Dragon Ball hasn’t been a consistent franchise in terms of quality in a long time. While there isn’t a bad arc between either the original anime or DBZ, practically every movie based on these series and their sequels are nothing short of divisive. There’s a lot that goes into evaluating a storyline but, even in a battle Shonen like Dragon Ball, writing quality is typically the most important factor.
Dragon Ball Super has some of the weakest writing of any Dragon Ball anime, and some arcs are far worse than others. With arcs like the Galactic Patrol Prisoner and Super Hero sagas, it’s easy to see why many fans prefer the series to Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball DAIMA. At the same time, Dragon Ball Super’s writing has reached far lower lows than either of its fellow sequel anime.
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5
The Universe Survival Saga is All Style, Absolutely No Substance
Only a Handful of Characters Benefit From Quality Writing During the Tournament of Power
The final arc of the Dragon Ball Super anime, the Universe Survival Saga is without question the most popular storyline in the series. Just in terms of how entertaining it can be at points, this is entirely deserved. Goku’s journey to unlocking Ultra Instinct, his fights against Jiren and Kefla, Master Roshi and Android 18’s spotlight episodes, and virtually everything that Frieza and Android 17 do throughout the arc represent the best that Dragon Ball Super has to offer. As outstanding as the arc can be, however, it’s a total mess when it comes to its writing.
Encompassing both the recruitment of Team Universe 7 and the Tournament of Power, the Universe Survival Saga is too long for its own good, and it doesn’t even make effective use of the time that it has. The pacing of the tournament is terrible, with entire episodes passing by without anything of note occurring, and most of Universe 7’s opponents aren’t given any depth or charm, egregiously including Jiren. Goku is at his most frustratingly careless and inconsiderate, the numerous call-backs to Dragon Ball Z are exhausting, and half of Team Universe 7 is completely wasted.
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Krillin is built-up as important, only to be the first of his team eliminated; Piccolo and Tien Shinhan are denied any worthwhile moments before their humiliating exits; nothing is done with Gohan as the team Captain; and Vegeta’s emotional moments all fall flat. It isn’t all bad, with the writing for Frieza, 17, 18, Caulifla, Kale, Cabba, and Top all being up to par, and the themes of trust and teamwork being effectively delivered, but that still isn’t much in the grand scheme of things.
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The Future Trunks Saga Has the Worst Ending in All of Dragon Ball
The Future Trunks Saga is a Monotonous and Disappointing Mess
The Future Trunks Saga gets off to one of the best starts of any Dragon Ball arc. Dragon Ball Super Episode 47 is an all-time great, as it masterfully re-introduces Future Trunks, raises the stakes higher than the anime had seen up to this point, and builds both a sense of horror and mystery around the nightmarish Goku Black. Unfortunately, the arc fails to live up to the expectations that this episode sets.
The Future Trunks Saga is both creative and ambitious, with Zamasu being the most inspired antagonist in Dragon Ball Super, and the time travel mechanics he abuses to enact his masterplan being complicated, but in a way that’s satisfying to put together. The arc fails to do anything interesting with Zamasu’s god complex, though, or the critical points he raises about human societies, and the actual conflict with him winds up being no different from if he were simply the umpteenth riff on King Piccolo.
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The romance between Future Trunks and Future Mai is weird, especially when their child counterparts are brought into the picture, and not nearly enough is done to explore Future Trunks’ relationships with Gohan, Vegeta, or Trunks. This saga is also where Goku truly begins to come off as unlikable, behaving notably differently than he ever did previously. The multiple trips to and from the Future timeline kill the arc’s pacing, multiple new transformations are introduced with zero explanation, and the ending is the worst in the franchise’s history, as it renders everything to come before it meaningless.
3
The Universe 6 Saga Features the Most Boring Tournament in Franchise History
Virtually Nothing of Interest Happens During the Tournament of Destroyers
The Universe 6 Saga was the first original arc of Dragon Ball Super, and it didn’t do much to prove why the DBZ sequel deserved to exist. Dragon Ball has a long history of tournament arcs, and they’ve always managed to be exciting and fun, regardless of how high or low their stakes were. The Universe 6 Saga’s Tournament of Destroyers is the first time that the franchise has featured a tournament arc that commits the cardinal sin of being boring.
The rivalry between Beerus and Champa is charming, but at no point do things ever feel like the conflict will escalate to a battle between the gods. Monaka being a normal, non-combatant alien, and Buu falling asleep before the Tournament of Destroyers are both chuckle-worthy gags, but they aren’t nearly funny enough to justify making what should have been a return to form for the Z-Warriors into yet another monotonous showcase for Goku and Vegeta. Piccolo is also wasted, even if the fight between him and Frost is one of the stronger parts of the arc, with Frost himself having had the potential to be interesting, but instead winding up as a less endearing, less fun, and less threatening copy of Frieza.
Botamo and Auta Magetta are given little to nothing in the way of characterization at all, Goku’s fight against the former ends almost as soon as it starts, and Vegeta’s battle against the latter drags on far too long for what it is. Things do pick up towards the end, with Vegeta and Goku’s respective fights against Cabba and Hit, but Team Universe 6’s strongest members only become engaging characters in their later appearances. The lack of stakes makes it hard to care about even the best fights that occur in the arc, there isn’t nearly enough comedy to balance this out, at no point does anyone undergo a shred of character development, and it doesn’t even attempt to craft a narrative through line.
2
The Resurrection ‘F’ Saga Remains the Worst Overall Arc in All of Dragon Ball
The Resurrection ‘F’ Saga Suffers From Far More Issues Than Just its Writing
All things are relative, and Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ is a better written Dragon Ball movie than most. The feature film makes effective use of its time, and tells a simple story about Frieza coming back to life, gunning for revenge against Goku, Vegeta, and the Z-Warriors. There are definite issues with the script, and it isn’t especially riveting, but Resurrection ‘F’ doesn’t have time to make too many missteps when so much of it is composed of beautifully animated fight scenes. Sadly, this doesn’t apply to Dragon Ball Super’s adaptation of the arc.
Stretching out a 94-minute movie into a 9-episode arc was never going to be easy, but there were clear areas for it to expand on. It could have actually shown Goku and Vegeta achieving Super Saiyan Blue for the first time, it could have touched on the current status quo of the Z-Warriors who show up to fight the Frieza Force, and it could have found a way to circumvent the film’s biggest flaw: Beerus and Whis’ presence sucking away every drop of tension Golden Frieza could possibly create.
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Instead, the ugliest art and animation in all of Dragon Ball are complemented by horribly slow pacing, no improvements in the writing over the arc’s movie counterpart, and bizarre additions to the story like Captain Ginyu’s return and Piccolo’s third canon death. The nicest things that can be said about the Resurrection ‘F’ Saga are that it’s mercifully short, it laid the groundwork for Frieza’s phenomenal comeback in the Universe Survival Saga and, being an adaptation, it can’t be blamed for all its narrative shortcomings.
1
The Granolah the Survivor Saga Subjects Fans to Chapter After Chapter of Mindless Fighting
The Granolah the Survivor Saga Offers Writing On Par with the Worst of the 90s Dragon Ball Z Movies
By and large, Dragon Ball Super became a far stronger series after the conclusion of the anime. Dragon Ball Super: Broly is the greatest film in the franchise, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was an okay movie improved upon substantially by the manga, and the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga is the closest the series has ever come to truly feeling like a sequel to DBZ, rather than simply a rehash. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean the manga is guaranteed to stay strong moving forward, as the relatively recent Granolah the Survivor Saga stands out as the worst-written arc in Dragon Ball history.
On paper, the Granolah the Survivor Saga should be fascinating, as it deconstructs the franchise’s concept of what it means to be strong, and bases its eponymous antagonist’s motivations around a rightful desire for revenge against the Saiyans – much like the highly-regarded Baby Saga from Dragon Ball GT. Just like every single arc in Dragon Ball GT, though, the issues lie in the execution. The entire story is front-loaded in its early chapters, leaving most of the arc to feature endless, meaningless fights that revel in the very ideas that the arc is meant to be critiquing.
Granolah is a dull and lifeless character, neither Gas nor any other member of the Heeter Family is any more nuanced or entertaining, and everything involving Bardock not only tarnishes the character’s legacy, but makes Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Goku’s entire life’s journey actively worse. The Granolah the Survivor Saga does at least end memorably, with the terrifying debut of Black Frieza, but his sudden arrival in the middle of Goku, Vegeta, Granolah, and Gas’ brawl also serves to rob the arc of a proper conclusion.
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Dragon Ball tells the tale of a young warrior by the name of Son Goku, a young peculiar boy with a tail who embarks on a quest to become stronger and learns of the Dragon Balls, when, once all 7 are gathered, grant any wish of choice.
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- Release Date
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2015 – 2018-00-00
- Showrunner
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Tatsuya Nagamine
- Directors
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Tatsuya Nagamine
