Dragon Ball Super

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(***review up to chapter 66--End of the Moro Arc***)

After 1.5 years since my original review of this manga, I still highly recommend it over the anime version of Dragon Ball Super. Before, I only thought of it as a quicker, higher quality alternative to the anime, but with the addition of the Moro arc it has much more to offer. The Moro arc is the longest so far in the manga, and was able to tell its epic story with appropriate pacing since there was no need to keep up with an anime version. On top of covering the events of the anime in a ... more digestible format, Toyotarou's Dragon Ball Super manga now delivers what is easily my favorite story arc of the Super era.

While Toyotarou's pen game doesn't perfectly replicate Toriyama-sensei's art style, it's a close approximation. The way Toyotarou lays out his panels is very distinct from the original Dragon Ball. This is most notable in his action scenes where he uses large, jagged panels versus Toriyama-sensei's mostly rectangular panels. Toyotarou's sound effects also seem larger and more blocky, but I can't say for sure since I've only read the original manga with localized sound effects. Regardless, the characters are all consistently on model, the fight choreography is easy to follow, and every fight is imbued with a sense of speed that you just don't get in the anime version of Super.

The manga's story is largely the same as the anime (Up until the manga only Moro arc), with the differences mostly coming down to details while the overall plot stays the same. For detailed thoughts on some of these differences, see the spoiler paragraphs at the end of the review. The manga is also missing all of the anime filler. That means the bad filler like the weird goo monster that nearly beat Goku and Vegeta, as well as the filler I actually liked such as Gohan playing Saiyaman in a movie. So while we do lose some enjoyable character moments, the overall story doesn't suffer because of it.

Now that the conclusion of the Moro arc is upon us, I can safely say that this is my favorite arc of Dragon Ball Super to date. This is the only arc during which my score for the series rose consistently with every chapter, because each chapter was of overall higher quality than the arcs that came before. Because Toyotarou wasn't trying to play catch up to the anime and condense story events to move the plot along, he was able to plan out a really well paced and structured narrative.

In this arc, Toyotarou basically made his own ultimate remix of all the things he loves about Dragon Ball. He pulled plot elements and characters from all over the place and arranged them into a beautiful celebration of the entire series. Sure, that does keep some story beats from feeling totally fresh, but it all comes together to build an epic story with more believable tension than I've ever felt in Dragon Ball Super up until now. The ending is... Kinda out there, but it brings back a lot of plot threads from throughout the arc for a final payoff.

The characters of Dragon Ball are pretty much the same as always in the Super manga, especially up through the Tournament of Power where Toyotarou's hand were basically tied to the agreed upon story. In the Moro arc, he gave Vegeta some welcome character development. While it may not be a drastic change from where his character has been in Super, he gets a chance to recognize his past sins and atone for them, and learn from his history of reckless battle strategies. On the other hand, a case could be made that Toyotarou has regressed Goku's character given some of the events in the Moro arc, but I honestly don't feel like any of his actions were out of place.

So who should read Dragon Ball Super? I urge any and all Dragon Ball fans to read this manga. If you've already watch the TV anime of Super, you're probably fine without reading the same story again, but I highly recommend the Moro arc starting at chapter 42. For anyone who hasn't seen the anime, I can only suggest that you read the manga and watch the movies starting with Battle of Gods for what I consider the best possible Dragon Ball Super experience.

***SPOILER PARAGRAPHS***
Here are my thoughts on a few specific differences in the manga. In the fight against Hit, Goku sadly does not use Kaio Ken Blue, but I enjoy how he defeats Hit by predicting where he will be after a time skip and punching there. In the Goku Black arc, Goku demonstrates his old "monkey see, monkey do" talent by using Beerus's Hakai technique on Zamasu. In the finale, we're also spared from the weirdness of Zamasu fusing with the entire universe or whatever happened in the anime.

Finally, in the Tournament of Power, Goku unlocks Ultra Instinct after watching Master Roshi dodge attacks from Jiren. The anime version where Goku gets hit by his own Spirit Bomb simply has nothing to do with the mechanics of Ultra Instinct, while in the manga he learns to use it by coalescing lessons from all of his previous masters and watching Roshi perform a similar technique. It actually makes some kind of sense while the anime version makes no sense at all.

Im writing this as someone who enjoyed dragonball super casually since the beginning. If you turn off your brain you might have a fun experience. However,lets be honest with ourselves Dragonball Super should be judged as what it is. It is not a serious manga that is made out of passion or love of the art or francise. It's a cashgrab rehashing a legendary manga series for profit alone. Giving them strange blue hair and a thousand transformations that become meaningless in the next arc, terrible antagonists that have overtly simplistic backstorys, weak plot threads, boring paneling.... But since the tournement of power arc ... something has changed. The pacing has gotten a lot better, Goku and Vegeta actually are starting to feel like actual characters and not action figures meant to sell merch, the newest antagonists actually are pretty average-solid, even the paneling and art is becoming less lazy. Especially the newest arc the "Granolah the Survivor Saga" is starting to be actually good. Like actually good not in dragonball super standards good like the moro arc but actually good. Im looking forward to that, but for now.... meh.

There isn't much good I can say about this other than that it has okay fight scenes to be honest.

When you start Dragon Ball Super it feels like you've missed a whole load of story. Besides from the beginning, the rest of the story feels rushed and unfinished, it jumps from one arc immediately into the next, which isn't bad in its own right but it takes time to realize what's going on. It really could benefit from some filler in between so you can actually realize what just happened.

Overall the story is unclear because it jumps from one thing immediately into the next leaving ... no time to comprehend what is happening. But I mean it's fight scenes are good, right?