DBS: Manga vs Anime

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
This one has kinda been done before, but meh. Let's see how everyone's reviews have aged.

Inspired by a thread I saw in Kanzenshuu back when the ToP was still starting, here's the idea. Basically each day we make a comparison between the portrays of each saga as long as I don't forget to update the thread and arrive on a conclusion of each is the best version of DB Super.

Rules:
- Basically the same as every other review threads in the forum. It's one review of each arc, and it must encompass your thoughts of both versions of it. Compare their ideas and executions and close the review with two scores: One for the Anime version, and another for the Manga version.
- A third entry about the movies for BoGs and FnF is optional, but not mandatory.
- Unlike the other review threads, the bottom score is not limited to one. You can go anywhere between 0, the lowest grade, and 10, the highest.

3/5 [mention]SuperSaiyan2[/mention]
 

Captain Cadaver

Zeta Elite
Retired Staff
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
27,967
Guess I'll start off with the Battle of Gods Arc.

To start off with the points valid for all versions, things are already off to a bad start for this continuation of the franchise with how it handles the characters. In all versions, Goku is presented as uncharacteristically arrogant despite Kaio telling him Beerus is someone far beyond imagination, going directly in the face of Goku knowing he needs to improve himself when not able to beat Boo on his own. The Oracle Fish being able to predict the future is also a major problem as introducing predestined events in a series that can have continuity effected by time travel not only doesn't work, but causes some plot holes due to the existence of Trunks' timeline. This was all predicted prior to Planet Vegeta's destruction, so why didn't Beerus wake up in Trunks' timeline to check on it even assuming his future self didn't have the dream? Vegeta being able to power up from a rage boost also goes completely against the power system established and how this was a genetic trait exclusive to Saiyan hybrids or just Gohan. Super Saiyan God is also fairly cheap in how it's achieved through just holding hands. It at least requires pure hearted Saiyans, but that doesn't necessarily require them to be good as made apparent in the Cell Arc with Vegeta's iconic one-liner, retroactively destroying a lot of tension in the Boo Arc when it could've been used then if the cast had been made aware of it. The existence of Beerus also further damages the Boo Arc with it making little sense why Shin wouldn't simply go to him when Boo's existence served as a threat to Shin and by default Beerus. There are some good elements to the arc such as Beerus and Whis initially being a breath of fresh air as far as antagonists go as well as Beerus serving as a threat Goku and his friends were unable to overcome, but these unique directions don't make up for the plot holes and contrivances that came with it. Even this new attempt with Beerus' motivation aren't too interesting either, with his decision to destroy Earth over pudding essentially making him Boo without the interesting nature of Fat Boo learning to become civil.

As for elements more specific to the continuity, both the anime and manga are flawed for opposite reasons; the anime being too slow paced whereas the manga is too rushed. The anime adds some decent interactions between characters such as Vegeta fulfilling his promise to Trunks or Yamcha oneshotting talking to Beerus, but also adds some pretty bad filler such as wasting a lot of time with Beerus' search for SSG and Vegeta's characterisation spits in the face of his Boo Arc catharsis; saying he won't accept being number 2 forever despite that being exactly what he did and he had no reason to change his mind. The universe busting feat is good superficially, though shows how making things bigger is the only way the franchise can show an increase in scale at this point. This is something the anime handled better though, since it showed Galu learning to mitigate the effect of his great power whereas the manga just forgets about this feat after the fight with Beerus. The manga at least builds up later events with how it introduces Vados and Champa early on. That said, both versions are flawed for opposing reasons, with which I'll rate them both a 1.5/10.

For the BoG movie, it has the same core flaws mentioned in the first paragraph, though is at least well paced, has good animation and Beerus making it apparent he used 70% of his power at least made the Super Saiyan God out to be something of a challenge for him, rather than being quickly shown to be worthless to Beerus as Super would in later arcs. 2.5/10.
 

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
I was going to give a signal when we were supposed to start :CC

But I was going to start today, so whatever. Feel free to keep doing the daily updates if I forget to do so CC. Will come up with my review later today.

[mention]Future Warrior[/mention] at least you got around to watch the series in the past :ladd
 

Future Warrior

Elite
Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2015
Messages
6,391
Age
23
Yeah like 2 years ago. Alright I'll go watch all of the DBS anime and manga right now and come back to this thread :pyro
 

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
It’s not been 24 hours since the intended opening yet, so I should still be allowed to add my review here :cage2

I remember seeing the movie in the cinema and being rather disappointed. Maybe it’s the art style, but everything just felt so bland and rushed. Bad guy is retconned into existence (But unlike CC I don’t necessarily think we have serious plotholes with the continuity here, sans the dinossaurs thing), outdated 1 dimensional portrayals off characters (The beginning of Super brainless Galu, Vegeta still has that rival boner despite Boo Arc speech) and broken scaling (Regardless). The SSJG seemed rather cheap in how it’s not only easily accessible but becomes instantly pointless with Goku absorbing it’z power

I’ll give a 4 to the anime since the filler added is pretty interesting, but episode 5 takes some credibility off it. Shout out to Goku vs Beerus being pretty interesting with the threat of destroying the universe and Goku gradually learning to control it’s Ki.

The movie takes also a 4 here; albeit lacking the cool filler it is better paced, and Beerus actually going all out is more fitting. I’d also say it’s more logical for Goku to absorb SSJG into his base rather than his SSJ1 power like he does in the anime, specially if we’re going to threat SSJB as SSJ with God Ki. The hurried mess that is the Manga is getting a 2. Pull your shite together, Toyo.


[mention]Future Warrior[/mention] you want us to wait for you? I mean it would be good to have someone else’s input here, specially since it’s just me and CC doing this
 

Captain Cadaver

Zeta Elite
Retired Staff
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
27,967
Might be best to maybe make it a 2-3 days limit before moving on, considering more members may wish to join and the topic will be over and done with pretty quickly if going by a daily change.
 

Future Warrior

Elite
Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2015
Messages
6,391
Age
23
GreatSaiyaman123 said:
@Future Warrior you want us to wait for you? I mean it would be good to have someone else’s input here, specially since it’s just me and CC doing this

Absolutely. It might take at least a year though, and I still have yet to finish DBZ. See you then!
 

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
Captain Cadaver said:
Might be best to maybe make it a 2-3 days limit before moving on, considering more members may wish to join and the topic will be over and done with pretty quickly if going by a daily change.

Sure, throw that the fact that I’m gonna pull a Toriyama and forget the thread and we get the full year FW asked for :troll
 

Future Warrior

Elite
Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2015
Messages
6,391
Age
23
GreatSaiyaman123 said:
Captain Cadaver said:
Might be best to maybe make it a 2-3 days limit before moving on, considering more members may wish to join and the topic will be over and done with pretty quickly if going by a daily change.

Sure, throw that the fact that I’m gonna pull a Toriyama and forget the thread and we get the full year FW asked for :troll

Hey, at the very least I'll skip the retelling arcs and start with the movies first before going into the U6 arc. So you'll only likely wait 10 months.
 

ahill1

Super Elite
Donor
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
14,646
yeah BoG in the manga and the anime are poor for opposite reasons. but still I'd say a fast paced way of telling the events fits more due to it having already been told in the movie, so a quick recap fits better. these dragged episodes of goku vs beerus were also painful to watch.

manga -- 2/10
anime -- 1/10
 

SSJ2

Zeta Elite
Staff member
Founder
Joined
Oct 12, 2014
Messages
67,254
Age
28
I've only read the manga variant of this arc, and it was a respectable 1/10.
 

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
So, I guess that's more than enough time. Fuck you [mention]Future Warrior[/mention], you're getting kicked off this site before you finish watching the series anyway. I'm not gonna let you give a 10/10 when the time comes to rank the Moro Arc but give the :bitch Arc a 0/10. Heretic scum.

Here's the scores for Battle of Gods:
Movie: 3.25
Anime: 2.17
Manga: 1.3 million

Next up the line is Fukkatsu no F.



I'm honestly not sure what can be said about it's movie. It's basically Freeza's revived, trains, goes to Earth and dies. Honestly the manga did the right thing by just skipping over it since it's basically a filler arc.

The idea of Freeza's Empire continuing without him has been a interesting thought since the Freeza Arc, but just saying "Yeah it's been a mess" and reviving Freeza before wasting two wishes is the real mess here. Freeza then trains for 4 months to get a power level of 1.3 million (?) and I'm pretty sure gains in Dragon Ball never worked that way before (But hey I'm a nerfer, what can I say? :idk). I honestly have to give them kudos for the pointless fanservice giving the humans something to do, but Gohan's power completely atrophiating quicker than it did in the Cell Games-Boo Arc gap makes no sense.

I gotta say the movie having Shishami be the bland big guy was much better than Tagoma in the anime. It simplifies things down, and having Tagoma be swapped with Ginyu just complicates things.

Finally, there's Goku, Vegeta and Freeza. Fuck that. As always Goku comes to flex his new gains, but they're completely pointless because he already had godlike power and SSJB mechanics are pretty confusing. The battle amounts to nothing because of Whis just going back in time, and even if that didn't happen it just repeats some old tropes from the OG Goku vs Freeza: Freeza has stamina problems, Goku considers himself the winner before the battle is truly won (Kudos for the anime at least making him returns to base; both a better parallel with the Namek fight and Sorbet's sneak attack is easier to rationalize with Goku in base). Also the good old trope of Vegeta screwing it up, this time worse because Goku ends up stealing his kill.

Anyway both are worth a 1/10.
 

Captain Cadaver

Zeta Elite
Retired Staff
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
27,967
Manga is a 0/10 by default of only existing through minor references. :troll

Now for the anime, I'd agree that Freeza's Empire functioning without him is an interesting concept, but one never expanded on to be more than an okay premise. Freeza choosing to train is also a good development for his character as it's him realising the flaw that allowed the Saiyans to surpass him in the first place of being too complacent. However, this prepared and serious version of Freeza is inevitably ruined by him making the same mistake as his Namek self with his Golden form's stamina issues.

That's pretty much where what positives I have to say about it end as the rest is absolute shit for reasons all too obvious. Gohan suddenly becomes weaker to a far greater extent than he did in the 7 year timeskip prior to the Boo Arc despite him still being in his prime only months ago. Roshi is suddenly far stronger without any explanation until the ToP. Goku's characterisation is easily the most egregious with it suddenly being established that he lets his guard down against opponents, something he only did once against an equal opponent who's fight against he'd believed to have concluded and goes directly against the reflexes he displayed in many prior fights, all this culminating in his strongest form being taken out by a simple laser. Vegeta being given the chance to defeat Freeza was nice, but this of course results in him dropping the ball and Galu stealing the kill through a time reset of all things. Also, the reveal that Beerus gave Freeza the idea to destroy Planet Vegeta not only paves the way for the terrible retconning of the Bardock TV Special being solidified as more than Toriyama's one-off mistake with Minus, but takes away a lot of the agency in Freeza doing so and retroactively damaging the Freeza Arc's drama. Along with that, it's otherwise basically a filler arc in how it plays out when many of the elements revisited in the ToP could've been easily rewritten, Freeza and Galu's transformations essentially making this "This Isn't My Final Form: The Meme Turned Movie Turned Series Arc."

As far as specifics in comparing the two different versions, the Super version is overall better than the film due to the lack of the stupid 1.3 million line, an actual explanation on Tagoma's strength unlike Shisami suddenly going from Zarbon tier to even with Piccolo for no reason and Tagoma's involvement offering some logic to Freeza's training gains. Movie version is more entertaining due to being shorter to endure, better animation (aside the CGI scenes) and the music, but I'd take fixing or erasing some plot holes over being more entertaining trash entertainment when viewing both objectively.

1/10 for both since the anime version isn't that much better.
 

ahill1

Super Elite
Donor
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
14,646
The anime once again drags things out by needelesly extending the plot when we had already an understanding of the events and is considered by many the pinacle of bad writing and stupidity in Super. It at least fixed some poor plot points such as the 1.3 million line and a Zarbon-tier opponent opposing Piccolo, the latter which while forced as Tagoma served more as Freeza's punching bag, is still better than letting the dumb implication stand out. Still, the boring retelling plus fake appeals to nostalgia such as Piccolo's death make it a subpar trash arc.

1/10


The manga is a quick promotional material to the movie, which again works better since we have already the events of the movie to lean on. Analysing it as its own work though, it suffers from the same problems as the BoG's arc due to speeding things too much. But since we have the (nothing good) movie to go on, it's still a superior version of the facts.

2/10
 

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
Oh yeah almost forgot this one. All three versions ended up with awful 1/10s.

This week's Arc is the Universe 6 Tournament one. Not writing my review today, but go for it guys.
 

Captain Cadaver

Zeta Elite
Retired Staff
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
27,967
It really says a lot when Super's first shot at an original arc ended up having less to offer than either the original or remade versions of their prior two. Firstly, the tournament arc was a bad direction to take with how far the sense of scale and stakes have come for the series. The 23rd TB already struggled to justify its setting when the series had transitioned into battles for the fate of the world and the 25th TB rightfully stayed as just a backdrop to connect events in the Boo Arc and explore some moments of levity with the cast before battles preoccupied the plot, because limiting battles to tournaments when the series had long since surpassed them is nothing short of a decrease in scale, particularly when the cast are involved in it more so from Beerus threatening them over consequences that they don't care about rather than their own ambitions.

This could be justified as the method of introducing what the fighters of another universe have to offer, but what we got was a disappointment. Botamo was nothing more than a one-trick pony with zero personality. Frost started off as a decent contrast to Freeza, but immediately became worthless once his true motives were revealed he became a Freeza clone without the interesting character traits and only existed to give Vegeta some sort of victory against Freeza (you know, instead of just fixing FnF's ending). Magetta was yet another one trick pony and Cabba was a disappointment. He's meant to be one of the greatest Saiyan warriors, yet is built like a toothpick with a personality that's just relevant Tarble without much reason to exist beyond being a student to Vegeta (something dropped pretty quickly). Finally, there's Hit, a bland assassin who's poor excuse of an arc amounts to just finding fun in battle and having nothing else to him. The only major difference for them in both versions is Hit's abilities in the anime being so overpowered that it's a lot to swallow anyone could conceivably beat him without plot convenience. In other words, all the new characters were introduced less to expand the story and more for merchandising such as video games.
As for things on the side of the returning characters, there's little to say. Piccolo's power got haxed to ridiculous degrees through regular training and he still amounted to doing nothing of worth. Vegeta didn't really do anything that added to his character with him somehow having not experimented with SSB enough to know how draining turning it off and on would be in the manga and somehow just getting outperformed by Base Galu in the anime. Goku continues Super's massacre of his character, scoring barely more than half of the written test, being arrogant against Botamo and Hit despite having no benchmark of what the U6 warriors are fully capable of and taking a while to catch onto Botamo's ability just being Buyon's. There is a good moment of him dodging Botamo's blasts, but this is inconsistent with Super characterising Galu as letting himself be caught off guard and him doing so in this arc with Frost as well as later on shows this definitely isn't a moment of growth. We also get introduced during the Botamo battle to a contrived notion of Galu needing to warm up, something that's never been treat as a necessity prior when his prior warm ups were just to conserve stamina. He then tries fighting Hit in base despite knowing SSB Vegeta got beaten. Him then quitting against Hit because he wouldn't be able to use his best assassination techniques in a tournament (despite Tenshinhan having not been limited at the 22nd TB) is very inconsistent when he was also doing so to see Monaka fight despite fighting against strong opponents himself being his main drive.

As for comparing which version of the fight is better, that would be the manga since there wasn't such power inflation as Galu being able to stack Kaioken x10 on SSB (or Beerus seeming to be intimidated by x2-3) or Hit's asspulled progress ability and Goku outperforming Vegeta was given an actual reason.

Only essential thing the arc did was introducing Zen-Oh, something that could've easily just been done at the start of the FT Arc. Overall, a complete waste of an arc. Manga gets a 0.5/10 and the anime a 0.1/10 for how asinine the latter's powerscaling was.
 

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
Yo I'm back. Lemme refresh by DB memory and I'll revive this thread for good.
 

GSM123

Super Elite
Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
15,416
Age
22
I gotta say, this is the most underrated Arc in Super. Granted the stakes were little to none, but I think that was for the best to just make a fun introduction to this new universe that had a lot of potential (Even if such potential has barely been tapped). And what better way to do that than with a good old Tournament? Cool fights, good usage of strategy here and there (Cabba and Frost were the only one defeated due to not being as powerful as Vegeta) and a unexpected ending. Goku and Hit scaring Beerus and Champa and deciding they aren't their pawns was a powerful moment.

On the new characters, it's a 50/50 thing for me. Botamo had a nice design (For all the wrong reasons; we don't have enough Evil Pooh memes) was just a fake Buyon, probably with less personality that him in fact. Hit looks cool and has a pretty unique menu of abilities, but as far as personality goes he's literally Tenshinhan without a sex doll and an extra eye. Cabba was a perfect matchup to Vegeta, giving us a side of him we never got to see. Through Cabba Vegeta reconects with his long extincted people and became a master to him. I really loved the concept of a giant robot that spits lava like Magetta and his weakness is just hilarious. And finally... Frost. Fuck him man. He had so much potential to be Freeza's perfect opposite, possibly a rival to him even, but nope, he's literally just blue Freeza.

On the Z Fighters team... That sucked. Piccolo has long been fodder in the Z Fighter ranks, but he can fend off Frost with one hand? "I can't defeat with with a well charged Makkankosappo" dude, did you try using both hands? Also, there's no reason we were excluded of seeing Gohan, Boo and the boys. But since this is the Goku and Vegeta show, no supporting cast allowed. Piccolo is only here so Goku and Vegeta could switch between each other without being desclassified. And since Goku's characterization has been going backwards, he's the one who grows in the tournament (Meeting Cabba) and is the most interesting of the two overall.

But hey, stupid Goku or not his fight with Hit was sweet. The anime is very well coreographed but has whacky Kaio-Ken, and the manga redeems itself with the superior God/Blue bait switch.

And what can I say about this facial hair? Nappa would be jealous; 10/10.
be0a798e824f0197a9a86a5b9de48f0e.jpg


Both versions get a 5/10. Different points and flaws, but it all evens out in the end.
 

Latest profile posts

You're his type (has a penis)
I am going to soon depart this world (most likely not because I don’t have the guts), so please for my legacy to continue…
Top