Dragon Ball Super - Reviews

*Minor spoilers below, don't read if you haven't finished watching.*

*Not that you should watch this show anyways*

Dragonball Super has successfully managed to destroy all my interest and future expectations towards the franchise. Nothing what made the Dragonball Z enjoyable can be found in Dragonball Super. The most basic things like character development, animation and story are god awful and leave way too much to be improved. But don't worry the series are still circlejerking around Goku through the entire series. Goku is "the man" he will always save the day and I mean ALWAYS.

I am so tired of seeing this overused plotmachine called Goku. Don't even dare to give any excuses how this is acceptable. Goku is running around with godmode on and isn't even interested what he is facing more than half of the time. There is never any sense of danger or trouble because he exists.

Lets talk more about character development in Super. ITS ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS.
Any character can suddenly be on the level of Goku if the plot demands it and apparently writers thought this was a great idea. Its not. Not only does this type of writing make the story and the past events completely meaningless it makes characters that worked their way to the top weaker than most of the other characters that were lightyears away from reaching others.

Animation. My god this awful animation. It gets better eventually when the show goes further but it has become meme at this point because of how bad it was at the beginning.

There is really nothing to say about this show or maybe I just don't feel like writing any longer than this. Dragonball Super ruined my childhood memories and Im never forgiving these writers for doing so.

After watching about 91 episodes of this terrible anime ( In dub of course , I did watch the sub version of the TOP arc at the time it was still new ) and honestly I'd had enough an decided to drop it after that point because it just wasn't worth it anymore.This show is nothing but a cash grab that doesn't deserve to be called the true sequel to Z like the fanboys clam it to be , because even GT ( which is non-canon ) , did a better job at being a sequel to Z than Super ever could. Even though it had its flaws , GT still had better transformations , better characters , and better story arcs an yet it gets shited on by fans just because Toriyama said it wasn't canon.If you like this show then thats fine , but in my opinion this mediocrity doesn't deserve the repretation it has and I hope its forgotten never to return for a second season , and honestly even Fairy Tail is a better shounen than this fanfic abomination.

So just to start this is my first time writing a review. I would normally just rate an anime using the star system on here and giving my point of view that way and due to not having time to write long reviews. But this anime is more close to my heart growing up watching Dragonball Z and that Dbz being in my top 3 favourite animes. So with Super being the continuation I felt I wanted to truly give my say.

So the first big question is dragonball super better than dragonball Z and the answer is no, dragonball Z is still the masterpiece. But let's breakdown dragonball super. It took me a while to get to watching this because I was waiting for the dubbed version, having finished the last dubbed episode today, i want to give my overall throughts on the series a hardcore fan of the series. 

I gave dragonball super a 4 out of 5 stars on here which in my rating system is an 8/10. I firstly want to breakdown what hindered this series for me, starting with the filler. With long series reaching a number like a hundred filler is expected and I normally don't mind it when it's good filler, some series have fun and hilarious filler. Sadly that's not the case here, the filler in super is down right boring and pointless and they dont make sense.

For examples of the bad filler there's one episode where goku is unable to use his ki at all,he is unable to even fly. This is explained by stating that he pushed his body to far using kaioken with super sayian blue. But goku has no problems using kaioken with super sayian blue throughout the rest of the series, so it makes no sense and it's just there to fill up a episode number. One filler episode will just annoy you as you watch a robot little girl character beat up vegeta and goku just to make people remember her and that she existed, when no one cares. So yes the filler is one of the biggest letdowns of the series and it drags things out as we wait to get to the good parts. 

To mention what also made me give this series an 8 instead of higher. Is during the first beginning open tournament against unverise 6. Piccolo comes face to face against Frost,frezia's doubleganger from unverise 6, before piccolo enters the arena he is told,he will stand no chance against frost and piccolo struggles against frost during the fight. But this is just wrong it's like the writer's/creators themselves forgot about the power levels of their own characters. Piccolo is a super namakian that could match cells first form in combat and the original strength android 17 had before training. Frost is the strength of the original final form frezia from dbz before frezias training. So super namakian piccolo would have had no problems beating frost, but the writers must have forgotten the power of piccolo when it came to his fight with frost.

Moving on to what held this series back even more for me,was the episode where we see Buu training for the tournament of power. We get to see buu in this muscle based form losing all his fat,buu is clearly stronger and faster in this form when he spars with goku. So I was excited to see buu fight in this new form,only to be disappointed when the tournament nears close and buu goes to sleep instead and he is completely fat again all of a sudden. So we don't get to see buu fight in this new form and it makes you wonder why they bothered to put it in there. This is mostly done to put frezia in the tournament last minute. But surely there was a betrer way of doing it. 

So these reasons mentioned are,what held back the series from reaching a 9 or 10 that it clearly could have reached for me. Another thing I personally don't like as much about super is all the blood,gore has been taken out of the series to clearly target a younger audience. When the blood and gore etc showed the true toll the battle was taking on the fighters involved. 

So to end this review overall for me dragonball super is an 8/10,Dbz is still the masterpiece and I felt I wanted to mention the points that held super back from reaching a 10.

Dragon Ball Super (DBS) is the canon sequel to Dragon Ball Z which made its debut over 20 years after the manga ended with the Buu saga and takes place about four years after the Buu saga. With its announcement of release came many fans that were skeptical of a sequel that won’t be a train wreck and those who were just glad they’re getting more Dragon Ball. Instead of doing a traditional review, I’ll be reviewing each arc since there’s a lot that happens.

Battle of Gods

Plot

Yes, this arc has the exact same plot as the movie that released about two years prior to DBS, just dragged on more. How Earth was spared was actually different from the movie. Here, Beerus fell asleep after fighting Goku then Whis takes him back to their world.

The end of the arc was fresh for Dragon Ball in that the antagonist wasn’t actually defeated. However, things felt a little dragged out and slow. As a result, it killed a lot of tension that existed in the movie. There was a lot of unnecessary dialog and the emotional moments of the arc, specifically the “THAT’S MY BULMA!” scene, was less impactful than in the movie. As for the jobbing fights, nothing amazing (better in the movie though).

Plot overall: 3/10

Visuals

Very disappointed with the quality of art and animation. There were very obvious signs of the animators running on a tight schedule. And I’m not talking about in-between frames, but actual scenes. It got better towards the end of the arc, but nothing amazing.

Visuals overall: 3/10

Sound

Soundtracks were alright but nothing special. Voice acting was good. Sound effects were okay.

Sound overall: 7/10

Characters

Vegeta got some nice development in this arc as he was willing to embarrass himself for the safety of his family. This doesn’t sound like much, but this is Vegeta we’re talking about. Additionally, getting enraged at the site of Bulma getting hurt definitely showed he truly cares for her.

We didn’t get much of the secondary cast (Roshi, Tien, etc.), but, we were introduced two new characters: Beerus and his teacher Whis. Whether you like them or not, their personalities were fleshed out pretty well.

And Goku… well he’s still the Goku we know.

Characters overall: 6/10

Battle of Gods arc overall: 4/10 Weak start to Super. Watch the movie instead.

Resurrection F

Plot

Once again, exact same plot as the corresponding movie that was released before. While Goku and Vegeta train under Whis, some of Frieza’s subordinates use Earth’s Dragon Balls to revive Frieza. A short bit of advice from Whis to Goku and Vegeta was an important foreshadow to something Goku obtains later. After training, Frieza goes to Earth and fights Goku with his new golden form. But Goku has got a new form too: Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan or Super Saiyan Blue. After losing stamina due to his golden form, Goku lets Vegeta finish Frieza. Before the final blow, Frieza blows up Earth. Whis rewinds time and Goku finishes Frieza before he could blow it up again.

The idea of the plot is really retconned and uncreative. The only real purpose of the arc was to show some new transformations. However, a little backstory was given about Beerus giving Frieza the order to destroy planet Vegeta. Once again, it was slow and filled with too many unnecessary events like the whole return of captain Ginyu. This also would’ve been the perfect set up for Vegeta to his revenge on Frieza too, but you can’t even give that to the man. We did get to see some of the secondary cast in action again which was nice, but the main fights themselves were nothing spectacular.

Plot overall: 3/10

Visuals

Slightly better overall from the previous arc but still pretty bad.

Visuals overall: 4/10

Sound

No notable changes other than a few added soundtracks which were alright.

Sound overall: 7/10

Characters

Nothing too noteworthy other than some new Frieza goons that end up dead.

Characters overall: 6/10

Resurrection F arc overall: 3/10 Watch the movie instead. Super has been very disappointing so far. I wouldn’t blame anyone if they dropped Super in this arc because I was very close to dropping after this.

 

Universe 6

Plot

Finally, some new content. Beerus, the God of Destruction (GoD) of Universe 7, and his brother Champa, the GoD of Universe 6, compete against each other in a tournament where they pit their top 5 strongest fighters from their universes against one another. The winning GoD gets a wish granted by the Super Dragon Balls, which are Dragon Balls the size of planets and have no limit to what wish can be granted. Surprisingly, Goku gets defeated by Universe 6’s legendary assassin, Hit. Then Hit kindly throws the final match to Monaka resulting in Universe 7’s victory. Before Champa throws a fit, Zeno the king of all shows up and announces that he wants to see a tournament like this one again. Beerus wishes for Champa’s universe to have a planet Earth so Champa can enjoy all the good food from there. Isn’t that thoughtful of him?

It isn’t Dragon Ball without a tournament right? The plot’s fairly simple, however, there’s enough little twists (such as Goku losing twice, yes, twice) and unknowns to keep the audience guessing and engaged in the story. The pacing was a little on the slow side, but it wasn’t as bad as the previous arcs. This arc had a fair bit of action, but most was lackluster up until Goku vs Hit. A nice change from the standard Dragon Ball formula was that Goku didn’t get a new transformation to get stronger; rather, he used an old technique we haven’t seen since the Namek saga: Kaio-ken which he used on top of Super Saiyan Blue. This won’t be something that Goku can spam considering Kaio-ken takes a big toll on his body. Additionally, the Dragon Ball universe got bigger with the introduction of multiple universes which expands the options for future arcs.

Plot Overall: 6/10

Visuals

There were still some signs of rushed work, but quality was improved a fair bit from the previous arcs.

Visuals overall: 6/10

Sound

Nothing notable.

Sound overall: 7/10

Characters

We got introduced many new characters: Winnie the Pooh Botamo, a robot, another Frieza, more Saiyans (and we thought they were an endangered species), a badass assassin, and Zeno who’s essentially the God of the Dragon Ball Universe.

Hit’s by far one of the most interesting DB characters in terms of his fighting style and abilities. The Saiyan fighter in Universe 6, Cabba, seems to be Vegeta’s opposite counterpart in terms of personality. Speaking of Vegeta, it was very noble of him to teach Cabba the Super Saiyan transformation in their match. It was something only the prince of Saiyans would do, showing that he truly cares for his race no matter what universe they’re from.

Characters overall: 7/10

Universe 6 arc overall: 6.5/10 satisfying enough to keep me watching.

 

Future Trunks

Plot

All the time traveling and time line stuff gets rather convoluted and would take up a lot of space to explain, so I’ll just dive into the review.

The mystery of Goku Black was a great way to start this arc. The apocalyptic setting and the genocide of Earth made him look like a genuinely threatening villain as well. The idea of a Kaioshin (Zamasu in this case) that has a different philosophy of mortals and Gods which leads him to do evil things, which ironically is what he hates about mortals, is an interesting concept and reflects how there can be extremists among any society.

Towards the end of the arc is where things get good and bad. The return of fusion gave us more information on how potara fusion works, but at the same time, fusion can just be an easy way to power up without consequences. With that said, this made fused Zamasu feel that much more threatening. Vegito vs fused Zamasu was good but short lived. How future Trunks was able to fight on par with Super Saiyan Rose Goku Black and one-shot fused Zamasu was beyond me. The only good that came out of that was Trunks delivering the “finishing blow” in his arc. Just when we think it’s over, Zamasu’s immortality proved to be even more over powered because he then fused himself with the very fabric of Trunk’s universe/timeline. Having Zamasu to be a big threat was good, but at this point, he was just too over powered. The only way out of this was Zeno erasing Trunk’s timeline which I hope won’t be exploited in future arcs.

Plot overall: 7/10

Visuals

Pretty good animation and art at major parts and average every other time.

Visuals overall: 7/10

Sound

There were some nice soundtracks added in this arc. Sound effects were descent and on-point. Voice acting was good as usual.

Sound overall: 8/10

Characters

Zamasu (Goku Black included) was a good antagonist. His motives, philosophy, and personality were portrayed very clearly and the combination of them gave us a truly memorable villain.

We see for the first time that Beerus is actually capable of feeling guilt when he insisted that Black would be gone when he destroyed Zamasu in the present, but it actually didn’t.

As for future Trunks, it was interesting seeing him interact with present Trunks because you tell which one was raised by Vegeta. It was a small treat seeing future Trunks meet present Android 18 as well.

Characters overall: 8/10

Future Trunks arc overall: 7.5/10 fairly interesting.

 

Universe Survival/Tournament of Power

Plot

Basically, the two Zeno’s host a battle royal tournament with ten warriors representing each universe (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 11). Getting all ten warriors knocked off the stage means your universe loses. Losing universes get their universe erased by the Zeno’s and last fighter on the stage gets a wish granted by the Super Dragon Balls. Universe 7 wins with Android 17 being the last fighter on the stage. He wishes for the resurrection of all the universes that got erased.

Pretty simple plot, but the stakes are the highest it’s ever been in Dragon Ball. The idea that the main cast was fighting against warriors trying to save their respective universes and not villians was a good one. This was stressed when Gohan knocked off the last fighter from universe 10 and watched in sorrow at a locket with a picture of the fighter's family which got erased along with universe 10.

Goku recruiting the fighters for universe 7 could’ve been shorter, but the twist to have Frieza as the tenth fighter was fairly interesting. The first half of the tournament served no purpose but to weed out fodder. What I consider the mid-point of the tournament was episodes 109 and 110 Goku vs Jiren. This was when we were rewarded with some of the best episodes of the franchise and when I fell in love with Dragon Ball all over again. Remember the advice Whis gave back in Resurrection F? Goku tapped into that power in ep 110. This is the first time in Dragon Ball something has been foreshadowed arcs in advance. Props to Toriyama for thinking ahead. Those episodes perfectly captured the aspects of what makes Dragon Ball exciting to watch. The second half had its slow parts but we were rewarded with some good fights and hype moments. The build-up to the final Goku vs Jiren fight was done well and the fight itself delivered. Although the resurrection of the erased universes was predictable, seeing it happen by Android 17 was not and the way it was presented was very heartfelt.

The biggest problem in this arc was all the useless dialog that didn’t add value nor insight but only served to buffer episode length (i.e. Goku does something then a spectator proceeds to say what we all saw). If that kind of thing annoys you, I recommend following the manga. There are instances of power level inconsistencies (I'm looking at you, Kefla) and asspulls done by almost everyone, but didn’t really water down the enjoyment nor the advancement of the arc. This is what I appreciate about Dragon Ball. On a side note, if you look back, Dragon Ball always had asspulls. It’s not a problem exclusive or severe to DBS. All in all, the story was entertaining to follow and the fights rewarded those who stayed on this wild ride.

Plot overall: 7.5/10

Visuals

This arc showed that Toei is capable of impressive animation. They had the talents of Yuya Takahashi, Naotoshi Shida, and Futoshi Higashide doing DBS justice. Although they had worked on some episodes previous to this arc, their talents really shined with the episodes they worked on this arc. There were some mediocre looking scenes, but nothing terrible. There were some notable reused animations for the sake of focusing more time in other areas, but nothing that severely ruined the enjoyment.

Visuals overall: 8/10

Sound

Limit Breaker x Survivor is the perfect opening for this arc along with being a great song in general. Some great soundtracks were added in this arc as well. Sound effects were good and on-point. Voice acting was good as usual.

Sound overall: 9/10

Characters

We had the pleasure of seeing some of the old characters in action again. Some got the spotlight more than others, but let’s focus on those who got the spotlight.

First, I never dreamed of Roshi being relevant again. To boot, he had some really good moments to shine.

Gohan realized that he needs to be strong as well to be able to protect his family so he finally started training again. He had a descent amount of fights but nothing that made him shine.

Vegeta was shown to be a caring mentor to his fellow Saiyans. “I’ll resurrect you lot with the Super Dragon Balls.” Hell, he got a new transformation from his will to keep a promise. That would sound cheesy if it was anyone else but Vegeta. Around of the end of the tournament, he got over his jelousy of Goku and was replaced with pride in his fellow Saiyan. "Kakarot can have his Ultra Instinct. I'll become powerful my own way."

Goku’s still the Goku we know.

Freiza had some interesting traits shown in this arc. Yes, he’s still evil, but, he’s capable of setting aside grudges and being a team player.

Last but not least, Android 17. I think a lot of people will agree that 17 was the MVP of the tournament. Not because he won, but because of the amount of selfless things he’s done in order for the team to win such as risking self-destruction to save Goku and Vegeta. What’s more, he has a lot of admirable traits like keeping a calm composure under pressure and being a clever strategist. You got to give credits to Toriyama for giving us such a cool character.

As for the fighters of the other universes, we only got a bare minimum shown in terms of personality and traits except Jiren. His background was very stereotypical but it served to show how he got his values and philosophy and why he lost his composure fighting Goku. I won’t go in depth with Jiren since there are videos that do that. He wasn’t bad in the end.

Characters overall: 8.5/10

Universe Survival/Tournament of Power arc overall: 8/10 a fun watch and I recommend to anyone who’s a Dragon Ball fan.

Final thoughts

After a rough start and despite its downs, DBS eventually became something really fun and exciting to watch every week. I personally look forward to any new content that’ll come in the future. To those who dropped DBS early on, I recommend giving it another chance if you love the action aspect of Dragon Ball. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Bro this franchise is just getting worse. They are just milking dragon ball at this point. This show was so bad that i wanted to drop it so many times but i didn't because of how amazing the fights were. I will give you that the fights were actually quite decent and were the only motivation which kept me going. I would given it a 1 but because of the fights i will increase the score. Vegeta at this point is just a sore loser who always works so hard to surpass goku but still fails to do so because the plot always makes goku stronger in some way. They absolutely ruined gohan like he was the only good written character in the series but now he's just bad. The female cast is absolutely trash and the kids were just annoying and as always the plot armour is still There. animation is way better than the older shows but the quality of the sound dropped. This is indeed a drag for the story but yeah even in the future people would still lile this garbage because apparently it is their "childhood". And as i said in previous reviews. A review based on nostalgia should not be trusted.