I'm gonna be honest with you guys. Most of the stuff I've heard about later Super sounds uninteresting and lazy.
Toei's no stranger to lazy writing, but by god, some of it is basically fanservice (not the PLOT kind).
Ehhh... I think it still exceeds my expectations of a DBZ revival this many years later. I guess it depends on how much you like seeing Toriyama characters doing Toriyama things, though. His comedy is always pretty fun, his art style is still unique and well fleshed out, and I've seen his characters grow outside of their golden pre/early-teen years that other shows hard stop after.
Eh I disagree they're taking a base and doing something different with it dragon ball actually still feels fairly unique to me...also I just love the cast so much
I think so too. DBZ's cast of long-developed characters with Toriyama's style still feels so much better to me than the cast of HxH, for example. If I was younger, this might not be true, as I might identify with them more. But it's nice to have a Japanese battle show with older characters that aren't constantly talking about how over the hill they are, because they're (gasp!) over 25, or even 15, years old.
There's just a nice size and application to DBZ's cast. My little sister started to watch the show back in the day, because she thought Fat Buu was cute, and it was cool to see a character she knew we watched as a boy (Goku), now older, raising a son, and in a full family. It's one of the rare cases where it legit feels like all these years later, these characters have know and been around each other for as long as I've been watching them over the years.
No show / manga that's cropped up in the last 5 years, with characters who've been playing at events that could have all happened in a few months time, can easily match that feeling. It's like comparing an old childhood friend you've kept in contact with, to someone you met at a bar a few times.
I've gotten more out of playing the video game adaptations of DBZ than from watching/reading DBZ itself
That's me with One Piece, lol. I actually enjoy how DBZ frames it's events over and over, though. Similar to how I liked learning a lot of Gundam through it's various games. No matter how many times I see Piccolo take that blast for Gohan during the Vegeta and Nappa battle, it's still a solid moment.
I think the biggest issue is, when we have TWO Dragon Ball shows in a row, you notice the flaws & tropes so much more because both shows just feel so similar at times.
If we only had Super, I think I'd be less harsh on the series as a whole, but when we have two shows both dealing with dragged out, uninteresting, rehashed fights, it just makes each show's flaws stand out even more.
I just miss the enjoyment I experienced when I saw Battle of Gods, maybe because that was the first true DBZ thing I ever actually saw, I got my hopes up.
Yeah, if the slow buildup gets to you, it's probably insufferable. It doesn't really bother me, though. I feel like DBZ accepted what it is years ago, and it doesn't try and pretend it's better than those things. It's worse aspects are now being poked at by it's English voice cast in subtle ways, the JP writers and production staff is a set of obvious old talent and fans who grew with the show, and it's like we're all in on the weak and strong points.
And I generally watch JP super right before or after Toonami, too. I like seeing how far things have come, actually. Watching Vegeta go from a well fleshed out, accepting-of-his-lot-in-life rival in the new show, to one so unstable he'd let evil take him over in the older one, just stresses the character development that much more.
