Dragon Ball Super Discussion - Page 192

On March 22 2018 04:09 NewSunshine wrote:
https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/chapter/dragon-ball-super-chapter-34/6693?read=1

The link, for anyone looking to read.

More care is being put into these fights right off the bat. The characters that didn't get developed are being glossed over, to spend more time with characters we actually know. And the weak characters are being shown as actually weak. Overall, much, much better writing than the anime. It feels more believable, and less like they're trying to make every fight seem close and intense. The anime forced that, with terrible results.

And best of all, it takes the plot beats of the anime that are good and keeps those. Freeza's manipulation where he plays Frost and uses him was a definite highlight in the original fight. It's definitely in keeping with Freeza's character and was a great way for him to contribute in his own way.

On March 22 2018 05:19 LegalLord wrote:
I'm assuming you think Goten and Trunks should have been in their place?

On March 22 2018 06:29 LegalLord wrote:
The thing about Goten and Trunks is, they really have nothing going for them beyond the fusion. And even then, combined they are only like 6th best (below Goku, Vegeta, Freeza, Gohan, probably 17, and maybe even Piccolo and 18). They have shown no real sense of battle and whether intentional or not the Buu arc entrance of Gotenks showed that Goku was completely and utterly irresponsible to think that they could have ever been the right choice to fight Buu. Even Gohan with his occasional tendency to job a big kill doesn't compare to just how reckless and vain those two youth are.

What would have happened is one of two things. First possibility is that they would get some retarded plot armor and survive much longer than deserved. Second possibility is that their personality and character tendencies would be faithful, and they would show off for a few minutes or a few panels in the manga before some individual with at least some understanding of how battles actually work would get a killing blow on them in a hilariously stupid way. I could easily have seen Frost take down Gotenks or especially the un-fused version. And remember that they would inevitably be a first-half fusion, because Goten and Trunks are quite weak individually and the fusion has a cooldown that is quite long.

I contend that Goten and Trunks would be not appreciably different from what Krillin and Tien ended up being: easily dispatched fodder. This is not because they are the weakest characters - Roshi is definitely the weakest, though few people complain about his inclusion because he actually works as a ToP character - but because they just don't offer any unique or valuable contributions to the main team. They offer nothing that some other character don't do better. I'm not particularly upset about one fodder duo being picked over a different fodder duo because at the end of the day they are just that: fodder. They get to go out first and then we forget about them. End of story.

On March 22 2018 06:54 NewSunshine wrote:
Goten and Trunks being children is also a valid reason for them to stay out of it, in my mind. I'm ignoring for the moment how they're supposed to be teenagers or something, and assuming they're the children they're portrayed as. None of this makes sense, and I hope they fix this with whatever comes after Super, but anyway.

There's all the talk about how, despite being super saiyans, they're still relatively undisciplined children, with weak control of ki and poor battle sense. And all of that is valid. But as a reasonably empathetic human, I wouldn't take my young child and face them with an end-of-the-universe scenario out of the blue. That shit could be traumatic, which could make them even more useless. There was no good reason for them to be there, all of that considered.

On March 22 2018 08:17 LegalLord wrote:
Gotenks is mid-tier strength, gutter-tier strategy. Perfectly fodder. I don’t really care if he would’ve been better than Krillin and Tien, he would still be an early elimination. It just makes no difference if it’s one fodder or the other.

On March 22 2018 08:32 cLutZ wrote:
Gotenks would have been fine. The Anime did a poor job of this, but basically 90% of contestants were sub SSJ power level. In reality, the Manfga version of Frost showed exactly what Gotenks could have done. Knocked out lilke 3 universes himself, then defused and been knocked off (or not, maybe they could have hidden under rubble like everyone should have done from the beginning).

On March 22 2018 08:46 LegalLord wrote:
Gotenks is liable to do stupid stuff. He’s a Grade-S jobber. I don’t think his power level is anything near adequate to make up for the sheer inadequacy of him as a character. The “they’re just kids” justification for not bringing him kind of contains that as a sub-consideration.

I’m sure he could have knocked off a Bergamo or a Ribrianne or something. But so could Piccolo or 18. He just adds nothing and certainly is out of step with the serious demeanor you would expect from a survival tournament. I’d rather have had Buu and Yamcha if we had to remove Krillin and Tien.