How Long Until The Marvel Universe Shutters?

[marhawkman]

I tend to hear that One Piece makes no sense if you skip chapters lol.

Well... yes... but mostly no. What you're describing is trying to fill in the gaps between something like for example the Arlong Park story and the siege of Marineford. LOTS of plot happened... sooo much plot. you don't really need to know all of it though. seeing Crocodile as Luffy's ally is probably the biggest shock TBH.

DB is also not active for as long as you'd, it started in 1984, ended in 1985, has a bunch of non-canon movies until Battle of Gods, and it's more or less hibernating after the Super's anime ended, and while the manga is being published right now, it's not seen as a priority to the franchise by either the companies or the fanbase.

well, part of that is that Toriyama-sama kinda wanted to quit writing DB and his publishers would periodically tell him how much money he'd get if he did a new story arc. So Toriyama stares at the ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥ and writes some more Dragon Ball then goes back to what his true passion is... writing comedy mangas(and games like Dragon Quest). Yeah, this is why DBZ has so many prat fall moments.

Honestly starting with Z makes you miss out on a lot of things, such as the significance of Goku and Piccolo teaming up, or the reveal that Piccolo is an alien, 'cause while it looks obvious if you start with Z, it's not that odd if you read vanilla DB considering how many weird creatures are around.

You can get the gist of it at least, but you're missing out on the emotional impact at first.

Enh, most of DB isn't relevant later..... especially Yamcha. :Þ

To be fair, while ridiculously downplayed compared to western comic books, Toriyama isn't writing the manga anymore, that is Toyotaro and if you know Toriyama enough you can tell that it's someone else, and the art is definitely noticeable too.

That and Toriyama writes movies while he's not really involved with the anime, so we have characters being characterized differently (Such as Videl being more of a generic wife under Toei's writers, but keeps some of her edge under Toriyama).

So yeah, ridiculously downplayed, but it's there to an extent, and it's even more noticeable if you try to make sense out of the anime, manga and movies with Super, since they're three different continuities lol.

Welp, prior to Toyotara-san's involvement the main secondary writer was Takao Koyama. He wrote most of the DBZ movies and his student Aya Matsui was head writer on GT. Thing is... Toriyama-sama still did some character design work for those... he just didn't write the story. Koyama-san is a talented writer, but he's more of a screenwriter than a manga-ka. The mangas he's been involved with were drawn by someone else, sometimes Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, who's also worked on a lot of Dragon Ball stuff(and most notable perhaps is he's the guy who came up with the appearance of the SS4 form).

Koyama-san is the guy who wrote the second Broly movie, and that had one of the best Videl appearances I think. Like Koyama-san actually has scenes where Videl fights BROLY! It's not played for laughs though. That's one thing that's a noticeable difference between Koyama-san's work and Toriyama-sama. Koyama-san's not as big on prat falls. He puts in bits of humor, but it's a different kind of humor. i guess you could compare it to sitcoms.

But yeah it's very true that at this point the majority of the actual writing for Dragon Ball is not actually Toriyama's.

[Lukmendes]

Well... yes... but mostly no. What you're describing is trying to fill in the gaps between something like for example the Arlong Park story and the siege of Marineford. LOTS of plot happened... sooo much plot. you don't really need to know all of it though. seeing Crocodile as Luffy's ally is probably the biggest shock TBH.

Well I wouldn't know, this is just what I usually hear about One Piece, that and "It becomes good at chapter 900" lol.

well, part of that is that Toriyama-sama kinda wanted to quit writing DB and his publishers would periodically tell him how much money he'd get if he did a new story arc. So Toriyama stares at the ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥ and writes some more Dragon Ball then goes back to what his true passion is... writing comedy mangas(and games like Dragon Quest). Yeah, this is why DBZ has so many prat fall moments.

It was generally Toriyama's own decision to keep DB going though, all that other people involved in the project did with Toriyama was change his plans, but not how long a story keeps going.

Hell, it's generally rumored that Toriyama only brought Goku back as Boo saga's protagonist because of fans' complaint, but it was actually Toriyama's own decision to do so since he felt like Gohan doesn't fit to be a protagonist.

While DB overstayed its welcome, it's hardly because other people told him to do so, Boo saga wasn't even supposed to be long, but look what happened lol.

Enh, most of DB isn't relevant later..... especially Yamcha. :Þ

Yamcha was hardly relevant to begin with lol.

It's just that if you start at Z you lose the impact of some stuff, another thing that is less impactful if you start at Z is Goku randomly dropping the line that dragon balls can't resurrect the same person more than once, because that was never said back in the previous story arcs, so that rule being mentioned is suddenly an "Oh shit" moment.

Welp, prior to Toyotara-san's involvement the main secondary writer was Takao Koyama. He wrote most of the DBZ movies and his student Aya Matsui was head writer on GT.

Wonder if that Koyama guy is the reason we have a bunch of the movie clichés, such as "Gohan is in danger and Piccolo saves him" lol.

Thing is... Toriyama-sama still did some character design work for those... he just didn't write the story. Koyama-san is a talented writer, but he's more of a screenwriter than a manga-ka. The mangas he's been involved with were drawn by someone else, sometimes Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, who's also worked on a lot of Dragon Ball stuff(and most notable perhaps is he's the guy who came up with the appearance of the SS4 form).

Well, him being involved in the designs does help in making the characters' look fit with DB, but Toriyama not being involved in the writing in any way is noticeable, because the writing done by other people is really safe, while Toriyama does basically whatever he wants.

Like, the original plans for BoG would have Beerus as just another villain, while Toriyama decided to make Beerus his own thing, and he even added a line about the multiverse that can add further adventures, so BoG is both a safe movie and one that adds to the setting.

Although original BoG would have its version of Beerus to be the reason why saiyans went evil, so it would change background related shit, even if that idea is just dumb, and hell, Beerus even being indirectly involved with planet Vegeta's destruction is already dumb.

Koyama-san is the guy who wrote the second Broly movie, and that had one of the best Videl appearances I think. Like Koyama-san actually has scenes where Videl fights BROLY! It's not played for laughs though. That's one thing that's a noticeable difference between Koyama-san's work and Toriyama-sama. Koyama-san's not as big on prat falls. He puts in bits of humor, but it's a different kind of humor. i guess you could compare it to sitcoms.

But yeah it's very true that at this point the majority of the actual writing for Dragon Ball is not actually Toriyama's.

Yeah Toriyama only does movies, and other media are just following his notes (Which, the ones that were published are ridiculously vague).

In some cases, it's not even hard to tell when Toei and/or Toyotaro deviated from him, both of them messed around with Super Saiyan Blue in some weird way (Toei by creating even stronger variations of it, Toyotaro by adding a stamina related weakness that completely contradicts the RoF movie), and then when we got the Broly movie, Goku and Vegeta just use regular Blue with nothing else being even hinted to exist.

So yeah, DB is like a ridiculously downplayed super-hero comic book with writers following their own canon while also trying to not contradict too much of the "main" canon (That is, whatever Toriyama writes), and the "main" canon probably ignores everything else, it has some of the usual headaches but far, far less bad about it lol.

[marhawkman]

It's just that if you start at Z you lose the impact of some stuff, another thing that is less impactful if you start at Z is Goku randomly dropping the line that dragon balls can't resurrect the same person more than once, because that was never said back in the previous story arcs, so that rule being mentioned is suddenly an "Oh shit" moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM4UijiwbdM

This scene is utterly hilarious to anyone who saw the Androids arc from DBZ.... more so if you saw that AND the start of Buu saga. Marron was watching when 18 kicked the crud out of the present-day(kid) version of Trunks. But it semi explains itself so that even if you haven't seen those you at least get the gist of it.

Wonder if that Koyama guy is the reason we have a bunch of the movie clichés, such as "Gohan is in danger and Piccolo saves him" lol.

Well, yeah, 'cause that's who wrote them. like I said about Koyama's sense of humor.... he writes humor in, but it's not prat-fall humor. But also he has certain other quirks that got repeated too.