuals. It is not innovating, but a tournament cliche is a cliche for a reason. With good fights, character moments, and teammates cheering them on for the sidelines a lot of people would have loved it. It once again puts more emphasis on the team as a whole needing to win, thus eliminates the one really strong fighter can win it all on their own and makes even the weaker fighters important. That allows for more down time be given and allow the tournament to go on for a few days. That gives the characters opportunities to talk to their opposition, time to think about the weight of universes erasures, and for comedy DB is known for without it killing a scene in the tournament. It does at least give Goku and Vegeta a little more plausible reasoning for developing their new abilities in between rounds to justify things a bit more. This allows for other universe fighters to get fleshed out and developed a bit better.
Either idea does slow things down and lends themselves to becoming a long arc. It saves the writers at Toei and Toyotaro time to develop all these new characters and their abilities one team at time. That extra time could have gone a long way in making a lot of these characters work better. Trying to make 70 + characters right of the bat with individual personalities and abilities were going to be hard or damn near impossible to begin with. I wish someone told Toriyama that. He is the idea guy, but I'm not sure if anyone is really questioning him anymore. It is like George Lucas effect. The early Star Wars had more people questioning or talking to him to get the best product out, whereas later his success made less people willing to do it and the product is more questionable for people. A proper collaboration should be able to make Toriyama outlines or ideas work better, but it feels like they just take everything he does without questioning him much and we get a weaker product on a whole.
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