Listen, I like Dragon Ball Z, I LOVE Dragon Ball Z, it was my favorite show as a child by far. I realize that Dragon Ball Super is really not meant for me anymore, but I had watched it as a 15/16 year old at the time of it's airing (The first three arcs at least), and it honestly fell apart after a few arcs, and did not feel like Dragon Ball anymore.
Dragon Ball Super starts off with a recap of both the Beerus movie, Battle of Gods, and the Frieza Movie, Resurrection of F. It's a shame they had to recap Battle of Gods because it was honestly a really great movie. Episode 5 of this arc has been widely regarded as one of the worst pieces of animation ever put to Anime. You know, when you start out with one of the best Dragon Ball movies and you ruin it just because you are this greedy, then the sequel is eventually going to be bad. The arc then got better eventually, Beerus is honestly a great villain/anti hero, his introduction was done well, his character design is pleasing to look at, and I'd say he is easily in my top three villains in Dragon Ball due to how intimidating/fun he is. The fight between Goku and Beerus was really good, and I was surprised that it was this good considering how a number of weeks ago we had episode 5. This arc ended on a good note, and was good/great overall.
I was thinking to myself "Did Dragon Ball Super just have a great arc? Will this continue on? Will they better the animation? Will they have better character development? Will they get better villains?" The short answer is no. Toei disappointed yet again in the following arc. Same old story, the animation in this arc was even worse. I genuinely could not believe, even as a 15 year old boy, that this was being broadcasted as an actual TV show. The animation during the Goku/Frieza fight is honestly an insult to all of Dragon Ball. The designs and the faces during the fight felt like they were being drawn by a child, not a professional animation studio. This is not to mention how Frieza jumped this high in power, horrible power scaling done to advance the plot.
Since every one of Dragon Ball's arcs is condensed into a basic shonen formula, reviewing every single arc would be pointless, so let us look at Dragon Ball Super in a broader sense and discuss it's power scaling as a whole. I feel like the power scaling is what ruined all of Dragon Ball Super.
Dragon Ball Super's power scaling is just one big mess to be frank. Where do you start with it honestly? Dragon Ball Z did not always have the best power scaling. For example, you had the awfully inconsistent zenkai boosts during the Namek saga, something that Toriyama pulled right from his pocket and decided to just place it in there as a sudden explanation as to why Saiyans get stronger, and as a way for our heroes to always defeat the bad guys. Dragon Ball Super did not avoid this issue, they looked at the issue and asked "How can we make this problem ten times worse than it already is?" You have instances where even the hardcore Super fans cannot defend it. Instances such as Krillin fighting off against Super Saiyan Blue Goku. This fight was ridiculous, and you cannot honestly tell me that Goku was holding back, because if he was, he would have gradually transformed from his weakest form to his most powerful form. An excuse I hear about this is that Goku was trying to motivate Krillin into thinking he was doing well against him in his strongest form. Really? Did these people forget that Krillin knows that he is leagues below base level Goku? It was honestly just done to hype up the lame fight so that more viewers will watch, and to result in more controversy, therefore resulting in more publicity for the Anime. That is the only logical explanation. The fact that Goku started all out against Krillin, but not against Jiren is just ridiculous. The writers could have avoided all these problems by not having Goku turn into the eighth color of the rainbow against Krillin, with no explanation as to why. The writers dug themselves into this hole and should not be surprised at the negative backlash.
It does not just stop with Krillin. Every single member of the team that Goku assembled during the TOP arc just magically got stronger. All of these average characters, who were nothing one episode before the TOP arc started, just got magically stronger than the eighth color of the rainbow. These characters trained for a mere fraction of the time that Goku and Vegeta had been training for, and got this strong. It's honestly a joke, and Dragon Ball Super can't be taking itself seriously at this point.... but it actually is....
The Zamasu arc is even worse than the preparation arc because Dragon Ball Super made even less sense than it usually does during this arc, and the asspulls were too much to handle. How can a guy like Trunks, who is infinitely weaker than Vegito/Zamazu, defeat Zamasu? Back in Dragon Ball Z, it took everyone on earth to power up the spirit bomb to the point where it could kill Buu, but Trunks makes one that is a million times stronger with an abandoned city and a dead planet. Nobody can defend this terrible writing. I challenge any fan of this Anime to come and defend it.
It's irritating to look at, and see irrelevant characters suddenly become relevant again, and become as strong as two characters who have been sweating blood for years to get to the level that they are at right now. 17, the most irritating character in the whole Anime, Trunks (I already talked about him above, one of my favorite characters in Dragon Ball Z was handled very poorly here), Gohan, Frieza. All of these characters got magically stronger than Goku and Vegeta. Please don't even get me started on the sorry excuse of a character that is Kefla. Dragon Ball Z at least explained how the characters got stronger during it's run.
Of course powerscaling is not the only problem that this Anime has. A lot of stuff that is counter-intuitive happens in Dragon Ball Super, retcons that don't make any sense. An example of this would be the potara earring fusion. The potara earring fusion was always known to be a permanent fusion, meaning that the two individuals who use the earrings and fuse together cannot defuse if they wanted to. Dragon Ball Super could have defused Vegito the same way it did with the Supreme Kai, by using the super dragon balls, but it just was not the case here with these lazy writers. After they fused, the Anime decided to disregard the last thirty years of Dragon Ball and just place a time limit on the potara fusion. The stupidest retcon anyone can think of, and it ruined the fusion dance for me, because what's the use of the fusion technique when the potara earrings can now diffuse? Other than this awful retcon, there were many unexplained things. What about Super Saiyan Rose, which was never explained? Why didn't Zamasu switch bodies with Jiren, who was leagues above Goku? These are just some examples in the endless sea of retcons, unexplained stuff and awful narrative decisions this Anime makes.
I don't even want to talk about the Tournament of Power arc, which was by far the worst arc in all of Dragon Ball Super. The segments where they show the characters explaining everything that happens during the fights are the very definition of cringe. How are we supposed to be entertained or informed when the characters talk about the most obvious of things that are happening? The only thing the audience of Gods and Angels talks about is how much stronger a character has gotten, or how a character is beating another character and is winning, that's it. You would think that they would give explanations to things that need an explanation, since they were cramming this much dialogue into the show, but they don't. Why not just let the fight play out as it should be without interrupting it every ten seconds? Are you that cheap, Toei Animation? Are you really that greedy that you can't even do one fight properly? Yeah, I know that Goku vs Jiren was a thing, but that was towards the very end of that arc, when Toei had already made ten times what they were hoping for. If you are going to not explain all of the stuff you wrote, then you can at least not place the loads of pointless dialogue you placed during TOP. One or two good fights in an entire series of bad does not excuse all of this.
This Anime is an obvious disrespect to Dragon Ball Z, and it is a shameless cash grab done by Toei Animation so that they can make more money. This whole Anime was made to sell merchandise of the various forms that Goku and Vegeta obtain throughout all of it's run, it was not made to please the fans of the franchise. The feel of Dragon Ball is just gone here. Dragon Ball was great for it's time, it is still clearly memorable and the most popular Anime in the world, so a reboot was not necessary at all. But what do I know? Toei Animation owns the rights to the two most popular Anime on the planet, so clearly they are doing something right.
Anyways, if you haven't for some odd reason seen this, then I advise you to just not watch it. Go watch or rewatch Dragon Ball Kai if you want to see Dragon Ball. Or go watch some of the Dragon Ball Z or Super movies. Both are much better use of your time.
