# Forum > Discussion > Media Discussions >  New Dragon Ball Series 2023

## Rater202

Details: Toryama himself is taking a direct hand in creating the anime this time, as opposed to Z where he drew character designs for movies and filler or Super where he supervised but was hands out.

Naohiro Shintani, the artist who did the revised character designs for Dragon Ball Super: Broly, and Chikashi Kubota, the animation director for Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero are also both involved in the production.

No plot details yet though... Though the Dragon Ball Super manga is moving into an adaption of Super Hero.

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## Xihirli

Well if they're playing catch-up with the Manga there are two arcs to do. Well, one and a half, I'd say.

Also I think Toriyama promised he was going to make Android 21 canon. So there's three things to do.

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## Rater202

> Well if they're playing catch-up with the Manga there are two arcs to do. Well, one and a half, I'd say.
> 
> Also I think Toriyama promised he was going to make Android 21 canon. So there's three things to do.


...I mean, Android 21's human form was in Super Hero. Confirmed as Gero's wife, turns out her real name is Vomi.

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## Lord Raziere

looks like they want to put all the good talent together for this one, hope it turns out well.

but yeah they have a bit on their plate. probably enough for three arcs. 

not sure what else to say, hopefully they learned from the first two arcs of DB super and not just repeat the movies.

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## Delicious Taffy

> not sure what else to say, hopefully they learned from the first two arcs of DB super and not just repeat the movies.


What, you don't want about 45 minutes of cool fight scenes and little character moments dragged out over 15-27 episodes of an anime, with not much of substance changed?

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## Lord Raziere

> What, you don't want about 45 minutes of cool fight scenes and little character moments dragged out over 15-27 episodes of an anime, with not much of substance changed?


Not particularly no. they already have the best versions of those movies out there, they don't have to expand them. if they want more moments with the characters from those movies, thats what NEW episodes are for even if they are filler.

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## Rater202

So Toriyama said that they had to cut a lot of stuff from Broly in order for it to b a reasonably lengthed movie, so if they retell Broly they could just add some of that back in.

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## Rynjin

Man, the only thing I can think of that would be worse than retelling the Broly movie with worse animation and music is spending a bunch of time retelling and/or expanding on Dragonball Minus instead, because I can almost guarantee you that was most of the cut content.

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## Rater202

> Man, the only thing I can think of that would be worse than retelling the Broly movie with worse animation and music is spending a bunch of time retelling and/or expanding on Dragonball Minus instead, because I can almost guarantee you that was most of the cut content.


The whole point of the redesign in Broly was that those character designs were faster, easier, and cheaper to animate while still looking good.

Since the guy who did those redesigns is involved, I wouldn't worry about wore animation.

And the only thing wrong with Dragon Ball Minus is that it's not Bardock The Father of Goku... Which was never canon, nor was it intended to be.

Though speaking of Bardock, I hope they give the stuff involving him a good once over if the Granolah arc is adapted.

I get what they were going for, and I don't really mind any of the actual flashback stuff, but Monaito kind of glosses over the fact that Bardock almost certainly killed a whole bunch of Cerealians before he had his attack of conscience and his speech to Goku and Vegeta about embracing the aspects of their heritage that can lead to positive outcomes needed to be revised several times becuase as is it comes across as just whitewashing the crimes of the Saiyans.

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## Rynjin

> And the only thing wrong with Dragon Ball Minus is that it's not Bardock The Father of Goku... Which was never canon, nor was it intended to be.


Well, it was better.

But there are actually issues with Minus besides it being an inferior story overall. The recontextualization of Goku's dad being "the one good Saiyan" takes out a lot of the narrative impact of stuff like the early Saiyan saga and Vegeta's character arc in general. Goku is a good person because he was raised on Earth, among good people, to be a good person. And this was a completely random act, not a deliberate choice by his father to send him to safety.

Bardock is a good person because...he rejects the innate qualities of his birth culture for no apparent reason. He doesn't have a ton of exposure to other cultures that would make him see that what he's doing is "wrong".

Minus also sort of exacerbates the issue of Raditz being practically a forgotten character. I just feel bad for the guy these days. His own father didn't even give a **** about him and lavished all this attention on Goku instead? WTF.

Honestly the biggest issue with Minus is...Goku is not Superman. Planet Vegeta is not Krypton. Why are we telling that same story with characters and cultures that don't fit it?

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## Rater202

> Well, it was better.
> 
> But there are actually issues with Minus besides it being an inferior story overall. The recontextualization of Goku's dad being "the one good Saiyan" takes out a lot of the narrative impact of stuff like the early Saiyan saga and Vegeta's character arc in general. Goku is a good person because he was raised on Earth, among good people, to be a good person. And this was a completely random act, not a deliberate choice by his father to send him to safety.
> 
> Bardock is a good person because...he rejects the innate qualities of his birth culture for no apparent reason. He doesn't have a ton of exposure to other cultures that would make him see that what he's doing is "wrong".
> 
> Minus also sort of exacerbates the issue of Raditz being practically a forgotten character. I just feel bad for the guy these days. His own father didn't even give a **** about him and lavished all this attention on Goku instead? WTF.
> 
> Honestly the biggest issue with Minus is...Goku is not Superman. Planet Vegeta is not Krypton. Why are we telling that same story with characters and cultures that don't fit it?


So I never actually got a chance to see Broly in its entirety, but in the actual Dragon Ball Minus Manga chapter the reason Bardock didn't go out of his way to do anything for Raditz was that Raditz was partnered with Prince Vegeta, who Bardock knew would refuse the order to return to Planet Vegeta. "Okay, Raditz is safe, lets get Kakarot out of here."

He also wasn't "the one good Saiyan" so much as he was like "okay, why did Freiza cancel all ongoing missions and order the Saiyans to return to the home planet? That's... Really suspicious."

If anyone was the one good Saiyan, it was Gine but even then her alleged pacifism was more the result of preferring work as a butcher over being a soldier.

The Flashbacks in the Grnaolah saga also make it clear that Bardock's attack of conscience was entirely because Granolah and his mother reminded him of his own wife and kids. He only felt bad about it when he imagined himself in the same situation. That's not "good."

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## BloodSquirrel

I have a hard time getting too excited by this. I'd love to see a new series by Akira Toriyama if he was doing it as a genuine passion project because he felt like he had a new story to tells... but he mostly seems to just be doing more Dragonball because there's demand for it and he has nothing better to do at the moment. I also just have a hard time seeing how Dragonball can break out of the rut it's been written into. The original run by Akira Toriyama was constantly changing things up, and despite the impression a lot of people have of the series' arcs being formulaic, the "DBZ" formula only really appeared in the Freeza saga, and both of the following saga were already finding ways to subvert it. 

But at this point, with the characters being universe busters and SSJ forms having been beaten to death, and Goku and Vegeta having so long since settled into the end of their character arcs, it's just hard to see what there is left to do with the series. Hopefully Toriyama proves me wrong, but I'm pessimistically expecting more of the same.




> Goku is a good person because he was raised on Earth, among good people , to be a good person *hit his head on a rock*. And this was a completely random act, not a deliberate choice by his father to send him to safety.


Fixed that for you.

Making Bardock "The good sayian" is, IMO, less a problems because of any stance the series had supposedly previous taken regarding nature vs nurture and more because it's just not present in the basic structure of the series' backstory. You just can't mesh Bardock being some kind of rebel against sayain society with both of his sons being part of their send-babies-to-planets-to-depopulate-them scheme and it never being mentioned at all by anyone at any point. It's the kind of over-complication of backstory that prequels are prone to in general, and Bardock works better as a tragic character who dies in a hopeless attempt to fight Freeza after spending his whole life serving him.

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## tyckspoon

> But at this point, with the characters being universe busters and SSJ forms having been beaten to death, and Goku and Vegeta having so long since settled into the end of their character arcs, it's just hard to see what there is left to do with the series. Hopefully Toriyama proves me wrong, but I'm pessimistically expecting more of the same.
> 
> Fixed that for you.


Maybe this time they'll actually manage to move away from lead character? I seem to recall it's somewhat commonly accepted that both Gohan and Trunks were supposed to become the viewpoints/focal characters at a couple of key story junctions, and the reasons we just kept getting more Goku (And Sometimes Vegeta) Show had a lot more to do with marketing and publisher interference than because any of the creative team actually wanted to keep doing that.

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## Rater202

The most recent movie focused almost exclusively on Gohan and Piccolo so...

Toriyama also likes to squeeze in gags and slice-of-life stuff in between and even sometimes during the major arcs, so if he's taking an active role in the development here then I imagine that we'll be getting a lot more character work.

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## BloodSquirrel

> Maybe this time they'll actually manage to move away from lead character? I seem to recall it's somewhat commonly accepted that both Gohan and Trunks were supposed to become the viewpoints/focal characters at a couple of key story junctions, and the reasons we just kept getting more Goku (And Sometimes Vegeta) Show had a lot more to do with marketing and publisher interference than because any of the creative team actually wanted to keep doing that.


I don't think there ever really was a "supposed to be", given how they only appeared in the last saga and Toriyama was mostly done with the series at that point, but it's noteable how the Cell, Buu, and even Freeza saga to a degree mixed up the cast a lot and only used Goku as a sort of last resort. Goku only fights twice in the whole Cell saga, and he loses both times. And while it's easy to forget when you're used to these characters, each saga has a lot of focus on characters who are either entirely new or who were just introduced. Piccolo (just introduced as a villain in the previous arc) gets a lot of focus in the Sayian saga. Vegeta (same deal) gets a lot of focus in the Freeza saga. Trunks was an entirely new character in both the Cell and Buu sagas, Goten was an entirely new character in the Buu saga, and Gohan was growing up during the whole series and went through a lot of changes for each arc. 

And the "Buddy" dynamic between Goku and Vegeta was brand new in the Buu saga. Before then they were only barely sort of on the same side, and even fought during the Buu saga. 

The only character I would really call a central addition in Super is Beerus.  

Well, we'll see. Maybe Akira Toriyama will take the series someplace new, maybe he won't. At least we don't have to worry about it being done as dirty as some poor franchise being bought by Disney.

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## Rater202

What I'm most curious about... Whether this adapts what we've already seen or starts new from the get go, chances are good that we're gonna see stuff from after Super Hero and I'm very curious about that because Superhero is like, a year tops before the End of Z.

Goku and Vegeta from what little we see of them in the movie seem content to just focus on their own self-improvement and helping Broly with his rage issues so...

With the movie primarily focusing on Gohan and Piccolo, showcasing their character development and bringing their power up to the same level as Goku and Vegeta, I can't help but wonder about other characters getting the same treatment.

Like, Toriyama said years ago, in one of the data books, that Tien was a descendant of a race called the Three-Eyed Clan that settled on the earth a long time ago and his third eye, ability to look in three directions without sacrificing binocular vision, and some of his techniques, are due to that mild non-human ancestry. He also said that Tien should have godlike mystical powers but the evil influence of the Crane Hermit robbed him of the necessary enlightenment to use them.

That would be a thing to explore in a storyline focusing on the human characters, assuming he remembers. You could even have it be about their struggle to remain relevant: Krillin's about the same age as Goku while Tien and Yamcha are a few years old, but being (mostly) Human they aren't going to stay in the prime of their youth till they're 80 like he will. By this point in time they've gotta be feeling their age.

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## KillianHawkeye

Expecting Toriyama to remember something from his own story? Might as well pray for a miracle! He's forgotten entire characters existed! Remember Launch? Toriyama doesn't.

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## HolyDraconus

You know I never really sat down and thought about it before as much, but Piccolo being Gohans surrogate father is only funny till you remember hes biologically a little older than Gohan. By months.. like. Less than 30 of them.

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## KillianHawkeye

> You know I never really sat down and thought about it before as much, but Piccolo being Gohans surrogate father is only funny till you remember hes biologically a little older than Gohan. By months.. like. Less than 30 of them.


True, but he'd rapidly grown to adult age before Goku and Chichi were reunited, and he also has at least some of original Piccolo's personality and memories. He is essentially King Piccolo's reincarnation, in a sense, with the alteration that his life goal was to kill Goku (which he did at the beginning of DBZ just in time to start learning to be a responsible dad).

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## Rater202

> You know I never really sat down and thought about it before as much, but Piccolo being Gohans surrogate father is only funny till you remember hes biologically a little older than Gohan. By months.. like. Less than 30 of them.


Piccolo is much older than just a few months older than Gohan.

For one, Piccolo Jr. was born a few days after the 22nd Tenka'ichi Budōkai and Goku, and Chichi wasn't reunited until three years later at the 23rd Tenka'ichi Budōkai three years later. Gohan was four years old five years later so Piccolo would have been eight.

For two, Piccolo Jr. is, in every conceivable way, his father reincarnated. King Piccolo was a few centuries old, plus however old the Nameless Namekian was when they split into Kami and Piccolo in the first place.

And that's just counting the age of the discrete entity named Piccolo: Piccolo did not become an active paternal figure in Gohan's life until after the Namek Saga, after he fused with Nail who an be inferred to be at least the same age as Piccolo, and did not become Gohan's sole male role model until after the Cell Saga, when he'd fused with the Centuries-old Kami.

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## BloodSquirrel

> You know I never really sat down and thought about it before as much, but Piccolo being Gohans surrogate father is only funny till you remember hes biologically a little older than Gohan. By months.. like. Less than 30 of them.


Less that 30? There were three years between the tournaments, so it has to be at least 36. Not that it matters much, because he's still part of Kami, and has his father's memories, so how old he is "biologically" is kind of irrelevant.

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## KillianHawkeye

> And that's just counting the age of the discrete entity named Piccolo: Piccolo did not become an active paternal figure in Gohan's life until after the Namek Saga, after he fused with Nail who an be inferred to be at least the same age as Piccolo, and did not become Gohan's sole male role model until after the Cell Saga, when he'd fused with the Centuries-old Kami.


I'd say even earlier than that.

He did train Gohan against the Saiyans for a whole year when Gohan was 4-5 years old. He wasn't an ideal father figure at the time, but I'd argue that for a child of Gohan's age, a master/student relationship is very close to being a father/son relationship.

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## Xihirli

Look, all I want is a Father-Son Masenko, is that too much to ask?

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## Delicious Taffy

> Look, all I want is a Father-Son Masenko, is that too much to ask?


I'm sure at least one of the thousands of video games will let you do one, probably with that exact name.

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## KillianHawkeye

Does Piccolo even actually DO a masenko? I feel like that move is a much more iconic Gohan attack, certainly based on his training with Piccolo, but Piccolo himself is always coming up with new techniques and never really sticks with any except a rarely repeated special beam cannon.

Kamehameha is really the only attack in the whole series that enjoys infinite repeatability. The destructo disc, masenko, dodonpa, and ki-koho are all used more than any of Piccolo's or Vegeta's moves. Like, I'm pretty sure Piccolo and Vegeta only repeat old moves in Super due to nostalgia. Such as re-using the gallick gun, something he hasn't done in years since way back even before Super Saiyan was a thing.

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## Rater202

> Does Piccolo even actually DO a masenko? I feel like that move is a much more iconic Gohan attack, certainly based on his training with Piccolo, but Piccolo himself is always coming up with new techniques and never really sticks with any except a rarely repeated special beam cannon.


Counting or not counting filler?

Using only canonical scenes, it was created by Piccolo but he only used it once, when fighting Frieza, with the first person to actually use it being Gohan who learned it from Piccolo.

If we include filler, Piccolo used it, or a very similar technique, as a child to defend himself when attacked by a dog in OG DB... Though Piccolo started it, for the record.

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## BloodSquirrel

It's not like there's much difference between any of them. A named ki attack, for the most part, is just a regular ki attack that they spend more time charging up. It's not like you could really say "Oh, Vegeta should have used the Gallic gun here instead of the Final Flash".

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## Delicious Taffy

I always sort of assumed that most beam attacks were different from others in some specific way. Like, the Kamehameha is more or less "just" a really well-balanced burst of energy, but maybe the Galick Gun (just as an example, not the be-all definitive thing) has more "force" put behind a narrower beam so it's better at piercing through things, like how a big ol' bucket of water is fine for soaking stuff but a narrow hose can go all the way through a pile of dirt. Maybe it's just a baseless assumption with no weight behind it, but the Masenko generally seems to be a really quick "splash" of energy that's pretty strong.

That being said, I don't really tend to follow the "Stop thinking about it, nothing is anything, it's just some lines on paper that nobody meant to look any particular way" line of thought, when it comes to cartoons. The attacks with different outlines or colors always at least looked to me like they were meant to behave a certain way, even when they're still gonna get absorbed by Captain No-Sell and his impenetrable pectorals.

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## Rynjin

Consistently, in the games, the Galick Gun is a faster charging attack with less max power than the Kamehameha, which does seem to fit what we see. Vegeta can whip that **** out at lightning speed even compared to some of the fastest Kamehamehas we've seen.

What you're thinking of there is the Dodonpa, which used to be Tien's signature move (and also Frieza's Death Beam, they're basically the exact same attack). The literal difference between it and the Kamehameha is that it's fast, concentrated, and pierces; it's an assassination technique.

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## Delicious Taffy

> Consistently, in the games, the Galick Gun is a faster charging attack with less max power than the Kamehameha, which does seem to fit what we see. Vegeta can whip that **** out at lightning speed even compared to some of the fastest Kamehamehas we've seen.
> 
> What you're thinking of there is the Dodonpa, which used to be Tien's signature move (and also Frieza's Death Beam, they're basically the exact same attack). The literal difference between it and the Kamehameha is that it's fast, concentrated, and pierces; it's an assassination technique.


Ah, gotcha gotcha! I've only ever played _Xenoverse_ and _Buu's Fury_ , so I don't have much experience with the games.  I have noticed Jeets really goin' wild and belting out those Garlic Guns.

I sometimes forget Tien exists and I haven't seen/read the original _Dragon Ball_ (I know, I know, it's on the list), but it's good to know I managed to describe at least one actual spell they use in the cartoon.

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## BloodSquirrel

> I always sort of assumed that most beam attacks were different from others in some specific way. Like, the Kamehameha is more or less "just" a really well-balanced burst of energy, but maybe the Galick Gun (just as an example, not the be-all definitive thing) has more "force" put behind a narrower beam so it's better at piercing through things, like how a big ol' bucket of water is fine for soaking stuff but a narrow hose can go all the way through a pile of dirt. Maybe it's just a baseless assumption with no weight behind it, but the Masenko generally seems to be a really quick "splash" of energy that's pretty strong.


Thing is... ki attacks just sort of seem to work different ways at different times regardless, including the Kamehameha. Sometimes it explodes, sometimes it disintegrates thins, and sometimes it's more like a kinetic punch. 

It's never something that bothered me since it never really mattered too much- either it was powerful enough to hurt the enemy or it wasn't- and Dragonball never got very technical or complicated with its fights. And this is also the series that parodied the whole "yelling out attack names" things with Gotenks.

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## KillianHawkeye

> I sometimes forget Tien exists and I haven't seen/read the original _Dragon Ball_ (I know, I know, it's on the list), but it's good to know I managed to describe at least one actual spell they use in the cartoon.


Original Dragon Ball is pretty good, IMO. Albeit a somewhat less serious story until the latter parts of it. 

DBZ immediately ups the stakes by introducing space aliens and an evil Goku equivalent. And then keeps upping the stakes every story arc until the entire universe is at stake when we get to DB Super.

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## Delicious Taffy

> Original Dragon Ball is pretty good, IMO. Albeit a somewhat less serious story until the latter parts of it. 
> 
> DBZ immediately ups the stakes by introducing space aliens and an evil Goku equivalent. And then keeps upping the stakes every story arc until the entire universe is at stake when we get to DB Super.


Oh, make no mistake, I'm on the up-and-up with everything from Radish to New Broly to Omega Shenron, anime-wise. Not a single clue what happens in the manga after the Tournament of Procrastination, aside from Vegeta getting dunked in grape soda, though. I keep seeing the original cartoon on a local nerd-store shelf though, so maybe I'll grab that when I get the gil.

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## KillianHawkeye

> Oh, make no mistake, I'm on the up-and-up with everything from Radish to New Broly to Omega Shenron, anime-wise. Not a single clue what happens in the manga after the Tournament of Procrastination, aside from Vegeta getting dunked in grape soda, though. I keep seeing the original cartoon on a local nerd-store shelf though, so maybe I'll grab that when I get the gil.


Yeah, I was just trying to give a feel for how the o.g. DB story compares to the more familiar DBZ/etc/wtf stories. In the sense that it takes getting through the majority of the pre-DBZ story arcs before it feels like the whole world is at stake in the conflicts the heroes are facing. Red Ribbon Army almost gets there, but it's really King Piccolo who's the first actual "take over the world" threat.

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## Rynjin

> Oh, make no mistake, I'm on the up-and-up with everything from Radish to New Broly to Omega Shenron, anime-wise. Not a single clue what happens in the manga after the Tournament of Procrastination, aside from Vegeta getting dunked in grape soda, though. I keep seeing the original cartoon on a local nerd-store shelf though, so maybe I'll grab that when I get the gil.


OG Dragonball is great. I actually don't really like the Red Ribbon Army saga (blasphemous, I know), but everything before and after it is very solid, with the tournaments being the obvious standouts.

You actually lose a lot of emotional context in Z and onward without watching/reading the original. Krillin dying is twice as sad in context of the King Piccolo saga, Piccolo's arc is a lot more impactful when you see where he STARTED as a character, it makes more sense why they put up with Roshi's antics, because he has a LOT of very serious and genuine moments in the pre-Z era, etc.

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## Dragonus45

> Oh, make no mistake, I'm on the up-and-up with everything from Radish to New Broly to Omega Shenron, anime-wise. Not a single clue what happens in the manga after the Tournament of Procrastination, aside from Vegeta getting dunked in grape soda, though. I keep seeing the original cartoon on a local nerd-store shelf though, so maybe I'll grab that when I get the gil.


The Super Manga has been wild. Vegeta finally got the biggest boost to his character development since the Buu saga in the Moro arc and it specifically is a moment I really need to find it's way into the rest of the franchise. In general I recommend the Super Manga just for that moment. The rest is pretty good as well and a much more consistently good story then the wild ups and downs of Super Anime, but only if it is being archived. The monthly release date does is negative favors for it's pacing but when you read an arc all at once it's a much smoother ride.

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## Rater202

So, a theory I've had for a while was...

Set up: Since the "Super Era" started with Battle of Gods there's been increasingly more detail about what the Saiyans were like.

The Legend of the Super Sayain God established that there were good Saiyans in the past.

The collected edition of Jacco, the Galactic Patrolmen had a bonus chapter, Dragon Ball Minus, which established that not every Saiyan was a WarriorGoku's mother Gine was a butcher at an industrial meat dispensary. Toyirma'a comments in an interview established that Gine was what the Saiyans considered a pacifist, suggesting that not every Saiyan is innately violent.

In Super proper we see the Saiyans of Universe 6 who went under a different cultural route: They're still a proud warrior race, but as protectors instead of conquerors.

In Broly we meet Broly, who despite being born as a Saiyan warrior and raised, abusively, on a death world is more or less peaceful unless he loses control of his power.

In the Super AMnga's Granolah the Survivor arc, while it's done very clumsily, it's established that Bardock, an otherwise typical Saiyan Warrior, was able to develop a conscience and try to change, and while it was really clumsy and needed more polish it points out that the same aspects of Saiyan Culture that made them monsters also had potential to make them heroes.

Part of me is wondering if... If at some point in the future of the franchise, they're not going to... Bring back and try to rehabilitate the Saiyans.

I mean, at this point what are the consequences? None of the other Saiyans would be a threat to any of the main fightersEven Yamcha is stronger than the average Saiyan Warrior if we assume that Raditz was typical. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and they just rekill them.

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