To be fair to the Zenkai Boosts: The idea of getting stronger after every near fatal injury wasn't something that Toriyama came up with out of nowhere. Many a Wuxia and Xianxia stories, including ones that Toriyama often took influnece from, have this ability as a special bloodline for clans of martial artists. Thing is, Toriyama just used it for Saiyans, and didn't bother to give a milder variant for other races.
I can't disgree with some of this hard enough. Big post, with examples, incoming. Notably the future Trunks bit. Him being introduced as the son of Vegeta is one of the best executed parts of the character: Having someone or something from the future pop in that seems completely implausible at first, and then developing the story towards the events that lead up to that outcome, is one of the best ways to write time travel in a long running series. They even gave a bit of explanation of where the spark for Vegeta and Bulma's relationship came from, and not just that, it retroactively explained Goku's attraction to Chi Chi: Saiyan men tend to be attracted to stongheaded, fiery women. Vegeta slowly developing into a family man is great, too... Though maybe it could have been handled a bit better. The two main issues I have with future Trunks is that Vegeta's inability to get a big win on his own strength seems to be hereditary, and he goes from cool and powerful to incompetent in an instant. That's almost the opposite of him being a cop out... But it does demonstrate something similar. I think you have the right idea, you're just a little off target. I think the real problem with Toriyama's writing is less copouts, and more that there's so many readily available alternatives, be it characters, techniques, etc... That he just neglects or (perhaps more mercifully) outright ignores in favor of Goku and Vegeta just... Punching things really hard. Which, given the characters, is super plausible, but... It's gotten repetitive. ...For instance, if I was the one writing things, I would have had Goku and Vegeta lose against Fused Zamasu before getting a chance to fuse. Maybe the potara actually gets broken before they could fuse... But then Future Trunks and Gohan fuse via the fusion dance- which they practice in an earlier episode along with some training scenes, to show that they are trying to up their game somehow. The idea is that during their training, they end up discovering that Gohan's ultimate form works _really_ well with fusion, actually extending the timer (they're both Kai tools! It would make so much sense!) and ultimately that ends up being perfect to beat Fused Zamasu. ...Of course, he's still immortal! So just to cap it off, Goku gets a sensu bean in just the very nick of time, and then proceeds to use the evil containment wave, _without_ screwing something up! More of the cast gets utilized, it ends up being a team effort between a bunch of people who have a reason to revile Black and Zamasu, old techniques and tools get used, you could even show fused Gohan and Trunks combining the ultimate form and super saiyan rage during the fight, with super saiyan rage being used in brief stints for short, intense bursts of power. The idea being that the exclusivity doesn't apply _when they're fused!_ Dragonball has so many characters and so many techniques and powerups that it's really a wonder why Toriyama and crew don't play with them more, and do surprising callbacks more. There's probably a ton of times when Goku could have, for instance, used a fast and small spirit bomb- like what he used on Vegeta- to launch an opponent prone for a critical attack. It just never happens because I think he _legitimately forgot_ that Goku has that, and could probably do it with _zero effort_ at this point.
Honestly this is why I want a "What if MasakoX Rewrote Dragon Ball" series, purely focused on what MasakoX thinks would of been better writing, How he thinks things should of gone, and not what the old writers of Dragon Ball and Toriyama thought was good or would of handled it. I especially wouldn't mind if it was more detailed and slower pace than the usual what if.
@A guy with an anime Profile Pic Because I can And a poor imitation of him, as if the SEGA writers don't know what made Vegeta work in the first place or making him ressemble to how Shadow is in an way. "Edgy rival" is not how he was originally written, unless you cut all context for his actions.
Nah, Vegeta as he is now ultimately became SA2 Shadow, fighting for the benefit of the planet and his friends, much like Shadow in SA2 ended up sacrificing himself for the Earth. Now Shadow became Cell Saga Vegeta or in a different way: TFS Vegeta.
Right? I’d agree Z is better than the both of them (though, I consider OG DB the best one), but it’s not perfect by any means. It’s memorable, the storytelling is good enough for it to be engaging, the characters are written well to interact with the story, and the villains were great. But people forget Z had flaws too. The characters, while everyone agrees are like able to some extent, still slowly become irrelevant as time went on in the story. The story is great and Toriyama has great strength sometimes using his “make it up as you go” style of writing, but sometimes it writes him into a corner. The fights and the villains are the only two categories in Z that I’d actually consider perfect.
I think it would be cool if they explained that the wish worked by putting Granola’s body through the 147 years of training. Then he could have these techniques because in those 147 years he would have figured them out but since he didn’t actually experience all of those years he has no memory of it but his body is remembering it as a kind of muscle memory. Then it could be a whole thing of he’s doing what feels natural but doesn’t actually know what he’s doing and that disconnect could be his biggest exploitable weakness.
That was my thought as well. He gained a body that essentially went through training virtually, simulated results of what would have happened had he fought all the strongest ones in his universe as well as trained himself.
Like in The beginning after the end where Arthur has all his combat experience and skills from his time as king Grey but can't use their full potential or makes mistakes because of his childlike body, like he knows what to do but his body doesn't comprehend or respond to actions because they're to strenuous
@@Peecamarke The only issue, of course, is that without it being explicitely stated within the context of the comic, it still ends up being a bit of a plothole. We're applying head canon spackle to fix the issue until then, just like Boo's "bad air" (or in my mind, magical enzymes that "digested apart" their fusion, but that doesn't really work in either case because Gotenks didn't get dissolved into two).
The issue with DB's earthlings losing focus could have easily been remedied by them learning Kaioken and pushing it beyond what Goku ever attempted. Kaioken x50 would literally be the same thing as the Super Saiyan multiplier. Toriyama just seemed like he didn't care about them post Saiyan Saga. Them not even being able to beat Nappa was the nail in the coffin.
If a Saiyan body that was made for fighting and has years of experience can barely handle x20, a human body being able to push for x50 consistently makes no sense.
@@xin215 Considering that the average saiyan had in between a power level of 1000 and 4000, the humans were way more than that after king kai’s training, so the only thing saiyan saga goku would have over the humans would be zenkais and increased potential, and considering that humans and saiyans can create offspring that can create offspring, they should be basically the same in their basic biology other than what’s pointed out in the show.
@@mastermudkip4629 I agree! one of the literal defining traits of a biological similarity is the ability to breed viable offspring. It’s actually insane that two races so different could even conceivably breed and make offspring. As a biologist it boggles my mind and provides so much theory fodder for me just as random plot conveniences do just the same (I have a whole theory on U6 Saiyans and why they can go SSJ so easily). There’s so many cool things people don’t consider with the show and the way the biology would feasibly work!
*clears throat* _"BUT MASAKO...!"_ You're forgetting one more broken aspect of Z... the mighty *_SENSU BEAN!_* Initially, it was only supposed to provide a weeks worth of sustenance and convalescence, not "instant full heal lul ez bro." Granted, at the time it effectively did just that because Goku was starving and had been recently beaten by... I forget who exactly. But throughout all of Z it was simply used as the "great reset" for a character, completely truncating a boring downtime where a character would need to spend time healing the normal way and thus be unavailable for plot things.
It may sound like I'm making an excuses but I really do believe that fandom approach has changed. For example, that scene where it was revealed that Granolah has split his power and made a clone of himself. I feel like there was a lot of scenes like that in original DB, characters pulling a new move and completely turning tables in battle out of nowhere. And now people seem a lot more critical about it than back then.
It’s because we’re older and have been exposed to more stories that don’t have as many unexplained conveniences. Things like that don’t generate the same hype for some people nowadays.
I dont think being critical of that mean anything necessarily, when charactwrs pulled out nnew moves, it was after training, time skip or they stole it from someone else, its not inconsistent, Granolah is an exception to that.
I think the reason for the change is that ppl kinda get tired of seeing the same thing. It's like if u eat cookies, the 1st time u eat it, the feeling is completely new, but the more cookies u eat, the more u start to catch on to things, adapting to it, and getting tired of it. Its supply and demand in a way. U get tired of seeing the same thing.
I prefer Z b/c bombastic fights and mostly good storytelling was what I enjoyed from it growing up, but I'll admit in terms of consistent writing, Dragon Ball is superior.
...Can we, without any hate, or judgement, talk about how similar toriyama's writing method is to the usual 14yo fanfic scribbler going "and then this happened, and this and this and this, and then _this! Big finale, lots of applause, I worked so hard, thank you, thank you!"_ after blitzing through something they'd come up with that morning? Over the years, I went from someone who grew up _watching_ the various series, to returning as an actual fan, to... realizing that we're the only ones who really care about it. Even from a writers' perspective. I've said it before- DBS is perfect setup for a U6-7 merge, and a future legend of three divine saiyan lineages. It explains away almost all the bull, by equating the haphazard storytelling to the allegory in _our_ holy books. Not only would it help to cap those loose ends, but _it just makes sense_ for the serial escalation we see. Honestly, the more I delve into fan content, the more I see just how lazy the source material is. Super just gets harder to watch, when it isn't revving at full throttle.
If there is one constant, Super is always disappointing and the wonder of the Moro saga is that after downgrading Moro’s uniqueness they still somehow managed to make a satisfying ending. Every other saga was considered to end poorly or had a bad plot save filler like the baseball episode. Is it literally any wonder people flock to a channel like this? This is very literally the most convenient source of actually good Super plots. That being said, to know that said trends started in Z is why people can still hold fondness for Dragon Ball despite lots of continuances. Dragon Ball is the only grounded supernatural martial arts version of Dragon Ball there is and the rest depend on whether you can handle the moments it has or if you enjoy the story as-is despite its flaws and plot conveniences. And since Super sucks, and people realize these decisions had been around since Z, and since GT will never be liked openly, Dragon Ball really is the only thing left no matter if you’re a fan of Dragon Ball, Z, GT, Super or the franchise at large.
Yeah most stories written the way toriyama writes are deemed as failures. It’s a difficult way to write long term due to the contrivances and continuity errors that it inherently brings. It’s unfortunate but most just can’t write relying on the rule of cool like Toriyama does.
Admittedly, it means Toriyama really does have a skill in stringing along cool moments with a story, and writing without planning. But then the further question would be that if Dragon Ball was not written by Toriyama, or rather written with an ethos of actually logical plots instead of continuous set up for the next big moment, what would Dragon Ball as a franchise look like today?
Man. I can barely watch Super at this point in time. The reason why Toriyama got away with it is that he always found a way to tie existing themes into the ending. When all those themes have been used up you end up with dragon ball super. A story that's main goal is to do two things, be unpredictable and look cool. Once the novelty of looking cool has worn off. We end up with a story that honestly could have been written by a 14-year-old
Considering Toriyama’s seat-of-the-pants creative style, I think it’s poetic that there is a Time Patrol overseeing all the crazy ret-cons and hand-wavey BS the series has picked up. Like The End of Z. Seriously, WHEN WILL THE END OF Z HAPPEN?!
@@ChiefMedicPururu Don't spread misinformation. They haven't yet revealed when the movie is set, be it before after or retconning the end of Z. All we know is that it's set after the Granola arc (unless the Granola arc does an unexpected time skip which is unlikely)
I agree with you Masako Dragonball Z has been broken specifically with their powers and lesser importance of Earthlings beginning in the Android Arc which is a shame because Earthlings have so much potential.
yh especially tien he actually trains consistently they could have given him some random powerup but no, its about Goku and sometime Vegeta to keep him company
I have never cared about how Granolah got his powers. He still sacrificed his life for them, they weren't free. And he isn't that strong honestly, he just attacks vital points with his eyes. Also, DB has never had complex rules. Dragon Ball has always been as simple as possible, the rules are so simple in DB that literarlly anything could happen.
Sometimes I really don’t mind the simplicity of a series like Dragon Ball. Watching Hunter x Hunter or Naruto is a chore by comparison, since those series love to use exposition to explain nearly everything. It breaks up the pace of a manga/anime.
@@Kruegernator123 Exactly. This is why I think DB is so popular. It works under such a simple logic, so easy to understand that you can start to watch the series at any chapter and still understand everything and find it compelling. Dragon Ball is basically "enjoyable simplicity". To understand Naruto or Hunter x Hunter, you would need to watch from chapter 1.
@@Kruegernator123 Unpopular opinion, anime strategic fights are overrated af Seriously, some of them need to make the opponent lose half of his senses so the protagonist can make his elaborate trap around him or just pull a lot of conveniences so the really specific plan can work smoothly I mean, I like them too but the way people think they are so much superior to the good old "hit him in the face as hard as you can" type fights annoys me
I got a sort of thing going on in my story where the villain's immortality (which is basically super regeneration with savestates on his body as a backup) is reliant on a pair of objects called "argent links". First mention is the beginning of the second act, and the second act is mostly figuring out the specifics of the argent links and ultimately destroying them to limit the villain's power. This, of course, causes the villain to become more and more irrational to the point where he goes from his showman-like, charismatic self into a vicious monster lashing out when cornered.
@@XH1927 he cares about it and was excited to share a bit of it. You know what people really don't care about? Nasty people like you who put others down as a way of boosting there own self esteem rather than actually putting anything in and giving to the world like this person with their story.
I've always had a problem with Cell's resurrection after his self-destruction (it felt like Toriyama wanting two different deaths to end both Gohan and Goku's arcs and not being sure which one to use) and especially Buu in general. I feel that the Cell and Buu arcs were just one long string of contrivances to escalate the conflict: our heroes are either too weak inexplicably or too stupid inexplicably.
Freeza's resurrection for the Cell Arc wasn't only anticlimactic and contrived but redundant. Cold could have accomplished the same effect to establish Trunks.
I think another element worth mentioning is how we consumed media for z versus super, anime versus manga, younger versus older, enjoyment with self and friends versus online with people and micro criticism. EDIT: Although that's not neccesarily a bad thing. I don't want you guys to fight about it. Moreso me overthinking the difference.
The biggest broken thing about this anime imo is that death is just devolved to a merely inconvenient detention, takes the emotional impact out of the story
dude what is borken abotu seeing charater si the afte cos new flash that what happenm in real li you go to the afte rlfie when you pass so sotp hateing
The inconsistencies in the Zenkai boost are absurd when you think about it, every Saiyan ever must at some point in their lives have received one and in some cases multiple of them yet they couldn't even come close to matching the likes of Zarbon. But then you have Namek where Goku goes from a power level of 90k to 3 million in one boost.
I agree, there is this false narrative that DBS is the only DB series where there are plotholes, power scaling problems and retcons even though some of DBS problems stem from Zs inconsistencies.
Agreed. I remembered when I saw a meme where DBZ developed other characters like Gohan and Vegeta unlike DBS. And I'm like bish, Vegeta has been a punching bag, and Gohan was falling off since the Buu Saga. And what about the Humans? They didn't developed besides Krillin.
Yeah, the "Rule of Cool" trope is something that's been with Dragon Ball for as long as Toriyama had started including it in the manga. And it's what drew many people into reading the manga or watching the anime, myself included. Dragon Ball is one of those stories where you'd have to turn your brain off and simply enjoy a spectacle or else you're going to start asking lots of questions that may end up with answers that will sour your enjoyment of the series. Sure, it has some story telling moments that can be interpreted and learned from, but for the most part, Dragon Ball has always relied on either cheap excuses to make things happen, or the usual thought process of "you know what would be cool? If we made *that* happen." And for better or worse, many of us love it anyway.
@@ChiefMedicPururu That took out less than half his body. What I'm getting at is he dosn't need the nucleus to regenerate a mostly intact body, but he would need in the case of most or all of his body being obliterated.
I think one thing that helps with the first appearance of Future Trunks was he was there to set up a new story and kick it into motion. Not used to artificially prolong a story that would naturally come to its end prematurely without it, or because Toriyama wrote the heroes into a corner.
I personally like some fan theories people made, like people entering after 2 years(just goku and vegeta) tearing a hole in reality or breaking the whole thing to escape, considering that super buu could do that. The whole cell regeneration thing also kinda makes sense, as Gero would want as little chance possible of cell’s death, maybe he has 2 nuclei, increasing survivability. Senzu beans are still bs but still.
Anime by and large relies on either power creep or "The power of friendship" to conveniently resolve conflict and defeat villains. Its why I appreciate anime that has the characters use their brains.
Yeah... I think logic and consistency wasn't ever DBZ's strong point. Was just talking about that with my friends a few days ago, and the Jojo comparison was the first thing that came up
The zenkai -- while a cool plot convenience for the time -- was a horrible mistake. Any non-saiyan character who trains can't get nearly as much of a boost in power. What Tein accomplishes in one month only takes a day or so for Goku. Add Super Saiyan transformations into the mix and even the most powerful human characters might as well retire. >_
From what I remember it was later mentioned by Goku or someone else that in Hyperbolic Time Chamber he really struggled in his young days, so it was not like ignored explanation at all...
Vegeta woulda bodied cell if he ever went ss2. Theres also an entire major plot point of vegeta needing to turn into majin vegeta just to gain ss2 so of course he never went ss2 in the cell saga.
Hadn't he already achieved it? I thought he allowed himself to become Majin because he wanted things to go back similarly to how they were before he met Goku.
The biggest cop out in all of Dragon Ball is the super saiyan transformation. No, I'm not talking about when Goku first became one. I'm talking about how Goten and Trunk just randomly became super saiyans for plot convenience.
Majin Boo Saga as a whole was a huge mess. I will always defend that DBZ should have ended at Cell, it would have been a perfect send-off for the series (even if Cell Saga itself had some problems)
I can understand Ceral bar pulling techniques out of nowhere actually....he's just learning what he can do, and using his powers accordingly, in the heat of the moment really. basically trying to outsmart and out gun them(even though compared to goku its not that hard to do kek.) actually reminds me of Xeno'jiiva from MHW, its a newborn with tons of power, and basically learns as it was fighting you. eventually being able to do things like fire lasers and figuring out it can fly.
I always felt like if zenkai boosts should not be seen as literal power boosts, but some kind of a genetic stubbornness that forces saiyans to work as hard as possible to avoid the previous mistakes, but vegeta thought it was a powe boost since that's what made sense to him
The problem is that the upper-tier DC heroes are just plain out of the league of pretty much anyone in the DB universe. DC is an insanely overpowered multiverse
My headcannon is that Cell's core is actually a Namekian trait. An extradimensional storage system that contains excess mass (hence stretchy limbs, etc.) Big difference would be it has an additional nervous system within as well (why he can regrow his primary head in the first place) and store organisms he fuses with (why he coughs up 18 instead of just white chyme). Why did he say it was in his head? Lie to the enemy. Why did he get a boost in strength when he blew himself up? His body read Goku's transmission to a world with higher gravity as an attack, which popped him early. Why'd he hang around when he was clearly losing to Gohan's attack in that split second, yelling "I'm perfect!" rather than teleporting away? When he inverted most of his core to blow up, he may have damaged his "seconday CNS" and regenerated with a...few screw lose, I guess? My favorite thing about DBZ is that trying to make sense of canon mechanics (with very soft sci-fi) is a fun puzzle. Trying my own hand at a "What If Present Cell Survived?" Fic since Weird Alien Biology is the best
Is just me or I found it kinda stupid they don't let Vegeta have the W over Frieza in resurrection F? Like why? Vegeta kinda deserves that W after all, like I know its because reverse time stuff but still. Vegeta could deserve at least 1 W over a main villain over just henchmens/Right hand guy of the villains....I hope they could do that in granolah arc
Actually, the only one of these that doesn't make logical sense is the time chamber, because that's an actual plot inconsistency. There are, however, other issues. For example, apparently, in DBZ, energy can most definitely be created from nothing, since unless saiyans (and later on humans) have antimatter fission reactors for stomachs, they wouldn't gain enough energy to blow up a planet, even if they ate a million saiyan-sized meals.
It can because Ki is not really something natural that can be explained by scicence. Ki is literally spiritual energy, so in other words, it's literally magic (even though the story will try to tell you there's a difference between Ki and magic, but there is not, it's the same thing really, just like how androids and cyborgs being the same thing as well)
@@artemis1993 Yes. That counts as an in-universe explanation of sorts, but except in the case of certain moves (like the Genki Dama/Spirit Bomb,) it's unclear where the ki comes from, or why some people can use more of it than others. Do people with strong spirits just generate ki spontaneously? Does a spirit grow stronger through training as the body does? The actual yeses and nos of how ki is supposed to work is still largely mysterious.
Beyond Zenkai boosts, what really broke Dragon Ball was the Kaioken… or rather, how it worked by multiplication at different numbers. By the time you got to x10 as Goku’s comfort zone and even pushing to x20, it made it so the plot dictated Super Saiyan provided a 50 times multiplier in order to best Freeza… and then that each new Super Saiyan form be a multiplication of that 50 times power (100 times… 400 times…) so, Kaioken basically ended up breaking any logical sense of power scaling in this series and made it so all non-Saiyan characters (ignoring the later gods) were completely useless in a non-tournament setting. And then things just get weird when they do fight the big bads. Like… what level of control did the Androids have to have not to just break Tien in half like a twig?
Honestly, Frieza Saga was full of these things. First it introduces the Zenkai, then has Guru unlock potential, than introduces Namekian Fusion, then breaks the rules of Zenkai with Super Zenkai, then has Goku suddenly able to use Kaio-Ken x10 and x20 when he could barely manage x3 and x4 before, and then introduces Super Saiyan. The story would’ve been much better if no one got dramatically stronger, but the weaker Z-Fighters and Vegeta could win by having a better understanding of Ki.
The frieza saga is probably the one with the least cop outs actually. Zenkai, guru unlocking power and namekian fusion are just things introduced in this arc, if you really wanted to I guess you can call them cop outs. Goku isn’t “suddenly able to” use kaioken x10-20. He spent all his days traveling to namek training in 100x gravity so he could do that. He broke his body getting to that point, but he did. It is definitely not something that just happened because it could. Kai probably cut it short but the original showed him taking every step towards being able to sustain it. Super saiyan was mentioned since the saiyan saga and has been built up all the way until vegeta dies to frieza.
@@justinr.2076 That’s exactly my point. Toriyama needed ways to get the numbers higher and thus had to introduce a bunch of new methods to do so. His training is also ridiculously more efficacious as well. Goku trained for all his life and get to a Power Level of 416; then he trains with King Kai for half a year after running down Snake Way for half a year before and gets just over 8k; then he trains for a week and gets to over 90k. There’s no reason for him to get this strong when the numbers could’ve been lower. The same applies for Kaio-Ken. Goku spends 5 months in 10Gs mastering Kaio-Ken and the Spirit Bomb and then struggles to use x4 against Vegeta. Then he trains in 100 Gs for 1 weak and masters Kaio-Ken to a point 5x more than before. That’s a ridiculous increase in such a short time which could’ve been handled better had the numbers been lower. As for Zenkai and Super Saiyan, I think they’re easily handled the best as they had been built up over time. However, Zenkai was given a rough estimate of how much it increased Power Level by, roughly 30%, and then suddenly increases by much more. This is because the characters are close to tapping into Super Saiyan, but that’s still an arbitrary increase. Each of these has an explanation and is utilized at least decently by the story. However, only Zenkai and Super Saiyan are necessary, especially if Toriyama made the numbers smaller.
7:20 A game called "shin budokai: another road" did the future buu arc a little better imo. I loved the character interactions, dialogue, and game itself. It was also the 1st ever piece of dbz media I had, and made me a somewhat fan. 👍🏾
I gotta ask, what's with the frequent changes in the titles? Sometimes they don't really reflect what the video is, and are kinda click-baity. It happens a lot with discussion videos, and it's a little distracting.
I guess on retrospect, what happened with Mecha Frieza was kinda too much. They undid Goku's victory, just to give Trunks a chance to show off how COOL he was. They were really trying to push this new character (..who in retrospect, kinda comes off as a bad OC too)
In this series called "unordinary", a character gets the ability to copy others powers. However, he has to learn, fight, and practice with it, and eventually the idea is formed to enhance the abilities, and he practices at that too, taking it 1 step at a time until he can use not only multiple abilities, but enhances them. I feel like granola shouldve been explained to have spent his time after the wish training and learning how his power works. As well as learning and adapting his enemies techniques into his own through differnet means.
Bulma and Vegeta were literally flirting right before Freeza's arrival, in their own weird little way. Dwarfing the previous villian/measuring bar is a constant thing throughout DB/
Hey, it took some 30 years but someone else finally bought up the Cell's Nucleus plot hole! Good on you. Seems like a missed opportunity from the Abridged to bring it up.
35 years later, and the original Dragon Ball anime (and/or first half of the manga) is still the best part. I wish we could go back to that old feeling
Ever since the whole S-cell thing I thought there'd be an episode where bulma looked into it to them ( her and her father being scientist and all) like they did in gt with blustswaves generator to help vegeta go ssj4
I'm not really sure that JoJo's a super good example. both individual Stands and Hamon in general are so ill-defined that they can have random new abilities that come out of nowhere and go totally unexplained. Part 3 probably has the some of the most notable examples of this but the whole series has pretty significant totally unpredictable asspull moments.
Dragon ball is for 10- 13 year old boys it’s never been a series that took itself seriously, it was revolutionary for it’s time but it’s not top tier in terms of quality writing. Fan need to accept that it won’t change and just take it for it is which is a old school battle shounen not a modern day story shounen.
In my opinion most shounen focus on plot and emotional impact when sometimes I don’t care I just wanna see some fighting which is why I didnt rate shows like naruto because it had so many useless fillers and even during fights they’d be talking too damn much like I came here to see fights not for talking
I've noticed my own trends in that; newer audiences that are watching shounen anime for the first time like around ages 13 to 17 or so don't like DBZ they like stuff like Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, Hunter Hunter, and other anime much more than Dragon Ball Z. No hate on those other shows either, they're great, but I think it's very telling that the only people who still like DBZ are the older generations because the newer anime watchers aren't buying Toriyama's writing style anymore. I can name multiple examples in real life with my cousins and stuff and I can't help but agree that there are massive problems with the writing and that the fight scenes are simply not as sick or as well animated as other shounen. OG Dragon Ball had way more consistent animation and is a much better use of your time if you wanted to watch an action adventure story than DBZ is.
Zenkai was definitely cop out, a cheap way for Vegeta, Gohan, and Goku to get rapid gains on Namek. That said it at least used to be mitigated by seeming to eventually hit diminishing returns, hence why Vegeta after recovering from his fight against #18 didn't immediately fly off for a rematch stronger than ever before, and it pretty much stayed that way for the rest of Z and even the early arcs of Super It wasn't really untill Black came around that the Zenkai boost got mentioned again, although even there it never led to the same kind of wildly exponential multipliers it had on Namek. Where things went ridiculously over the top was in the Tournament of Power. Seriously,how many times are we supposed to believe that Goku and Vegeta can break their limits and tap into hither to unkown depth of power in what is supposed to only be only 48 minutes? Seriously, no special training, no recovering from injuries, no mystical rituals, they just get stronger because they really, really want to.
Also also I feel like the time chamber wouldn’t be brought up cause they wouldn’t have been able to survive in there given the harsh environment and constant changes buuut I agree some explanation would’ve been nice lol
These things are definite cop-outs, and I think Toriyama was never the best at writing things outside of comedy, to be honest. Sure, the DBZ (and onward) fights are definite highlights, but I think what made dragon ball originally so amazing was the comedy, the OG Dragon Ball was simply best because it’s story didn’t need much explanation, it’s just good comedy/adventure fun. As time goes by, less and less of the story makes any luck of sense, and I feel like super is mostly a devolved version of DB that’s really only ever focused on fighting and really not much else. I have a really hard time reading through even the best of its chapters, to be completely honest. As fun as it can be at times, Super just doesn’t have the same charm that DB/DBZ ever had. What I’d really like to see from Toriyama, hopefully someday, is a reset button. Ideally in the form of something like Dragon Ball Online but in a new manga or something, hopefully done by someone who is a better artist than Toyotaro (sure he’s gotten a little better, but he’s still very mediocre, IMO). But anyway, something like DB Online just has so much potential, as it’s got so much new lore, an entirely new cast of characters and races and if Toriyama and his overlords saw the potential of stepping away from all of DB’s characters and just having an entirely new cast of characters to work with, you have so much potential to work a properly good story, hopefully without another Goku-syndrome storyline. Maybe the dragon balls themselves can be somewhat relevant again, maybe Shenron will stick to the same rules. Maybe there doesn’t have to be characters that are either as strong or literally gods and angels that are so powerful that it makes all other characters inherently irrelevant. Why can’t we have something like that than the same thing regurgitated over and over? I absolutely love Dragon Ball but aside from the movies that came out in the last decade, I just haven’t been very excited about it. Is it just me?
Let's be completely fair here, Masako. The introduction of Trunks was decidedly not the first thing in Dragon Ball which would have been called out as bad fanfiction if it hadn't come straight from Toriyama. The Saiyan Saga begins with the main character's long-lost brother showing up, kidnapping what at the time seemed to be the main character's Generational Clone son and revealing that the main character has been an alien all along.
When was it mentioned that the poisonous divine water Goku drank was retconned to just being his Saiyan boost? I mean, it makes sense that he got a boost, but it was never stated the water was just poison.
heres another what if idea what if saiyan tails always grew back? so i noticed something while rewatching dbz seems like saiyan tails only grow back once after being decapitated or at least they should because vegetas never grew back after the saiyan saga kind of a plot inconsistency if you ask me. the actual reason of course is because toriyama got tired of drawing the tails which i think is dumb. nice thing about what ifs is they can fix inconstancies like this and make them into a proper story element.
Don't you see, Masako? That's just how his Sharingan works. Idk why he awakened one so long after the other, but clearly he's always had one since childhood. I mean, you can tell someone's getting ideas from Naruto. First, UI Goku's Perfect Susano'o, and now this. Lol but seriously though, I think that's just what happens when you try to keep the same formula running for so long in this franchise. Due to that and the myriad of writing issues, I've been disillusioned with DragonBall material for years now.
Yeah Dragon Ball is at his core a martial arts series and it stayed that other series tried to replicate it without being martial arts but they don't get the same magic as Dragon ball
A bit off topic, but what I really think would be good is if Goku and Vegeta, in one of the upcoming manga chapters, jointly came to the conclusion that these 'Ultra' forms of theirs aren't really worth their salt, and thus decided to go down a different path of gaining power... maybe even Super Saiyan 4. Because Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego have kind of had their time to shine... and whaddya' know.. they're not that effective at the end of the day (although they did give MUI the win against Moro)
Idk... I agree with most of it, but I think the saiyan power is pretty legit. It matches their whole "perfect warrior race" vibe when you think of it as an adaptation pretty similar to their aging process. Earthlings aren't a warrior race literally bred since birth to fight (normally). So it makes sense that the saiyans would have biological advantages over other, more peaceful, species.
great video but you forgot to mention arguably the greatest asspull the series has ever achieved: golden freezer what, 4 months of training will enough to achieve exponential growth that goku and vegeta had in the past 10 years including matching that of supposed divine levels of power? sure why not
@@TheFinalChapters I always had the headcanon they could go super saiyan because Goku and Vegeta were already super saiyan. Well in Vegeta's case, he was on the verge of becoming one. But they established he trained Trunks constantly so..I think Trunks gets a bit of leeway.
@@saltystick_99 Trunks didn't become super saiyan in the future timeline until he was a teenager, despite plenty of training prior to that. It's not like Vegeta was specifically *trying* to teach Trunk how to go super saiyan or anything. Even Vegeta was flabbergasted when he found out and called it a "super saiyan bargain sale".
Hunh, after hearing you mention about the room of spirit and time, do you think that a good What If could be made out of that scenario? I know you're already touching on with in the Yajarobe story, but still it has some more potential.
It is not Z that is broken, it is super that is non sensical and retcon a lot of the canon. Also you made the mistake of equating Z's Future Trunks with Super's Future Trunks when they are not the same person.
@@silverboltscrapper Except they aren't. May being alive and young makes it impossible. There are other impossibilities that distiguish them also, like how Z's Trunks hair is white/purple and not light blue. Also how the time machine works would make Z's Trunks unable to reach Super's present because they are separate time lines now without a connection. Super's future Trunks is from the direct future of Super's time line, as can be seen by Zamasu taking Goku's body after they had met once wich would be impossible in Z's FT timeline.
This is cool but I'm still wondering when the ParaPara brothers will show up. How do they fit in the frieza force? Were they the choreographers for the Ginyu poses?
I do have a big problem with the Buu Saga after Beerus was introduced and that's why did Beerus not take care of Buu at all especially when he was attacking the world of the Kais where Shin is you know Shin the guy Who's Lifeforce is linked to his Lifeforce and yet he doesn't come to help at all
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MR. Popo: * Inhales Deeply * . . ."Lawrence"
To be fair to the Zenkai Boosts:
The idea of getting stronger after every near fatal injury wasn't something that Toriyama came up with out of nowhere.
Many a Wuxia and Xianxia stories, including ones that Toriyama often took influnece from, have this ability as a special bloodline for clans of martial artists. Thing is, Toriyama just used it for Saiyans, and didn't bother to give a milder variant for other races.
Can you do what if Dabura stole Vegeta’s body?
Ummm did you forget granolah stole 73 so they can easily say cereal scanned 73 data and shared it with granolah
I can't disgree with some of this hard enough. Big post, with examples, incoming.
Notably the future Trunks bit. Him being introduced as the son of Vegeta is one of the best executed parts of the character: Having someone or something from the future pop in that seems completely implausible at first, and then developing the story towards the events that lead up to that outcome, is one of the best ways to write time travel in a long running series.
They even gave a bit of explanation of where the spark for Vegeta and Bulma's relationship came from, and not just that, it retroactively explained Goku's attraction to Chi Chi: Saiyan men tend to be attracted to stongheaded, fiery women. Vegeta slowly developing into a family man is great, too... Though maybe it could have been handled a bit better.
The two main issues I have with future Trunks is that Vegeta's inability to get a big win on his own strength seems to be hereditary, and he goes from cool and powerful to incompetent in an instant. That's almost the opposite of him being a cop out... But it does demonstrate something similar. I think you have the right idea, you're just a little off target. I think the real problem with Toriyama's writing is less copouts, and more that there's so many readily available alternatives, be it characters, techniques, etc... That he just neglects or (perhaps more mercifully) outright ignores in favor of Goku and Vegeta just... Punching things really hard. Which, given the characters, is super plausible, but... It's gotten repetitive.
...For instance, if I was the one writing things, I would have had Goku and Vegeta lose against Fused Zamasu before getting a chance to fuse. Maybe the potara actually gets broken before they could fuse... But then Future Trunks and Gohan fuse via the fusion dance- which they practice in an earlier episode along with some training scenes, to show that they are trying to up their game somehow.
The idea is that during their training, they end up discovering that Gohan's ultimate form works _really_ well with fusion, actually extending the timer (they're both Kai tools! It would make so much sense!) and ultimately that ends up being perfect to beat Fused Zamasu. ...Of course, he's still immortal! So just to cap it off, Goku gets a sensu bean in just the very nick of time, and then proceeds to use the evil containment wave, _without_ screwing something up!
More of the cast gets utilized, it ends up being a team effort between a bunch of people who have a reason to revile Black and Zamasu, old techniques and tools get used, you could even show fused Gohan and Trunks combining the ultimate form and super saiyan rage during the fight, with super saiyan rage being used in brief stints for short, intense bursts of power. The idea being that the exclusivity doesn't apply _when they're fused!_
Dragonball has so many characters and so many techniques and powerups that it's really a wonder why Toriyama and crew don't play with them more, and do surprising callbacks more. There's probably a ton of times when Goku could have, for instance, used a fast and small spirit bomb- like what he used on Vegeta- to launch an opponent prone for a critical attack. It just never happens because I think he _legitimately forgot_ that Goku has that, and could probably do it with _zero effort_ at this point.
Remember when Shenron was OP and felt so Divine?......yeah...me too
shernon enver wa sop or divnine king piclco kiled ass you call that divne and op that weak and sheorn codi nto sotp the saiyans you call tha top as if
pepperidge farm remembers
@@ssjgotenks2009 what?
@@ssjgotenks2009 please sober up before you touch a keyboard .
@NS 317 yeah....i would say the wait time would be 7 years for 7 wishes at once lol
If punching doesn't work, just punch harder.
Bam, the entire DBZ summarized.
If punching it harder doesn't work use Vegeta's Technique ™
"What do you suggest... and no I don't want to hear hit them harder"
"I guess we could... try... hitting them... harder...."
@@TheGuyWhoIsSitting ... Together....
@@perfectstranger1152
*Groans* Whatever
Also squat, and fight through the power of raging constipation, to become stronger.
"Dragon ball is kinda broken"
"OH REALLY. DO TELL."
Honestly this is why I want a "What if MasakoX Rewrote Dragon Ball" series, purely focused on what MasakoX thinks would of been better writing, How he thinks things should of gone, and not what the old writers of Dragon Ball and Toriyama thought was good or would of handled it. I especially wouldn't mind if it was more detailed and slower pace than the usual what if.
Yea yes yes THIS IS IT
Get on it please! xD
We gotta suggest this at the what-if round table.
Goku reading minds and healing himself for two.
Muffin Button?
Muffin Button.
@@astraldirectrix Really. There's science and stuff.
Not to mention him being telekinetic, having heat vision, or his environmental durability being wildly inconsistent.
Hoshi also read minds at some point
"...or you think he's quickly become the Shadow the Hedgehog of the Dragon Ball universe..."
Pretty sure that's Vegeta.
Hahaha. Would go well with how SEGA are screwing up Shadow's character to turn him into Cell-arc Vegeta. It doesn't suit him.
@A guy with an anime Profile Pic Because I can And a poor imitation of him, as if the SEGA writers don't know what made Vegeta work in the first place or making him ressemble to how Shadow is in an way. "Edgy rival" is not how he was originally written, unless you cut all context for his actions.
@A guy with an anime Profile Pic Because I can Ironically, DBS Vegeta surpassed 2010 Shadow.
The Knuckles of the DB universe is, of course, Picollo.
Nah, Vegeta as he is now ultimately became SA2 Shadow, fighting for the benefit of the planet and his friends, much like Shadow in SA2 ended up sacrificing himself for the Earth.
Now Shadow became Cell Saga Vegeta or in a different way: TFS Vegeta.
THANK YOU!
Hate that people give GT and Super so much crap and pretend that Z is perfect
Z saga deaths are actually meh after Cell saga
Tbf super is still worse about it compared to Z
Just because both are guilty doesn’t mean one can’t be significantly worse
Right? I’d agree Z is better than the both of them (though, I consider OG DB the best one), but it’s not perfect by any means. It’s memorable, the storytelling is good enough for it to be engaging, the characters are written well to interact with the story, and the villains were great. But people forget Z had flaws too. The characters, while everyone agrees are like able to some extent, still slowly become irrelevant as time went on in the story. The story is great and Toriyama has great strength sometimes using his “make it up as you go” style of writing, but sometimes it writes him into a corner. The fights and the villains are the only two categories in Z that I’d actually consider perfect.
@Overto Saiyan Scholar sure is like that.
@@guitarpunk77 That's not what was said, tho.
I think it would be cool if they explained that the wish worked by putting Granola’s body through the 147 years of training. Then he could have these techniques because in those 147 years he would have figured them out but since he didn’t actually experience all of those years he has no memory of it but his body is remembering it as a kind of muscle memory. Then it could be a whole thing of he’s doing what feels natural but doesn’t actually know what he’s doing and that disconnect could be his biggest exploitable weakness.
That was my thought as well. He gained a body that essentially went through training virtually, simulated results of what would have happened had he fought all the strongest ones in his universe as well as trained himself.
Like in The beginning after the end where Arthur has all his combat experience and skills from his time as king Grey but can't use their full potential or makes mistakes because of his childlike body, like he knows what to do but his body doesn't comprehend or respond to actions because they're to strenuous
This is perfect.
Yeah, that's my thought as well. Its a magical wish, an increase in power could mean knowing more techniques
@@Peecamarke The only issue, of course, is that without it being explicitely stated within the context of the comic, it still ends up being a bit of a plothole. We're applying head canon spackle to fix the issue until then, just like Boo's "bad air" (or in my mind, magical enzymes that "digested apart" their fusion, but that doesn't really work in either case because Gotenks didn't get dissolved into two).
My immediate reaction to him saying “Oh... crap baskets” was along the lines of “ Huh. He hasn’t said that in a while.”
The issue with DB's earthlings losing focus could have easily been remedied by them learning Kaioken and pushing it beyond what Goku ever attempted. Kaioken x50 would literally be the same thing as the Super Saiyan multiplier.
Toriyama just seemed like he didn't care about them post Saiyan Saga. Them not even being able to beat Nappa was the nail in the coffin.
If a Saiyan body that was made for fighting and has years of experience can barely handle x20, a human body being able to push for x50 consistently makes no sense.
@@xin215 Considering that the average saiyan had in between a power level of 1000 and 4000, the humans were way more than that after king kai’s training, so the only thing saiyan saga goku would have over the humans would be zenkais and increased potential, and considering that humans and saiyans can create offspring that can create offspring, they should be basically the same in their basic biology other than what’s pointed out in the show.
@@mastermudkip4629 I agree! one of the literal defining traits of a biological similarity is the ability to breed viable offspring. It’s actually insane that two races so different could even conceivably breed and make offspring. As a biologist it boggles my mind and provides so much theory fodder for me just as random plot conveniences do just the same (I have a whole theory on U6 Saiyans and why they can go SSJ so easily). There’s so many cool things people don’t consider with the show and the way the biology would feasibly work!
kaiowhat?
@@mastermudkip4629 I just saw this now. I agree with you although the time aspect makes more sense. I think they wouldn’t get past x30-50 though
*clears throat*
_"BUT MASAKO...!"_
You're forgetting one more broken aspect of Z... the mighty *_SENSU BEAN!_*
Initially, it was only supposed to provide a weeks worth of sustenance and convalescence, not "instant full heal lul ez bro." Granted, at the time it effectively did just that because Goku was starving and had been recently beaten by... I forget who exactly. But throughout all of Z it was simply used as the "great reset" for a character, completely truncating a boring downtime where a character would need to spend time healing the normal way and thus be unavailable for plot things.
Well you're not wrong but it was mainly for restoring energy and not healing
To be fair, Senzu Beans exists since Dragon Ball, it been with the series since the first iteration
@jodinsan
It was King Piccolo.
It may sound like I'm making an excuses but I really do believe that fandom approach has changed. For example, that scene where it was revealed that Granolah has split his power and made a clone of himself. I feel like there was a lot of scenes like that in original DB, characters pulling a new move and completely turning tables in battle out of nowhere. And now people seem a lot more critical about it than back then.
It’s because we’re older and have been exposed to more stories that don’t have as many unexplained conveniences. Things like that don’t generate the same hype for some people nowadays.
It's a classic case of Franchise Original Sin.
I dont think being critical of that mean anything necessarily, when charactwrs pulled out nnew moves, it was after training, time skip or they stole it from someone else, its not inconsistent, Granolah is an exception to that.
So you made him into Voldemort
I think the reason for the change is that ppl kinda get tired of seeing the same thing.
It's like if u eat cookies, the 1st time u eat it, the feeling is completely new, but the more cookies u eat, the more u start to catch on to things, adapting to it, and getting tired of it.
Its supply and demand in a way.
U get tired of seeing the same thing.
Dragon ball is still best part of dragon ball.
It is
I prefer z but og dragon ball is goated too
Still has my favorite opening theme in the franchise.
I prefer Z b/c bombastic fights and mostly good storytelling was what I enjoyed from it growing up, but I'll admit in terms of consistent writing, Dragon Ball is superior.
I d say, Second half of it. (22nd tournament and further)
...Can we, without any hate, or judgement, talk about how similar toriyama's writing method is to the usual 14yo fanfic scribbler going "and then this happened, and this and this and this, and then _this! Big finale, lots of applause, I worked so hard, thank you, thank you!"_ after blitzing through something they'd come up with that morning?
Over the years, I went from someone who grew up _watching_ the various series, to returning as an actual fan, to... realizing that we're the only ones who really care about it. Even from a writers' perspective. I've said it before- DBS is perfect setup for a U6-7 merge, and a future legend of three divine saiyan lineages. It explains away almost all the bull, by equating the haphazard storytelling to the allegory in _our_ holy books. Not only would it help to cap those loose ends, but _it just makes sense_ for the serial escalation we see.
Honestly, the more I delve into fan content, the more I see just how lazy the source material is. Super just gets harder to watch, when it isn't revving at full throttle.
If there is one constant, Super is always disappointing and the wonder of the Moro saga is that after downgrading Moro’s uniqueness they still somehow managed to make a satisfying ending. Every other saga was considered to end poorly or had a bad plot save filler like the baseball episode.
Is it literally any wonder people flock to a channel like this? This is very literally the most convenient source of actually good Super plots.
That being said, to know that said trends started in Z is why people can still hold fondness for Dragon Ball despite lots of continuances. Dragon Ball is the only grounded supernatural martial arts version of Dragon Ball there is and the rest depend on whether you can handle the moments it has or if you enjoy the story as-is despite its flaws and plot conveniences. And since Super sucks, and people realize these decisions had been around since Z, and since GT will never be liked openly, Dragon Ball really is the only thing left no matter if you’re a fan of Dragon Ball, Z, GT, Super or the franchise at large.
Yeah most stories written the way toriyama writes are deemed as failures. It’s a difficult way to write long term due to the contrivances and continuity errors that it inherently brings. It’s unfortunate but most just can’t write relying on the rule of cool like Toriyama does.
Admittedly, it means Toriyama really does have a skill in stringing along cool moments with a story, and writing without planning. But then the further question would be that if Dragon Ball was not written by Toriyama, or rather written with an ethos of actually logical plots instead of continuous set up for the next big moment, what would Dragon Ball as a franchise look like today?
@@iantaakalla8180 if you're asking me? The birth of a pantheon.
Man. I can barely watch Super at this point in time. The reason why Toriyama got away with it is that he always found a way to tie existing themes into the ending. When all those themes have been used up you end up with dragon ball super. A story that's main goal is to do two things, be unpredictable and look cool. Once the novelty of looking cool has worn off. We end up with a story that honestly could have been written by a 14-year-old
Considering Toriyama’s seat-of-the-pants creative style, I think it’s poetic that there is a Time Patrol overseeing all the crazy ret-cons and hand-wavey BS the series has picked up.
Like The End of Z. Seriously, WHEN WILL THE END OF Z HAPPEN?!
Maybe only in the manga canon now. The Toei/anime are retconning it with the new movie.
@@ChiefMedicPururu Don't spread misinformation. They haven't yet revealed when the movie is set, be it before after or retconning the end of Z. All we know is that it's set after the Granola arc (unless the Granola arc does an unexpected time skip which is unlikely)
Jotaro:is literally on fire
him 3 seconds later:HAHA YOU FOOL, YOU FELL VICTIM TO ONE OF THE CLASSIC BLUNDERS
Never go against an Italian when death is on the line!
Giorno: [achoo!]
Would make more sense if it was Joseph, Jotaro isn't nearly so boisterous.
Avdol: Literally dies
Also Avdol: YOU ABSOLUTE FOOLS
Vanilla Ice: I'm gonna do what's called an "epic gamer move".
@@biohazard724 Giorno is ironically not Italian.
I agree with you Masako Dragonball Z has been broken specifically with their powers and lesser importance of Earthlings beginning in the Android Arc which is a shame because Earthlings have so much potential.
yh especially tien he actually trains consistently they could have given him some random powerup but no, its about Goku and sometime Vegeta to keep him company
I have never cared about how Granolah got his powers.
He still sacrificed his life for them, they weren't free. And he isn't that strong honestly, he just attacks vital points with his eyes.
Also, DB has never had complex rules. Dragon Ball has always been as simple as possible, the rules are so simple in DB that literarlly anything could happen.
Sometimes I really don’t mind the simplicity of a series like Dragon Ball.
Watching Hunter x Hunter or Naruto is a chore by comparison, since those series love to use exposition to explain nearly everything. It breaks up the pace of a manga/anime.
@@Kruegernator123
Exactly.
This is why I think DB is so popular.
It works under such a simple logic, so easy to understand that you can start to watch the series at any chapter and still understand everything and find it compelling.
Dragon Ball is basically "enjoyable simplicity".
To understand Naruto or Hunter x Hunter, you would need to watch from chapter 1.
@@Kruegernator123 Unpopular opinion, anime strategic fights are overrated af
Seriously, some of them need to make the opponent lose half of his senses so the protagonist can make his elaborate trap around him or just pull a lot of conveniences so the really specific plan can work smoothly
I mean, I like them too but the way people think they are so much superior to the good old "hit him in the face as hard as you can" type fights annoys me
I got a sort of thing going on in my story where the villain's immortality (which is basically super regeneration with savestates on his body as a backup) is reliant on a pair of objects called "argent links". First mention is the beginning of the second act, and the second act is mostly figuring out the specifics of the argent links and ultimately destroying them to limit the villain's power. This, of course, causes the villain to become more and more irrational to the point where he goes from his showman-like, charismatic self into a vicious monster lashing out when cornered.
Why do you think anyone cares about your fanfic's unoriginal plot device?
@@XH1927 he cares about it and was excited to share a bit of it. You know what people really don't care about? Nasty people like you who put others down as a way of boosting there own self esteem rather than actually putting anything in and giving to the world like this person with their story.
I'd be happy to read your story when it's done.
This actually sounds pretty cool.
@@XH1927 I never said anything about it being related to dragon ball whatsoever.
People seem to forget that DBZ had a lot of dumb plot points just like DBS. Thank you for making this video Masako.
the most dumb point of BDZ is the Future Trunks timeline. Everything else (except fillers) is plausible.
I've always had a problem with Cell's resurrection after his self-destruction (it felt like Toriyama wanting two different deaths to end both Gohan and Goku's arcs and not being sure which one to use) and especially Buu in general. I feel that the Cell and Buu arcs were just one long string of contrivances to escalate the conflict: our heroes are either too weak inexplicably or too stupid inexplicably.
Freeza's resurrection for the Cell Arc wasn't only anticlimactic and contrived but redundant. Cold could have accomplished the same effect to establish Trunks.
And what's the explanation for Cell getting decapitated and regenerating from that, anyway?
Actually the Zenkai Boost has been around since Goku vs Yamcha, only it was hidden by the hunger gag.
I think another element worth mentioning is how we consumed media for z versus super, anime versus manga, younger versus older, enjoyment with self and friends versus online with people and micro criticism.
EDIT: Although that's not neccesarily a bad thing. I don't want you guys to fight about it. Moreso me overthinking the difference.
The biggest broken thing about this anime imo is that death is just devolved to a merely inconvenient detention, takes the emotional impact out of the story
dude what is borken abotu seeing charater si the afte cos new flash that what happenm in real li you go to the afte rlfie when you pass so sotp hateing
Good, that way I can see my favorite character in action
@@ssjgotenks2009 sorry....what did any of that mean?
@@darthslain I dont think English is his native language.
@@KeeeKeeedemon Naaah he speaks english, he's just dyslexic.
The inconsistencies in the Zenkai boost are absurd when you think about it, every Saiyan ever must at some point in their lives have received one and in some cases multiple of them yet they couldn't even come close to matching the likes of Zarbon. But then you have Namek where Goku goes from a power level of 90k to 3 million in one boost.
sayin gets slapped by zarbon a bit to hard
power level increases to 500k
Times like this makes me miss the dragon ball days
@NS 317 Why the f*ck Freeza (It s Freeza(Japanese pronunciation of Freezer) , not Frieza) should be the last?
I agree, there is this false narrative that DBS is the only DB series where there are plotholes, power scaling problems and retcons even though some of DBS problems stem from Zs inconsistencies.
Agreed. I remembered when I saw a meme where DBZ developed other characters like Gohan and Vegeta unlike DBS. And I'm like bish, Vegeta has been a punching bag, and Gohan was falling off since the Buu Saga. And what about the Humans? They didn't developed besides Krillin.
DBS unironically did more to solve Z's plot holes than Z itself.
Yeah, the "Rule of Cool" trope is something that's been with Dragon Ball for as long as Toriyama had started including it in the manga. And it's what drew many people into reading the manga or watching the anime, myself included. Dragon Ball is one of those stories where you'd have to turn your brain off and simply enjoy a spectacle or else you're going to start asking lots of questions that may end up with answers that will sour your enjoyment of the series. Sure, it has some story telling moments that can be interpreted and learned from, but for the most part, Dragon Ball has always relied on either cheap excuses to make things happen, or the usual thought process of "you know what would be cool? If we made *that* happen." And for better or worse, many of us love it anyway.
0:53 It's kinda funny to hear you talk about JoJo. I love both it and Dragon Ball so it was a pleasure.
To be fair with Cell I always took it to mean the nucleus in his head was the only part that could regenerate his whole body from from scratch.
But even that gets disproven. Remember the Instant Kamehameha?
@@ChiefMedicPururu That took out less than half his body. What I'm getting at is he dosn't need the nucleus to regenerate a mostly intact body, but he would need in the case of most or all of his body being obliterated.
I think one thing that helps with the first appearance of Future Trunks was he was there to set up a new story and kick it into motion. Not used to artificially prolong a story that would naturally come to its end prematurely without it, or because Toriyama wrote the heroes into a corner.
I personally like some fan theories people made, like people entering after 2 years(just goku and vegeta) tearing a hole in reality or breaking the whole thing to escape, considering that super buu could do that. The whole cell regeneration thing also kinda makes sense, as Gero would want as little chance possible of cell’s death, maybe he has 2 nuclei, increasing survivability. Senzu beans are still bs but still.
Doesn't matter. Still memorable and childhood making.
you could say , matters but not to me
You say this like MasakoX doesn't run his entire channel on his love for Dragon Ball.
Anime by and large relies on either power creep or "The power of friendship" to conveniently resolve conflict and defeat villains. Its why I appreciate anime that has the characters use their brains.
Care to pass me a few names of anime with brains?
@@sirgaz8699
hunter x hunteris one
@@chongwillson972 Seen it and it's one of the WORST things I've ever watched.
@@sirgaz8699
Let me guess you only watched a few episodes ?
@@sirgaz8699 the entirety of jojo save for part 1 and 3 in some bits
Yeah... I think logic and consistency wasn't ever DBZ's strong point. Was just talking about that with my friends a few days ago, and the Jojo comparison was the first thing that came up
Its not so much that Trunks feels fanfic-y, its that fanfic writers grew up with Trunks.
I always thought Shadow was the Vegeta of Sonic the Hedgehog
I HATED Trunks' introduction, I always thought it was a huge deus ex machina.
The zenkai -- while a cool plot convenience for the time -- was a horrible mistake. Any non-saiyan character who trains can't get nearly as much of a boost in power. What Tein accomplishes in one month only takes a day or so for Goku. Add Super Saiyan transformations into the mix and even the most powerful human characters might as well retire. >_
I thought Z and Super were 2 different shows. Super is SUPER f'd up. Like how every Saiyan can become a Super Saiyan, miss me.
From what I remember it was later mentioned by Goku or someone else that in Hyperbolic Time Chamber he really struggled in his young days, so it was not like ignored explanation at all...
Vegeta woulda bodied cell if he ever went ss2. Theres also an entire major plot point of vegeta needing to turn into majin vegeta just to gain ss2 so of course he never went ss2 in the cell saga.
Hadn't he already achieved it? I thought he allowed himself to become Majin because he wanted things to go back similarly to how they were before he met Goku.
The biggest cop out in all of Dragon Ball is the super saiyan transformation.
No, I'm not talking about when Goku first became one. I'm talking about how Goten and Trunk just randomly became super saiyans for plot convenience.
Majin Boo Saga as a whole was a huge mess. I will always defend that DBZ should have ended at Cell, it would have been a perfect send-off for the series (even if Cell Saga itself had some problems)
I hate admitting that Shadow jab is accurate. Need Shadow to do something? Put "Chaos" in front of the name and problem solved.
imagine not being a magical ram-man but still using magical-ram man blasts. for shame.
I can understand Ceral bar pulling techniques out of nowhere actually....he's just learning what he can do, and using his powers accordingly, in the heat of the moment really. basically trying to outsmart and out gun them(even though compared to goku its not that hard to do kek.)
actually reminds me of Xeno'jiiva from MHW, its a newborn with tons of power, and basically learns as it was fighting you. eventually being able to do things like fire lasers and figuring out it can fly.
and later came back with more power and skill to boot. As Safi Jiiva
@@lucaswibisono1316 exactly
I always felt like if zenkai boosts should not be seen as literal power boosts, but some kind of a genetic stubbornness that forces saiyans to work as hard as possible to avoid the previous mistakes, but vegeta thought it was a powe boost since that's what made sense to him
Did anyone elsr think there was going to be a 'fun with acronyms' moment at 'Pulling powers out of his'
Controversial take here. just because the cop outs were entertaining dosent make them good
I for one would love if you did a Jojo what if series.
(Sees video title)
(After seeing Goku Black vs Reverse Flash)
Not broken enough, apparently…
(After seeing in video title)
Oh, you mean plot wise…
I liked that episode. Happy the RF won.
The problem is that the upper-tier DC heroes are just plain out of the league of pretty much anyone in the DB universe. DC is an insanely overpowered multiverse
Nah future trunk slicing frezza in half with ease will always be cool
My headcannon is that Cell's core is actually a Namekian trait. An extradimensional storage system that contains excess mass (hence stretchy limbs, etc.) Big difference would be it has an additional nervous system within as well (why he can regrow his primary head in the first place) and store organisms he fuses with (why he coughs up 18 instead of just white chyme).
Why did he say it was in his head? Lie to the enemy. Why did he get a boost in strength when he blew himself up? His body read Goku's transmission to a world with higher gravity as an attack, which popped him early. Why'd he hang around when he was clearly losing to Gohan's attack in that split second, yelling "I'm perfect!" rather than teleporting away? When he inverted most of his core to blow up, he may have damaged his "seconday CNS" and regenerated with a...few screw lose, I guess?
My favorite thing about DBZ is that trying to make sense of canon mechanics (with very soft sci-fi) is a fun puzzle. Trying my own hand at a "What If Present Cell Survived?" Fic since Weird Alien Biology is the best
Apart from Freeza surviving and Cell's explanation about the nucleus, and the room of spirit and time, the rest are not copouts.
Is just me or I found it kinda stupid they don't let Vegeta have the W over Frieza in resurrection F? Like why? Vegeta kinda deserves that W after all, like I know its because reverse time stuff but still. Vegeta could deserve at least 1 W over a main villain over just henchmens/Right hand guy of the villains....I hope they could do that in granolah arc
'Out of Left Field' is just Toriyama writing 101
Actually, the only one of these that doesn't make logical sense is the time chamber, because that's an actual plot inconsistency. There are, however, other issues. For example, apparently, in DBZ, energy can most definitely be created from nothing, since unless saiyans (and later on humans) have antimatter fission reactors for stomachs, they wouldn't gain enough energy to blow up a planet, even if they ate a million saiyan-sized meals.
It can because Ki is not really something natural that can be explained by scicence. Ki is literally spiritual energy, so in other words, it's literally magic (even though the story will try to tell you there's a difference between Ki and magic, but there is not, it's the same thing really, just like how androids and cyborgs being the same thing as well)
@@artemis1993
Yes. That counts as an in-universe explanation of sorts, but except in the case of certain moves (like the Genki Dama/Spirit Bomb,) it's unclear where the ki comes from, or why some people can use more of it than others. Do people with strong spirits just generate ki spontaneously? Does a spirit grow stronger through training as the body does? The actual yeses and nos of how ki is supposed to work is still largely mysterious.
Beyond Zenkai boosts, what really broke Dragon Ball was the Kaioken… or rather, how it worked by multiplication at different numbers. By the time you got to x10 as Goku’s comfort zone and even pushing to x20, it made it so the plot dictated Super Saiyan provided a 50 times multiplier in order to best Freeza… and then that each new Super Saiyan form be a multiplication of that 50 times power (100 times… 400 times…) so, Kaioken basically ended up breaking any logical sense of power scaling in this series and made it so all non-Saiyan characters (ignoring the later gods) were completely useless in a non-tournament setting. And then things just get weird when they do fight the big bads. Like… what level of control did the Androids have to have not to just break Tien in half like a twig?
2:36 are you talking about when piccolo tried out the Kamehameha? From the abridged XD
Honestly, Frieza Saga was full of these things. First it introduces the Zenkai, then has Guru unlock potential, than introduces Namekian Fusion, then breaks the rules of Zenkai with Super Zenkai, then has Goku suddenly able to use Kaio-Ken x10 and x20 when he could barely manage x3 and x4 before, and then introduces Super Saiyan. The story would’ve been much better if no one got dramatically stronger, but the weaker Z-Fighters and Vegeta could win by having a better understanding of Ki.
Actually wasn't it explained he was training to use higher states of the Kaioken?
The frieza saga is probably the one with the least cop outs actually. Zenkai, guru unlocking power and namekian fusion are just things introduced in this arc, if you really wanted to I guess you can call them cop outs. Goku isn’t “suddenly able to” use kaioken x10-20. He spent all his days traveling to namek training in 100x gravity so he could do that. He broke his body getting to that point, but he did. It is definitely not something that just happened because it could. Kai probably cut it short but the original showed him taking every step towards being able to sustain it. Super saiyan was mentioned since the saiyan saga and has been built up all the way until vegeta dies to frieza.
@@justinr.2076 That’s exactly my point. Toriyama needed ways to get the numbers higher and thus had to introduce a bunch of new methods to do so. His training is also ridiculously more efficacious as well. Goku trained for all his life and get to a Power Level of 416; then he trains with King Kai for half a year after running down Snake Way for half a year before and gets just over 8k; then he trains for a week and gets to over 90k. There’s no reason for him to get this strong when the numbers could’ve been lower. The same applies for Kaio-Ken.
Goku spends 5 months in 10Gs mastering Kaio-Ken and the Spirit Bomb and then struggles to use x4 against Vegeta. Then he trains in 100 Gs for 1 weak and masters Kaio-Ken to a point 5x more than before. That’s a ridiculous increase in such a short time which could’ve been handled better had the numbers been lower.
As for Zenkai and Super Saiyan, I think they’re easily handled the best as they had been built up over time. However, Zenkai was given a rough estimate of how much it increased Power Level by, roughly 30%, and then suddenly increases by much more. This is because the characters are close to tapping into Super Saiyan, but that’s still an arbitrary increase.
Each of these has an explanation and is utilized at least decently by the story. However, only Zenkai and Super Saiyan are necessary, especially if Toriyama made the numbers smaller.
7:20
A game called "shin budokai: another road" did the future buu arc a little better imo. I loved the character interactions, dialogue, and game itself. It was also the 1st ever piece of dbz media I had, and made me a somewhat fan. 👍🏾
I gotta ask, what's with the frequent changes in the titles? Sometimes they don't really reflect what the video is, and are kinda click-baity.
It happens a lot with discussion videos, and it's a little distracting.
Dragon ball and Bad writing
Name a more iconic duo
Star Wars and ruining their actor’s careers. Perhaps more cynically, Star Wars and bad writing since everyone compares Dragon Ball to Star Wars.
@@iantaakalla8180 Last Jedi is a good movie.
I guess on retrospect, what happened with Mecha Frieza was kinda too much.
They undid Goku's victory, just to give Trunks a chance to show off how COOL he was. They were really trying to push this new character (..who in retrospect, kinda comes off as a bad OC too)
In this series called "unordinary", a character gets the ability to copy others powers. However, he has to learn, fight, and practice with it, and eventually the idea is formed to enhance the abilities, and he practices at that too, taking it 1 step at a time until he can use not only multiple abilities, but enhances them.
I feel like granola shouldve been explained to have spent his time after the wish training and learning how his power works. As well as learning and adapting his enemies techniques into his own through differnet means.
Bulma and Vegeta were literally flirting right before Freeza's arrival, in their own weird little way. Dwarfing the previous villian/measuring bar is a constant thing throughout DB/
Hey, it took some 30 years but someone else finally bought up the Cell's Nucleus plot hole! Good on you. Seems like a missed opportunity from the Abridged to bring it up.
35 years later, and the original Dragon Ball anime (and/or first half of the manga) is still the best part. I wish we could go back to that old feeling
There’s also the fun plot holes or questions like future Goku not helping Gohan in the decade plus of time.
Ever since the whole S-cell thing I thought there'd be an episode where bulma looked into it to them ( her and her father being scientist and all) like they did in gt with blustswaves generator to help vegeta go ssj4
I'm not really sure that JoJo's a super good example. both individual Stands and Hamon in general are so ill-defined that they can have random new abilities that come out of nowhere and go totally unexplained. Part 3 probably has the some of the most notable examples of this but the whole series has pretty significant totally unpredictable asspull moments.
And yet, that still works out.
@@ChiefMedicPururu Silver Chariot Requiem is a big ASSPULL for sure.
A walking, JoJo-ified asspull.
Dragon ball is for 10- 13 year old boys it’s never been a series that took itself seriously, it was revolutionary for it’s time but it’s not top tier in terms of quality writing. Fan need to accept that it won’t change and just take it for it is which is a old school battle shounen not a modern day story shounen.
In my opinion most shounen focus on plot and emotional impact when sometimes I don’t care I just wanna see some fighting which is why I didnt rate shows like naruto because it had so many useless fillers and even during fights they’d be talking too damn much like I came here to see fights not for talking
I've noticed my own trends in that; newer audiences that are watching shounen anime for the first time like around ages 13 to 17 or so don't like DBZ they like stuff like Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, Hunter Hunter, and other anime much more than Dragon Ball Z. No hate on those other shows either, they're great, but I think it's very telling that the only people who still like DBZ are the older generations because the newer anime watchers aren't buying Toriyama's writing style anymore.
I can name multiple examples in real life with my cousins and stuff and I can't help but agree that there are massive problems with the writing and that the fight scenes are simply not as sick or as well animated as other shounen. OG Dragon Ball had way more consistent animation and is a much better use of your time if you wanted to watch an action adventure story than DBZ is.
Zenkai was definitely cop out, a cheap way for Vegeta, Gohan, and Goku to get rapid gains on Namek. That said it at least used to be mitigated by seeming to eventually hit diminishing returns, hence why Vegeta after recovering from his fight against #18 didn't immediately fly off for a rematch stronger than ever before, and it pretty much stayed that way for the rest of Z and even the early arcs of Super
It wasn't really untill Black came around that the Zenkai boost got mentioned again, although even there it never led to the same kind of wildly exponential multipliers it had on Namek.
Where things went ridiculously over the top was in the Tournament of Power. Seriously,how many times are we supposed to believe that Goku and Vegeta can break their limits and tap into hither to unkown depth of power in what is supposed to only be only 48 minutes? Seriously, no special training, no recovering from injuries, no mystical rituals, they just get stronger because they really, really want to.
Vegeta is quite obviously the Shadow the Hedgehog of the Dragon Ball Universe. Granola would be...idk Jet the Hawk?
TFS Killin calling hax on Vegeta explaining zenkais is the most accurate thing ever said in anime. Or at least abridged anime.
Also also I feel like the time chamber wouldn’t be brought up cause they wouldn’t have been able to survive in there given the harsh environment and constant changes buuut I agree some explanation would’ve been nice lol
These things are definite cop-outs, and I think Toriyama was never the best at writing things outside of comedy, to be honest. Sure, the DBZ (and onward) fights are definite highlights, but I think what made dragon ball originally so amazing was the comedy, the OG Dragon Ball was simply best because it’s story didn’t need much explanation, it’s just good comedy/adventure fun. As time goes by, less and less of the story makes any luck of sense, and I feel like super is mostly a devolved version of DB that’s really only ever focused on fighting and really not much else. I have a really hard time reading through even the best of its chapters, to be completely honest. As fun as it can be at times, Super just doesn’t have the same charm that DB/DBZ ever had.
What I’d really like to see from Toriyama, hopefully someday, is a reset button. Ideally in the form of something like Dragon Ball Online but in a new manga or something, hopefully done by someone who is a better artist than Toyotaro (sure he’s gotten a little better, but he’s still very mediocre, IMO). But anyway, something like DB Online just has so much potential, as it’s got so much new lore, an entirely new cast of characters and races and if Toriyama and his overlords saw the potential of stepping away from all of DB’s characters and just having an entirely new cast of characters to work with, you have so much potential to work a properly good story, hopefully without another Goku-syndrome storyline. Maybe the dragon balls themselves can be somewhat relevant again, maybe Shenron will stick to the same rules. Maybe there doesn’t have to be characters that are either as strong or literally gods and angels that are so powerful that it makes all other characters inherently irrelevant.
Why can’t we have something like that than the same thing regurgitated over and over? I absolutely love Dragon Ball but aside from the movies that came out in the last decade, I just haven’t been very excited about it. Is it just me?
. . . That makes me think. Has Masako done "What if the Earthlings used the Hyperbolic Time Chamber before the Saiyans arrived?" before?
Remember in the DBS Manga when Goku used hakai in the Future Trunks Arc? That's one example I've found.
Let's be completely fair here, Masako. The introduction of Trunks was decidedly not the first thing in Dragon Ball which would have been called out as bad fanfiction if it hadn't come straight from Toriyama. The Saiyan Saga begins with the main character's long-lost brother showing up, kidnapping what at the time seemed to be the main character's Generational Clone son and revealing that the main character has been an alien all along.
When was it mentioned that the poisonous divine water Goku drank was retconned to just being his Saiyan boost?
I mean, it makes sense that he got a boost, but it was never stated the water was just poison.
heres another what if idea what if saiyan tails always grew back?
so i noticed something while rewatching dbz seems like saiyan tails only grow back once after being decapitated or at least they should because vegetas never grew back after the saiyan saga kind of a plot inconsistency if you ask me. the actual reason of course is because toriyama got tired of drawing the tails which i think is dumb. nice thing about what ifs is they can fix inconstancies like this and make them into a proper story element.
Don't you see, Masako? That's just how his Sharingan works. Idk why he awakened one so long after the other, but clearly he's always had one since childhood. I mean, you can tell someone's getting ideas from Naruto. First, UI Goku's Perfect Susano'o, and now this. Lol but seriously though, I think that's just what happens when you try to keep the same formula running for so long in this franchise. Due to that and the myriad of writing issues, I've been disillusioned with DragonBall material for years now.
Yeah Dragon Ball is at his core a martial arts series and it stayed that other series tried to replicate it without being martial arts but they don't get the same magic as Dragon ball
I agree I wish Dragon Ball had a lot more thought put into it
Saiyan Zenkai boost also gived a reason for Frieza to not torture the Saiyans willy nilly since it would only make them stronger.
A bit off topic, but what I really think would be good is if Goku and Vegeta, in one of the upcoming manga chapters, jointly came to the conclusion that these 'Ultra' forms of theirs aren't really worth their salt, and thus decided to go down a different path of gaining power... maybe even Super Saiyan 4.
Because Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego have kind of had their time to shine... and whaddya' know.. they're not that effective at the end of the day (although they did give MUI the win against Moro)
O.O What if the Dragon Team used the Room of Spirit and Time to prep for the Saiyans
Oh and Freeza stole Krillin's destructo disc thingy. Let's face it everyone's a prodigy around here.
Idk... I agree with most of it, but I think the saiyan power is pretty legit. It matches their whole "perfect warrior race" vibe when you think of it as an adaptation pretty similar to their aging process. Earthlings aren't a warrior race literally bred since birth to fight (normally). So it makes sense that the saiyans would have biological advantages over other, more peaceful, species.
Toriyama has ALWAYS used ass pulls to get his characters to the level they need to be in order to be competitive.
*Cough* Universe 6 Saiyans *Cough*
great video but you forgot to mention arguably the greatest asspull the series has ever achieved:
golden freezer
what, 4 months of training will enough to achieve exponential growth that goku and vegeta had in the past 10 years including matching that of supposed divine levels of power?
sure why not
Yeah that
That was a red flag for me when I first heard Resurrection of F came out.
You think that's the biggest asspull?
You apparently forgot about how Goten and Trunk just became super saiyans because they felt like it.
@@TheFinalChapters I always had the headcanon they could go super saiyan because Goku and Vegeta were already super saiyan. Well in Vegeta's case, he was on the verge of becoming one. But they established he trained Trunks constantly so..I think Trunks gets a bit of leeway.
@@saltystick_99 Trunks didn't become super saiyan in the future timeline until he was a teenager, despite plenty of training prior to that. It's not like Vegeta was specifically *trying* to teach Trunk how to go super saiyan or anything.
Even Vegeta was flabbergasted when he found out and called it a "super saiyan bargain sale".
my theory is that Granolah has gained extra abilities thanks to Whis getting tired of Beerus being lazy and is using Granolah to be Beerus's successor
Dude has 3 years to live. This theory ain’t it man.
Hunh, after hearing you mention about the room of spirit and time, do you think that a good What If could be made out of that scenario? I know you're already touching on with in the Yajarobe story, but still it has some more potential.
It is not Z that is broken, it is super that is non sensical and retcon a lot of the canon.
Also you made the mistake of equating Z's Future Trunks with Super's Future Trunks when they are not the same person.
But Super's Future Trunks remembers Z's Trunks' journey in the Cell saga, so they are.
@@silverboltscrapper Except they aren't.
May being alive and young makes it impossible.
There are other impossibilities that distiguish them also, like how Z's Trunks hair is white/purple and not light blue. Also how the time machine works would make Z's Trunks unable to reach Super's present because they are separate time lines now without a connection.
Super's future Trunks is from the direct future of Super's time line, as can be seen by Zamasu taking Goku's body after they had met once wich would be impossible in Z's FT timeline.
Trunks will now and forever be known to me as Princess Trunks.
This is cool but I'm still wondering when the ParaPara brothers will show up. How do they fit in the frieza force? Were they the choreographers for the Ginyu poses?
Alternate timeline only.
I do have a big problem with the Buu Saga after Beerus was introduced and that's why did Beerus not take care of Buu at all especially when he was attacking the world of the Kais where Shin is you know Shin the guy Who's Lifeforce is linked to his Lifeforce and yet he doesn't come to help at all
He was asleep. A ridiculous and dumb explanation, yes, but an explanation