Dragon Ball Super - Anime Review

Welcome to my extremely late review of Dragon Ball Super, the sequel show to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I wanted to do this review for a while, but I was waiting for some free time. Honestly, December was impossible. There was like a new movie, like every 10 minutes, there was no way. Uh, January, I was kind of relaxing from December while also reviewing a bunch of really shitty movies and a couple of okay movies. February, this is perfect. This is the perfect time for me to finally sit back and talk about Dragon Ball Super. This show has impacted fans in many ways. I watched the first 20 to 30 episodes on Toonami when it was airing Saturday nights once a week. And to be completely honest, I became very disinterested mostly because the first couple arcs of this show are just retellings of the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F movies, which disappointed me. I was like, really? We're going to waste all this time on the same story. And while they do change, a handful of things for the most part, it's the same as the movies, which was a very disappointing way for this show to open for me because it felt like I've been here before. Why are we doing this again? I understand they wanted to set up the characters of Beerus and Whis, and especially Frieza too, in this show and make it feel like it counts. But if you're a Dragon Ball fan, you probably saw the movies and it felt unnecessary. So I actually lost interest and I stopped watching for a while. The other problem with those first 20 to 30 episodes has been talked about to death on this website called youtube.com and that's the animation quality, which was very, very bad in the original Japanese, but has since been improved ever so slightly for the Blu-ray release. As a lot of you might know, the makers of the show came out and said this is because of a very rushed production schedule and some new animators and we just didn't have the time and they apologized. And yeah, I guess you could say that. But as a longtime Dragon Ball fan, this didn't surprise me and this was nothing new. We tend to look at things in the past that we're fond of with very warm thoughts and it's easy to forget that Dragon Ball Z actually had a lot of really terrible animation. Sometimes that could be because of nostalgia or because we were watching it on CRT TVs with scan lines. So that hit a lot of the imperfections. The animation quality changed dramatically from episode to episode. I remember one of the prime examples being during the Cell Saga when Super Vegeta powers up and starts to fight Imperfect Cell and it looks so fucking awesome. In the very next episode, Vegeta looked like this. It was a little harder to tell when you would watch one episode a day on Toonami, but when you binge them now, it's like he just went from looking like fucking Broly to looking like Yamcha with a lot less quality all of a sudden. So the fact that Super looked the way it did at first didn't surprise me. It did disappoint me though, and I started to feel bad. Like I was like, I don't want to watch this. If it's going to tarnish these characters I love and I gave up actually. I watched those first 30 episodes and then I was like, ah, but as the Blu-rays came out, I slowly bought them every once in a while and I watched a few more episodes and I started to find myself getting oddly invested. As soon as the two movie arcs complete, not only does the story pick up considerably, the animation does too. As soon as the Frieza stuff is done and the Chompa stuff is introduced with this new tournament, Super gets a lot better. The animation improves and remains steady throughout the rest of the show and into the tournament of power. It's some of the best animation I've seen in Dragon Ball actually. So they definitely listened to the fans and improve the animation significantly and it never was a problem again. As soon as they were freed from the confines of those first two movies and having to retell them, it's like they could just do whatever they wanted and the show really picked up. One of the things that I honestly love about Super is that it maintains Akira Toriyama's very off kilter brand of humor. Dragon Ball is a very funny show, the first one. It's not as action heavy as Dragon Ball Z was, and so there's a lot of different types of Dragon Ball fans. There are people who appreciate the humor, the more story and character based stuff, and there are people who just want to see a lot of fights. I like both, which is one of the reasons why as soon as those first two arcs got out of the way, I had a blast with Super because it has a lot of all of it. The fights are some of the best in the entire show, at least visually and the humor is good too. I actually do like what they do with Vegeta. I like the idea of seeing this royalty kind of lowered to having to care for Beerus and bow to Beerus and Whis and make sure that Bulma doesn't freak out and say anything dumb and get surprised whenever Goku says something stupid or disrespectful. But I can understand why some didn't love that at first, especially if you weren't binging the show as I eventually did, which I think improved it significantly because eventually Vegeta does get a lot of really great moments. In particular, as soon as the Champa arc is introduced and he meets that younger Saiyan from another universe, he gets a mentor-like relationship with this kid and that's when he really gets to shine because he beats the shit out of this kid in the ring and teaches him how to go Super Saiyan just by getting him really angry. That kind of stuff is what I love Dragon Ball for. I also really enjoyed the Future Trunks stuff. I didn't expect him to come back into this show and he's always one of my favorite characters. I never really liked young Trunks all that much. Future Trunks was always so much cooler because he had this history. He had been through so much and it made him much more interesting. So I was happy that he was brought back, even though it felt a little fanservice-y at first, like Trunks having to come back because the future's in trouble again and we need your help. And there's this new thing with Goku Black and Zamasu and who are they? And you know, what are they doing? And they're, they're going to fight. I liked the stuff with Goku Black and Zamasu because it felt very original. It didn't feel like it was borrowing from anything else, just as I liked the stuff with Beerus and Whis. But again, that was from a movie and so it didn't feel like the show really earned that. The Frieza stuff felt like a retread, but this was new. This was a new storyline, even though it was sort of brought in in a fanservice-y way. I liked just about everything with it, especially the sequences where Vegeta and Goku were just being pummeled, the shit being kicked out of them and them having to dig deep to find the recesses of power within them. Because up until then it didn't feel like they were challenged all that much, even in Champa's tournament, which was cool, especially in producing Hit. This arc really felt like it took a toll on those characters. And it has two of my favorite scenes in the show, that of Vegeta telling Goku Black that he's an imposter, an interloper, that he doesn't have true Saiyan blood in him like Vegeta does and Goku. And I love that Trunks defeated him. It felt right. It was like he can save his time. But then something else happened. Since Goku Black and Zamazoo had made various wishes with the Super Dragon Balls, he comes back as like fucking clouds or something. So Zeno has to come in like the leader of all things and just wipe him out. It, it was like, okay, that's just let him die. Like just, just let it, he's dead. Trunks won. It's over. It was fine that way. Like all Dragon Ball, there's filler. Every single Dragon Ball series has some, uh, some of the worst ever is in Dragon Ball Z actually. The stuff where Goku and Vegeta get shrunk down inside Majin Buu and they're fighting apparitions of their friends. Just pathetic. Honestly, one of the worst episodes. There were a lot of filler episodes in Dragon Ball Z. I remember one where Bulma is just wandering around Namek trying to find a Dragon Ball. They're fighting over there, right? Like why are we watching this shit? So again, it was no surprise to me that Super had some as well. And some of it kind of is like, eh, you know, like Vegeta's a pink blob, I guess. And Goku has to fight him. There's like a magical water. The worst offender of this being the Dr. Slump crossover episode, which is a nothing episode. You could honestly just skip it. It has like two funny jokes from Vegeta that are very meta about 80s manga. Um, that's about it. It's terrible. And I guess if you were a huge fan of Dr. Slump, you might have been like, wow, they gave me validation. But everyone else was like, this is fucking stupid. But where I think most fans can agree is that the tournament of power was awesome. Like I want to sit here and be very professional and, you know, give like a serious analysis about Dragon Ball Super. But in reality, I just want to say that was fucking cool. That was epic. That was just, it was fucking awesome. Like the tournament of power really made me happy as a Dragon Ball fan. I got to watch a lot of things that I wanted to see. I was really shocked that the androids were in it as much as they were, especially Android 17. That was awesome. I've always really loved the androids and this show actually did a pretty good job of taking some of the characters that I love the most and giving them a lot of screen time. Save for one character, Gohan. Vegeta is probably my favorite character, but Gohan was some competition, especially towards the Cell Saga. He was so awesome in the Cell Saga. And it hurt to see him wearing a green track pants and doing nothing for a long time. And it bothered me. It really did. I was like, ah, fuck. Okay. Like I love Goku. I do, but God damn it. Gohan is such an awesome character and I hated seeing him so neutered like that, which is why I was so relieved when he decides to take part in the tournament of power and get trained by Piccolo. And he has that epic fight with his dad. After that, I was very pleased. The tournament of power was really exciting. Jiren is a incredible foe, although not very interesting until the end when you realize that he's dealing with a lot of trust issues and even with his members of his own team, he can't really become friends with him. He has like a past that makes him afraid to trust anybody. Then he became a little more interesting. Up until then he was just like big strong guy. But even then, I liked the tension of the tournament. I liked how long they were able to drag it out. Like every episode was a minute, I guess, which is, you know, that's classic Dragon Ball Z. You have five minutes before Namek explodes. Translation, you have 50 episodes before Namek explodes. The tournament of power was oddly satisfying for another reason that I truly did not expect. And that was the inclusion of Frieza, him being my favorite villain of the entire show. I never thought that they would pull off me getting excited about Frieza and Goku teaming up, but they fucking did. The finale fight where Frieza and Android 17 and Goku have to team up to take down Jiren, I got chills. I was really surprised that they were able to take such a terrible character and make me go, okay, I kind of like what Frieza is doing here. All of a sudden this is a very weird feeling. The other thing about Dragon Ball is that the Saiyans are always trying to ascend to another level. Vegeta is always trying to catch up with Goku and Goku's trying to dig deep to find that next thing. And I was like, if they're going to do another super Saiyan four, five, seven, whatever the fuck, it would be dumb. So the fact that they went with ultra instinct, which is something that even the gods in this show are trying to achieve and many of them can't. I thought that was clever because it allows Goku to tap into this insane power, but then they were smart. He couldn't maintain it. And the music too is just really great throughout this show, especially the ultra instinct theme. I've heard a lot of complaints about this show over the past year. And I agree with many of them, particularly the animation quality of the first few arcs. Some of the stuff they've done with Gohan, the power level inconsistencies, just the idea of master Roshi being in this tournament is kind of hilarious because I feel like in Dragon Ball Z, they established that he couldn't, he wasn't even good enough to fight Raditz and all of a sudden he's like in the tournament of power. It doesn't really make sense. It's more of like a fan thing, you know, like, Oh, Roshi has to be here because he's such an important character to this series. So I do agree with a lot of the complaints and I see those complaints and I'm putting them in my file. But like I said, as soon as the Champa tournament starts, this show gets a lot better. It's nowhere near as emotionally resonant as the stuff that's going on in Dragon Ball Z. A lot of these characters' arcs have already happened. And at this point it's about being entertaining and being funny. And Super's very good at that. It's nowhere near as good as Z, but honestly I like it about the same as Dragon Ball. And one of the things that helped me like the show more than I think some fans is that I binge watched it with the Blu-rays. As soon as I decided I was going to watch the show after those first few episodes that I watched on Toonami, I got the Blu-rays and I binge watched the show. The most recent Blu-ray came out I think last month and I was finally able to finish it. And since I did that, whenever there was a shitty episode like that Dr. Slump one, I never had to sit there and stew about it. I never had to sit there going, man, that was shitty for like days and days. I just moved on to the next one. And usually the next one was better. There was a lot in this show that I loved as a longtime Dragon Ball fan. There were many episodes that I had a great time watching. There were a couple shitty arcs just like in Dragon Ball Z, but for the most part I had a really good time with Dragon Ball Super. And I'm surprised to say that because I was worried to finish this show. As I said, I got disinterested pretty quick and I stopped for a while, but it gets a lot better after that. I'm going to give Dragon Ball Super a B+. Guys, thank you so much as always for watching. Look forward to more reviews very soon. Sonic the Hedgehog movies this weekend. I'm excited to see that. I honestly am actually excited to see that. So guys, thank you so much as always. If you like this, you can click right here and get Stuckmanized.