Dragon Ball Super just dropped its latest chapter today, and I gotta say – I am SO upset. For those of you who haven’t read it yet, here’s your only spoiler warning.
GOKU GOES GIANT. And I don’t mean oozaru giant. I mean Naruto Shippuden Naruto inside a giant chakra Kurama giant. Goku literally goes beyond Ultra Instinct into a “divine” ki cloaked giant version of himself to defeat his latest enemy. This is it for me. I’m done with this series. Like most fans, I grew up with Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT. And for the most part, the series has been fairly consistent. Heroes have their traditional conflict, new enemies arrive, heroes fight and lose, they then train ridiculously hard, then Goku saves the day regardless of any new abilities or powers that any other characters develop or have.
But all that was okay to me because Goku only saved the day because of the other characters’ flaws. Their flaws were real and made sense. Their flaws made their character interesting. Think Vegeta’s pride, for example – it’s what drives him to better himself, but it’s also the reason for most of his downfalls. Yet despite their flaws, all the characters show remarkable growth and depth (for a shonen manga that’s about fighting). Vegeta, at the end of Dragon Ball Z acknowledges that Goku is a stronger and better fighter than he is and is also later shown to engage with all other characters happily at a party. Something that NONE of us could have EVER thought would happen. But the growth makes sense! He goes from being the strongest enemy who’s so cutthroat he kills his only friend, a last remaining Saiyan, a race he so strongly takes pride in, to being a reliable ally of the Z Warriors and a loving father. And that’s just the TIP of the Iceberg when it comes to character development. But Super does away with almost all of it.
So where does this leave us? I can guarantee you that with this latest chapter, we can expect to see a future fight in space where both Goku and Vegeta will be in giant “divine” ki cloak versions of themselves fighting ridiculous beings on a universal scale. This may sound cool, but at the same time – it’s just not Dragon Ball Z at all. It’s not original, this already feels like a Naruto rip off, and if it continues in this direction… well, Dragon Ball Z will no longer be Dragon Ball Z.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually miss Dragon Ball GT. Way to give the series the Star Wars Treatment Akira Toriyama, Fuji TV, Funimation, and Toei Animation.
3 comments
Actually, Naruto itself is a ripoff of Dragon Ball. It takes A LOT from Dragon Ball, more than you can think of. Let’s just say Naruto would not exist without Dragon Ball. So, I don’t think Dragon Ball Super is doing wrong by taking any ideas from Naruto. This article is trash.
What’s wrong here isn’t that Dragon Ball took an idea from Naruto, it’s specifically the idea that was chosen and used in the story. Are you looking forward to more giant Ki energy spirit battles?
I think the giant Ki energy spirit battles will be cool. But this article is theorizing that even Vegeta and the villains might get the giants spirit powers… even though that power might have been temporary and exclusive to Goku only… I find nothing wrong with this new power-up… In fact I think it’s new for Dragon Ball and opens up even more options for the future of Dragon Ball as a whole….