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It's the final Gohan, he's leaving for Namek where he will stand... on a hammock... wow the Final Countdown joke doesn't have much of a leg to stand on... kinda like this thing to be honest.

Honestly, I was hoping to maybe wait for the movie to come out properly before more openly talking about this. I mean aside from the post I did about the spoilers earlier this month where I used a blurred, pixelated and dulled version of a shot of the movie and also slapped on top of that a big ol' censor bar, I really didn't want to be super (HAH!) active covering the spoilers not just because I wanted to give people a chance to see the movie in August but also as someone who is so sick to death of the rampant cynicism and negativity that plagues this franchise with every new release getting the usual cries from the peanut gallery? I didn't really want to add to that and considering... everything that has been going on this year, that also sounded very first-world problems. The point is? I wasn't really looking to say anything more this soon.

So what happened? Simply put, Toei happened. In celebration of the movie having millions of viewers in Japan and its success, Toei is putting out a few new trailers for the movie... including one that spoils everything officially and if you don't mind me going on a side-tangent? I'm getting really sick to death of Toei doing this with the Dragon Ball movies. It would be very different if we were talking a theatrical release in Japan and us waiting months to get the movie out on Blu-Ray only or if the trailers they put out before was all they released and we were just left to wait until the release of it with the only people doing the opposite being Dragon Ball fans who just couldn't wait and leaked things themselves but this is so ridiculous considering they're now making these movies in part thanks to the international audience which are the kinds of people who normally cannot stand spoilers in any capacity. For once, just once I'd like a Dragon Ball movie to be in the marketing phase with the only person to blame for spoiling surprises being my curious ass. But because of this, that means this form has now been officially revealed, high quality screen-grabs are out there for all to see which means I can demonstrate speak more in-depth on this... thing. Now don't mistake my writing for me hating this to the point where I can feel my life expectancy dropping a couple years from anger alone or that I'm so disgusted every sight of this makes me want to vomit because... well one those are both overreactions and two, I only dislike it. It's a strong dislike, but it's still just that and because of this dislike coupled with how on a previous account I used to come down hard on ridiculous transformations? I wanted to speak about this form in-depth, talk about aspects I like, what I don't like, how I feel this could've been done better and why it doesn't work for me compared to other transformations.

Now before I begin, much like with my initial post about the spoilers, I should make it abundantly clear that I have still not watched the movie yet. I am aware that there are... means to watch the whole movie before that August release date but I personally want to actually see the full plot play out for my first time in theaters. At best all I've seen of this movie are the final scenes and I've heard other reviewers talk about these spoilers so while I can say speak a bit more clearly on opinions regarding certain choices like this? I cannot give an assessment on the movie and will not until I see it officially. I also want to make this clear, if you like this development? That is beyond awesome! I am not judging you for your enjoyment nor am I attacking you. I get in this fandom it's very easy to come across fans who just slam every new development, will insult those who dare to say they like it and call them slurs (One review I saw on here outright called people who liked Super "r****ds" and not true Dragon Ball fans) and many other insults for liking something they don't. I am not aiming to do that, while I have a few points of rebuttal for certain defenses, bear in mind that is just to help build up my opinion and why I feel the way I do and not to put down others who think differently. You could read every single word I put down and my arguments and still go "Okay but I still loved it.". I also want to be clear that I adore Dragon Ball and have been a massive fan and defender of the modern stuff. I think despite its flaws Super is really damn good, I've been really loving the manga so far and I have done many posts defending various elements in those series. I am also not one of those Dragon Ball fans who behaves like everything after Z and/or GT is garbage and I am willing to call out anybody that says that modern DB material "ruined their childhood" as a dumbass who are basically admitting their childhood sucked to begin with if this is what it takes to ruin it. I am only talking about the product here or in this case, a particular element of the product.

Lastly opinions are entirely my own and completely subjective. I am only speaking from my perspective on this topic and how I view it. I don't presume to speak for anyone else nor do I think my words are factual and people who do treat it as such should seriously knock it the hell off. I've said it before and I'll say it again, unless we are talking about gravely serious topics such as human rights and so on? I personally don't care what you think, you're free to like what you like and dislike what you don't. With that out of the way... jeez where do I begin here with this thing? Well I guess to start, how about mentioning the fact that this form has a very strange effect depending on how it's done because just about every piece of fanart of this looks legit and I don't just mean in the sense that the artists were good at what they do and their artistic rendering of this form looks great and well-crafted, I mean the form in almost every piece of fanart looks better than it does in the actual movie. Seriously, compare this shot I'm sharing right now to some of the most popular fanart right now and you'll see what I mean, it's genuinely bizarre to see. Speaking of looks though, that brings us to one important topic, how did we get to this transformation in the first place?

Now for Dragon Ball, transformations have become pretty ubiquitous in this franchise and forms introduced in movies have been fairly common place, going all the way back to Movie 4, Super Saiyan Son Goku otherwise known as Lord Slug where we got what at the time was supposed to be our first look at Super Saiyan until Toriyama showed this thing was merely a poser one-off based on non-finalized ideas and... well I'd be lying if I said that with the exception of Legendary Super Saiyan in Movie 8 that things in those early movies were amazing. More often than not it takes me a few moments to remember certain details or if I do, it's more because fans have hyped them up beyond belief and not because of the movies proper. This however would all change with 2014's Battle of Gods which gave us Super Saiyan God, an... honest-to-God breath of fresh air. Considering how many fan-designs pegged this as just being some boring SS4 recolor or something so overly designed and detailed that it'd make animators have a heart attack over the sheer thought of trying to animate them and also how used we were to transformations just kind of being a case of "Ooh, look how serious this guy is, see? He has powered up."? SSG's more simplified elegant approach that opted to use color, physique and how they did the aura to demonstrate its power really worked for me. I especially love the kind of magentaish shade of red they went for and how it made Goku look much calmer, you didn't really get these kinds of transformations from Dragon Ball so this felt new and fresh and honestly it was a whole lot better than if they went for the standard "My eyes are angry pizzas with hair that extends down to my asscrack and muscles that are as big as my skull" look. Not only that but it was the first transformation I think since the original Super Saiyan to have some honest-to-God build-up and a proper story justification for existing. Granted that latter part is less so given it's just another legend but you know what? I don't care, I still love it, especially since it was used as a stepping stone in Goku's development as we get his frustration over the method that was needed to obtain it being pushed to the forefront and it didn't win the day but unlike other instances where that felt trite? Considering what it contributed to the overall message it works incredibly well and really helped BoG to be that first Dragon Ball movie since The Path to Power to feel like an actual film.

And honestly while they've stumbled a bit with it in Super? I personally think they did a very good job of making transformations that follow this simple philosophy. SSB while admittedly not getting the best introduction and being a bit overused is a concept I love. It's not so much SSG2 as it is a bit more complicated, it shows a mastery of the God Ki for Goku and Vegeta to be able to take this power and incorporate it into their regular kit, I love that the blue flame aura is much calmer, fitting with how the blue was meant to show how much more tranquil and peaceful they are as fighters, the blue itself is striking and recognizable. Its only real issues to me were... well the fact this thing was probably better off not existing with Vegeta's God form being what this movie should've built to and just that absurd name of Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan which is so unholy and cumbersome that every time I see the acronym of SSGSS on anything I just know some poor sap is probably sighing with contempt over this terrible mouthful of a name. Aside from that? I still like it and honestly props have to go to Super for they kept with this form for as long as humanly possible with the new stuff we got being either additions that just used past material to make something new but otherwise they didn't make a new god form every saga or in other words? No, I don't consider Super Saiyan Rosé to really be anything too different from Blue. It's just Goku Black's take on the form which changed because Zamasu being the driver of that body was changing it over time to fit his needs. It's the form that marks Zamasu's mastery over his body and really is not the ultra-hard to explain nightmare some people position it as. It's taking SSB's idea of showing mastery over God Ki and twists it into something much more sinister and from that point on? The transformations were not super prominent and for the most part I really liked them, Ultra Instinct is one of the absolute best new things to happen to Dragon Ball since it's so unique while also being based on a lesson that Goku had been learning all the way back when he was a kid and an actual concept in martial arts and in certain Buddhist teachings, SSBE was... well admittedly less cool but I really liked what it meant in terms of Vegeta's development and how he was going to strive to push past his limits in his own way and I felt that since SSB was basically like using SSB but with God Ki? It made perfect sense for it to have different grades... though admittedly all this just gets done so much better by Ultra Ego in the Super manga which has really grown on me since I first saw it and thought it looked kind of goofy. It is the perfect counterbalance to Goku's Ultra Instinct, instead of moving without thinking and being all about defense, this is about raw power and destruction and again has a lot to it when it comes to representing how Vegeta's growth differs from Goku.

The only time this hasn't worked was... well honestly with one form and it just so happens to be one a lot of people like. Super Saiyan Rage has a cool design and got to be a part one of the most nail-biting moments from any saga in this franchise, that I will not deny... but it is not a good transformation. It barely has any justification for existing, its only real explanation is that Trunks got so enraged he broke his limits which can be applied to so many transformations and also it barely does anything. Hell if it wasn't for the cool moment it got with the Spirit Sword, it's almost as bad as SS4 with how badly it gets jobbed. But... even then I can admit that I still forgive it to an extent because it still was a part of some truly choice moments. So from reading this, you can tell that for transformations, while design plays a part in deciding why I like a form? I'm a lot more about its story significance, what it means for the characters in their personal growth and why they exist. An ace design or an absolutely stonkers moment can only get you so far, what worked in the past when I was a wee kid watching Gohan get so enraged over what's going on during his fight with Cell he ascended is not going to work just completely recycled wholesale, you need to be at least a little bit different to stand out and before you go "Well Super just keeps throwing out transformations like they're free candy!"? First, as I said no they really don't, hell if you really want to get cheeky since SSG and SSB were introduced in DBZ movies you could say they've only truly introduced SSBKK, SS Rage, UI, SSBE and UE. Next, look back through Dragon Ball's history and you'll see the franchise has been doing this long before Super became a thing. I mean I personally have more respect when someone can look at Super and criticize it while acknowledging its problems were inherited from the old series instead of pretending the original was just this perfect little darling of creation that could do no wrong. The only way this argument truly works to me is if we count SDBH among the proceedings since that takes place after Super... but you'd also be basically saying that a promotional anime based on a blatantly non-canon video game is a canon continuation so... why in the hell would you do that? Sure there's also villain transformations and... fair enough but that's again something inherited from the original series and thus if you want something to blame? Look in that direction while pointing out how annoying it is that they keep reaching into the same well of ideas. Point is? I've so far liked most of the new transformations and concepts and so far Dragon Ball hasn't provided me with anything to really sneer or turn my nose up at... until this stupid smirking porcupine of a half-finished Omni-God cosplay came sauntering in.

Final Gohan or I guess Gohan Beast now (Which side-note is a name that feels so half-baked. It legit sounds like Toriyama thought up the design and at the last minute realized that Toei needed a name but at that moment he really needed to take that post-draw dump and so he went with whatever he could deliver quickly before that dingleberry tore his cheeks open and called it a day.) is... one of the worst transformations in this series and might actually be at the moment my least favorite transformation to exist in this series period and considering what unkind things I've said about forms like SS4? That should say something. Now before you fire a Makankosappo from where you are, let me be clear that again, you absolutely are free to love it and also, it's not all bad to me. The color choice of white and red is striking, there's a very good reason why a lot of fan forms and even the limited color chapters of the manga uses this because the two just go together so unbelievably well and on Gohan? That combination of his purple gi, the red eyes and the white hair looks really solid. Looking at it more and more? I don't mind at least the idea of his hair growing out to where it's more like how he looked in the Cell Saga as an SS2, as fanart has shown that can look really cool, the red aura and lightning? Absolutely scrumptious and it helps it pair up well with Piccolo's orange form and the scene in which he transforms into this state? Absolutely rad from the eyes going red and shaking with a zoom-in to how it's done in complete silence with no music, on its own it's a great scene and... you know what, screw it, I don't mind the idea of Gohan having a new form whatsoever if done right. Considering Dragon Ball is a franchise like a whole bunch of others and those merchandise sales are part of what keeps this ship sailing? I've made my peace with the idea of us getting more new forms and I only want to see how that story will incorporate them to make it work, it's only a problem to me if it's done badly.

Which this... sadly is. Okay to start off with the big dangling hook in the room, I just have to ask, who the fuck thought this hair was a good idea? I said it before when I originally talked about the spoilers and I will say it again, he looks like he's wearing a comically oversized wig. He doesn't look like a tough badass warrior, he looks like me when I wear one of my Dragon Ball wigs for a con trip, the form doesn't look like a tribute to fans and the series so much as it looks like a parody of new Dragon Ball forms and the problem comes down to proportions. Case in point, look at this shot right here. We've seen this kind of angle in Dragon Ball before and from the hair on Gohan's head to his face? It doesn't look too bad overall and then you get to this massive fishing hook of a bang and it throws everything right off. Think that's photoshop? Oh I wish that were so but no, this is how the form looks in the movie and considering this thing mostly stands around and... tries to look tough, this thing is front and center staring you in the face which is bad for you because the longer you stare, the more issues it presents like how this thing is not only long, it's also ridiculously wide. MistareFusion called this form "Last House Gohan" as a reference to how Super Saiyan Goku looked when Studio Last House drew him in the Freeza Saga with bangs that were as wide as his biceps and honestly that's so apt. Hell it's probably why most fanart of this opts to make the bang long but otherwise keeps the width at the same level as Gohan's bang normally is and that way? It fixes a lot of the proportion issues... but that's not all because this hair is also just too massive for its own good. This shot doesn't do a great job I'll concede but people, look up what screencaps from the movie have shown and you'll see it, this man has a friggin' pineapple growing out of his head. It looks like when someone was tweaking the settings on the model, they accidentally extended out the vertices of Gohan's hair and made it longer and rather than fixing it, Toei went "Actually make it just that bit wider." and they did it without making any other corrections. It looks utterly laughable and put next to what I actually consider to be a very good design with Orange Piccolo (That's seriously what the form is called.), it feels like Gohan got massively shafted in the design phase for this form like... this is a prototype that you make as you work to a finalized design, not something that's meant to be fully rendered and put on display for all to see... which is ironic because the villain of the movie for the big fight at the end is meant to be an unfinished prototype and yet his design looks incredibly dope and again this issue is something that fanartists have easily corrected by just making his hair look more like a version of Cell Gohan's SS2 hair that's more proportioned to his adult body. This form also comes right the hell out of nowhere and aside from the transformation does only one thing of note. It hits the bad guy Cell Max one time which ticks him off and then he finishes him off with a Makankosappo. Now is that moment great? Absolutely, I can't wait to see this on a big screen hearing Chris Sabat and Kyle Hebert give it their all in acting as master and student working to take down this massive failed experiment together... but take away the flash and the beautiful animation of the moment, the amazing shouts delivered by Toshio Furukawa and Masako Nozawa and the splendor of Gohan using the Makankosappo at last after years of only seeing him use it in just video games? It's just one of the standard ending types we'd see so many times in the old slate of DBZ movies. Forget just copying the Cell Saga, this thing copied tons of old movies and specifically seems to have a hard-on for Bojack and... I'm sorry but that is just such a disappointment, especially considering that Dragon Ball in the past has done fantastic climaxes before.

Hell just last movie? We got an absolute rager of an ending where Broly ends up saved just moments before he would've lost his life and just moments after he regained control and thus watched as a burning blue light of death was coming to obliterate him. In the manga, our last climax involved an exciting last ditch effort by all parties involved to put down an angry old goat wizard who pulled the unbelievable punk move of trying to merge with the Earth which was taken out by a proper use of Chekov's Gun that was insanely fun. Super had Episode 131 which was a well-animated crazy final fight that included moments that became iconic basically the moment they came around which for a franchise that has been around since the 80s is saying a hell of a lot. Those endings didn't have to rely on a last-minute transformation whatsoever and in some cases put the focus on the honest-to-God characters like a climax should. I'll even concede that even some of the movies from the old days did this so much better and that's just beyond sad to me.

Now one argument I've heard many times in favor of this form goes a little something like "Well it's finally giving Gohan something big after years of shafting him and throwing a bone to the fans by giving them what they want." and... well I'll concede to at least two of those points. Some fans absolutely have wanted Gohan to get the spotlight again and quite a few have even mentioned wanting to see him get a new form. The Gohan Blanco meme itself wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the fact that there were people out there making those kinds of fan-theories and showing genuine interest. That being said... this is to me one of the laziest ways to go about it. As I said, strip away the animation and flair and what you're left with is a cheap knock-off of the iconic moments of the Cell Saga that simultaneously does and doesn't understand what makes them work and what could've been improved. Did Cell Max need to be a thing? Did we really need Piccolo to appear as though he died to trigger a new form? Did we need the new form at all?

Nope. And to add to that, even forms I've slagged off on in the past at least had something to them, SS Rage still at least meant something in the sense that this is Trunks finally taking charge to help his timeline after spending the Saga just hoping someone much better would fix it and there's the Spirit Sword, SSB for all its issues still does a good job of showing the growth of Goku and Vegeta as fighters and the same goes for SSBE in the case of the latter, even fucking SS4 for as much as I've crapped on it for being so useless and ridiculous looking gets a beautiful first transformation, an ace Dragon Fist and a really banger concept for what it's supposed to be. Gohan Beast? Fuck if I know, go read the guidebooks and interviews to try and piece it together yourself or hope for Super's return to feature it more frequently because that's what makes a transformation good right? When you require supplemental material to make your development actually work and let me tell you as a fan I just "love" when I can't trust movies or shows to include crucial plot developments in their stories. I make justifications for myself as much as I can based what I am given but when I'm given absolutely nothing then... what am I supposed to do? I'm a Dragon Ball fan, not Jesus.

But then there's the other aspect of this and it all has to do with the character in question, the Demon King's pupil turned scholar, Son Gohan and how this expression and what he does in this form is basically everything I not only despise in fan-appeasement but also can't stand when it comes to Gohan portrayals. People, I'm sorry, I've cushioned this as much as I could and I just need to say it, I do not get the desire to see Gohan go back to being as "badass" as he is in the Cell Saga, find that request more baffling and honestly far more annoying than the flip-flopping on his training Toei does from time-to-time and that for me it completely goes against who Gohan is as a character. Seriously, when I see him pulling off this smirk and giving some stereotypical badass quote? I'm not smiling so much as I'm rolling my eyes and sighing. This is not Gohan, that is not who he is as a character. All the way back in the Cell Saga we see him note how he got why his dad wanted him to fight Cell and how it was because when he got angry, he had this amazing power but that he worried about what it would do to him and what happened? While he wrecked the Cell Juniors, this form made him much more bloodthirsty and he chose to make Cell suffer over getting a quick victory and as a result it cost him his father and nearly the whole planet. When he became Ultimate Gohan after Elder Kai's power-up, we see his cockiness get the better of him in his fight against Boo for instead of trying to take him out quickly? He spends time showing off his abilities and toying with Boo which gets him killed and all throughout while he see him want a break from studying? He mentions time and time again he doesn't like fighting, he doesn't care about the same things as his father, he enjoys protecting the innocent and his family, not constantly maintaining his training and achieving new heights of power. The only time he has ever done that was in an alternate future where due to the small circumstance of literally almost EVERYONE HE LOVED BEING DEAD, he chose to train because there was no other option. Is Toei's flip-flopping annoying? Yes, I will grant you at least that. I wish Toei would settle on one arc for him, maybe just finally state he keeps up only basic training to stay in shape for his family but otherwise really doesn't push himself due to important matters and stick to it but folks, nothing compares to seeing post after post after post of just endless whinging about how Gohan isn't a "badass" anymore or that the Cell Saga is when he peaked when quite a bit of it amounts to just wanting to relive nostalgia of watching the dub over him being himself and for years aside from fan-material? I didn't have any example to point to of why that would be an absolutely terrible idea and how it would take away from his character... until now. The whole time I was watching this moment I was thinking to myself how whereas Piccolo got to keep a ton of what made him the character he was even as he was using two new forms? Gohan might as well be any other Saiyan asshole. I mean for God's sake, the action-comedy fan series Gohanverse by Daitomodachi does the whole white-haired Gohan thing better than this and in a way that makes you genuinely pump your fist in excitement and that's primarily because Emo Gohan, our lead in that show, keeps his actual character and they actually do stuff with him whereas this doesn't do much of anything and instead falls back on nostalgia over the character writing!

It honestly is to me almost like the antithesis to everything the previous movie did. Say what you will about Super: Broly, I get that nowadays it's kind of a thing to point out it has more flaws than once thought but I still contend the big shining star of that movie is the big guy himself. Toriyama and everyone involved did a great job taking the poster child for character-less meathead rage monsters and imbuing in him an actual character with discernible traits, an actual personality and a sense of history and it manages to do that on top of being a fun spectacle that pays tribute to the original Broly films. I genuinely did not want to see Broly die and I was so overjoyed to see him saved and become hopefully more of a part of the story. It also helps that so much effort was seemingly put into ensuring that he fit into canon as seamlessly as possible and with that you have an idea that on-paper sounded like the most trite nonsense ever to be suggested that was executed stupendously. This felt like they straight up forgot how to do that and instead thought "Well this movie's going international and a bunch of people really love SS2 Gohan so... here we go again!". This move just utterly reeks of a cynical "Market first, focus on story later" mentality that I've not felt from this series in years and the fact it comes at the end of a movie that seemed to be different and aiming more for fun is so incredibly frustrating, especially when I've seen this kind of nostalgic throwback done better years ago and the fact it happens after years of defending modern Dragon Ball makes me sigh and my eyebrow twitch, this just couldn't have been timed worse if it tried. This is not fanservice, it's fan-appeasement, it's a bunch of memberberries being dangled in front of people's faces in a cynical as all get-out marketing move that I cannot stand.

Dragon Ball ain't dead to me, I'm certainly not thinking the franchise is doomed or anything like that and I'm almost certain it can bounce back from this like it always has bounced back before. I won't be frothing at the mouth angry if it shows up in the games or later on in a new anime and... again if you love this that is absolutely awesome. Don't let my venting take away from that, keep on loving this motherfucker until the day you die. As for me? This is not a Day of Fate and I don't feel any excitement drawing near me, this thing just angers.

Description

It's the final Gohan, he's leaving for Namek where he will stand... on a hammock... wow the Final Countdown joke doesn't have much of a leg to stand on... kinda like this thing to be honest.

Honestly, I was hoping to maybe wait for the movie to come out properly before more openly talking about this. I mean aside from the post I did about the spoilers earlier this month where I used a blurred, pixelated and dulled version of a shot of the movie and also slapped on top of that a big ol' censor bar, I really didn't want to be super (HAH!) active covering the spoilers not just because I wanted to give people a chance to see the movie in August but also as someone who is so sick to death of the rampant cynicism and negativity that plagues this franchise with every new release getting the usual cries from the peanut gallery? I didn't really want to add to that and considering... everything that has been going on this year, that also sounded very first-world problems. The point is? I wasn't really looking to say anything more this soon.

So what happened? Simply put, Toei happened. In celebration of the movie having millions of viewers in Japan and its success, Toei is putting out a few new trailers for the movie... including one that spoils everything officially and if you don't mind me going on a side-tangent? I'm getting really sick to death of Toei doing this with the Dragon Ball movies. It would be very different if we were talking a theatrical release in Japan and us waiting months to get the movie out on Blu-Ray only or if the trailers they put out before was all they released and we were just left to wait until the release of it with the only people doing the opposite being Dragon Ball fans who just couldn't wait and leaked things themselves but this is so ridiculous considering they're now making these movies in part thanks to the international audience which are the kinds of people who normally cannot stand spoilers in any capacity. For once, just once I'd like a Dragon Ball movie to be in the marketing phase with the only person to blame for spoiling surprises being my curious ass. But because of this, that means this form has now been officially revealed, high quality screen-grabs are out there for all to see which means I can demonstrate speak more in-depth on this... thing. Now don't mistake my writing for me hating this to the point where I can feel my life expectancy dropping a couple years from anger alone or that I'm so disgusted every sight of this makes me want to vomit because... well one those are both overreactions and two, I only dislike it. It's a strong dislike, but it's still just that and because of this dislike coupled with how on a previous account I used to come down hard on ridiculous transformations? I wanted to speak about this form in-depth, talk about aspects I like, what I don't like, how I feel this could've been done better and why it doesn't work for me compared to other transformations.

Now before I begin, much like with my initial post about the spoilers, I should make it abundantly clear that I have still not watched the movie yet. I am aware that there are... means to watch the whole movie before that August release date but I personally want to actually see the full plot play out for my first time in theaters. At best all I've seen of this movie are the final scenes and I've heard other reviewers talk about these spoilers so while I can say speak a bit more clearly on opinions regarding certain choices like this? I cannot give an assessment on the movie and will not until I see it officially. I also want to make this clear, if you like this development? That is beyond awesome! I am not judging you for your enjoyment nor am I attacking you. I get in this fandom it's very easy to come across fans who just slam every new development, will insult those who dare to say they like it and call them slurs (One review I saw on here outright called people who liked Super "r****ds" and not true Dragon Ball fans) and many other insults for liking something they don't. I am not aiming to do that, while I have a few points of rebuttal for certain defenses, bear in mind that is just to help build up my opinion and why I feel the way I do and not to put down others who think differently. You could read every single word I put down and my arguments and still go "Okay but I still loved it.". I also want to be clear that I adore Dragon Ball and have been a massive fan and defender of the modern stuff. I think despite its flaws Super is really damn good, I've been really loving the manga so far and I have done many posts defending various elements in those series. I am also not one of those Dragon Ball fans who behaves like everything after Z and/or GT is garbage and I am willing to call out anybody that says that modern DB material "ruined their childhood" as a dumbass who are basically admitting their childhood sucked to begin with if this is what it takes to ruin it. I am only talking about the product here or in this case, a particular element of the product.

Lastly opinions are entirely my own and completely subjective. I am only speaking from my perspective on this topic and how I view it. I don't presume to speak for anyone else nor do I think my words are factual and people who do treat it as such should seriously knock it the hell off. I've said it before and I'll say it again, unless we are talking about gravely serious topics such as human rights and so on? I personally don't care what you think, you're free to like what you like and dislike what you don't. With that out of the way... jeez where do I begin here with this thing? Well I guess to start, how about mentioning the fact that this form has a very strange effect depending on how it's done because just about every piece of fanart of this looks legit and I don't just mean in the sense that the artists were good at what they do and their artistic rendering of this form looks great and well-crafted, I mean the form in almost every piece of fanart looks better than it does in the actual movie. Seriously, compare this shot I'm sharing right now to some of the most popular fanart right now and you'll see what I mean, it's genuinely bizarre to see. Speaking of looks though, that brings us to one important topic, how did we get to this transformation in the first place?

Now for Dragon Ball, transformations have become pretty ubiquitous in this franchise and forms introduced in movies have been fairly common place, going all the way back to Movie 4, Super Saiyan Son Goku otherwise known as Lord Slug where we got what at the time was supposed to be our first look at Super Saiyan until Toriyama showed this thing was merely a poser one-off based on non-finalized ideas and... well I'd be lying if I said that with the exception of Legendary Super Saiyan in Movie 8 that things in those early movies were amazing. More often than not it takes me a few moments to remember certain details or if I do, it's more because fans have hyped them up beyond belief and not because of the movies proper. This however would all change with 2014's Battle of Gods which gave us Super Saiyan God, an... honest-to-God breath of fresh air. Considering how many fan-designs pegged this as just being some boring SS4 recolor or something so overly designed and detailed that it'd make animators have a heart attack over the sheer thought of trying to animate them and also how used we were to transformations just kind of being a case of "Ooh, look how serious this guy is, see? He has powered up."? SSG's more simplified elegant approach that opted to use color, physique and how they did the aura to demonstrate its power really worked for me. I especially love the kind of magentaish shade of red they went for and how it made Goku look much calmer, you didn't really get these kinds of transformations from Dragon Ball so this felt new and fresh and honestly it was a whole lot better than if they went for the standard "My eyes are angry pizzas with hair that extends down to my asscrack and muscles that are as big as my skull" look. Not only that but it was the first transformation I think since the original Super Saiyan to have some honest-to-God build-up and a proper story justification for existing. Granted that latter part is less so given it's just another legend but you know what? I don't care, I still love it, especially since it was used as a stepping stone in Goku's development as we get his frustration over the method that was needed to obtain it being pushed to the forefront and it didn't win the day but unlike other instances where that felt trite? Considering what it contributed to the overall message it works incredibly well and really helped BoG to be that first Dragon Ball movie since The Path to Power to feel like an actual film.

And honestly while they've stumbled a bit with it in Super? I personally think they did a very good job of making transformations that follow this simple philosophy. SSB while admittedly not getting the best introduction and being a bit overused is a concept I love. It's not so much SSG2 as it is a bit more complicated, it shows a mastery of the God Ki for Goku and Vegeta to be able to take this power and incorporate it into their regular kit, I love that the blue flame aura is much calmer, fitting with how the blue was meant to show how much more tranquil and peaceful they are as fighters, the blue itself is striking and recognizable. Its only real issues to me were... well the fact this thing was probably better off not existing with Vegeta's God form being what this movie should've built to and just that absurd name of Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan which is so unholy and cumbersome that every time I see the acronym of SSGSS on anything I just know some poor sap is probably sighing with contempt over this terrible mouthful of a name. Aside from that? I still like it and honestly props have to go to Super for they kept with this form for as long as humanly possible with the new stuff we got being either additions that just used past material to make something new but otherwise they didn't make a new god form every saga or in other words? No, I don't consider Super Saiyan Rosé to really be anything too different from Blue. It's just Goku Black's take on the form which changed because Zamasu being the driver of that body was changing it over time to fit his needs. It's the form that marks Zamasu's mastery over his body and really is not the ultra-hard to explain nightmare some people position it as. It's taking SSB's idea of showing mastery over God Ki and twists it into something much more sinister and from that point on? The transformations were not super prominent and for the most part I really liked them, Ultra Instinct is one of the absolute best new things to happen to Dragon Ball since it's so unique while also being based on a lesson that Goku had been learning all the way back when he was a kid and an actual concept in martial arts and in certain Buddhist teachings, SSBE was... well admittedly less cool but I really liked what it meant in terms of Vegeta's development and how he was going to strive to push past his limits in his own way and I felt that since SSB was basically like using SSB but with God Ki? It made perfect sense for it to have different grades... though admittedly all this just gets done so much better by Ultra Ego in the Super manga which has really grown on me since I first saw it and thought it looked kind of goofy. It is the perfect counterbalance to Goku's Ultra Instinct, instead of moving without thinking and being all about defense, this is about raw power and destruction and again has a lot to it when it comes to representing how Vegeta's growth differs from Goku.

The only time this hasn't worked was... well honestly with one form and it just so happens to be one a lot of people like. Super Saiyan Rage has a cool design and got to be a part one of the most nail-biting moments from any saga in this franchise, that I will not deny... but it is not a good transformation. It barely has any justification for existing, its only real explanation is that Trunks got so enraged he broke his limits which can be applied to so many transformations and also it barely does anything. Hell if it wasn't for the cool moment it got with the Spirit Sword, it's almost as bad as SS4 with how badly it gets jobbed. But... even then I can admit that I still forgive it to an extent because it still was a part of some truly choice moments. So from reading this, you can tell that for transformations, while design plays a part in deciding why I like a form? I'm a lot more about its story significance, what it means for the characters in their personal growth and why they exist. An ace design or an absolutely stonkers moment can only get you so far, what worked in the past when I was a wee kid watching Gohan get so enraged over what's going on during his fight with Cell he ascended is not going to work just completely recycled wholesale, you need to be at least a little bit different to stand out and before you go "Well Super just keeps throwing out transformations like they're free candy!"? First, as I said no they really don't, hell if you really want to get cheeky since SSG and SSB were introduced in DBZ movies you could say they've only truly introduced SSBKK, SS Rage, UI, SSBE and UE. Next, look back through Dragon Ball's history and you'll see the franchise has been doing this long before Super became a thing. I mean I personally have more respect when someone can look at Super and criticize it while acknowledging its problems were inherited from the old series instead of pretending the original was just this perfect little darling of creation that could do no wrong. The only way this argument truly works to me is if we count SDBH among the proceedings since that takes place after Super... but you'd also be basically saying that a promotional anime based on a blatantly non-canon video game is a canon continuation so... why in the hell would you do that? Sure there's also villain transformations and... fair enough but that's again something inherited from the original series and thus if you want something to blame? Look in that direction while pointing out how annoying it is that they keep reaching into the same well of ideas. Point is? I've so far liked most of the new transformations and concepts and so far Dragon Ball hasn't provided me with anything to really sneer or turn my nose up at... until this stupid smirking porcupine of a half-finished Omni-God cosplay came sauntering in.

Final Gohan or I guess Gohan Beast now (Which side-note is a name that feels so half-baked. It legit sounds like Toriyama thought up the design and at the last minute realized that Toei needed a name but at that moment he really needed to take that post-draw dump and so he went with whatever he could deliver quickly before that dingleberry tore his cheeks open and called it a day.) is... one of the worst transformations in this series and might actually be at the moment my least favorite transformation to exist in this series period and considering what unkind things I've said about forms like SS4? That should say something. Now before you fire a Makankosappo from where you are, let me be clear that again, you absolutely are free to love it and also, it's not all bad to me. The color choice of white and red is striking, there's a very good reason why a lot of fan forms and even the limited color chapters of the manga uses this because the two just go together so unbelievably well and on Gohan? That combination of his purple gi, the red eyes and the white hair looks really solid. Looking at it more and more? I don't mind at least the idea of his hair growing out to where it's more like how he looked in the Cell Saga as an SS2, as fanart has shown that can look really cool, the red aura and lightning? Absolutely scrumptious and it helps it pair up well with Piccolo's orange form and the scene in which he transforms into this state? Absolutely rad from the eyes going red and shaking with a zoom-in to how it's done in complete silence with no music, on its own it's a great scene and... you know what, screw it, I don't mind the idea of Gohan having a new form whatsoever if done right. Considering Dragon Ball is a franchise like a whole bunch of others and those merchandise sales are part of what keeps this ship sailing? I've made my peace with the idea of us getting more new forms and I only want to see how that story will incorporate them to make it work, it's only a problem to me if it's done badly.

Which this... sadly is. Okay to start off with the big dangling hook in the room, I just have to ask, who the fuck thought this hair was a good idea? I said it before when I originally talked about the spoilers and I will say it again, he looks like he's wearing a comically oversized wig. He doesn't look like a tough badass warrior, he looks like me when I wear one of my Dragon Ball wigs for a con trip, the form doesn't look like a tribute to fans and the series so much as it looks like a parody of new Dragon Ball forms and the problem comes down to proportions. Case in point, look at this shot right here. We've seen this kind of angle in Dragon Ball before and from the hair on Gohan's head to his face? It doesn't look too bad overall and then you get to this massive fishing hook of a bang and it throws everything right off. Think that's photoshop? Oh I wish that were so but no, this is how the form looks in the movie and considering this thing mostly stands around and... tries to look tough, this thing is front and center staring you in the face which is bad for you because the longer you stare, the more issues it presents like how this thing is not only long, it's also ridiculously wide. MistareFusion called this form "Last House Gohan" as a reference to how Super Saiyan Goku looked when Studio Last House drew him in the Freeza Saga with bangs that were as wide as his biceps and honestly that's so apt. Hell it's probably why most fanart of this opts to make the bang long but otherwise keeps the width at the same level as Gohan's bang normally is and that way? It fixes a lot of the proportion issues... but that's not all because this hair is also just too massive for its own good. This shot doesn't do a great job I'll concede but people, look up what screencaps from the movie have shown and you'll see it, this man has a friggin' pineapple growing out of his head. It looks like when someone was tweaking the settings on the model, they accidentally extended out the vertices of Gohan's hair and made it longer and rather than fixing it, Toei went "Actually make it just that bit wider." and they did it without making any other corrections. It looks utterly laughable and put next to what I actually consider to be a very good design with Orange Piccolo (That's seriously what the form is called.), it feels like Gohan got massively shafted in the design phase for this form like... this is a prototype that you make as you work to a finalized design, not something that's meant to be fully rendered and put on display for all to see... which is ironic because the villain of the movie for the big fight at the end is meant to be an unfinished prototype and yet his design looks incredibly dope and again this issue is something that fanartists have easily corrected by just making his hair look more like a version of Cell Gohan's SS2 hair that's more proportioned to his adult body. This form also comes right the hell out of nowhere and aside from the transformation does only one thing of note. It hits the bad guy Cell Max one time which ticks him off and then he finishes him off with a Makankosappo. Now is that moment great? Absolutely, I can't wait to see this on a big screen hearing Chris Sabat and Kyle Hebert give it their all in acting as master and student working to take down this massive failed experiment together... but take away the flash and the beautiful animation of the moment, the amazing shouts delivered by Toshio Furukawa and Masako Nozawa and the splendor of Gohan using the Makankosappo at last after years of only seeing him use it in just video games? It's just one of the standard ending types we'd see so many times in the old slate of DBZ movies. Forget just copying the Cell Saga, this thing copied tons of old movies and specifically seems to have a hard-on for Bojack and... I'm sorry but that is just such a disappointment, especially considering that Dragon Ball in the past has done fantastic climaxes before.

Hell just last movie? We got an absolute rager of an ending where Broly ends up saved just moments before he would've lost his life and just moments after he regained control and thus watched as a burning blue light of death was coming to obliterate him. In the manga, our last climax involved an exciting last ditch effort by all parties involved to put down an angry old goat wizard who pulled the unbelievable punk move of trying to merge with the Earth which was taken out by a proper use of Chekov's Gun that was insanely fun. Super had Episode 131 which was a well-animated crazy final fight that included moments that became iconic basically the moment they came around which for a franchise that has been around since the 80s is saying a hell of a lot. Those endings didn't have to rely on a last-minute transformation whatsoever and in some cases put the focus on the honest-to-God characters like a climax should. I'll even concede that even some of the movies from the old days did this so much better and that's just beyond sad to me.

Now one argument I've heard many times in favor of this form goes a little something like "Well it's finally giving Gohan something big after years of shafting him and throwing a bone to the fans by giving them what they want." and... well I'll concede to at least two of those points. Some fans absolutely have wanted Gohan to get the spotlight again and quite a few have even mentioned wanting to see him get a new form. The Gohan Blanco meme itself wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the fact that there were people out there making those kinds of fan-theories and showing genuine interest. That being said... this is to me one of the laziest ways to go about it. As I said, strip away the animation and flair and what you're left with is a cheap knock-off of the iconic moments of the Cell Saga that simultaneously does and doesn't understand what makes them work and what could've been improved. Did Cell Max need to be a thing? Did we really need Piccolo to appear as though he died to trigger a new form? Did we need the new form at all?

Nope. And to add to that, even forms I've slagged off on in the past at least had something to them, SS Rage still at least meant something in the sense that this is Trunks finally taking charge to help his timeline after spending the Saga just hoping someone much better would fix it and there's the Spirit Sword, SSB for all its issues still does a good job of showing the growth of Goku and Vegeta as fighters and the same goes for SSBE in the case of the latter, even fucking SS4 for as much as I've crapped on it for being so useless and ridiculous looking gets a beautiful first transformation, an ace Dragon Fist and a really banger concept for what it's supposed to be. Gohan Beast? Fuck if I know, go read the guidebooks and interviews to try and piece it together yourself or hope for Super's return to feature it more frequently because that's what makes a transformation good right? When you require supplemental material to make your development actually work and let me tell you as a fan I just "love" when I can't trust movies or shows to include crucial plot developments in their stories. I make justifications for myself as much as I can based what I am given but when I'm given absolutely nothing then... what am I supposed to do? I'm a Dragon Ball fan, not Jesus.

But then there's the other aspect of this and it all has to do with the character in question, the Demon King's pupil turned scholar, Son Gohan and how this expression and what he does in this form is basically everything I not only despise in fan-appeasement but also can't stand when it comes to Gohan portrayals. People, I'm sorry, I've cushioned this as much as I could and I just need to say it, I do not get the desire to see Gohan go back to being as "badass" as he is in the Cell Saga, find that request more baffling and honestly far more annoying than the flip-flopping on his training Toei does from time-to-time and that for me it completely goes against who Gohan is as a character. Seriously, when I see him pulling off this smirk and giving some stereotypical badass quote? I'm not smiling so much as I'm rolling my eyes and sighing. This is not Gohan, that is not who he is as a character. All the way back in the Cell Saga we see him note how he got why his dad wanted him to fight Cell and how it was because when he got angry, he had this amazing power but that he worried about what it would do to him and what happened? While he wrecked the Cell Juniors, this form made him much more bloodthirsty and he chose to make Cell suffer over getting a quick victory and as a result it cost him his father and nearly the whole planet. When he became Ultimate Gohan after Elder Kai's power-up, we see his cockiness get the better of him in his fight against Boo for instead of trying to take him out quickly? He spends time showing off his abilities and toying with Boo which gets him killed and all throughout while he see him want a break from studying? He mentions time and time again he doesn't like fighting, he doesn't care about the same things as his father, he enjoys protecting the innocent and his family, not constantly maintaining his training and achieving new heights of power. The only time he has ever done that was in an alternate future where due to the small circumstance of literally almost EVERYONE HE LOVED BEING DEAD, he chose to train because there was no other option. Is Toei's flip-flopping annoying? Yes, I will grant you at least that. I wish Toei would settle on one arc for him, maybe just finally state he keeps up only basic training to stay in shape for his family but otherwise really doesn't push himself due to important matters and stick to it but folks, nothing compares to seeing post after post after post of just endless whinging about how Gohan isn't a "badass" anymore or that the Cell Saga is when he peaked when quite a bit of it amounts to just wanting to relive nostalgia of watching the dub over him being himself and for years aside from fan-material? I didn't have any example to point to of why that would be an absolutely terrible idea and how it would take away from his character... until now. The whole time I was watching this moment I was thinking to myself how whereas Piccolo got to keep a ton of what made him the character he was even as he was using two new forms? Gohan might as well be any other Saiyan asshole. I mean for God's sake, the action-comedy fan series Gohanverse by Daitomodachi does the whole white-haired Gohan thing better than this and in a way that makes you genuinely pump your fist in excitement and that's primarily because Emo Gohan, our lead in that show, keeps his actual character and they actually do stuff with him whereas this doesn't do much of anything and instead falls back on nostalgia over the character writing!

It honestly is to me almost like the antithesis to everything the previous movie did. Say what you will about Super: Broly, I get that nowadays it's kind of a thing to point out it has more flaws than once thought but I still contend the big shining star of that movie is the big guy himself. Toriyama and everyone involved did a great job taking the poster child for character-less meathead rage monsters and imbuing in him an actual character with discernible traits, an actual personality and a sense of history and it manages to do that on top of being a fun spectacle that pays tribute to the original Broly films. I genuinely did not want to see Broly die and I was so overjoyed to see him saved and become hopefully more of a part of the story. It also helps that so much effort was seemingly put into ensuring that he fit into canon as seamlessly as possible and with that you have an idea that on-paper sounded like the most trite nonsense ever to be suggested that was executed stupendously. This felt like they straight up forgot how to do that and instead thought "Well this movie's going international and a bunch of people really love SS2 Gohan so... here we go again!". This move just utterly reeks of a cynical "Market first, focus on story later" mentality that I've not felt from this series in years and the fact it comes at the end of a movie that seemed to be different and aiming more for fun is so incredibly frustrating, especially when I've seen this kind of nostalgic throwback done better years ago and the fact it happens after years of defending modern Dragon Ball makes me sigh and my eyebrow twitch, this just couldn't have been timed worse if it tried. This is not fanservice, it's fan-appeasement, it's a bunch of memberberries being dangled in front of people's faces in a cynical as all get-out marketing move that I cannot stand.

Dragon Ball ain't dead to me, I'm certainly not thinking the franchise is doomed or anything like that and I'm almost certain it can bounce back from this like it always has bounced back before. I won't be frothing at the mouth angry if it shows up in the games or later on in a new anime and... again if you love this that is absolutely awesome. Don't let my venting take away from that, keep on loving this motherfucker until the day you die. As for me? This is not a Day of Fate and I don't feel any excitement drawing near me, this thing just angers.