Jiraiyathesannin
Jōnin Strategist 🧠
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Whoops I'm really sorry guys. My browser saves this specific part of the site so when i hop on and start writing quick i forget to change the subforum. Sorry i post in the naruto one by accident so much. i'll repost this tomorrow in the correct section, but I still look forward to your comments on this thread here. Enjoy
I know that many of you hear on narutobase are avid dbz fans. As a frequent page writer on the Dbz wiki, I share your love.
But I also understand that some of you are struggling with the canonninity of the dbz series with its latest few entries.
So I'm here to break it down for you:
For starters, "what is canon". Unfortunately for us anime lovers, a lot of anime's aren't as nitpicky about facts as certain comic books or other forms of pop culture. I know that star wars has literal TREE's of cannoninity tiers. Hell, one of my favorite mangas attack on titan is all over the place because we have several extra mangas and novels written by other people.
So what exactly makes things canon? Some would say "well if its the original author, its canon". While this is valid, Look at television shows. I'll use a popular example.
Breaking bad is considered one of the most concise and well written prime time dramas of all time. And its "show-runner" vince gilligan is only one of SEVERAL writers. He doesn't direct every episode. Hell, the lead male actor Bryan Cranston directed some. Are those non canon? of course not. Its a team effort.
And so for manga's like attack on titan, its fine if someone else adds an entry to your series so long as they were working closely with the main author and/or has their approval and ESPECIALLY if they work together to make sure that there are no blatant inconsistencies. That brings us to the second point.
Dragonball z movies (the earlier ones, 1-13) are never again referenced (outside of the movies of course). They don't have any impact on the main movies. this impacts there canon status more so even than who wrote them. This is often more important that anything else.
So if we use THAT as our cardinal rule, we can say that there are 2 solid canon's in dragonball z. 2. Two canon's that work perfectly when you look at them by themselves.
This relationship was PERFECTLY outlined in a post some months ago from the since permabanned Derek1st (r.i.p) called "the official canon guide".
So now lets apply some of this to the new dbz movies and Dragonball Super:
The "new" canon starts after the final dbgt movie. In that time, there was not an official dragonball entry until "Yo! Son goku and his friends return!" This is an ova that is kind of set up like battle of gods. the z fighters are at some party and some aliens show up. Its really corny, poorly animated, and I honestly hate to call it canon. But if you compare it to ova's like history of trunks or bardock father of goku, they can be considered "semicanon".
Think about it, bardock was originally not in the manga. Toriyama liked his concept so much he wrote him in. As much as I dislike the yo son goku and his friends return ova, its original story concept was made by toriyama. So we have to look at it with the same lense as those other ova's. Kinda semi canon. it probably won't be directly brought up, but it doesn't conflict with anything.
Then we get to battle of gods. We know that originally akria toriyama wasn't going to do more than give some pointers for this movie. But he got inspired and decided to rewrite the entire script and design all the characters. Toei was boasting that this movie is canon, and it does not explicitly go against anything in the previous ova, so it does not violate the rules of canonninity.
Resurrection F was similar to old school dbz movies. it didn't advance the plot. It just was fanservice and FúCKING AWESOME fight. But unlike those, it was written by the main author so its canon.
But this brings up the question. "So jiraiyathesannin, why would you call them TWO canons if its the same author". Well timmy, thats because i don't consider this the same author. Akira toriyama was SO YOUNG when he wrote dbz. Hell, dbz came out in like 1984. Battle of gods (or even yo son goku) were made nearly THIRTY DAMN YEARS later. Look at his newer mangas. They look so different. His writing is so different. He doesn't do the action the same. He's essentially a different author. So if we just look at the new works as seperate from the old ones, its like when they change authors in super man. Is the new super man non canon but the original 1940's one is? No, they're 2 different universes. They both reference similar events and have the same story, but are 2 separate entities.
Also toriyama isn't working solo in the new works. Most of that ova was made by one of his aid's, who he says is even more talented than he is and who actually remembers dragonball better than toriyama himself. And battle of gods, while the script was mostly his doing, had the fights almost completely created for the movie by toei people.
he's less of an author now and more like the show runner. We can call almost anything he's worked with at ALL canon now. Kind of like vince gilligan with breaking bad.
So here's where the problems lie.
Resurrection F had some pretty gnarly inconsistencies. But not inconsistencies with the NEW canon. With the old one. That means that its ok and still won't hurt the new canon, but it creates more of a rift between "new dragonball" and "classic dragonball".
Here are the ones I've noticed:
1) how the hell can master roshi keep up with frieza's goon's but yamcha couldn't? Yamcha's last read power level (and trust me, power level's are a good measure of power, the power level read is just often not the actual power level of the individual) of about 2000 (don't fact check me). And roshi's was at MOST 300. I know he's super maxed out, but still, it just doesn't jive.
2) Gohan's deterioration from fighting is pretty absurd. After 7 years of not training after cell (mind you those were when he hit puberty as well, so he missed all the strength he'd have gained by getting older) and STILL was only "somewhat" weaker than his prime against cell. And then his strength was boosted when he went mystic. That wasn't a temporary power up. And not a status. So when people go "he lost his mystic status", no. That just boosted his "possessed power" to match his "latent power" which is a concept i'll post about soon before i make it an entry on the wiki. And in battle of gods, we got no indication that he had gotten any weaker than he was against buu. Sure he went super saiyan, but it was merely cosmetic. So now after just about 1 year from battle of gods, his power was SO DAMN LOW that he wasn't sure if he could even go super saiyan? Also if super saiyan just boost your "possessed power" to use up some latent power, the fact that a transformation boosted his power at all would indicate a GIGANTIC decline in his power. And i'm talking like he's only a fraction of the strength he was before. Thats crazy. Sure, it was shown that he was kind of bluffing and only toying with frieza's soldiers, so i guess this isn't THAT big of a sin, but frieza in base form still one shot him. I mean I know he got stronger... but damn son
3) Piccolo has never been shown to stop training. he may not have had any power spikes, but the last we saw of him, he was called "much stronger" by goku than he was after fusing with kami. Putting him at least in the range of ultra trunks level power. So the fact that that one frieza solider gave him any damage... I mean COME ONE. That would make that frieza soldier at LEAST as strong as final form frieza was on namek. And that is impossible. Frieza was the strongest natural fighter in the universe (not counting gods or magic creatures). Why isn't that red guy the supreme leader then? Probably just piccolo not powered up to max and caught off guard, but still off-putting.
4) Finally, the ring that took down super saiyan god super saiyan goku. I mean what the fúck. If they had something like "freiza stored up power in that magic ring for just such the occasion" than fine. But this seems to be an ordinary blaster. I know "goku let down his guard" but he was still full powered. His aura alone should have stopped that. Why would his hand block it but his body got pierced? it was just a plot device i know but come on.
Anyway, back to my point. Dragonball super is made by toei and has akira toiryama as a producer. So in the new canon, i'm calling this really canon. Not by old standards, but by new ones. If you look at toriyama as the author, than no. but he's more of a showrunner now (show runner is the term of the person who actually does the work of putting the show together. The one who supervises the writing, the directing, and although their official title may vary, they're the "creator of the show").
i know they expanded a scene from battle of gods, but they do that before. They expand that scene in dragonball z of bardock dying into an entire movie.
Anyway i know the writing of this got worse and worse as I got on, but i'm getting tired. I'll probably touch this up with some editting and rerelease tomorrow. Sorry i got rambly. Hope this helped some of you understand dragonball super and how it lies in the canon.
I know that many of you hear on narutobase are avid dbz fans. As a frequent page writer on the Dbz wiki, I share your love.
But I also understand that some of you are struggling with the canonninity of the dbz series with its latest few entries.
So I'm here to break it down for you:
For starters, "what is canon". Unfortunately for us anime lovers, a lot of anime's aren't as nitpicky about facts as certain comic books or other forms of pop culture. I know that star wars has literal TREE's of cannoninity tiers. Hell, one of my favorite mangas attack on titan is all over the place because we have several extra mangas and novels written by other people.
So what exactly makes things canon? Some would say "well if its the original author, its canon". While this is valid, Look at television shows. I'll use a popular example.
Breaking bad is considered one of the most concise and well written prime time dramas of all time. And its "show-runner" vince gilligan is only one of SEVERAL writers. He doesn't direct every episode. Hell, the lead male actor Bryan Cranston directed some. Are those non canon? of course not. Its a team effort.
And so for manga's like attack on titan, its fine if someone else adds an entry to your series so long as they were working closely with the main author and/or has their approval and ESPECIALLY if they work together to make sure that there are no blatant inconsistencies. That brings us to the second point.
Dragonball z movies (the earlier ones, 1-13) are never again referenced (outside of the movies of course). They don't have any impact on the main movies. this impacts there canon status more so even than who wrote them. This is often more important that anything else.
So if we use THAT as our cardinal rule, we can say that there are 2 solid canon's in dragonball z. 2. Two canon's that work perfectly when you look at them by themselves.
This relationship was PERFECTLY outlined in a post some months ago from the since permabanned Derek1st (r.i.p) called "the official canon guide".
You must be registered for see links
So now lets apply some of this to the new dbz movies and Dragonball Super:
The "new" canon starts after the final dbgt movie. In that time, there was not an official dragonball entry until "Yo! Son goku and his friends return!" This is an ova that is kind of set up like battle of gods. the z fighters are at some party and some aliens show up. Its really corny, poorly animated, and I honestly hate to call it canon. But if you compare it to ova's like history of trunks or bardock father of goku, they can be considered "semicanon".
Think about it, bardock was originally not in the manga. Toriyama liked his concept so much he wrote him in. As much as I dislike the yo son goku and his friends return ova, its original story concept was made by toriyama. So we have to look at it with the same lense as those other ova's. Kinda semi canon. it probably won't be directly brought up, but it doesn't conflict with anything.
Then we get to battle of gods. We know that originally akria toriyama wasn't going to do more than give some pointers for this movie. But he got inspired and decided to rewrite the entire script and design all the characters. Toei was boasting that this movie is canon, and it does not explicitly go against anything in the previous ova, so it does not violate the rules of canonninity.
Resurrection F was similar to old school dbz movies. it didn't advance the plot. It just was fanservice and FúCKING AWESOME fight. But unlike those, it was written by the main author so its canon.
But this brings up the question. "So jiraiyathesannin, why would you call them TWO canons if its the same author". Well timmy, thats because i don't consider this the same author. Akira toriyama was SO YOUNG when he wrote dbz. Hell, dbz came out in like 1984. Battle of gods (or even yo son goku) were made nearly THIRTY DAMN YEARS later. Look at his newer mangas. They look so different. His writing is so different. He doesn't do the action the same. He's essentially a different author. So if we just look at the new works as seperate from the old ones, its like when they change authors in super man. Is the new super man non canon but the original 1940's one is? No, they're 2 different universes. They both reference similar events and have the same story, but are 2 separate entities.
Also toriyama isn't working solo in the new works. Most of that ova was made by one of his aid's, who he says is even more talented than he is and who actually remembers dragonball better than toriyama himself. And battle of gods, while the script was mostly his doing, had the fights almost completely created for the movie by toei people.
he's less of an author now and more like the show runner. We can call almost anything he's worked with at ALL canon now. Kind of like vince gilligan with breaking bad.
So here's where the problems lie.
Resurrection F had some pretty gnarly inconsistencies. But not inconsistencies with the NEW canon. With the old one. That means that its ok and still won't hurt the new canon, but it creates more of a rift between "new dragonball" and "classic dragonball".
Here are the ones I've noticed:
1) how the hell can master roshi keep up with frieza's goon's but yamcha couldn't? Yamcha's last read power level (and trust me, power level's are a good measure of power, the power level read is just often not the actual power level of the individual) of about 2000 (don't fact check me). And roshi's was at MOST 300. I know he's super maxed out, but still, it just doesn't jive.
2) Gohan's deterioration from fighting is pretty absurd. After 7 years of not training after cell (mind you those were when he hit puberty as well, so he missed all the strength he'd have gained by getting older) and STILL was only "somewhat" weaker than his prime against cell. And then his strength was boosted when he went mystic. That wasn't a temporary power up. And not a status. So when people go "he lost his mystic status", no. That just boosted his "possessed power" to match his "latent power" which is a concept i'll post about soon before i make it an entry on the wiki. And in battle of gods, we got no indication that he had gotten any weaker than he was against buu. Sure he went super saiyan, but it was merely cosmetic. So now after just about 1 year from battle of gods, his power was SO DAMN LOW that he wasn't sure if he could even go super saiyan? Also if super saiyan just boost your "possessed power" to use up some latent power, the fact that a transformation boosted his power at all would indicate a GIGANTIC decline in his power. And i'm talking like he's only a fraction of the strength he was before. Thats crazy. Sure, it was shown that he was kind of bluffing and only toying with frieza's soldiers, so i guess this isn't THAT big of a sin, but frieza in base form still one shot him. I mean I know he got stronger... but damn son
3) Piccolo has never been shown to stop training. he may not have had any power spikes, but the last we saw of him, he was called "much stronger" by goku than he was after fusing with kami. Putting him at least in the range of ultra trunks level power. So the fact that that one frieza solider gave him any damage... I mean COME ONE. That would make that frieza soldier at LEAST as strong as final form frieza was on namek. And that is impossible. Frieza was the strongest natural fighter in the universe (not counting gods or magic creatures). Why isn't that red guy the supreme leader then? Probably just piccolo not powered up to max and caught off guard, but still off-putting.
4) Finally, the ring that took down super saiyan god super saiyan goku. I mean what the fúck. If they had something like "freiza stored up power in that magic ring for just such the occasion" than fine. But this seems to be an ordinary blaster. I know "goku let down his guard" but he was still full powered. His aura alone should have stopped that. Why would his hand block it but his body got pierced? it was just a plot device i know but come on.
Anyway, back to my point. Dragonball super is made by toei and has akira toiryama as a producer. So in the new canon, i'm calling this really canon. Not by old standards, but by new ones. If you look at toriyama as the author, than no. but he's more of a showrunner now (show runner is the term of the person who actually does the work of putting the show together. The one who supervises the writing, the directing, and although their official title may vary, they're the "creator of the show").
i know they expanded a scene from battle of gods, but they do that before. They expand that scene in dragonball z of bardock dying into an entire movie.
Anyway i know the writing of this got worse and worse as I got on, but i'm getting tired. I'll probably touch this up with some editting and rerelease tomorrow. Sorry i got rambly. Hope this helped some of you understand dragonball super and how it lies in the canon.
