Review: 'Dragon Ball Super'

Anime: Dragon Ball Super (Episode 1 to Current)Genre: Action, Science FantasyAge Rating: Good for allStudio: Toei AnimationMusic: Norihito SumitomoAuthor: Akira ToriyamaDub/Sub: Dub and SubsEcchi Level: Non-existant

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Prepare yourself for a long-ass review and even longer-ass spoilers in the spoiler section.

So, I'm a huge Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z fan from back in the day. I loved both as much as I loved any anime. That being said, neither series was perfect, and neither is this one. So let's start from the top.

The first thing I want to talk about is the entirety of the first two arcs. Both of these were literal retellings of the two movies, Battle of the Gods and Resurrection F. I don't like how they decided to just chop up the movies into episodes and slap them onto TV for people to have to sit through again. Not that there was anything wrong with the movies, but they could have easily just said, "The movies are canon" and started DBS after the Resurrection F movie. It's shady as shit to repackage stuff you already made and sell it as something new. The movie industry does this with Superman every decade or so, and to this day I disapprove.

Moving on to other things, I grew up with the dubs of the series prior to this one. Those dubs were awesome, and the dub going into DBS was similarly so. Unfortunately, to get completely up to date on the series, I had to deal with the subs for a bit, and to be honest, I'm not really impressed. The voice actors were fine at best, and at times really odd. But the only real issue that I had with the subs was the fact that these voice actors apparently do not know what a sleeping person sounds like. The music is pretty good in certain areas. but all around is rather lackluster. When certain characters show up and their theme starts playing, it's all epic and menacing. But the lack of music in other areas makes the majority of the series feel kind of lifeless. Perhaps I'm spoiled by Funimation and Bruce Faulconer, but that's honestly how it felt.

Now, I have a real chip on my shoulder when it comes to DBS, so I'm going to get it out of the way now. Throughout DB and DBZ, we've always known Goku as a great warrior who isn't too bright. But his thick-headedness was always seen as a bit charming. Never heard of girls, doesn't understand social norms, innocent and easily confused, it was all fun and games because his simpleness never interfered with his battle against some of the most deadly villains in the universe.

Now, in DBS, he does things that could feasibly get him classified as brain dead. He's an idiot, plain and simple. From being annoying and impatient with gods and nearly pissing them off, to leaving behind senzu beans and items that are crucial to the safety of the world. I have never wanted to kill Son Goku more in my entire life than I did while watching this series. No longer is his stupidity acceptable. Instead, it's gotten to the point where he goes from annoying, to extremely annoying, to intolerable. I don't know if this was Toriyama's plan for the character all along or not, or maybe Goku was always this way and the dubs saved me from his idiocy when I was a child. Either way, this is unacceptable levels of stupid from someone I'm supposed to be cheering for.

Moving on now...I did have a bit of a complaint with one long running gag in the series. Both Beerus and Whis in DBS enjoy Earth's food, making them grant extensive favor towards Goku, Vegeta, and the Earthlings in return for some amazing food in return. But in the series, Japan seems to have forgotten that the rest of the world exists. They offer them all sorts of Japanese cuisine, but that's it. No taking them to other countries to try an awesome hamburger, or pasta, or beef bourguignon. The farthest they go from Japanese food is pizza, which has pretty much shed its Italian roots and become an international food at this point. It doesn't really affect the story that much, it's just a minor annoyance that with Bulma being one of the richest people on planet, and instead of taking them to have some country-fried steak, she shoves pork snacks and cup ramen at them.

Back to the main draw of a Dragon Ball series: the villains. We all now and love the saiyans, Frieza, the Androids, Cell, and Kid Buu. These were all awesome villains in their own ways and were ended fantastically. Skipping Beerus (because he isn't really a villain), the villains in DBS are lackluster at best. From rehashed EVEN MORE POWERFUL THAN BEFORE villains that we've already seen, to a confusing-ass time travelling story filler villain, to one that makes you ask whether they're really serious in making this thing into a villain that could beat the others. More on this in the spoilers.

The animation is sad to be honest. Nothing about the animation in the original series was spectacular to be honest, but it was good for its time. This time around it looks like they hired some low budget animator to turn Toriyama's art into a series. It's not as noticeable in the fight scenes, but when characters are standing around participating in some dialogue, it really shows. One scene in particular shows Vegeta's already big forehead looking as massive as ever, with Beerus looking like he was made out of a child's first clay molding project. There seems to be zero polish on this whatsoever, which is pretty sad considering its legendary roots.

Now, as for the story itself, we finally get a grasp on the overall universe (so to speak) of Dragonball. Instead of there just being a single universe with a bunch of worlds in it, there is a multiverse with worlds of their own. Some worlds are eerily similar to those from Goku's world however, which does lead to very interesting characters. It also led to one of my favorite DBZ characters of all time, in fact. So aside from Goku's bumbling idiocy, I think that the story is pretty solid.

The rest of the issues and praise I have for the series I won't be able to share without going into some heavy spoilers, so those will be done in the spoiler section. But I will say that if you're a DBZ fan, then it's worth the wait, especially with where the story is at right now. Once you get passed the rehashed movies, the annoying-ass filler, and the practically brain-dead hero, there's a gem that lights up like a damn Christmas tree. So, approach if you dare.

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TL;DR: As mentioned above, if you're a DBZ fan, you'll probably slog through this just to find the amazing moments. And to be honest, they were totally worth the rough journey. But if you're an anime fan who has no experience with DBZ, but are looking to get into DBS, I'd pass. I mean it when I say it's not for everyone. I recommend watching DBZ first, and seeing if you can tolerate that before jumping into DBS.

Ratings

Animation: 3/10Music: 5/10Story: 4/10 (9/10 later)Comedy: 6/10Overall Rating: 6/10

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SPOILER TALK BELOW! IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO HAVE ANYTHING SPOILED, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

Best Girl: Caulifla. I know I know, "But RiotDragon! Kale is a super special awesome legendary super saiyan!" I can't help it. I love Caulifla's design and everything about her. Her crazy Sonic hair, her super saiyan form, her fiery attitude, her concern for her protege, all of it. Reminds me of my character Elsa.

Alright, onto the shit. Here are the issues I had with this series.

~I hate Goku. He used to be a lovable idiot, but now he's a fucking moron who forgets the goddamn senzu beans. Then right afterwards, trains for hours to master the Evil Containment Wave, then fucking forgets the Talisman to seal the jar shut. On top of that, him annoying Whis and Beerus to train him when they're eating is not funny. It's fucking...annoying.

~Goo Vegeta was stupid. That entire story was stupid. I realize that it's basically filler, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be held to the same standards. DBZ filler is Piccolo learning to drive a car, or going off to train with the Namekians, or some shit like that. Not this.

~Speaking of fucking filler, the whole plot behind Zamasu is backwards as hell. Supposedly, Goku Black is actually Zamasu who switched their bodies in regular Goku's timeline. But if that's the case, then who the fuck was the Zamasu that Beerus killed? It would have been a hell of a lot more interesting if Goku Black was just Universe 6's version of Goku instead of the shitty, choppy time travel garbage.

~Zamasu's end should have been when Trunks cut his ass in half. Instead, he fucking Windows 98'd himself all over the sky somehow? Then they had to deus ex machina him with Zen-Oh just to kill his ass. This isn't a damn thriller, we didn't need a last minute revelation to end it. The different arcs in Dragon Ball series are supposed to end with energy blasts disintegrating a motherfucker.

~Ki laser swords are stupid.

~I was about to flip my shit on Goku for starting the Tournament of Power, until later it was revealed that Zen-Oh was going to erase the competing universes anyway. Seriously, I shouldn't have so little faith in Goku that I'd believe he'd be the cause of the end of so many universes.

~The passage of time in the series is as horrible as ever. When a set of six episodes happens within the span of ten minutes in universe, that means that you're stretching the limits of believably. Seriously, they could have said the match would take a couple hours and have made it more believable. And yes, I'm aware that DBZ has done this too, what with Frieza's 5-minute planet explosion taking a stupid amount of episodes to complete. Still, this should have been something they could have easily fixed.

~Goku and Vegeta's super saiyan blue power just came out of fucking nowhere. They never showed it before the Frieza fight, so where the fuck did it come from? Did they just luckily break the new level right when they needed it to fight Frieza? Or did they do it before off screen, and skip out on us seeing it for the first fucking time just to jam it into the series? Either way, it was intrusive as fuck.

~Super Saiyan Rosé? Are you fucking kidding me? This name scheming is even worse than the original SSJ2, SSJ3, and SSJ4 bullshit.

~Despite GT not being canon, and Toriyama not having much to do with it, I still see GTs taint all over this fucking series. The lion race coming down with their dance greeting, some of the idiotic character designs like Monaka, and so on.

Now for the good stuff.

~Trunks x Mai is probably the best ship in the entirety of Dragon Ball history. Yeah, she's actually like 40 something in a kid's body. I don't care. They're adorable together, and it's the best romance from a series that's not known for romance.

~I like Beerus' design. The Egyptian cat look definitely goes well with the God of Destruction look.

~FUCKING FEMALE SAIYANS! YES! FINALLY! As noted above, Caulifla is my favorite character from the series thus far. And while I do like Kale's muscle form, her attitude before finally getting to her super form was just blah to me. Kefla, however, I love as well. They're both awesome, and I hope they all get appearances in the future of DBS.

~Jiren is pretty funny looking, but I love the "mortal who can't be killed by a God of Destruction" angle. I'm happy it was given to someone else besides Goku to be honest.

~The entire tournament of power has been fucking awesome. A free for all battle of the each universe's top 10 warriors is amazing. Though I'm a bit sad that even Master Roshi got more time to shine than Tenshinhan. =/

~Master Roshi could have totally taken out Jiren with the Evil Containment Wave. YOU COULD HAVE DONE IT OLD MAN!

I'll probably think of more things to add later, but this is already longer than it should be for a review. So take it or leave it, I enjoyed watching it, especially when it got towards the Tournament of Power.