Dragonball franchise (Tournament of Power - part 4)

1. Toppo was the next one to be taken out in a stupid way. He was yapping about justice the whole time, only to contradict himself at the end by going god mode and completely flipping the only thing that was defining him. He was equally shallow and annoying as Ribrianne, but this character rewrite is not an improvement. Also, he was overpowered in the most boring and direct way without some sort of strategy to at least make it worthwhile. I mean, what’s so special about god ki if a mortal can still kick your ass? Was it that hard to make him lose by being tricked into erasing the ground under his feet, or wiping from existence one of the opponents, thus getting disqualified? Getting overpowered by a lazy power up was the most unimaginative way to defeat someone. They even contradict the in-series logic since despite being able to wipe from existence anything he attacks, Toppo somehow lost to a mortal who was using attacks he should be able to delete easily.

2. The one who kicked his ass was Vegeta by getting a power up that was never explained or excused. What the hell is Super Saiyan sparkly Blue? The perfected god ki form? Then what the hell was blue in comparison to red? And he unlocked it because he was thinking of Cabba, a guy he hardly knows and is hell-bent on becoming his mentor, although he is currently dead? How are you so sure you will see him again and what about your family or the survival of your universe; those are not important anymore? And what happened to that catharsis you supposedly got in the Buu arc, when you accepted Goku as your superior? You went back into rivaling him, as if you never had any development as a character. Once again they are rehashing the same ideas without developing new ones.

3. After that there was only the final showdown where the last three fighters were taken out at the same time, so I am going to talk about them separately. Starting with Frieza, the best villain in the entire franchise, now ruined by the terrible way he was handled. He was initially resurrected for a rehash of the beginning of the android saga, only to be killed and resurrected again as a replacement for Buu. The only reason it happened was because people don’t like Buu as much as Frieza. Strangely enough people don’t like Tien that much either but he couldn’t be replaced for some reason. So, in the tournament Frieza was constantly trolling everyone, mostly doing nothing but looking at others fight, and occasionally taking out a few nobodies. Then with the power of friendship he becomes a good guy at the finale and teams up with Goku to take out Jiren. What the hell was this trash? Frieza was special as the bad guy who never became good and now he became just another background ally along with the other worthless Z fighters who were once enemies and opponents. And they even bring him back to life as thanks despite being a backstabbing sadist, personally responsible for the death of 99% of all sentient life in their universe, and who was planning to wish from the dragon to become the next god of (not) everything. How do you casually redeem something like that with the power of friendship? This is bullshit.

4. Then we had Jiren, the most boring and forgettable antagonist in the whole franchise. He has the most generic face, he’s just super strong without using any interesting techniques, his back story was an unoriginal Batman revenge ripoff, hastily explained in few minutes, and he was doing almost nothing throughout the tournament despite being able to defeat everybody in a few seconds. He had some bullshit excuse about not wanting to be responsible for the destruction of a universe, and yet he was in a tournament for the sole purpose of erasing other universes. He constantly sabotaged his own team by not helping out his companions, and he constantly didn’t bother to kick out the ones he fought. And what did you know; he suddenly becomes evil at the finale when he was calm and stoic throughout the tournament. Power is everything all of a sudden, and he proceeds to show how un-heroic he is by beating the crap out of an exhausted Vegeta. Well done writers, you really outdid yourselves there. Not making Vegeta getting overpowered fairly because that would make him look weak.

5. Then we have Goku who is a culmination of every problem in the show. It’s summed up as acting like a complete idiot for purposes of fake suspense, fooling around with his enemies instead of taking the situation seriously, and constantly getting his stamina back a dozen times after he’s completely exhausted. This is done mainly because there was no way to excuse Goku not defeating everyone right away, as it was the case in earlier arcs.
   -Saiyan arc: Goku was in the afterlife
   -Namek arc: Goku was healing, traveling to Namek, and then… healing again
   -Android arc: Goku was recovering from his heart disease.
   -Buu arc: Goku was letting everyone have their chance with Buu instead of doing a fusion dance right away
   -Resurrection F: Goku was at Beerus’ planet
   Without him being incapacitated for a long period of time, the writers were making up silly excuses for why the obvious thing wasn’t happening. But, since people are watching Dragonball for the damn power ups instead of the writing, Goku eventually gets two new hair colors that make him more powerful than ever before, when he has no energy left. Holy shit; how much more plot armor can they give this guy? He wins even when he is losing. And of course none of that had anything to do with Goku getting character development because he stops treating the tournament as a joke. Because that’s what everybody expected to happen after being constantly told something terrible is going to happen at the finale.

6. And finally we have No.17, the best character of the arc. Not because he was the best written obviously, but because he won. As far as writing goes, he was a complete mess just like the rest of them. He was absent from the show since the Cell arc, and all of a sudden he reappears as strong as SSB, by doing the impossibly hard training of … being a park ranger. Yeah, that’s all it takes these days to jump to god levels. Next thing you know, the farmer with a shotgun will be stronger than Zeno by shoveling manure. Back to 17, he was the voice of reason throughout the tournament and was not fooling around like the rest of the idiots did, which is why he was such a cool character. But in reality the writers just made him perfect when he was just a barely looked into character. He didn’t have any of the pragmatic features in his first appearance and now all of a sudden he is a mastermind with exceptional hearing. They went as far as making him able to hear the tiny bug not even Piccolo could hear with his keen senses. In the finale, dumb shit happen and he decides to make it seem like he died to protect Goku and Vegeta. I don’t understand why he would do such a thing, since even if he wanted to attack an unsuspected Jiren later on, he wouldn’t be able to scratch him no matter how strong the attack would be. In fact, if he had lowered his energy barrier and allowed Jiren’s attack to actually kill him, he would have tricked Jiren into getting disqualified and universe 7 would have won the tournament. But we couldn’t have something smart like that and we instead had the dumb shit of hiding for a couple of episodes for a weak ambush to take place.

And the arc ends with the terrible thing that Toriyama promised everyone would happen. What could this terrible thing possibly be that is more devastating than the destruction of most universes, which are totally not going to be wished back?

• Does Frieza manage to get his wish and becomes the new god of (not) everything?
• Do the angels reveal to be evil and kill Zeno, becoming unstoppable after the strongest mortals are dead?
• Does Yamoshi, the original SSG, appear out of nowhere and kills the angels?
• Does Hit reveal to be on the stage the whole time and assassinates No.17?

They just wish the universes back and everybody lives happily ever after. That’s the fucking terrible thing Toriyama was hyping you for. Zeno goes as far as admitting he was planning to bring back the universes anyways, and he wouldn’t allow evil wishes to be granted, so the most devastating destruction in the history of the franchise was a joke all along. That also means Goku and anyone else who were being idiots and fooled around the whole time, are now justified, because there was never any actual threat and it was always a game. Fuck this show. Just fuck this show.