Aug 15, 2022
I genuinely don't think that I've outright hated an anime quite as much as I hate Dragon Ball Super. This show takes nearly every single negative from the original series and cranks it up to 11, fills the "plot" with nonsensical fan service, and not only that but it's considered "canon" by the general fan base. This is a complete affront to the Dragon Ball name with the sole exception of the Broly movie, which itself is mostly just carried by the production quality/$$$ poured into it.
Even things that seem as if they'd be positives in Super end up being so laughably half-assed that
...
I can't even give it credit for those. For example, on the surface you'd think that giving side characters a chance to prove themselves and contribute would be a good thing. The problem? It's all completely halfhearted. At one point in the show, each character gets a dedicated episode for them to "shine" by beating up on some random throwaway enemy. Why the fuck is Roshi, a character who gave up on fighting and who shouldn't be stronger than Raditz, competing against enemies equivalent to Z frieza? I am totally okay with throwing power levels out the window and focusing more on the actual techniques (which is what makes DB better than Z) but Roshi quit training ages ago and really the fact that he's even still alive is somewhat unbelievable. At the end of the day, this is all completely shallow tripe and the show is really just Goku and Vegeta Ball Super.
Oh but you aren't supposed to take a "CANON" (supposedly, toriyamas involvement in very limited and all that he does is occasional script writing) seriously!!!!!! Just turn your brain off and enjoy it! Fuck no. This piece of shit reinforces every single negative stereotype about one of my all time favorite media franchises. The entire first chunk of this show is just horrifically animated, uninspired retellings of the BoG and Resurrection F movies. Speaking of, how lazy is recycling a villain from Z entirely to please fans and then making his big power up just making him GOLDEN??? Christ. After this you get the U6 tournament, which is actually an interesting idea. Hit is a definite highlight of this show as well and him killing Goku was one of the coolest moments in the series even though it wasn't nearly enough to pierce Goku's plot armor and the part in the U6 tournament where he overcomes Hit's time skip by.. powering up is incredibly lame. The tournament itself is whatever and some of the fights are just flat out uninteresting such as Goku beating up on the jello-bear or the big steam robot that has two attacks.
Outside of Hit, this show has one more major highlight for me. Zamasu. He is a marvelously interesting idea for a villain and touches on concepts of human morality. You can genuinely understand his motivations, almost every action he takes is calculated and hell he even nearly wins. So how'd they fuck it up? By using this phenomenal concept on a fanfic tier ZOMG EVIL GOKU!!!!!!!! plotline. No seriously, he's literally a deviantart OC from 2009. https://www.deviantart.com/negatiivegokux20/art/Evil-goku-137564254.
This alone isn't enough to ruin the Zamasu arc for me and overall I'd still call it a solid arc, but asspulling Zamasu into being le evil goku imitator just comes off as yet another instance of this show attempting to be a soulless cash grab. They even made his hair pink! MERCHANDISING! By the way, all of the new forms in this show are just deviantart OC esque color pallet swaps. Unbelievably lazy but boy do those toys fly off the shelves.
It ends with the ludicrously stretched out Tournament of Power arc. Buu gets shelved at the last hour because of Frieza deciding to fight with Goku which is lolworthy. About half of this arc is completely useless filler (hi Ribrianne) The main antagonist's backstory is a boldfaced Batman ripoff. Jiren himself has absolutely no character whatsoever and really he is basically just a giant plot device who serves no other purpose than to be REALLY STRONG so that Goku can obtain Ultra Instinct. UI is a neat idea for a transformation and it's a shame that it's wasted on a complete nothing foe. I don't even really know what else to say about this, it's a bland tournament arc that has some flashy fight scenes but ultimately it isn't very memorable whatsoever outside of those flashy fight scenes.
There isn't ANY emotional weight in this show whatsoever like there were in the originals, which is part of what makes it so much worse. Dragon Ball's story has never been a literary masterpiece, but it was good enough to make you feel connected to the characters and WANT to see them overcome their struggles. When Gohan broke you FELT it. The awesome beatdown was a mere accessory to that payoff that had been gradually building up for hundreds of episodes. There is no character development to speak of here, Goku is transformed into a 60 IQ retard and Vegeta just disowns the completion of his arc in the Buu saga. Is the plot of the original shows perfect? Nope. But there isn't ANYTHING of substance here in Super. It's just mindless fighting.
For an overall score? I'd probably give this one around a 3 or a 4.
Animation - VERY inconsistent, it's highs are among the best i've seen and it's lows are among the lowest. The animation improves a good deal later in the show. I'll split the difference. Except... the "modern" dragon Ball look makes everything look as if it's been smeared in vasoline. For that, I can't really go any higher than a 4/10 or so.
Plot - 2/10 at best. The only way to tolerate the plot is to turn your brain off and not think about it too much.
Characters - The original dragon ball characters are all obviously who they are but the new characters are mostly really lame and lack any sort of depth so I'm giving this a 3/10. Seriously, besides Hit and Zamasu pretty much every other character introduced are sterile and lifeless and that is saying something considering they had 6 ENTIRE UNIVERSES OF POTENTIAL CHARACTERS TO WORK WITH. what an unbelievable waste.
Sound - It has some good tracks but overall it's pretty whatever. Probably the highlight of the show despite that and the UI theme kicks ass. 5/10.
That concludes my first review. Apologies if this comes off as ranty, and as always you are entitled to like what you like. But this show just isn't it for me, and I can't recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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