Dragon Ball Thread - RIP Akira Toriyama

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Pre-Super I never heard a single amount of praise for GT
SSj4 is the one thing 99% of the fanbase has been pretty positive about, the design and concept (harnessing the Great Ape and Super Saiyan forms) felt like a natural evolution. Good luck getting any more than that out of people though.

To me, the only part I really didn't like was the early Shadow Dragon fights, they were boring and the characters looked goofy, dumb, and ugly. Nuova, Eis, & Syn were okay. Throughout the series the were a few minor enemies I didn't care for either, like the Para Para Bros, Luud, and Sugoro, but they didn't last long.

this fight is better animated than anything Dragonball has ever done before
Not even close, but it was pretty hype, especially Goku's flickering Super Saiyan form, that really drove home how hard he was pushing himself that he couldn't maintain it.

This always comes to mind as the best fight sequence imo (not counting the movies):

 
SSj4 is the one thing 99% of the fanbase has been pretty positive about, the design and concept (harnessing the Great Ape and Super Saiyan forms) felt like a natural evolution.
Yeah everyone seems to think it looks cool, but that's been about it.
Not even close
This always comes to mind as the best fight sequence imo (not counting the movies):
From an animation and choreography standpoint, this fight doesn't even come close to the technical level of the Super fight. Honestly other than "Yo Cell and Goku are fighting, cool" it feels like a pretty standard DBZ fight.
 
From an animation and choreography standpoint, this fight doesn't even come close to the technical level of the Super fight. Honestly other than "Yo Cell and Goku are fighting, cool" it feels like a pretty standard DBZ fight.
I don't see how you can say that. The DBS fight is pretty sloppy, half the time it's people just charging at each other. The DBZ one has a lot more complicated and detailed movements, the way their bodies move and the sense of positioning is absolutely top notch. You get a much greater sense of speed and martial arts prowess from Z, S just fires a bunch of ki blasts and invisible strikes in comparison.

That's a top tier fight by general anime standards and one of the best moments of Super, but it wouldn't even make it into the top 10 of all DB fights ever imo.

Gogeta is the only dude that can make rainbows and glitter manly as fuck
https://youtube.com/watch?v=mlVtQDVrNns:151
A glittery rainbow furry somehow beat the odds and transcended cringe.
 
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I don't see how you can say that. The DBS fight is pretty sloppy, half the time it's people just charging at each other. The DBZ one has a lot more complicated and detailed movements, the way their bodies move and the sense of positioning is absolutely top notch.
I can give the martial arts prowess part (the longer the Dragon Ball series goes on, the worse they get at that compared to their roots, which I miss very much) but I don't think blurr lines are necessarily complicated and detailed movements. It's rather stiff in comparison. The organization of three (honestly four counting the parts with 17 and his ki blasts swirling around the pair, hitting on point to the musical beat) characters, two working in tandem took a lot more thought and care.

I still stand by my opinion that as far as general animation goes, that fight between Goku and Cell is pretty standard, though higher up for Z just from being able to see what's going on in many points.
 
I can give the martial arts prowess part (the longer the Dragon Ball series goes on, the worse they get at that compared to their roots, which I miss very much) but I don't think blurr lines are necessarily complicated and detailed movements. It's rather stiff in comparison. The organization of three (honestly four counting the parts with 17 and his ki blasts swirling around the pair, hitting on point to the musical beat) characters, two working in tandem took a lot more thought and care.

I still stand by my opinion that as far as general animation goes, that fight between Goku and Cell is pretty standard, though higher up for Z just from being able to see what's going on in many points.
The blur lines parts are what give the sense of speed, combined with how fast the environment is moving. The DBS fight looks slow by comparison. The general acrobatics are just far more prevalent and detailed in the animation from a technical perspective than just flying at each other like a kid smashing his action figures together.

Time to get autistic, bear with me.

For example, look at Goku dodge Cell early on. He jumps back and uses his hand to flip off the ground at 0:10, from an animation standpoint it adds to the sense of agility. 1:37-1:58 is a great sequence of dodging and countering by Goku, you can feel him trying not fall off the edge with those nimble movements and getting back on his footing as Cell hunts him down. Toward the end of that sequence they both go tumbling in a really easy to follow shot, something the Super fight struggles with (for example you never see 17 land from his dodge from Jiren's attack).

That type of weighty animation lends the fight a more visceral sense to it, check out this knee by Goku at 1:14. Super feels like it has no gravity, which is ironic considering ToP had 10x gravity and flying was disabled, whereas Cell's fight is just on regular old Earth and flying is allowed.

Look at the Jiren fight in comparison, the cinematography is much less clean. The very first clash is obscured and ambiguous, dust covering the impact, which basically sets the tone for the majority of the fight. The cleanest strike is landed at 0:41 and doesn't feel like it has much impact, compare it to the aforementioned Goku knee. After that is the volley of invisible strikes Jiren uses, cool but suspiciously convenient for the animators.

When Frieza tackles Jiren it's again just a dust cloud on impact. This kind of thing really is lazy and the effect the lack of contact has on how the attack feels is hard to ignore. It happens a THIRD time during Goku's badass save, you just see dust and debris at 1:28. The most powerful looking attack is Jiren slamming Frieza through the ground at 1:22, but much like in the aftermath of Frieza's tackle the camera isn't following the action too well, we could've seen a better angle (the initial portion is great, but half the shot before the closeup to Frieza's face is obscured by a rock at the low angle).

Keep in mind some of this is nitpicking, but in terms of just sheer visual spectacle the Cell fight is more clear, 80% of the character movements aren't relegated to flying at each other or shooting beams or having convenient visual obstructions (which is cool, but more actual articulation in the combat maneuvers would help with variety).
 
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Fifteen years of build up and the best they can do is make a half-assed UI rip off and then plagarise famous fan art, fuck these french niggers sideways.
 
Fifteen years of build up and the best they can do is make a half-assed UI rip off and then plagarise famous fan art, fuck these french niggers sideways.
Is this supposed to be a finale page for the entire fan series?
 
I thought that was going to be a meme... That's the actual dialogue?
 
I don't see how you can say that. The DBS fight is pretty sloppy, half the time it's people just charging at each other. The DBZ one has a lot more complicated and detailed movements, the way their bodies move and the sense of positioning is absolutely top notch. You get a much greater sense of speed and martial arts prowess from Z, S just fires a bunch of ki blasts and invisible strikes in comparison.
People like to joke that Dragon Ball Z is just people standing around and powering up but this is actually the case for Super. It’s so bad I can break it down into a formula.

Two characters stand opposite each other and prepare to fight. They talk for an extended period. A short poorly choreographed exchange of generic blows and sometimes ki blasts ensues and the characters more or less return to their prior position and talk more before the underdog of the fight gains an advantage in either the form of a power up or a strategy that a five year old could have figured out from the beginning. Underdog proceeds to power up and the opponent just lets him. Finally another short spat ensues where you MIGHT get to see a special move IF you’re lucky and usually it’ll be low effort nostalgia bait with no real build up or fanfare.

Super is so boring. The fight scenes are short, lame, and generic. They feel cheap like the animation team is trying to cut corners at every possible avenue. The story itself is odd. It’s trying to be nostalgia bait while feeling completely alien and foreign to the franchise. It’s as if they were constantly fighting Dragon Quest villains whom had been powered up to Super Saiyan God levels, which frankly opens up a whole can of narrative problems on its own considering all of these new villains are stronger than Buu but never treated with much or any reverence.

At least GT looked and felt like Dragonball and Dragonball Z. Super feels like… well, a shitty reboot. Like some PBS Bob The Builder shit by comparison.
 
Two characters stand opposite each other and prepare to fight. They talk for an extended period. A short poorly choreographed exchange of generic blows and sometimes ki blasts ensues and the characters more or less return to their prior position and talk more before the underdog of the fight gains an advantage in either the form of a power up or a strategy that a five year old could have figured out from the beginning. Underdog proceeds to power up and the opponent just lets him. Finally another short spat ensues where you MIGHT get to see a special move IF you’re lucky and usually it’ll be low effort nostalgia bait with no real build up or fanfare.
I mean, other than the last part because nostalgia for the series didn't exist yet, that was majority of Z once it essentially got to the Frieza/Goku fight, which was the longest single fight at 20 episodes, in which it even got to that point because everyone just lets people power up for fun I guess. It had some cool moments, but you don't get to 20 episodes of two guys facing off by actively doing stuff the entire time. They at least calmed the fuck down after that though and got their shit a little more together with Cell, though him vs Gohan was still 11 episodes. Despite generally disliking the Buu saga, they at least capped that shit at 3-4 episodes per Vs. And before anyone says anything, I prefer the slower pacing so it doesn't bother me.

Unfortunately the longer a series goes, the worse it gets in general. I like Super despite its faults, but I think nostalgia clouds a lot of peoples judgement when it comes to DBZ itself.

I will give one thing to the Buu era though. It honestly had one of the most brutal fights in the series. Not because it was particularly good or exciting, but hearing Videl scream in genuine agony as she was being flopped around like a ragdoll having all her bones broken while everyone watched was the only time Z made me cringe from discomfort.
 
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Fifteen years of build up and the best they can do is make a half-assed UI rip off and then plagarise famous fan art, fuck these french niggers sideways.
I'm not going to give them shit for Goku and Vegeta sounding nothing like they normally do, because this is clearly an ESL project. Having said that, Goku and Vegeta would never just trade pleasantries like this. While Vegeta has a begrudging respect for Goku's skill and talent, he otherwise barely tolerates his presence (to be fair, DBS Goku is irritating). Every time Goku is in the same room in Super he has his eyes closed and his arms folded, trying to tune out the hyperactive sped babbling in his ear.

I just can't see them being like "Jolly good show." "The pleasure was all mine, friend." This is my first time seeing this, though, so what do I know?
 
I'm not going to give them shit for Goku and Vegeta sounding nothing like they normally do, because this is clearly an ESL project. Having said that, Goku and Vegeta would never just trade pleasantries like this. While Vegeta has a begrudging respect for Goku's skill and talent, he otherwise barely tolerates his presence (to be fair, DBS Goku is irritating). Every time Goku is in the same room in Super he has his eyes closed and his arms folded, trying to tune out the hyperactive sped babbling in his ear.

I just can't see them being like "Jolly good show." "The pleasure was all mine, friend." This is my first time seeing this, though, so what do I know?
That's the thing about this project, it's clear that the artists are dragon ball fans but also that they fail to understand dragon ball. I'll spare you the details on how much power level autism they went through (they posted their own true and honest ss multipliers), but flat out forgetting how the main character speaks to his friends is the corn kernel on top of the shit sundae. I am convinced that multiverse only became as popular as it is thanks to debuting in 2008 during the utter nadir of the content drought for the western half of the fandom.
 
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