Slavjan Andonovski
Let me preface my review by stating that I'm going to be talking about the English dub (at episode 31 thus far), and that I'm a HUGE DB fan, and not just for DBZ, but all of DB (except for GT, at least bar the concepts of it), so I'm going to try to keep this short, even though I could write a report on it. Being a huge fan does mean that I'll probably have some bias, especially with my final score, but it also means that I can spot the things that really hooked people and kept them coming back to DBZ, which Super sadly lacks. Spoiler alert: unlike many might think, the action's not he main reason DB/Z were and are so good.Anyway, this is by far one of the best anime's on TV right now. The one in a hundred. One of the few that aren't just recycled otaku and weeb type nonsense. I'm actually surprised and thankful with the type of language they can use considering how censored things are now and days, at least with the English releases. So I'm happy that the show's got some freedom and creativity, even though I'm still annoyed that they cant show blood or wounds anymore, but I can live with it. Also, people watching it WAY over exaggerated the quality of the animation, or lack of rather. It's literally not as bad as people made it out to be. I mean sure, it's not as good as DB/Z, as if it were hand drawn, but it's still not as blank as most anime now and days, and I would say it's ~80% as good as DBZ.That being said, there's major issues with it too. Short story; it lacks the depth, detail, narrative, progress, character development, story, impact, and intrigue that DBZ had. It's just WAY too much back-to-back action without the more important in- betweens that those action sequences need, not just want, but need.Long story: I first saw this sort of "downward slope" after the Cell saga concluded, as the conveniences, coincidences, focus on action, and the rushed timeline piled on during the Buu saga, a bit like with George and "The Return of the Jedi". Not to say that the Buu saga was as bad in contrast to the other sagas, but I could tell there was a difference. Without focusing too much on DBZ, the Buu saga just had convenient SSj3 which we never saw the why and how of, convenient fusion dance, then more convenient Potara fusion, and the potential unleashed which involved sitting... how exciting. It did have a WHOLE lot of great moments, don't get me wrong, but it's not as god as the Frieza saga, or certainly at the least the Cell saga. DBS has much of the same here, there's just too much action and not enough downtime to focus on the characters or character development, or the training where we see the fighters actually work the blood, sweat, and tears that makes their victories much more satisfying and worthwhile. I mean Jaco who Bulma knew all along apparently, and then Bulma's SISTER?! WHERE IN THE F**K did they come from?! Then you have SSjG, so it's just an exact number of 5 Saiyans that have to give their energy... why that number? And even if that number has some Buddhism significance, it's still a super weird way to go from mortal to God. Like, it just seems a bit weak of a reason. Then on top of that Vegeta does it himself?! WHAT?! That's just again, more convenience, and more dumbness. Although, these things aside, I like how Bills and Whis were introduced, they're actually written quite fruitfully, much like a DBZ character, so that's very good. As a first season, season one was mostly fine. So then season two comes along, aaaaaaand it's straight into action again. A tiny bit of training and working for your power, and a tiny bit of character work, and then, as I said, into the action. No seeing Goku train, no seeing Vegeta train, no seeing Frieza train, no seeing any of the other Z-Fighters train, and no seeing what anyone else is doing. Like the entire season seems like a bunch of highlights of a bigger season. Season three's just started and it's gearing up to be more of the same, just makes the whole thing feel like fan "service" filler.I mean, just contrast DBS to the Cell super-saga (everything from when Trunks first goes back in time, so it includes the Trunks saga, the Androids saga, the Cell Games saga, etc). In the Cell super-saga you do get EPIC action, more epic than what we've seen thus far, and you get the more important and interesting downtime where you learn about Trunks, the alternate timelines, all that time travel stuff, you get to know Cell, the Androids, the Z-Fighters, there's awesome call backs to fans who watched the original DB (the Red Ribbon Army stuff), intensive and story rich training, actually interesting filler, and it's just such a complete and well put together super- saga. There's no rush in the Cell super-saga, it takes its time and crafts an amazing story, that also brings those cool what-if movies and specials along with it. DBS has very little of that, and it's one of the reasons why it doesn't have that entire "I can't wait for next week's episode" draw, even if I'm still interested to see the next episode. DBS just doesn't have the re- watch value of DBZ.If I could, I'd tell A.T. to go back and focus on telling the story the way he did with the Frieza and Cell super-sagas. DBS just needs a little bit more work, love, and care to get the show ironed out and perfect.That being said, thus far, I'd give it a benefit of the doubt 6.5/10.
