Dragon Ball fans finally admit they "treated DBS too harshly"

Modified Jan 04, 2025 18:00 GMT

Dragon Ball fans realized that they treated the Super series harshly (Image via Toei Animation)

Dragon Ball fans are some of the most passionate consumers of anime who don’t mince their words when critiquing a show. The Super series will turn 10 this year and this marks a massive milestone. Akira Toriyama’s work played a massive role in popularizing anime in the West.

In fact, his work was so big that it had a massive impact on anime as a medium. There have been numerous shows that were created when the respective writers were inspired by Dragon Ball.

Recently, the fanbase had a moment of self-reflection. This is quite rare since anime fans are ruthless when it comes to judging any title and X wars are far too common these days. A post indicated this milestone and the reactions were quite different from what anyone would expect from Dragon Ball fans.

They flooded the comments section with tweets like “We treated DBS too harshly man”. This showed how much the title means to fans and how they felt bad for criticizing this harshly.

Why did Dragon Ball fans criticize the Super series?

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Objectively speaking, the Super series had some glaring issues. The animation wasn’t impressive. As mentioned earlier, the fanbase doesn’t mince its words. They were quick to point out the drop in animation quality. One of the main reasons for this is that Toei Animation released episodes on a weekly basis.

It wasn’t seasonal, which compromised the overall quality. Furthermore, the anime and manga series failed to establish high stakes. The tension was lower in comparison to the Dragon Ball Z installment.

Other issues regarding character writing also cropped up on various platforms. With a plethora of issues being stacked on top of each other, the fanbase reached a point where they could no longer hold back their words. Thus began a stream of unending angry comments on every social media platform and forum.

However, they seemed to have realized that their reactions were rather harsh. That being said, not every fan shared the same sentiment. Some thought that the harsh criticisms were fair. Let's take a closer look at how both factions of the fanbase reacted on X (formerly known as Twitter).

How Dragon Ball fans reacted to the post highlighting Super’s 10-year anniversary

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"Damn thats crazy," said one fan.

"Time flies so fast. It just felt like Super was announced a few years ago," said another.

"okay time gotta chill man," said one netizen.

Some fans believed that they treated the series harshly. The people who echoed this sentiment were reminiscing about the time they first watched the Super series. The series induced a sense of nostalgia which made them miss the show dearly.

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"First 2 arcs were just bad, Universe 6 and goku black arcs were good(goku black arc ended horribly and had atrocious scaling) And the last animated arc was paced poorly so the finale didn’t make up for the meh fights," said one fan.

"Naw majority of the show wasn’t that great. 2 outta the 5 arcs were ok and 1 outta the 5 actually ended in a satisfactory way so you know, we treated like it was supposed to be, a money grab. That’s why I love Daima," said another.

There were plenty of netizens who thought that the harsh criticism was justified. They believe that the animators and creators deserve to be called out for bad work. As highlighted in the comments section, fans clearly didn't like most of the story arcs. To them, it was a clear cash grab which anime fans never appreciate.

Conclusion

Some clearly miss Dragon Ball Super and it could be purely because of nostalgia. Objectively, the show wasn't great and there were plenty of flaws. This is also why Daima is performing well and fans love this installment.

Whether or not the intensity of the criticism was justified is up for debate. However, it's clear that the Super series had plenty of flaws and it was far from a good show.

Stay tuned for more anime and manga news as 2024 progresses.

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Edited by Tiasha