Story by: Akira Toriyama | Art by: Toyotarou
With all that out of the way, the tournament begins. Universe 9 is quickly eliminated by the other fighters' combined efforts. Meanwhile Freeza makes a deal with his Universe 6 counterpart, Frost. If Frost will go all-out first and eliminate as many fighters as he can, Freeza will "tap in" for him when he's exhausted to continue the fight. Frost abides, taking out several fighters, including Krillin and Tenshinhan of Universe 6. But he eventually tires, and Freeza reveals his true colors, taking Frost out of the fight.
We then move to follow Goku and Hit as they battle Universe 11's greatest warriors, the Pride Troopers -- led by Top, who Goku met and dueled in the previous volume. Eventually, Goku and Hit move their attention to the strongest Pride Trooper, Jiren, and despite new techniques developed by Hit since his last fight against Goku, Jiren makes fast work of Universe 6's greatest warrior. With Hit eliminated, focus switches to the rest of Universe 7's fighters, jumping around between Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Seventeen, and Eighteen as they battle the various universes' other warriors. By the end of the volume, Eighteen and Piccolo have been eliminated, leaving Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Roshi, Seventeen, and Freeza as reprsentatives against the remaining fighters.
Gotta say, I'm not a fan of the manga's handling of my precious human characters here. In the anime version of the Tournament, Krillin was eliminated first, but it was due to overconfidence on his part, and the rest of Unvierse 7 learned a lesson from his quick departure -- don't underestimate thier foes! As a result, the remaining fighters from 6 lasted deep into the tournament. Tien and Roshi were the next two to go, it's true -- but only after a number of episodes of holding their own -- and both were given dramatic sendoffs as they were defeated.
But here, Krillin and Tien are dispatched with ease by Frost, after Freeza directs him to attack them. Their defeats are meaningless; no grand sacrifices or lessons to be learned or anything. They're just eliminated like cannon fodder (which Krillin lampshades as he realizes that he and Tien were simply Freeza's pawns to weaken Frost so he could eventually defeat his counterpart without breaking a sweat).
Also, it's personal preference, but I've never been a fan of the outfits Roshi and Tien wear in this tournament. Given that the SUPER manga puts Gohan in a different look here than the anime, I wish it had done the same for them as well. Historically, whenever we've seen them in a tournament, Roshi wore his black Tang suit (I actually had to Google just now to see what that sort of thing was called) -- granted, that was always in disguise as Jackie Chun, but still. He did wear it often in DBZ when he was himself, too. And Tien always fought shirtless. I know it's a small thing, but it would've been a nice throwback to see them both dressed that way again for the Tournament of Power.
Indeed, one thing I don't like about the SUPER anime is its very simplistic set of character designs. In the original DRAGON BALL shows, the character frequently changed their looks through (and even within) the various sagas. But SUPER, for the most part, has set character models that rarely change except for occasional one-off episodes. Roshi always wore the Tang suit more often than not, but it's never put in a single apperance in SUPER, instead replaced by his tropical shirts or tank tops. And Bulma was quite the fashion plate throughout DB/Z, but, while she does have a few different character designs in SUPER, for the most part she just alternates between her white T-shirt with neckerchief or her lab coat. And her hair, which was always changing in the old shows, is exactly the same all the way through SUPER. Even Tien changed throughout DB/Z, originally wearing a yellow shirt with purple pants, then settling on green pants but variously wearing T-shirts, tank tops, that green sash thing from the Androids Saga, and the cold weather outfit from the Boo Saga.
I guess what I'm getting at is that when I watch SUPER, I feel like I'm watching a Hanna Barbera cartoon from the eighties or something, in how static and unchanging the character designs are. I suppose in large part that's due to the fact that the SUPER anime isn't adapting Toriyama's manga, so it can keep the character models unchanging when it doesn't have to mirror certain looks from the comics. I've gathered that the show has a modest budget, but I simply wish they didn't cut corners on the character designs, since it makes SUPER look like a step backward on the heels of DBZ.
The Tournament of Power continues next week in DB SUPER volume 8!
No comments:
Post a Comment