Now you may ask yourself; Why exactly am I writing a review and why do I bother watching the series, when you can obviously read from my overall score, that I gave it a poor rating? Thing is Dragon Ball was my favourite series, when I was a kid, and when it was announced I was indeed interested in where it goes. Back when I was 7 they were airing the original series on the german channel RTLII and it was the best tv experience I had in those days, with the over the top battles and the juvenile jokes perfectly resonating with my mindset at the time. Since Super decided to reboot the latest two movies, it was also a bit harder to accept, that this was all a nostalgia-milking process, because you foolishly believed the new content to eventually turn worthwhile. By the time, that happened you however already spent 30 weeks on the series and decided, that your investment was already big enough to as well see it end. Besides, it's not like 20 minutes on a weekend is that big of an investment. Not to mention the reviewing part is actually pretty fun. You also probably want to know, why I bother reviewing it, when it's nowhere near finished? I guess it's due to my selfish determination to bring my thoughts on paper. I just felt like it. Especially since it's currently starting to develop more hype, so I figured; Let's reflect about it a bit. I will likely write a review covering the whole series, when it finishes, but right now I feel like talking about the stuff, that is there.
Now let's start with the most important category; the STORY. I warn you beforehand; there will be minor SPOILERS, I won't write anything directly, but I will point out a thing or two, if I think it could help me bring my point across better. I guess that doesn't really require me to put anything in spoiler tags. You've been warned. But let's start;
Like I already said, Super decided to buy some time at first by remaking the latest two movies, which were written by original creator Akira Toriyama. First we start with the BATTLE OF GODS arc. To start off, let me say it as it is; I liked the movie. It wasn't anything brilliant, but it introduced a fun enough new villain with Beerus the God of Destruction, had goofy comedy, that worked and was well animated throughout. Yes, the Super Saiyan God transformation was stupid both conceptionally and design-wise and the writing felt like another unnecessary tacked-on story to the Dragon Ball series, but it still felt like decent enough fan service. That being said remaking the arc for the tv series, didn't exactly work, because the writers didn't bother with improving upon the base material at all. For the first 13 episodes or so, you get the exact same product, but with worse animation and poorer pacing. They switch up the jokes, but that fell flat as well, because if you are familiar with the jokes in the movie, the jokes will feel like the same thing all over again. Not to mention the battles in the series were poor. You can imagine my dissapointment, when Goku finally goes Super Saiyan God to fight Beerus and the fight you get is just them clashing their fists together like they were Naruto and Sasuke doing the Rasengan/Chidori clash three times in a row. But hey it can only go upstream from that on, right?
Sadly no. FRIEZA'S RESSURECTION arc, was the one where I thought you could improve upon the source material a lot, by stretching it out, introducing more enemy characters, give more spotlight to the characters, who got snubbed out of it in the "Ressurection F"-movie, which the arc is based on and make Frieza's plan a little more elaborate. But once again the writers just couldn't allow themselves to mess with Toriyama's ideas a bit and bringing the best out of it. To be fair they added some stuff, but none of it was worthwhile. Among others they almost carbon-copied Krillins first significant character arc of the original Dragon Ball. You know the one, where he faces his bullies from the monastery and unexpectedly realizes he's stronger than them. I guess half the people who've seen DBZ haven't bothered watching the original, so they probably didn't even notice it. There's also the return of Ginyu, that was just another forgettable affair, that didn't add anything interesting to the table. I genuinely feel like you would get the same amount of plot and substance as this arc has to offer, if you played Budokai Tenkaichi 3, selectively picked characters to play and to battle against, listened to the before battle dialoge, finish the fight and listen to the victory line of your character.
Now we get to the first new material TOURNAMENT arc. Now stuff gets good, right? First we're introduced to Beerus' overweight brother and Whis' female version of a sister; Champa and Vados, because Toriyama was really on a roll with his character ideas. Because everyone is a gourmet now, Champa gets jelous of Beerus' universe and plots a 5 on 5 tournament to steal earth from his borthers universe by winning. This could have been an interesting fan service type of thing. Unfortunately the characters are as stale as ever and the battles just underwhelming. Our main team's squad pretty much gets reduced to just Goku and Vegeta again, because Majin Buu is too dumb to participate and Beerus' handpicked contestant is... I guess that would be considered a spoiler, so I can't tell. Piccolo atleast gets a fight, that's decently choregraphed, but ultimately just ends up being another 20 minutes, that don't really add that much to the plot progression. On the enemies' team we get a big yellow teddy bear, universe 6 Frieza, a giant robot, who doesn't like racial slurs and whom I actually liked, a saiyan kid and purple Pikkon. Ultimately Winnie the Pooh and the Tinman are just minibosses to stretch the plot. Universe 6 Frieza is the one-dimensional two-faced politician, who (which is a thing I actually liked) prepared for the fights against his god-level adversaries by using the only types of tricks, that appearently work against them, which would have been cool, if it weren't for his bland personality and anticlimatic defeat. The Saiyan boy is basically a rehash of the final DBZ episode, but by using Vegeta instead of Goku. And there's purple Pikkon, who despite being the strongest being of his universe works as an assassin.
After that came another shorter FILLER arc, were Goten and Trunks accidentally end up on different planet, that however didn't add much to the bigger picture. Other than using some ideas from GT, messing even more with power levels by completely contradicting, what was implied about them in the previous 3 arcs and giving us the image of Vegeta sucking on a pacifier.
Now we arrive at the present with the GOKU BLACK arc. Once again Toriyama dwellt deep in his idea box (the fanfic box, that is), to dig up another idea for an unnecessary story continuation. A lot of people like it appearently. Unfortunately I can't join them. The villain feels cliched and uninteresting even for Dragon Ball standards; he's neither sadistic or dark like the previous DBZ-villains nor as goofy as early DB-villains, but also not sympathetic enough in his pursuit for his own ideals to be somewhat likeable. Not to mention the arc so far was only a chain of clashes with the villains, that barely led anywhere and got interrupted in the end, keeping people's attention by more silly transformations, that don't do anything else, but make characters supposedly stronger and relevant in battle.
Now with the story out of the way, there are a few other categories to discuss. Let's start with the ACTION. I already addressed it previously; it's not good. The choreographies are for the most part weak. I remember people cheering for the Vegeta VS Cabba battle, because it atleast a bit reminded them of DBZ battles. Problem however is, that DBZ used to pull those same choreographies on an episodes basis back in the day. To be fair, this area is improving, with some more decent fights in the latest episodes.
Next up is the COMEDY. I've noticed people apologizing DBS's comedy by saying it's trying to recapture the days of the original DB-series and that if you go back to the original series, you will immediately see that. Well I did just that and let me tell you one thing; DB had much better comedy. Especially early on, when it didn't took its fighting aspects as seriously and even the most serious fights could include well written jokes like Krillin and Master Roshi motivating the narrator to help them recreate exactly what happened in the fraction of a second during a battle, because the audience couldn't comprehend their high speed movements. DB was full of those creative and absurd but also edgy jokes.
As for the CHARACTERS; they're stale now. Goku was never particularly interesting, but DBZ avoided him becoming annoying by making him give his main character spot over to Gohan and serve as more of a mentor figure and trump card. Now he still has the trump card role, but his getting way more exposure, than is good for the series. The second most important character is Vegeta. He was one of the more interesting characters in DBZ. He went from ruthless planet destroyer, to ally to the Z-Fighters out of convenience and ultimately became part of their family. He got especially interesting in the last 2 arcs, because of his pursuit to reach Goku, who was clearly superior to him, despite not having royal blood. Now with that character arc over, he's just training, because that's what he does. No other characters really matter. I guess I like Beerus for being a snarky gourmet and Piccolo for becoming a babysitter and him being my favourite character in DBZ. A lot of people complain about them "ruining" Gohan, but atleast he went the direction DBZ intended him to.
Now to the PRESENTATION; we all know the dreadful episode 5. Yes, the ART can become really horrendous at times. But atleast it's improving just like the animation. The most praiseworthy thing about the series in my opinion is the SOUNDTRACK. It fits the tone well and the opening feels weirdly in line to "Cha-la Head Cha-la" and that other opening DBZ had back in the days of the Majin Saga.
As you are able to see, my overall opinion on DBS is not positive. I honestly think it's even weaker than DBGT. GT atleast knew how to play with the existing DB-lore more creatively, even if didn't make much sense in the end. I don't recommend it, but based on what I already said in the intro I might as well finish, what I started.
3/10
