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So initially this was going to be a plot synopsis of my idea of a new Dragon Ball Super movie; the usual bad fan-fiction posing as a blog post and pretending that makes it better because the writer isn’t actually making the Vegeta x Piccolo yaoi plot, just suggesting it.  But That got me thinking about a whole lot of things Super could try.  Sure, they might be fan-fictiony, but the Zamasu arc exists so let’s not start pretending there are standards.

Sorry if this is a little unstructured, but, in no particular order, here’s some ideas I think would be neat if they were implemented in Dragon Ball Super.

1) Non-Linear Power-Ups:

We’re seeing a bit of this already, with Goku’s Ultra Instinct, a form that is not Saiyan-based, and presumably anyone can achieve under the right circumstances.

While linear power-creep has been part of what gave Dragon Ball Z it’s epic scale, we’re now at a point where power-levels are completely meaningless, diverse techniques are potentially more useful than a new form, and Mr. Roshi is a serious fighter again.  So, in order to convince us that two characters can be roughly equivalent strength while using two different forms, let’s move to a system where one form is not just an objectively superior version of the other.

This crossed my mind back during Resurrection of F, where Vegeta showed he could reach SSJ Blue, without needing to go through SSJ3 and SSJ God.  The way Blue was described then and in the Universe 6 arc made me think it could just be a kind of masted form of SSJ1.  And when Trunks showed up in the Zamasu arc using SSJ2 to its limit, I thought he could achieve the mastered form of that.

At least for the Saiyans, I like that transformation tree.  Where you can either try to get a more draining and difficult to control form, like Goku did with SSJ3.  Or you can master controlling a previous form.

Down the line we could have a status quo where Vegeta and Cabba are using a third version of SSJ1 that’s green or something; Gohan and Future Trunks are using a type of SSJ2 that’s been masted twice and buffed by Elder Kai’s unlock, and Caulifla has a Blue version of SSJ3, and Goku and Piccolo are trying to combine Ultra Instinct with Kaio Ken.  We get so many different transformations, but none of them is clearly inferior to any other.  And hell, maybe from their Cabba disagrees with his master about how to train, and so while Vegeta masters SSJ1 more, Cabba finds a way to reach an SSJ2 version of SSJ Blue.

2) Permanent Gotenks:

This one is a little late.  What I’d honestly like is for Gotenks to have been a Portara fusion, and for Portara to have actually been permanent.  I’m not saying Gotenks is a good thing, I’m only saying that he’s only half as bad as Goten and Trunks separately.

Goten and Trunks aren’t the most boring characters in DBS, but they are the most boring characters who take up screen time and are possibly stronger than Krillin.  They do nothing, get left behind most of the time because of their age, and yet don’t seem to grow up at all.  Yet as Gotenks, they are incredibly strong, and could be made into a more interesting character.

Imagine Bulma and Chi-Chi finding out that their sons kind of don’t exist anymore, and instead they have this SSJ3 runt with DNA from Goku, Vegeta, and Bulma.  Instead of the dull, normal lives they have now, Gotenks would likely be trained to be one of the defenders of the Earth.

In that context, his bratty personality actually does work as part of a typical shounen character arc.  He could be in the Tournament of Power right now, having coasted through the earlier fights on his power alone, but now that it’s only the upper bracket left he’s realizing that needs to humble himself and take each fight seriously.  It’s not totally original, but it would make him one of the only characters in the series right now that actually has a character arc.

His gimmick could be that he can sustain SSJ3 without the immense stamina drain it causes Goku.

3) A Demon Piccolo Arc:

The biggest problem for Super‘s long-term perspective is that there isn’t much room in it for drama.  The re-introduction of Freeza was cool, but I can’t see how that can be prolonged after the Tournament of Power without either Goku and Vegeta immediately beating his ass back to hell, or Freeza running off to both some other universe for a while while the plot rearranges itself for him.  Right now, he just has nothing else to do other than fight Goku, and that has a predictable end with nothing all the different about it.

The series needs to freshen things up, which would usually meaning new characters who have their own character arcs to go through.  But Super‘s cast is already massive, and the only way to keep a new character from being upstaged is to make them the new main character, a move best known as “the Buu Saga Gohan”.  The Buu Saga Gohan does not work, and makes fans angry.

Instead, the series needs to enact a massive shift among existing characters, so they can develop in new ways.  One way to do this… Kill Gohan.  Don’t just send him to Other World.  Kill him permanently.  If that’s just too much and you need some cop-out, then just have him die in some other universe that doesn’t have Dragon Balls so he can’t be wished back; he can still appear in Other World some times.

With Gohan dead, how do you expect Piccolo will react?  Gohan was his humanizing influence.  And though he has Kami in him, that side is obviously overwhelmed by the son of Demon King Piccolo.  Maybe Piccolo will even blame Goku for Gohan’s death, and swear that there is now nothing holding him back from killing Goku and regaining his Demon title.

Maybe in order to overcome the power difference, Piccolo goes to another universe to become its God of Destruction.  And when he’s not fighting Goku (because, and I can’t stress this enough (Zamasu), your villain needs to have something better to do than fight your hero; otherwise what is the hero actually doing, other than self defense?), Piccolo can be trying to collect the Super Dragon Balls to wish Gohan back.

Of course, if he ever does then it can’t work; returning to the status quo would defeat the purpose of a world-changing arc.  Ultimately, it should just teach Piccolo some sort of lesson about letting go, or how wishing Gohan back is just his own greed, or something. I don’t know, it’s shounen. Make something up and it’ll probably be good enough.

4) Freeza Also Becomes a God of Destruction:

I’m not the first to say it, and for good reason.  With the current power creep, that’s the inevitable next step.  And with Freeza back in the series, the story should actually do something with him.  But he can’t exist in Universe 7 now without constantly clashing with the main characters, so let him go build up a new empire in some other Universe for a while, while Vegeta fumes about how someday the time will come to kill him again.

 

Don’t Lose Your Way