Dragon Ball Super is Ending and I'm Freaking Happy!
I honestly don't have a problem with this whatsoever. The series showed potential with the Theatrical cut of Battle of Gods. However, Lakers Frieza (even if I get the symbolism), Chubby Beerus, and forever young Goten and Trunks were early flags that something wasn't right. I will go into my major problems with Super as coherent as humanly possible.
The Characters
Oh, where do I begin with this!?! People always get mad at GT for not using the OG characters, but while my headcanon excuse is that most of the cast are past their prime age wise at that point. Super doesn't have that excuse, but still hardly use them, yet alone correctly!
Tien who should be one of the top ten z fighters for his years of none stop training. He is somehow under Krillin who stopped training multiple times throughout the series. He also had the worst play of any character while writing wise it doesn't make sense.
Speaking of Krillin , he and Gohan have the most inconsistent characterization in the series. In one moment, they want to train to protect their family. In the next moment, they are too afraid or "busy" to help save the earth. They can do both! I can go to work, house keep at home, work on art, and work on Biscuit Man! Multitask!
Piccolo being demoted to fodder is the dumbest decision that ANY ONE could ever make. At least, his sacrifice and remaining in the underworld in GT was a great conclusion for his character. This is just sad in any version of Super even in the manga.
Goten and Present Trunks were characters that I always had great ideas for since I was a middle schooler. My vision for Goten was to grow from a ladies man to an hardworking married goofball who through the aim to protect his family and finding inner peace taps into power that could save the world while his father's gone and Gohan is passed his prime. Trunks being basically Tony Stark without the alcoholism with hints of Future Trunks's "finish it now" attitude to spice things. What kind of character growth or development did they get in Super? Jack nothing! They don't even look like Gohan did in the Cell Saga when they're the same age that he was back then. And no, Trunks ("12") relationship with Mai (70 something years old in a "twelve" years old's body) doesn't count. That's nasty! This is coming from someone whom ships Luffy (17/19) and Robin (28/30) from One Piece hard because at least they can work as a couple.
Future Trunks also was a disappointment. It wasn't because he lacked in usage. It was because his rise in power was so out of nowhere. He went from weaker than base Goku Black to having an attack that can "kill" Merged Zamasu in the span of a few in-show days.
The OG supporting cast are either cardboard cut outs of their former selves or just running old gags to the earth's crust. Roshi has gone from a perverted, retired martial arts master to borderline Quagmire from Family Guy who can spam self-sacrificial attacks against people who can destroy solar systems. Bulma went from one of the most important characters in the show to Vegeta's Sexy Wife the Plot Device. Videl is just gone full noncombatant. The Pilaf Gang honestly doesn't need to be here because they add nothing to the overall scheme. Then, Yamcha gets one of his greatest moments in the entire franchise, and it's from a filler baseball episode that no one takes seriously. Enough said.
The new characters are so horrible written that I feel like that they don't deserve mentioning but I'm on a roll right now. Hit was a example of a character design speaking volumes about him. However, he suffered from plot convenient power ups in his fight with Goku to being nerfed to be beaten by Jiren. Cabba was decent, but became more of a whipped boy with little agency by the Tournament of Power. Frost was a salt water Frieza when he should be a representation that not all people of Frieza race/species are evil. Caulifa and Kale were so rushed out for marketing purposes that it broke the power scaling to no return. Outside the Namekians, the rest of universe 6 felt so underdeveloped that I think they were made just for filler especially Winnie the Pooh.
The other universes outside 2 and 11 were so boring that some of them lasted longer than they should because the writing staff forgot they existed to sale Jiren and Kefla toys. Universe 2 being a Sailor Moon/Shoujo parody started out as an interesting idea, but was ran to the ground like usual. Universe 11 is so badly handed that most of the team was eliminated in the first few episodes of the tournament while leaving the marketable three sitting around counting rocks until they were told by the director that they can finally do something. It's just so immersion breaking.
The antagonists were so lazily handed. Beerus will have his own section with Whis meaning that going straight to everyone's favorite lizard. I get it that Frieza is a franchise staple of a villian. However, the series bringing him back multiple times got annoying especially when it led to Buu being less involved with the Z-fighters. His new form was a great idea and concept, but it was so overshadowed by bad story writing decisions like the laser and Tagoma overall. Goku Black was definitely fanfiction inspired the only thing done different was that his ultimate form is pink haired instead of the usual red or white. Zamasu had the building blocks of great villain, but falls apart after you realize the character is just going on genocidal tantrum. I personally can't take Toppo and Dyspo seriously especially since the latter was straight up speculation fuel. Then, we reach Jiren the Brick Wall who by far is very bland to point of no personality. Even if they bring in his motivation later, he's still spent most of his time throwing one punch every few episodes, and keeping people that he could easily eliminate in the ring. His actions are all plot based and not character based.
Now, we reach the final four characters: Beerus, Whis, Goku, and Vegeta. Beerus and Whis were characters that are both good and bad thing to start a new series. They're good for adding new life to the series. However, they are bad because they are retconned into lore where they aren't needed as well as kill tension for how powerful that they are especially if they can do something about a situation. Goku, my favorite character, has been dumb down to post- first movie Spongebob levels of derailment. His battle frenzy was enduring in earlier installments of the francise. However, he is willing to blindly endanger the UNIVERSE to get in a fight in Super. Vegeta going to back to chasing Goku is dumb. GT handled post-Buu saga Vegeta so much better because he actually dressed and acted more human in that series. He also wanted to get stronger to keep the peace just in case Goku couldn't. This is the best logical step for his character after the events with Buu, but they knocked him back to Goku's rival status to for nostalgia bait. If you haven't caught on yet, the character writing here is abysmal.
The Plot
Starting with episode one, something about the structure of certain moments felt off. Like the tracker scene for an example, Goten can easily fly off that thing, but almost fell off the cliff. That led to many moments like it including: Sobra's laser ring almost killing God Level Goku. Zamasu's confusing motivation. Vegito being retconned with a time limit that didn't even get followed up on correctly. Trunks having an unexplained transformation and that spirit sword bull. Ultra Instinct being caused by Goku taking and absorbing his own spirit bomb. Base form Kelfa giving Super Saiyan God Goku a hard time when her unfused counter parts shouldn't add up or multiply into having a fusion that strong. Then, we have Jiren's plot driven actions. The cherry on this onion and ketchup sundae is exposition dumps on obvious stuff, but not for glaring problems that I just brought up. It makes it obvious to people with any form of sense that the writers either wrote themselves out of a corner or they're just being one big toy commercial.
The Better Handed Manga
Toyotarō, I pray for him. He somehow made Toriyama's outlines work in the most logical ways possible. Even If his version has issues in them, things like Goku knowing Hakai is a thousand times better than him spamming SSGSS Kaioken when it should be killing him. Also, Toyotarō lets Goku and Vegeta use the original Super Saiyan God to save stamina on using SSGSS. The recruitment of the tournament combatants was handed better also with Jiren showing signs of an actual motive and character from the jump. Cabba isn't easily wipped by characters like Caulifa. Future Trunks and Yamcha were actually thought about as candidates. Even, Android 17 was inspired by Krillin's wish back in Z to join the fight. This is characterization that the anime needed but it's far too late now unfortunately. The manga felt like both a better written and a non parody abridged version of Super which I enjoyed.
The Conclusion
In the conclusion, this series was just an obvious cash grab after the success of the Battle of Gods duology. While Toyotarō's manga was more consistent due to its monthly format, the anime is the thing that people will remember most meaning all his hard work will go to waste. If Super was handed by a better studio or Toei took better care of it, the series wouldn't have fallen off so gradually.
I know that I mostly roasted Super throughout this. However, I'm doing this as a fan of the franchise. Toriyama's art style was a big influence of my own style growing up. Having watched many of the episodes myself, I just can't ignore its blatant problems. If we do get another continuation, I hope it's either an animated version of Toyotarō's manga or an actual continuation after the end of Z that uses my boys, Goten and Uub. Either way, I wish all you readers a good one. Be safe out there. Peace.
Eating: Breakfast
Listening to: Addict by Tyrese
Games that I'm currently playing: Persona 5 and Digimon Cyber Sleuth
