What can I say about Dragon Ball Super? God, don't let it be your introduction to Dragon Ball lmao. This is a show to watch if you are a person that can't get enough Dragon Ball and you don't care how it comes to you. It's easy to hate because, well, it's bad, really bad. If you're comparing it to what spawned it, its a pretty embarrassing exploitation. If you compare it to other battle shounen coming out around Super's time, it's utter garbage and wins in no category. Its first OP is good and can stand up against others, but that's a negligible pro.
Story
...
(4/10)
Its story is bad by any standard, DB or just in general - for the longest time you'd swear they were just doing whatever is necessary to make all their old characters show up again (I guess for merch-selling purposes). The story is not important though because Goku just wants to fight, now more than ever it is his sole purpose. Even more unsubstantial and meaningless fights (conflicts) and training than I've seen in all other Dragon Ball combined (Not GT). The point of the show, other than selling merchandise, is battling. There's no journey, the enemies come to you, or you come to them and you fight. There's no adventure or sense of, and no weight to anything that happens - fights are uncreative, non-progressing exchanges with little personality and choreography, a lot of machine gun punching as usual, whatever the term is. There is no sense of limitation or danger. No good twists or cliffhangers and obviously no real tension - nothing that will eve make you wonder whats going to happen next, eager to skip that ED and OP to keep it going. Just back-and-forths until the ass-pulls or “this isnt even my final form” type of thing happens lol.
Full of completely undeserved ass pulls, unfunny and undeniably bad plot conveniences, contrivances and developments - everything lacks seriousness, it is silly, yet also unfunny - so what the heck is the point?! Like, I swear, the world could just blow up, but someone would then just cast a spell to turn back time a convenient 3 minutes to right where you need to be. Not cool, not funny. Truly, Super has more of the comedy (without being funny) and the inconsequential nature of Dragon Ball by ramping up the scale of everything so quickly or even instantly. Goku and Vegeta instantly master God mode (lol). Its such a hack job near everywhere you look, quickly thrown together without much care. Its not trying to be a serious show on the one hand, but on the other hand, it's not being funny with its silliness or endearing, just...exploitative. Problem is it's easy to watch due to all the familiar faces and usual vibrant coloration we know and love Dragon Ball for, and for no other reason. If I didn't already love me some Dragon Ball and I watched this as my first forray into DB universe, I'd have such an utter distaste for its world and characters that I then might not be able to enjoy the original series, which doesn't deserve this taint. But if this is your first dive into DB, or hell, anime, then I imagine you wouldn't stick around.
I hoped to finish and be able to say that the Tournament of Power was the show's saving grace, that it had a stronger ending than its beginning. Unfortunately I can not say that. The final big baddie, Jiren, was a lazy combination of Toguro and Kurapika's backstory (the original Sasuke) from Yuyu and HxH. Combined with his awful, lame being and final ass-pulls by our main characters, there is just so little to applaud, its insane. The pacing in the series isn't the worst, by Dragon Ball or LONG running shounen standards, but its not great. The narrator is all, “only 34 minutes left in the Tournament of power.” And I'm like, “...Uh, there's still nearly 30 episodes left...” Now that's classic pacing, its just not that intense the whole time, but it does get there and stay there. Like, the amount of dialogue spoken per episode in all of these last 30 episodes are more than the just one minute of real-time that is supposedly happening during their tournament. Lol. Then “9 minutes left” with 9 episodes left lol. That part is pretty funny, not enough to actually make me laugh because its not set up that way. And I'm not entirely sure its intentional.
Super wasn't all bad or unenjoyable, I smiled at some stuff - some Krillin action, some Yamcha and some tits-on-a-man jokes, but that's about it. It had such a hard time doing funny. Its supposed to be a Dragon Ball resurrection and fan service but it feels like they're trolling and mocking fans. They just don't want such a recognized franchise to go unused and then be forgotten, they want to profit on it and keep it fresh in minds because its a franchise that's already mega established.
Art (6):
I loved that old Dragon Ball aesthetic that this doesn't have. It really needs that old aesthetic and character art style, just look at Mr. Satan. Characters are drawn soooo flat, line work is minimal af. Everything is still vibrantly colored, so it can still be pleasing to the eyes in that way. But the cost-effective, modern art style that is used here is incredibly unflattering to the Dragon Ball universe. Dragon Ball Super's bad-cheesy, nonsensical character design are not helped by the cheap, inconsistent, low effort look they used here. Dragon Ball always had some stupid/ugly character designs, and some really cool ones. The bad ones were easily given a pass because of the surrounding cast and great, old style of the art back then. In Super, newly introduced characters' designs have gotten worse, they're simple and cliche and little detail goes into them - there's no good character art anymore. The main cast look alright or grow on you, like Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and some other characters. But still, the new characters do look so low effort, pulled out the ass to the point where its annoying. We just don't have the same old charm that got some of these ugly, odd characters by. Even at the end of the show, the character art occasionally looks like they had interns or a fourth party do it, forget third. So many poor characters introduced, feels like a bad random character generator tool was used lol.Just wait to see Goku fight Winnie the Poo. I'm serious, I can't believe some of these character design choices.
The animation is fine, nothing to brag about or complain about. Unfortunately what's being animated is sub-par, the art is something you'll get used, I had to. I'll always long for the way it used to be and if you don't then just go watch some older stuff to be reminded of how much better Dragon Ball was handled then.
Sound (7):
The soundtrack is average, nothing like the originals, but its still serviceable, nothing unpleasant to the ears. Its usage could've been better, I felt any stretch where there was no music to be a drag since the dialogue is pretty pointless. I'm not a dubby, I like my subs generally. But Dragon Ball is one of the anime that I think crushes the Japanese. The voice acting that was once phenomenal is now just alright, some of the old voices remain close enough to their benchmark. Goku and Vegeta both are still good, but Piccolo, my man, butchered. Frieza? Butchered. Everyone else is unimpressive, its not totally their fault what with the material, I still think they could've done a lot better. The casting on many character's feels so off, the ghetto purple bunny fighting Frieza during the Tournament of Power, boy, what a duo. I watch 90% of my crap in subs, but DB and DBZ have some of the best dubs out there. And its Japanese voice acting is some of the worst, most unfitting voice acting ever, in my humble opinion. So the situation, as it stands, is that most character's voices have been downgraded. And the sub is still bad. So no matter what you go with, you'll be disappointed if you haven't gone deaf since DBZ. Lol. Narrator is average.
Character (4):
There isn't much to talk about here since the characters are really just what we see. The dialogue they have is nothing special. Its Dragon Ball, so there isn't anything intelligent to be said or profound to be heard. It's the kind of show that makes you dumber, which is what I'd say about the originals too. The show is 90% for comedy so no one gets made out to be truly epic or badass, it always feels pretty cheap. Deep down, character motivations are still just “lets fight to see who is stronger :]” Lmao. Like, the planet might be in danger and then we hear the good guy's inner thoughts whose thing how happy they are that they can fight this guy. Take for example... Goku says, “Sounds like this Goku-Black is really strong, *smiles* I can't WAIT to fight him!” *Goku Black literally just genocided the entire planet and Bulma in another timeline* It's pretty typical Dragon Ball stuff as far as that goes, but its just made worse here by everything else being worse. Dragon Ball character's have always been shallow enough that even an infant wouldn't drown in it's depths. Oh also, “Do you like Gohan? Like, at all? Really? Well F*** YOU,” says the creators of Super, at least until the last 40 episodes.
Enjoyment (6):
Look, I can tear Dragon Ball Super apart and sleep just fine at night, I'm confident in my convictions against it. But that said, I still got some enjoyment out of watching it, since I do like Dragon Ball thanks to the originals. I just, as I watched it, wished it to be better than it was, to go beyond its limits, Plus Ultra! But it never did, bad to middling the whole time. There were a fair amount of good ideas and it if were handled the way it was back in the day, it would've been good. My enjoyment of Super was carried by my familiarity of the past.
Closing and Overall Rating (5.4, rounds down to a 5):
It's fine if you like this, just be real. Admit you like garbage, there's nothing wrong with that. I like plenty of garbage, but I'm real about. Among its peers, Super is nothing to boast about. Like it and enjoy it, just don't tell me it is good and give it any higher than a 6 on MAL. Thanks, k bye.
May 22, 2022
Dragon Ball Super
(Anime)
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What can I say about Dragon Ball Super? God, don't let it be your introduction to Dragon Ball lmao. This is a show to watch if you are a person that can't get enough Dragon Ball and you don't care how it comes to you. It's easy to hate because, well, it's bad, really bad. If you're comparing it to what spawned it, its a pretty embarrassing exploitation. If you compare it to other battle shounen coming out around Super's time, it's utter garbage and wins in no category. Its first OP is good and can stand up against others, but that's a negligible pro.
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(Anime)
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You can truly feel as if you are lying right there beside Hinako, who is perhaps one the most well-developed female characters in anime. The creators effort shows in presentation filling her with the charm and giving her guise required to be fully lost in this 40+ minute long roller coaster. Story (10/10): A perfect full circle. It's very relatable and its something you will think back to time and again. That's about all that needs to be said. ... |
