Dragon Ball Super

Dragon Ball is and probably always will be my favorite series. I was just an four year old boy when I first had the pleasure of witnessing Dragon Ball on TV. Though I was perhaps too young to understand it, as I got older, I'd eventually move onto Dragon Ball Z. The more I'd aged, the more I grew to love Dragon Ball. I was hooked, and my knowledge of the series was immense.

Dragon Ball Super is the continuation and sequel of Dragon Ball Z. The story is quite similar to Z as we see our hero Goku progressively meeting stronger foes and the ... stakes becoming higher. New elements and characters are introduced such as the Gods. Something that Super has incorporated in this show that sets it apart from Z is character development. The series is also able to incorporate effective drama and genuinely hilarious comedy into its story, the most noteworthy being the action and pure fighting that is reminiscent of Dragon Ball Z.

Now there are a few problems with it right at the start. The first two arcs were basically retelling the movies Battle of Gods and Resurrection F. While the animation can occasionally dip into the inexcusable category (I'm looking at you, episode 5 and over half of Golden Frieza arc), the show is never able to dissuade you from watching it due to the action and nostalgia. However, after those two arcs, the animation gets noticeably better. The OSTs and intros are also very nostalgic. But at the end of the day, it is just more Dragon Ball Z. I think it is simply nostalgia surrounding the dragon ball franchise for me that makes you just can't help but want to watch it and enjoy it. I think we can all agree the writing is very bad but the action is absolutely amazing.

If you grew up with Dragon Ball or have watched Dragon Ball Z as a kid or early teens, then you will probably enjoy this series!

Dragon Ball Super, after a 3-year journey, has finally come to an end. The sequel to one of the most influential and ragingly popular series that captured the world by storm, that made preteens scream and wish they become a super Saiyan and had them do Kamehameha waves during recess hours in school is a show that unfortunately fails to capture the magic of its predecessors and is terribly misguided as to what made Dragon Ball Z such a great show that impacted a whole generation of not only children but also shounen anime in general.

Dragon Ball Super's story is flawed and is definitely ... one that will not stand the test of time. The first nail in the coffin was definitely that the show was going to adapt the movies that came out fairly recently (2 years before the broadcast started), this obviously didn't sit well with the audience since the new content would take a long time to release. It didn't help that the adaptation was vastly inferior to the movies (obviously) with shameless padding and terrible animation that looked way worse than the franchise's anime debut 3 decades ago, it took a whopping 8 months for the show to get started on any new content.

Dragon Ball Super's NEW content was shamelessly unoriginal, 2 of the 3 main arcs were TOURNAMENT arcs, this obviously meant that there'd be no real effort in world-building, what a waste of potential especially since we just now learned that there were 12 universes opening various opportunities for discovery, adventure, and world-building, but now the majority of the show's narrative would be contained in a martial arts arena, SUPER INTERESTING.

One of the arcs i.e. the non-tournament arc had considerable hype surrounding it, the Black Goku arc, it had fan-favorite character Trunks make a return and to top it all off the villain was actually Goku, an evil version of him. It also finally made the show feel like as if there would be drastic consequences, real stakes were there and it certainly had a dark tone to it, there was a mystery to uncover, an intrigue as to the identity of this villain and the first parts of the arc were really good in building it up, but unfortunately the story fell flat and the villain, while interesting and empathetic to an extent became a mindless power hungry meathead who wanted world domination. It had a sloppy ending and the story was entirely self-contained with zero consequences to the world, even Trunks didn't care about his world.

Coming to characters, Super has a shockingly terrible understanding of them, the show introduced very weak characters that lack motivation and are shockingly generic, while Dragon Ball Z didn't have very complex characters, it nevertheless made them grounded and loveable, introducing characters that were very focused on their ideals, their desires, and motivations. Vegeta's pride and his insecurities led him to become Majin Vegeta and led to a fight that was extremely gratifying and even cathartic, it gave him closure to his insecurities, his insecurities were erased and thus he went on to sacrifice himself to save the world i.e. his son Trunks. Gohan too had a similarly interesting character arc. The reason I'm talking about this is because DBS has severely stunted character growth and hasn't established their driving motivation, all characters are either forgettable or are the same as when they started out. The show is just mindless fighting offering no insight as to the character's ideals with nothing more than a desire to "save their world".

Hit is merely reactionary and doesn't have any will of his own making for a very uninteresting character, but honestly, he is by far the best new character of Super which is saying something. And Jiren, ooohhh boii, definitely the worst main antagonist of the franchise if not in shounen history. First of all, he is such an incoherent character, he started off as this self-righteous and almost majestic villain that I'd argue had some depth to him and then BAM he has a backstory that is extremely derivative, shockingly generic and very insulting to the character, because almost instantly he becomes "evil" and says generic evil things like "strength is absolute", "lament your weakness", "friends are useless" and it just totally destroys him and really insults the viewer's intelligence because Jiren finally becomes a generic villain that makes Goku look good rather than someone who was calm, calculating, self-righteous and pursued something "beyond strength". It doesn't help that his design is mediocre and that he looks like Buu in the final episodes.

While Super's stories and characters are mediocre at best and insulting at worst, power scaling is something Super seemingly throws out the window making even the notion of Gods ultimately pointless because even normal people like Trunks, Kale and Caulifla master it within minutes to a day and that is insulting and makes for poor, unlikeable characters. I still can't shake off the fact that Goku, someone who has fought the God of Destruction on equal footing and is trained by the even stronger Angel Whis struggles to pummel a Super Saiyan 2 (at best) fusion. It sickens me that that fight even happened for as long as it did.

Dragon Ball Super's animation has had a rocky ride, it ranges from shockingly terrible to amazing. There are many standout fight scenes in the show that make these characters move in kinetic and dynamic ways that really make the fights very entertaining to watch however they are few and far in between, most of the show is sloppily done. This show has had a terrible production run, it had no manga to follow so all the stories, character designs and other technicalities had to be made by the animation team themselves which I assume amounted to many problems while making the show and I assume would result in a troubling and hectic production.

Honestly, Dragon Ball Super's only redeeming aspect is the fight scenes, they are well done and beautifully choreographed, Ultra Instinct was well done. However there's one really troubling problem here too, it's the overuse of effects, at times the auras just drown out the characters and it honestly looks like 2 balls of fire clashing rather than actual people fighting, it is really annoying since it covers actual real animation.

So far there's been a lot of bad things said about this show and while it has been poorly handled it is not without good moments, I actually think that the filler in this show is really entertaining and dramatic and should not be missed because it gives insight into each character's personality and is overall really fun and light-hearted, it had heartwarming moments too. Character interactions are funny and really well handled with a good sense of humor and ridiculous plot lines. It somehow feels good to see the lives of the people who were once part of the main cast, be it Gohan's acting career and cheating scandal, or the baseball match between U6 and U7, it's all fun to watch and weirdly heartwarming.

I honestly enjoyed Dragon Ball Super at its best, but there is no denying that this is a flawed show that relies more on hype transformations rather than focusing on fleshing out characters, it's really a pity because the Dragon Ball franchise is something I've loved and cherished for a very long time and resulted in some of my best childhood memories, when Goku first went Super Saiyan I was ecstatic, when Goku fought Majin Vegeta I was shocked and saddened, when Gohan went Super Saiyan 2 I was severely moved by how he let go of his emotions and hesitations to be able to protect his friends, these moments were severely lacking in Super, any semblance of character driven narratives or transformations were entirely non-existent and it's a pity because Super could have easily built on Z's foundation, build on its characters, introduce new and intriguing ones but unfortunately all it learnt was that transformations generate hype and result in selling more merchandise and it has kind of butchered the franchise in my opinion.

I know that there are diehard fans of this show who don't mind shallow and mindless fights that need no context but that's not what Dragon Ball was to me and it surely shouldn't have been what Super focused on, it could have learnt and become better and surpassed it, Dragon Ball Z defined shounen, it inspired legendary shows like One Piece and Boku No Hero Academia that built on its formula and pushed shounen forward as a genre but unfortunately Super is severely misguided as to what makes Dragon Ball Z such a generation and genre defining series and has succumbed to using insulting plot devices that make for shallow characters and generic stories.

I will never give up on Dragon Ball as a franchise, it's something that I hold close to my heart, I am saddened by how Super has tarnished the franchise but it'd take more than that to destroy Dragon Ball. Here's hoping to a great movie and to an all but confirmed eventual series.

Dragon Ball Super is the worst piece of fiction ever created.

This is the most disappointing thing I have ever watched in my life. This anime is an absolute disgrace to Dragon Ball Z, and it should've never been made. The only reason anyone even likes Dragon Ball Super is because it has the words "Dragon Ball" in the title. Everyone would be hating on it if it was its own series, but if Dragon Ball is on it then nope people will like it.

Why is it that some writers/creators don't know when to end a series? They end up milking it so hard ... to the point where it becomes utter garbage just for the sake of making more money. Dragon Ball Super is the perfect example of milking at it's finest. Dragon Ball Z ended normally, it should've never went on after that. Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Super takes everything that made Dragon Ball Z so great and throws it out the window.

All of the characters and everything we used to love about Drago Ball Z turned into total shit now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this because of nostalgia. From a quality standpoint, Dragon Ball Super is objectively worse than Dragon Ball Z. Now here are some reasons as to why Dragon Ball Super is a complete and utter failure.

Again, Dragon Ball Super takes everything that made DBZ great and just throws it out. There is no great character development in Dragon Ball Super like there was in Dragon Ball Z. The fights are not nearly as exciting to watch and not nearly as good as in general. The characters become complete and utter garbage. The villains are awful. The story arcs are hands down some of the worst story arcs in the entire Dragon Ball series.

First off, the characters. This anime has completely ruined some amazing characters, and also introduces us to even more bad characters. Firstly, Vegeta's character has been ruined on multiple occasions. In this animes early stages, we see Vegeta kissing Beerus's ass. That was absolutely ridiculous. I understand that he was just trying to keep the earth safe, but this completely contradicted his character. Vegeta would've never kissed Frieza's ass no matter what happened. Not even Cell or Majin Buu. For fucks sake, he sacrificed himself to try and defeat Majin Buu. Vegeta has always been a prideful warrior, but this shitty anime makes him someone's slave for the sake of unfunny comedy.

Not only that, but Vegeta just doesn't act the same at all. You see Vegeta in the ToP arc making friendship speeches and saying things that he would never say. When he got a bullshit friendship powerup against Toppo to win I was absolutely disgusted. It's as if the show just randomly turned into Fairy Tail...On multiple occasions he's acting completely out of character, which is awful writing.

The rest of the Z fighters are a complete joke. Gohan is way too into academics now. I cant complain about Super for that one though. Gohan was ruined as a character after the Cell saga...Piccolo is extremely weak and is just a baby sitter now. I cant believe this anime took the badass Piccolo and ruined him this badly.

This anime is just about Goku and Vegeta. The rest of the Z fighters are completely useless and irrelevant. Remember when Gohan was a badass and went SSJ2 against Cell? You'll never see Gohan that badass again. Remember when Piccolo and the rest of the Z fighters were actually badass and fun characters to watch? Yeah I remember. Unfortunately this shity anime has made them all a joke.

The animation in Dragon Ball Super is absolutely atrocious. I'm not even talking about the first 30 episodes either, the entire series as a whole has bad animation. Many fights are so poorly animated it's ridiculous. Goku vs Beerus, Vegito vs Zamasu, Jiren vs Goku, all of these fights were so poorly animated it's ridiculous. Now of course there were moments in each of these fights with good animation, but those moments barely last that long. For the most part, the fights have shitty animation and aren't visually interesting in the slightest.

DBZ also didn't have the best animation as well, but there's a difference. DBZ still had awesome fights and didn't look completely ugly when there was bad animation. Goku vs Majin vegeta for example. The animation wasn't the best, but it was still a better fight than anything I've seen in Dragon Ball Super. The fight was still epic and had a lot of meaning to it, something you don't see in Dragon Ball Super. This brings me to my next point.

The fights in Dragon Ball Super are complete and utter garbage. I'm not just talking about the animation in the fights, but everything else about them completely suck! First lets go back to Dragon Ball Z. What made fights in Dragon Ball Z so good is the buildup to them. There was a lot of buildup in fights back then, and by the time the fights start it would have you on the edge of your seats. Goku vs Vegeta, Goku vs Frieza, Goku vs Cell, Gohan vs Cell, so many fights in DBZ are good because of the awesome buildup we get. Not only this, but there was actually meaning behind the fights, it wasn't always just mindless action. Lets take Vegeta vs Android 18 for example. This fight had much more meaning to it and wasn't just mindless action. I cant say the same about Dragon Ball Super fights.

Dragon Ball Super fights have no build up whatsoever, thus they aren't exciting to watch in the slightest. Dragon Ball Super fights have no deeper meaning behind them. It's just the same boring and repetitive nonsense over and over again. Lets take Beerus vs Goku for example. We have a random dude that comes out of nowhere that's capable of destroying planets. He then goes to Goku and they start to fight. No buildup whatsoever, thus the fight is fucking boring. We have Goku fight him again, this time he's a Super Saiyan God. Again, there's no buildup so there was absolutely nothing interesting about this fight. This applies to almost every other arc as well. 0 buildup in the black arc, 0 buildup in the tournament of power either. The fights are visually uninteresting and boring to watch, point blank period.

Speaking about the lack of buildup, this applies to the transformations as well. The transformations in Dragon Ball Super are pure 100% garbage. There is no creativity to be found whatsoever. Super Saiyan God is just base form Goku with red hair. Ultra Instinct is just blue Kaioken. Super Saiyan Blue is just the same thing as Super Saiyan but with blue hair. It's lame and uninteresting. Even though Dragon Ball GT is noncanon, Super Saiyan 4 was much better than the garbage we see in Dragon Ball Super. At least there was some creativity in Super Saiyan 4.

Also, there is no build up to these transformations whatsoever. Goku becoming a god because 5 other people give him power was absolute garbage. The introduction for Super Saiyan blue was awful as well. These transformations just come out of nowhere and there is no build up for them whatsoever. Super Saiyan 1 and 2 had beautiful introductions, but I cant say the same for the awful transformations we have in Dragon Ball Super.

There's just way too many retcons and things that don't make any sense in general. For example, Vegito. It was stated in DBZ that using the potara fusion will make it so that they are permanently fused. Ok, but in Dragon Ball Super they retcon that and say that it only lasts an hour (if you're not a supreme kai). Absolutely ridiculous. Another example of bad writing, why did the Supreme Kai never tell anyone about Beerus? This makes no sense whatsoever. If there's someone out there that's that strong, then why would he never mention that? Again, bad writing.

I'm sure we all know this, but the villains in Dragon Ball Super are complete garbage. First off we have Frieza. I used to like Frieza back in DBZ, but unfortunately this shitty anime brought him back and now I'm just fucking tired of Frieza. Why cant Akira Toriyama just be original and come up with something new? Bringing back old villains like Frieza is just lazy writing. I don't think Black/Zamasu is a bad villain. I'd say he's average. At least he wasn't poorly written like Golden Frieza.

Dragon Ball Super doesn't even have one good arc. I've already sort of explained why the first arc is shit. A random "God of Destruction" appears out of nowhere and is 1000 times stronger than everyone else. He decides to destroy planet earth, but then spares them after fighting Goku. Absolute dogshit. Again, this arc was terrible because of the lack of build up. It didn't even feel like Dragon Ball, it just felt like fanfiction bullshit.

There are two tournament arcs in Dragon Ball Super, just proving further that there is no creativity to be found in this anime. The Tournament of Power is hands down the shittiest arc in the series. The fights were badly animated, and just bad in general. The asspulls were absolutely ridiculous. I mentioned this before, Vegeta gets a random asspull powerup and defeats someone that's clearly stronger than him. This makes no sense whatsoever. Back in DBZ, if someone was weaker than another person, there's no way they'd be able to win. It's all a matter of power levels. If you're weaker you're weaker and there's nothing you can do to win. So Vegeta asspulling his way to victory made no sense whatsoever! We get awful characters in this arc as well.

Jiren is one of the worst characters in Dragon Ball history. He's worse than Yamcha, worse than Pan, worse than anyone you've ever seen in Dragon Ball. First off, he's a lame character. He's just a boring and somehow extremely overpowered character. His backstory is ridiculously generic. There was no effort put into the making of his backstory. He constantly acts out of character. At one point he states that he seeks something further than strength. At another point he says that he wants to become the strongest ever. This made no sense, none whatsoever. Honestly, Jiren is barely even a character. I cant believe anyone actually thinks he's good.

Dragon Ball Super has the most ridiculous power scaling I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen a battle shounen that has worse power scaling than this garbage. We have characters here that train for a couple months and become Super Saiyan God level. We have fucking Krillin holding off Super Saiyan Blue Goku. That was hands down the most stupid shit I've ever seen. We have Super Saiyan 2 Trunks holding off fucking Goku Black. We have MASTER FUCKING ROSHI fighting in the Tournament of Power arc and actually beating people up. That makes NO sense whatsoever. This is the same individual that was weaker than kid Goku.

If there are any real Dragon Ball fans reading this review, remember kid Goku vs Jackie Chun? At that point, Master Roshi was already weaker than Goku. He could train his entire life and he still shouldn't be a match for ANYONE. It makes no sense!

Android 17 being as strong as Goku and Vegeta was also total nonsense. That just doesn't make any sense. No matter how much training he did, he should never be able to get that strong like that. He should be like Mystic Gohans level at best. Goku and Vegeta trained with Beerus and Whis, two of the strongest people in the universe. You're telling me that 17 is as strong as two people on God level, and two people that trained with the strongest individuals in the universe? Nonsense.

Real Dragon Ball fans such as myself do not support this garbage ass anime and the manga. If you're a real Dragon Ball fan you would know that it ends after Z. All that other shit is complete nonsense.

So that's the end of my review. Dragon Ball Super is bottom tier shounen. It's down there with other garbage shounen such as One Piece, Fairy Tail, Seven Deadly Sins, etc. It might even be worse. This anime is a disgrace to Dragon Ball Z, and I'd even argue that GT is better than this nonsense. The only reason I'm giving tthis anime a 1 is because it's not possible to give it anythning below that. This anime doesn't deserve a one, it deserves a 0. Nothing was good about it, literally nothing.