Dragon Ball Z and Super share a lot of the same issues - I'm tired of Z Worshippers

Written by Rei Caldombra 2/7/2024

This one is more of a rant and vent post talking about Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super and the Dragon Ball fanbase. I am going to be a bit harsh but please always remember to be civil and treat people with respect when disagreeing and calling out people’s behavior. With that said though, in my opinion DBZ worshippers are obnoxious hypocrites who are hyper fixated on an idealized version of DBZ. To be clear, loving Z does not make you a worshiper. A worshiper is someone who acts like Z is perfect, ignores Z’s flaws and refuses to not compare Z and Super every 5 seconds. I’ll be bringing up specific points of discourse around Super and giving my thoughts on how Super and Z actually share a lot of the same issues people bring up towards Super. This won’t be encompassing every little detail of the series. I also want to state that I love this series and do not dislike Z or Super. I just find they both have many issues, many of which are shared.

The reason why I bring this up is because these people have never stopped being annoying in my opinion. Even after over 5 years of the main Dragon Ball Super anime being over, people are still leaving the same tired “Super bad Z good” comments on clips from Z and Super. It’s inescapable and impossible to ignore. And after years of these same things, it is very tiring to be in the community sometimes. No matter how much time passes they are incapable of getting over the fact that Z ended and Super aired. 

My main argument is that many of the points people criticize Super over are done by Z as well. But because they romanticize Z so much, they don’t realize this and attribute it just to Super. 

Let’s talk about power scaling. No one complains about Goku and Vegeta going from completely outclassed by Buuhan to overpowering him after Potara fusion. But when Kale and Caulifla are completely outclassed by Goku then overpower him by potara fusion suddenly it's stupid that Potara has a ridiculous multiplier. Potara has always been a way for 2 people to turn the tides. This goes for the fusion dance too. Goten and Trunks cannot stand a semblance of a chance against Buu, but they fuse so they can at least be justified to put up a fight. Goku and Vegeta could not take down Janemba but after fusing effortlessly destroyed him. Zamasu and Goku Black were individually too weak to fight Goku and Vegeta, so they fused to get the upper hand. Then Goku and Vegeta do the same to turn the tides again. Fusion has always been used as a way for weaker characters to dramatically overcome their opponent. This is and always was bad and inconsistent from a power scaling perspective. It’s been like this since Z, Super did not change that. 

Super also did not ruin Super Saiyan forms, the impact of Super Saiyan was ruined long before Super. Many people are for some reason totally fine with Goten and Trunks not having any interesting or emotional reason to go Super Saiyan. It just randomly happens while they were casually training with Chi-Chi. But when Caulifla goes Super Saiyan without any interesting or emotional reason suddenly the hype of Super Saiyan is being ruined. Tingly back is dumb, yes. But are you seriously arguing that “idk it just happened lol” is good writing for Trunks and Goten? Both of these are unsatisfying uses of characters becoming Super Saiyans. Saiyans go Super Saiyan when the story demands Saiyans keep up with the most recent enemies. Goten and Trunks had to be able to go Super Saiyan so they could be relevant in the Buu Saga. Another point in a similar vein- Caulifla going Super Saiyan 2 fairly easily was also complained about. You know who else got a higher Super Saiyan form very easily in a way that undercuts the effort of the other character(s) who achieved it through hard work and/or emotional suffering? Gotenks going Super Saiyan 3 after seeing it done by Goku one time. Why? Because the people they have to fight are so strong that they need it to be relevant. Super Saiyan was downgraded from being a big deal long ago back in Z. Power ups that undercuts the impact of previous ones is not a Super problem, it's a Dragon Ball problem. 

Now to the inconsistent art point. Super has some fairly inconsistent and mediocre art over its run, with some frames in particular looking especially bad. But have y’all actually watched Z outside of the big hype moments you watch clips of on Youtube? Let’s look at some terrible art from Z. Please be aware that I am not an animation expert on the technical side so sorry if I use any terms incorrectly. 

Vegeta is ridiculously off model, to the point that it barely even looks like him. With this picture you could convince someone this is a different Saiyan like you’d see in the background of Namek flashbacks. There were various artists and teams handling DBZ over the show, and that resulted in things like this happening more often. This is bad, plain and simple. If people are going to pick out minor bad moments in Super, then we are allowed to do that for DBZ too. 

Here’s a mediocre looking frame from the Cell Saga. 

It even comes from Cell vs Goku, one of the best-looking fights in the series in my opinion. Look how crunchy that Cell the back is. Goku’s hair is pretty low detail compared to many of the other shots in this fight. This is a shot covering a lot of motion, which often can result in less detail. This is fairly normal, but yes it does look worse and is inconsistent. This is just like many frames people have criticized in Super. In this same fight there are single frames covering movement that look 10x better. Sorry, Z does not look perfect 100% of the time like a lot of people act. Super is the same way. For example, there are some very mediocre looking parts of the Future Saga, but there are also the parts directed by Naotoshi Shida that look really great. Z and Super were both long running anime that had inconsistent art that ranged from ugly to beautiful. Z and Super both had times where less skilled artists were working on the show. They both had times when the show was rushed, and the art suffered. Just like with Super we can pick out poor visuals in Z as well. There’s definitely worse than the above shot but this shot exists and was easy to find so I used it. Kinda like how people would criticize the same easy to find shots of Super for the last 9 years. 

Some of the criticisms of Super are just stupid and people are not paying attention to the details. The biggest one is people saying Goku endangered everyone by giving Zeno the idea for the Tournament of Power. But if you actually paid attention, you would know that Zeno was planning to erase all of the universes that ended up participating in the Tournament of Power before that idea came up. The Tournament of Power meant at least one universe would be saved and gave the chance for that universe to save the rest. Goku’s idea saved all the universes from destruction. It seems stupid in the moment but actually worked out in the end. You know what else did in a similar fashion? Goku gives Cell a senzu bean. If you want to argue that it being unintentional shouldn’t count in Goku’s favor for not being an idiot in Super, then you should consider Goku an idiot in Z for not killing Fat Buu when he could have. Besides, the argument of his perceived dangerous desire for the ToP being out of character is just incorrect in my opinion. 

Goku endangered people all of the time for his own desires. He let Vegeta go just so he could fight him again. He didn’t know that Vegeta wouldn’t go around destroying and/or conquering more planets in the meantime. He recognized that the Saiyans were conquerors and killers, and that Vegeta should’ve been killed. But his selfish desire (as he admits himself) to enjoy fighting him again won out. He also let Frieza go out of pity even though he truly believed Frieza was evil. Even if his spirit was broken, how’d he know he wouldn’t work out that misery by hurting more people? He did not want to kill him, so he initially gave Frieza the chance to change. For both Vegeta and Frieza he put the universe at risk to give them a chance to change. He believed in that capacity to change so he ignored their unlikelihood of doing so. He also the time Goku tells Vegeta that he could have defeated Fat Buu as a SSJ3 but chose not to so Goten and Trunks could have a chance. Yet again he puts the world at risk for his own desires. And unlike with Gohan and Cell, this did not work out according to plan. Goten and Trunks could not defeat Buu and his plan backfires. Goku is not a perfect paragon character who only acts in the best interest of the universe. Let’s argue that Goku believes in not dealing with threats efficiently so people can grow from combat. He wanted to fight Vegeta again to better himself and he wanted Goten and Trunks to fight Buu so they can better themselves. He believes in the growth that comes from combat. Does that not also work for the Tournament of Power? Does it not make sense for him to want to grow by encountering all these different fighters? Even if that brings some risk by whatever stakes come from the tournament? I feel that Goku wanting a universal tournament even though the gods recommended against it fits his character. Krillin said leaving Vegeta alive would be a bad idea. But Goku stuck to his desire anyway. Beerus and the others thought the ToP would be a bad idea. But Goku went for it anyway. King Kai warned Goku not to get in a fight with Beerus but he did it anyway. He has the drive to protect people but at his core he is a guy who loves to fight and grow from that experience. And he pushes that onto other people which often brings increased risk. This fits for the Cell saga too, where he gives Cell a senzu bean because he believes fighting Cell at full power will bring out Gohan’s potential. Even though healing Cell put everyone at greater risk he chose to do that because he wanted to see Gohan’s full potential. He does want to protect people from evil, but the forefront of his character is desiring to fight and grow as a fighter. And through the series we see this bring risk. To me this is who adult Goku is. In my opinion this is pretty consistent characterization from Z to Super. Goku’s character is up to personal interpretation, but this is how I see him. 

You can like Z better than Super. That’s fine. My problem is not people criticizing either show, or people making an argument that one anime is better than the other (I like the original Dragon Ball anime the best if you're curious). You can have issues with writing, power scaling, visuals etc. of either show. I am not arguing people’s issues with Super are invalid. The problem is pointing out the flaws of Super just to completely ignore those same flaws being present in Z in mostly the same way. It's hypocritical, plain and simple. Some people really need to take off their nostalgia goggles and look at all of Dragon Ball more comprehensively if they want to talk about the quality of the individual shows. In my opinion many of the problems people talk about in regard to Super are problems that all of Dragon Ball suffers from, not just Super. I am tired of hearing about these problems brought up against just Super for almost a decade now (crazy that Super started in 2015). I want the Z worshippers to move on with their lives and get over not enjoying Super as much as other people did. At the very least please properly watch Z and Super again if you are going to act like you are an expert on them. Come up with new material and/or criticize something new.

Thank you for reading! I think this really helped release years of buildup of frustration out of my system lol.

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