Dragon Ball Z and Super Share Many Issues - I'm Tired of Z Worshippers
Written by Rei Caldombra 2/7/2024 Edited 10/15/2024 Video: https://youtu.be/lmaBXXXTbBU
I love Dragon Ball. But this series has some prevailing issues, multiple that are not unique to Super, despite what some people say. 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. I always aim to not insult people, being honest and constructive in my opinions without being confrontational. But sometimes you gotta let stuff out and be direct. With that said, in my opinion, many DBZ worshippers are obnoxious hypocrites who are hyper-fixated on a romanticized version of Z and a demonized version of Super. That’s what I’m here to talk about.
To be clear, loving Z does not make you a worshiper. A worshiper is someone who acts like Z is perfect, treats Z like it’s the holy bible of fiction and refuses to not compare Z and Super every 5 seconds they indulge in Dragon Ball content. My main argument is that many of the points people criticize Super over are present in Z as well. But because they romanticize Z so much, they don’t realize this and attribute it just to Super. The reason why I feel it is important to 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, and almost 10 years since it started, 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 frustrating to be in this community sometimes.
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 those same issues.
Let’s start with writing. Some of the criticisms of Super are people misunderstanding and not paying attention to the details. And even years later there are still people bringing up these things. 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 involved before the Tournament of Power came up as an idea. The Tournament of Power meant at least one universe would be saved and opened an opportunity for that universe to save the rest. Goku’s insistence on the tournament saved all those universes from destruction. It seems stupid in the moment but it worked out for the best. Wanna know another scene that is very stupid in the moment but ended up being good in the end? Goku giving Cell a senzu bean so he would be back at full strength to wail on Gohan more easily.
Let’s argue that Goku’s promoting of the Tournament of Power was unintentionally beneficial, rather than planned like with the senzu bean situation intending to unlock Gohan’s hidden power and that leading to victory. And therefore shouldn’t count in Goku’s favor for not being an idiot in Super. Then you should also consider Goku an idiot in Z for not killing Fat Buu when he could have just so Goten and Trunks could have a turn. Which like with Cell, brought more risk to everyone. Besides, the argument of his perceived dangerous desire for the ToP being out of character is just incorrect in my opinion. This is very consistent for him.
Yeah, I got this from Dokkan lol
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 deserved to be killed. But his selfish desire (which he directly admits himself to the audience) to fight 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 didn’t. With both Vegeta and Frieza he put the universe at risk just because he did not want them dead for his own reasons. There’s 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, causing the craziness that is the rest of the Buu Saga.
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.
Let’s talk about power scaling, which has always been awful in Dragon Ball. This series past the first few arcs of Dragon Ball is filled with random power-ups and twists that flip the scale of who is strong and who isn’t in that moment. No one complains about Goku and Vegeta going from completely outclassed by Buuhan to easily 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 against a seemingly unstoppable enemy. This goes for the fusion dance too. Goten and Trunks didn’t stand a semblance of a chance against Buu, but they fused so they could at least be justified to put up a fight. Goku and Vegeta could not take down Janemba individually. But after fusing they 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 the Super Saiyan forms, the impact of Super Saiyan was ruined long before Super. Like with the previous point, characters in Dragon Ball Z and Super often get new transformations when the story demands it so the characters can be relevant, not when they have a good plot or character-driven reason for it. Some do, like Goku and Future Trunks. But not all of them. 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 now. Tingly back is dumb, yes. But are you seriously arguing that “idk it just happened lol” is satisfying and worthy of the Super Saiyan transformation? If you want to argue the “prodigy” point in favor of Goten and Trunks, then that also works for Kale and Caulifla. Because they were also stated to be prodigies. 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. Super has poorer visuals overall compared to Z. But the glazing of Z’s art as a whole is very much a thing. Have y’all actually re-watched recently Z outside of the big hype moments you watch clips of on Youtube over and over again? If you haven’t, then you’ve probably forgotten about the times of very bad snd inconsistent art. Let’s look at some terrible art from Z.
Z did not have consistently good art, as it was passed between different studios frequently and at times under time crunch. Such as in the Namek saga. Here is an infamous one. Vegeta is ridiculously off model, to the point that it barely even looks like him. In this picture you could easily convince someone this is a different Saiyan like one you’d see in the background of Planet Vegeta flashbacks. There were various artists and teams handling DBZ over the show, and that resulted in things like this happening. 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 some mediocre shots from the Cell Saga. The Cell Saga has some of the best art in the whole series. But it also has some parts that look terrible too.
These are examples of the characters being off-model, badly proportioned, etc. These are just like many single bad frames people have criticized in Super. Sorry, Z does not look perfect 100% of the time like it does in your memory, including when you pause it. Super is the same way. There are some very mediocre-looking parts of the Future Saga, but there are also parts that look fantastic like the sections directed by Naotoshi Shida. 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 and the product was rushed, with the art quality and consistency suffering for it. Even though it happened more in Super than Z, people should not act like it didn’t happen at all. It is crazy that nearly a decade later, we still have people bringing up frames from the very beginning of Super and then acting like Z never faced similar issues.
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 part of DB is better than the other (I like the original Dragon Ball anime the best if you're curious). You can have issues with power scaling, visuals, writing etc. of either show. I am not arguing people’s issues with Super are invalid. The problem is pointing out the flaws of Super and completely ignoring those same flaws being present in Z. It's hypocritical and ignorant, plain and simple. Some people really need to take off their nostalgia goggles and look at all of Dragon Ball more comprehensively. 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 Z ending and them 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 their finer details. Come up with new material at least rather than bringing up the same things people have beaten to death years ago.
Thank you for reading! I think this really helped release years of buildup of frustration towards certain types of Dragon Ball fans out of my system lol. I still love Dragon Ball despite my misgivings so you can expect more of it from me.
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