BATTLE OF GODS: A DECADE LATER

TONY T. - Managing Editor, 3rd Year, Economics and Data Science

"Drunk Gohan is the best part."

It’s odd for me to consider that the Dragon Ball revival project has been going for almost a decade now. I’ve had almost half of my life elapse, moved internationally four times, and incurred at least one misdemeanor offense in the time since Dragon Ball returned to animation with Battle of Gods. And yet, in that long stretch of time I can confidently say that I’ve only been really positive about one new entry in the series: the recently released Super Hero film. New Dragon Ball content, for me, struggles with progressing the series’ narrative in any meaningful way. Instead of long-running character arcs, they have new colored transformations. Rather than continuing past the original series’ finale, newer Dragon Ball media seems content to stay in the preceding ten-year timeskip. Economically, the newer content has been a smash hit, revitalizing Dragon Ball as a pop culture juggernaut even four decades after its inception. But the actual films and tv series have been something of a mixed bag for me.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: my interest in the Dragon Ball franchise has been in the shadow of new content since the very first time I saw the series. Unlike many, I didn’t grow up watching Z on American television. In fact, the first thing I ever saw from the series was a somewhat newly released Battle of Gods, dubbed in Chinese, in a camp bus while I was visiting Asia for a summer. At the time, I was probably in middle school, but had little conception of who or what the characters were. The film was equally intriguing and replusing to me – its large cast and interesting lore was captivating to me (though I probably annoyed a few peers by continuously asking questions), but the action bored me to tears. Because of this, I actively shut out Dragon Ball from my mind for another few years and went back to watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Revolutionary Girl Utena, or whatever the heck I was into around 2014. The series only became my favorite anime after I finally watched it in full around my high school years and realized that it contained some of what I consider to be the most satisfying long term narratives in fiction.

But as such, Battle of Gods holds a unique spot in my mind compared to other Dragon Ball media. I would never compare it highly to something like the original manga or GT, yet it’s certainly miles beyond mindless drivel like Resurrection「F」(don’t get me started). The new characters in Beerus and Whis are actually pretty interesting, and match Toriyama Akira’s penchant for writing godly beings with some level of goofiness to match the horrors of what they can accomplish. Their eldritch powers are matched by their gluttony, a trait that humanizes them and establishes them as possibly the best new-era Dragon Ball characters (Zamasu had potential, but failed to stick the landing). Beyond that, the legend of the Saiyan God is a fun lore bit. It somewhat tramples on the toes of the original series’ build up to Super Saiyan, but the original series could be said to itself be guilty of diminishing that legend. The first half of Battle of Gods is definitely the highlight, as the large cast is given room to bounce off of each other with fun character moments. The film seems especially keen to include goofy moments like drunk Gohan or the Vegeta dance, perhaps a sign of Toriyama Akira’s increased creative control along with his initial claim to fame as a gag manga author. In fact, there’s very little I can criticize in Battle of Gods’ narrative. Many of the negative things I could say about elements introduced in the film are the result of what later material did with these concepts. They have very little bearing on how I view Battle of Gods itself.

Where I would get rather negative, though, is the latter half. Like most Dragon Ball films, Battle of Gods front loads itself with fun things like characterization and narrative, only to dissolve into a mess of long winded action scenes in its second half. In fact, the film is very much emblematic of the structural issues plaguing later Dragon Ball content, like Super; ignoring narrative issues, new Dragon Ball always seems to have great slice of life and gag writing, but simply cannot engross me in its action. The original Dragon Ball manga’s later arcs were all rather action heavy, but most of the time, the action meant something. The action had a certain flow to it that progressed the story instead of just being a mindless mush of punches, glowy colors, and screams. Unfortunately, Battle of Gods and later content have reinforced the notion that Dragon Ball is only about dumb buff guys fighting each other. That look is somewhat unfair to this film itself, though. Seen alone and ignoring content released since, Battle of Gods is a fun fanservicey film that introduces interesting characters and has some remnants of the tone that made the original series so great. I feel that its consequences were a disaster for the franchise, but that would be judging the film on somewhat unfair criteria. Battle of Gods is made very average when taking into account its latter half of senseless action, but it is still something I’d say I wasn’t dissatisfied with viewing again.