The manga major sins part 1: Weak Antagonist Characterization

[xenos5]

I thought it'd be good to have a thread that counterbalances the Anime Hate threads Freezamite seems to love making.

This is a huge issue I think is mostly universally agreed upon.

Hit and Black in the manga are massively underwhelming in comparison to the anime.

Zamasu's motivation and personal connection is much weaker in the manga because he never meets Goku before deciding to steal his body. He just witnesses the universe 6 tournament on godtube.

Black in the anime enjoys fighting and his opponents getting stronger. His reaction to Goku's rage boost in the anime is a big smile on his face as he has a greater challenge to face. He is remembered as a savage badass and the highlight of the arc by many.

Black in the manga is an embarrassment. He gets easily angered by Vegeta multiple times and gets scared by Vegeta, closing his eyes in fear as Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta's energy beam is about to hit him. He never even fights Goku, the one he stole his current body from in a different timeline, during the arc. Making it so the personal investment is far weaker. Goku Black could fight Goku and Vegeta at the same time in the anime. In the manga he just fights Vegeta a few times and easily trashes trunks and then fuses. He just doesn't have the same dominating presence anime Black has.

In the Anime Hit is an honorable warrior who out of thankfulness for helping him improve gives Goku some time to get back up after he's reeling from his blows. Not only that but he has a deep dissatisfaction with the ruling order shown by his conversation with Goku talking about how they are just pawns to the gods and his smile in response to Goku saying "for now". Hit also gets a mini arc in the anime that fleshes out the world Hit lives in and how Hit does his job. How Hit faces his target as he kills them due to his honor. And we get to see the secret killing techniques that were talked about during the tournament. And Vados talks about how when fighting Goku Hit loses the mindset of an assassin and enjoys fighting as a martial artist.

Hit has no personality in the manga. The manga skips the mini arc that fleshes Hit's character out further to try to catch up to the anime. The manga makes Hit only able to use his full power for a minute, giving him a weakness worse than full power frieza back in the namek arc. It makes Hit unimpressive and underwhelming by giving Super Saiyan Blue a massive weakness. You could replace a character with a different design and the same abilities with Hit in the manga U6 arc and it'd make 0 difference.

The fight between Hit and SSBKKx10 Goku in the anime is iconic. It is remembered as the best fight in the DBS anime and one of the best fights in the franchise. No fight in the manga is remembered that way. The fight with Hit and Goku in the manga pales completely in comparison and is hardly talked about since it occurred.

Antagonists are supposed to carry arcs. In the anime Goku Black and Hit succeed at doing just that with solid personalities to match their unique abilities. In the manga they don't. In the manga they have very little presence. The manga versions of these characters are clearly inferior in my opinion. They will fade from people's memories while the anime versions won't.

 

[Pyro]

I agree about Black. He was a big letdown in the manga. I was pretty hyped to see him finally fight Vegeta, and then he got his ass kicked by Vegeta who wasn't even using Super Saiyan Blue. Come on now. For someone who was supposed to be Super Saiyan 3 tier bare minimum, to lose like that was embarrassing. He didn't even get to keep his heat after he got Rose, because Vegeta comes back and kicks his ass a second time. Then he fuses into an even more pitiful being.

Zamasu and Black were literally no threat until they merged and whipped out hundreds of clones. That bit at the end was probably the coolest part of the entire fighting segment, apart from Vegeta unveiling Super Saiyan God and Vegetto in general.

 

[Void]

I preferred SS2 Vegeta vs. SS Black more than Blue Vegeta vs. base Black in the anime.

Hit was one of the most boring characters in the manga and anime, and the anime fight vs. KK Blue Goku was one of my least favorite fights. I don't see it as iconic in the slightest, I remember cringing a few times.

Black and Zamas weren't very fleshed out in the manga, that part is definitely better in the anime. I dislike Merged Zamas in both the anime and manga as well, the arc plummets off of a cliff when they fuse.

I preferred the ending in the manga, having Zamas see and acknowledge Zen-Oh was better than whatever the fuck he did in the anime when he turned into the sky. Though I still think Zen-Oh having to end it to begin with was always a lame cop-out.

 

[xenos5]

I preferred SS2 Vegeta vs. SS Black more than Blue Vegeta vs. base Black in the anime.

Black was made to look like such a bitch in that fight. It wasn't him getting his ass kicked by Vegeta so much as his reaction (temper tantrum, and fear) being so embarrassing. In the anime Black handled losing much better.

Hit was one of the most boring characters in the manga and anime, and the anime fight vs. KK Blue Goku was one of my least favorite fights. I don't see it as iconic in the slightest, I remember cringing a few times.

I think there are many who'd disagree with you on that, myself included. Hit's become a fan favorite for many. For example he's in the top 10 for characters people want included in Dragonball Fighter Z https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2017/jun/23/poll-which-characters-would-you-want-be-playable-dragon-ball-fighterz/ . His moveset is inherently unique and interesting and he's gotten good characterization with as I mentioned him showing his dissatisfaction with the gods towards the end of the U6 arc, and the mini arc that showed Hit doing his job and how he honorably kills targets while facing them head on.

Black and Zamas weren't very fleshed out in the manga, that part is definitely better in the anime. I dislike Merged Zamas in both the anime and manga as well, the arc plummets off of a cliff when they fuse.

I think the anime makes Merged Zamasu more interesting with the aspect of him breaking down physically and mentally. Losing whatever sanity he had left and acting more erratically.

preferred the ending in the manga, having Zamas see and acknowledge Zen-Oh was better than whatever the fuck he did in the anime when he turned into the sky. Though I still think Zen-Oh having to end it to begin with was always a lame cop-out.

Seeing Merged Zamasu clones fly away in fear wasn't really as interesting as him becoming a giygas-esque abstract entity overwriting the universe in my opinion.

It also makes more sense for Zeno to destroy the multiverse with Zamasu doing irreperable damage to the universe (and maybe multiverse considering we see him leaking into another timeline) in the anime. In the manga he could've just destroyed the clones and repaired whatever damage Zamasu had done and been done with it.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

-Action is too fast paced, almost feeling like it is rushing things to catch up with the anime.
-Zamasu Saga's ending was as bad as in the anime, which disappointed those who hoped for
something better.
-No Cocoa!

 

[freezamite]

Zamasu's motivation and personal connection is much weaker in the manga because he never meets Goku before deciding to steal his body. He just witnesses the universe 6 tournament on godtube.

So, your first complaint against the manga is that it doesn't has a brutal plothole.
If Goku going to see Zamasu was what motivated Zamasu to start doing bad things but at the same time Goku only goes to see Zamasu after being influenced by Black's actions... can't you see something doesn't make any sense in here?
According to the logic of DB, once you travel to the past and change it a new dimension/timeline appears. So how could Goku be what motivated Zamasu if Goku's travel to Zamasu's place was a consequence of Zamasu's acts in another timeline? What motivated the first Zamasu to do what he did? It surely couldn't be Goku's visit...

Black in the anime enjoys fighting and his opponents getting stronger. His reaction to Goku's rage boost in the anime is a big smile on his face as he has a greater challenge to face. He is remembered as a savage badass and the highlight of the arc by many.

No, Black in the anime has a plot armor that made him invincible, and he only laugthed while that plot armor lasted. Furthermore, if we are to believe he wasn't Goku, but Zamasu, behaving like Goku is not precisely what one would call good characterisation...

Black in the manga is an embarrassment. He gets easily angered by Vegeta multiple times and gets scared by Vegeta, closing his eyes in fear as Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta's energy beam is about to hit him.

Black in the manga is what he is supposed to be, Zamasu with Goku's body. And Zamasu is a prick that wants to exterminate all the mortals because he sees how they're getting too strong and could defy his authority as a god.
He cheats to kill the gods of destruction by killing the kaioshins of different universes, he wishes for immortality so he can't be killed, he abuses his power... that's who Zamasu is, and most of this also happens in the anime.
And now I'm told to believe he suddenly enjoys fighting strong opponents in a fair fight and you think this is coherent with this character? Give me a break, please.

Look, you simply like manga black more because he has attitudes you like more, but in terms of writting a character, manga black is dozens of times better.
In fact, my next thread will precisely be about how Toei can't write characters with a minimum depth, and how they turned Dragon Ball into One Fucking Piece.

Furthermore, don't you think anime Black/Zamasu being utterly retarded also made them look much worse as villains? I mean, humanity can dodge them by simply hiding on the subway. It's ridiculous how badly written they're!

The manga makes Hit only able to use his full power for a minute, giving him a weakness worse than full power frieza back in the namek arc.

You seem to mistake "powerful characters" for "well written characters". Furthermore, full power Freezer's power started to diminish as soon as he reached 100%.
He lasted a bit more than Hit because unlike Hit, who even at his best was still below SSJB Goku, 100% Freezer managed to reach SSJ Goku's power and even connected a very powerful blow that surely helped him to make the fight a bit longer (by weakening Goku a bit).

It makes Hit unimpressive and underwhelming by giving Super Saiyan Blue a massive weakness. You could replace a character with a different design and the same abilities with Hit in the manga U6 arc and it'd make 0 difference.

You mean anime Hit is any different when he is a living plot-device whose power varies from scene to scene? At least manga Hit is consistent as a character, even if he wasn't developed beyond his fight...

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

Lack of character development of Black and Zamasu in the manga is one of the major sin of Toyotaro. The anime did it so much better and made Black/Zamasu as one of the best villain of the entire series.

 

[xenos5]

So, your first complaint against the manga is that it doesn't has a brutal plothole.
If Goku going to see Zamasu was what motivated Zamasu to start doing bad things but at the same time Goku only goes to see Zamasu after being influenced by Black's actions... can't you see something doesn't make any sense in here?
According to the logic of DB, once you travel to the past and change it a new dimension/timeline appears. So how could Goku be what motivated Zamasu if Goku's travel to Zamasu's place was a consequence of Zamasu's acts in another timeline? What motivated the first Zamasu to do what he did? It surely couldn't be Goku's visit...

The simple solution to this is the timeline split off when Whis rewound time and Beerus killed Zamasu. In fact I believe it was said a new time ring formed when that happened.

No, Black in the anime has a plot armor that made him invincible, and he only laugthed while that plot armor lasted. Furthermore, if we are to believe he wasn't Goku, but Zamasu, behaving like Goku is not precisely what one would call good characterisation...

Zamasu was influenced by the body his soul was inhabiting. He didn't just behave like Goku, he kept his sadism but it evolved into a desire for greater challenges that is a part of saiyan nature.

Black in the manga is what he is supposed to be, Zamasu with Goku's body. And Zamasu is a prick that wants to exterminate all the mortals because he sees how they're getting too strong and could defy his authority as a god.
He cheats to kill the gods of destruction by killing the kaioshins of different universes, he wishes for immortality so he can't be killed, he abuses his power... that's who Zamasu is, and most of this also happens in the anime.
And now I'm told to believe he suddenly enjoys fighting strong opponents in a fair fight and you think this is coherent with this character? Give me a break, please.

Having a saiyan body, with a saiyan brain have no influence on a character when their soul goes into that body seems more like bad writing to me. Black being unique from regular Zamasu because of the influence his body has on him just works better in my opinion.

Look, you simply like manga black more because he has attitudes you like more, but in terms of writting a character, manga black is dozens of times better.
In fact, my next thread will precisely be about how Toei can't write characters with a minimum depth, and how they turned Dragon Ball into One Fucking Piece.

Manga Black is bland. There is little to nothing interesting about him.

Furthermore, don't you think anime Black/Zamasu being utterly retarded also made them look much worse as villains? I mean, humanity can dodge them by simply hiding on the subway. It's ridiculous how badly written they're!

Black and Zamasu were taking their time and chilling because they wanted to be pushed to greater heights. Black wanted to get stronger to better enact the Zero Mortals plan. It especially makes sense for Black to get stronger since they would eventually fuse and use their combined power to annihilate all life in the multiverse.

You seem to mistake "powerful characters" for "well written characters". Furthermore, full power Freezer's power started to diminish as soon as he reached 100%.
He lasted a bit more than Hit because unlike Hit, who even at his best was still below SSJB Goku, 100% Freezer managed to reach SSJ Goku's power and even connected a very powerful blow that surely helped him to make the fight a bit longer (by weakening Goku a bit).

Manga Hit explained that he could only use his full power for a minute. Frieza's full power would've lasted longer regardless of if he had weakened Goku a bit.

It's not about power as much as presence. Manga Hit doesn't have a presence because of how weak he is and how his full power has such a awful limitation.

You mean anime Hit is any different when he is a living plot-device whose power varies from scene to scene? At least manga Hit is consistent as a character, even if he wasn't developed beyond his fight...

Manga Hit shows no personality. Anime Hit has dialogue with Goku that gives him more depth and fleshes out his personality and how honorable he is despite his profession as an assassin.

Anime Hit has also shown more combat intelligence in the most recent episode more fitting of his long lifespan and experience. Figuring out Dyspo's abilities without Dyspo having to explain them to him, and figuring out how to counter Dyspo shortly after in multiple ways (almost ring outing him by going intangible at the edge of the ring, and faking the muscle movements that take place before a timeskip to fool Dyspo).

 

[xenos5]

Lack of character development of Black and Zamasu in the manga is one of the major sin of Toyotaro. The anime did it so much better and made Black/Zamasu as one of the best villain of the entire series.

Glad you agree.

 

[freezamite]

The simple solution to this is the timeline split off when Whis rewound time and Beerus killed Zamasu. In fact I believe it was said a new time ring formed when that happened.

There's no simple solution to this. Any change in the past makes a new dimension in DB, which means that Goku visiting Zamasu didn't happen in the original timeline, because Goku's visit was motivated by what Zamasu did.
In other words, we may know what motivated current Zamasu to start his plans in the anime, but we know absolutely nothing about what motivated the Zamasu that acts as the main villain of the saga.

So the characterisation of anime Zamasu, in that sense, is much weaker than the one in the manga.

Zamasu was influenced by the body his soul was inhabiting. He didn't just behave like Goku, he kept his sadism but it evolved into a desire for greater challenges that is a part of saiyan nature.

This contradicts Zamasu's wish of putting him in Goku's body. If Zamasu is no longer Zamasu because something in Goku's body changes his personality, then his wish wouldn't have been granted, don't you think?

Having a saiyan body, with a saiyan brain have no influence on a character when their soul goes into that body seems more like bad writing to me. Black being unique from regular Zamasu because of the influence his body has on him just works better in my opinion.

It's only "bad writting" because you're trying to use your concepts of what a "soul" is, but as I said, not agreeing with you is not bad writing.
Look, let's assume "soul" and "brain" are not the same and that the Dragon didn't replace Goku's brain with Zamasus' (I don't see why he couldn't do this), why would only the "saiyan" part of Goku influence Zamasu?
Remember that Goku's good will was precisely because his brain was traumatised when Goku was just a kid. And even if Goku still enjoyed a good fight, compared to the usual sadistic saiyan, one could say that most of his saiyan personality was changed because of it.

So what's the coherence in Zamasu's personality being modified by the small bit of Goku's brain that made Goku feel happy for a good fight, and not be influenced by the one that made him a good boy, or the one that made him appreciate all his friends, etc.

Never in the whole saga there's a hint of Goku's personality conflicting with Zamasus', and it's not reasonable to think that only what's a small portion of the whole had an impact on Zamasu if we accept your theory that Zamasus's soul in Goku's brain should have Goku's traits.
In fact, trying to make Zamasu a bit like Cell would be BAD WRITTING, because it would be impossible to justify with what we've seen why would only one tiny bit of Goku's brain have an impact on Zamasu and not the rest of it.

Manga Black is bland. There is little to nothing interesting about him.

Manga Black is the original Zamasu, which means that it's basically Zamasu with more confidence since he was the one that started it all. Its what he should be, and it has extra points for not being utterly retarded like his anime counterpart.

Black and Zamasu were taking their time and chilling because they wanted to be pushed to greater heights. Black wanted to get stronger to better enact the Zero Mortals plan. It especially makes sense for Black to get stronger since they would eventually fuse and use their combined power to annihilate all life in the multiverse.

Nope, manga Black and Zamasu had this plan of letting Trunks escape on purpose to get stronger, which I don't even recall being stated in the anime.
Even then, we have multiple scenes in the anime of humans that Black/Zamasu would've killed if they could, escaping to the subway and surviving them.
And in the end those humans kill them, which makes them even more retarded.

Manga Hit explained that he could only use his full power for a minute. Frieza's full power would've lasted longer regardless of if he had weakened Goku a bit.
It's not about power as much as presence. Manga Hit doesn't have a presence because of how weak he is and how his full power has such a awful limitation.

And Freezer didn't even know how much he could use his full power, but as Goku told him, not even a few seconds. As soon as he reached his peak, his power started to diminish.
And yes, manga Hit had less "presence" than his anime counterpart, because he wasn't an overly overpowered character, but for an introductory saga (U6 tournament it's just a prelude to the All-Universes Tournament) it was more than enough, and it helped establish the different God forms with their advantages and weaknesses.

Manga Hit shows no personality. Anime Hit has dialogue with Goku that gives him more depth and fleshes out his personality and how honorable he is despite his profession as an assassin.

Him being honorable was also showcased in the manga, when he loses on purpose to return Goku the favour Goku did to him.
Having dozens of lines of dialogue to insist in the same idea is not better, in fact it's worse. Is there any personality trait we see in the anime that the manga lacked? Did that personality trait made sense in the context of the character?
If the answer to those questions is yes, then I would accept anime Hit being a better character, but I don't think it is by any means...

Anime Hit has also shown more combat intelligence in the most recent episode more fitting of his long lifespan and experience. Figuring out Dyspo's abilities without Dyspo having to explain them to him, and figuring out how to counter Dyspo shortly after in multiple ways (almost ring outing him by going intangible at the edge of the ring, and faking the muscle movements that take place before a timeskip to fool Dyspo).

Anime Hit was also a walking plot device in this last chapter. I mean, didn't you see how he countered Dyspo's ability?
So when Hit activated his time-stop ability he tensed his muscles, and Dyspo could accelerate after noticing this to a point where Hit wasn't able to even react.
Hit's solution to the problem was ridiculous:
He tensed the muscles to make Dyspo believe he would launch a timeskip and then he doesn't launch it. The thing is, why not activating the timeskip would suddenly give Hit the ability to react to Dyspo's speed?
And why would Dyspo only activate his super-speed when Hit tensed his muscles? Couldn't he do it whenever he wanted?

So Hit resolved the situation with a combination of TWO plot devices (increasing his reflexes artificially, Dyspo becoming retarded), not because he showed any good strategy. Hit's strategy shouldn't have had to work if the anime had been well written...

Lack of character development of Black and Zamasu in the manga is one of the major sin of Toyotaro. The anime did it so much better and made Black/Zamasu as one of the best villain of the entire series.

Besides the debatable change in personality of Goku Black, in what sense was anime Zamasu personality any more developed than its manga counterpart?
In fact, I even think we saw a more developed character in manga Zamasu thanks to the fact that he lacked the power of Black, and how Goku made him loose his faith in his plan for a bit when he was overpowering him with the God form while remembering him that he was just a "puppet" of the Zamasu that started it all (Black Zamasu).
This personality trait was lost in the anime. Instead we heard 10's of times the same shit we already knew, that he despised the mortals.