Though Dragon Ball Super racked up a lot of excitement, several hiccups caused the series to fail to live up to fans' expectations.

It was hard not to be excited when it was first announced that Dragon Ball was coming back to television. After two successful films, both Toei and Toriyama worked together to put out the next era of adventures in Dragon Ball Super.

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However, wanting to come back and actually being back are two different things. Dragon Ball Super had a lot of great moments, but it failed to consistently recapture the magic created by its predecessors. Everything from production problems to strange uses for old and new characters meant the series wasn't quite as good as the classic Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series.

Krillin isn’t the greatest character on the show, but despite him being a weaker character, everyone acknowledges that he’s only weak in the realm of the Z Fighters. When he’s doing anything with regular people, Krillin's the strongest man in the world.

He’s also fast enough to outfly cars, which raises an important question: how did Krillin get hit by a bullet? Granted it happened while he was trying to save a fellow officer, but even still he should have been fast enough to avoid it. Further, it shouldn’t have damaged him, considering people shot at him in Dragon Ball and it didn’t work.

Everyone wanted Piccolo to power-up and stand alongside the Saiyans once again, but no one saw his lazy upgrade coming in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. There, Shenron brought out all of Piccolo’s latent power, giving him a massive increase in power quickly.

But Shenron also “threw in a little something extra,” which is how Piccolo achieved his new Orange Piccolo transformation. It was strange to see Shenron handing out free samples like Piccolo finished out a punch card. The Dragon Balls shouldn’t be able to be used as a quick and easy path to power.

Gohan fans have it pretty rough. It’s bad enough Gohan hasn’t been himself since he beat down Cell, but Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' made it so much worse. In this film, the Z Fighters were only able to summon Goku and Vegeta by getting someone to raise their power level high enough so they could be sensed.

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It should have been an easy job, but Gohan went without training for so long he forgot how to go Super Saiyan 2. Gohan showed them how to go Super Saiyan 2 in the first place, making this a pretty far way to fall.

Resurrection of F brought back Frieza for the second time, bringing him back to planet Earth and turning him into a threat once again. Thanks to his stronger Golden Frieza form, he was able to easily beat Goku’s recently attained Super Saiyan Blue form, but when his Golden Frieza form wore off, Vegeta stepped in to finish Frieza.

It’s a victory Vegeta deserved, especially considering both their last fight and Vegeta’s history with Frieza. However, rather than letting Vegeta win, the film ended with them rewinding time so Goku could finish Frieza off. As if no one remembers the last time that happened.

Everyone hoped that Dragon Ball wouldn't miss a step when it made its come back, but that’s not what happened. The early parts of Dragon Ball Super’s television run are an embarrassment.

It’s clear the studio was rushing to complete those episodes, while other animators worked on future arcs for the series. The series eventually figured out its animation problems by the start of the original content, but that’s after over twenty episodes of mediocre design and off-model characters.

Frieza was the most dangerous threat the Z Fighters ever faced. He was an irredeemable monster who blew up Planet Vegeta just off the possibility that one day they might raise some warriors powerful enough to fight him.

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He sold entire planets to other races and enslaved others. There was no reason for Goku to wish him back when they had so many other options. Sure, Frieza was stronger than many of their other options, but still. The series is edging closer to making Frieza a reluctant ally.

Dragon Ball Super threw any form of power levels out. The last time viewers saw Android 17 fight, he wasn’t strong enough to fight off Imperfect Cell. When he made his first canon reappearance in years, inexplicably Android 17 improved several times over.

He was able to fight somewhat evenly with Goku in his Super Saiyan Blue form. Goku might have been holding back, but 17 established himself as one of the strongest members in Universe 7 pretty quickly. It worked out though, as Android 17 is a vital player in Universe 7 for the Tournament of Power.

Most fans consider the Goku Black arc the best Dragon Ball Super has to offer, but there was one major problem – Goku Black had way too much plot armor. Perhaps it was a victim of being too long of a story, but no matter what trick they used, Goku Black wouldn’t go down.

They tried fusion, they tried training, and they tried sealing him off. Eventually Trunks somehow cut him in half, and his response was to merge with the entire universe. Zen-Oh had to teleport in and erase Goku Black from existence, thanks to his wish on the Super Dragon Balls.

One of the most perplexing things Dragon Ball Super ever did was retcon how the Potara Earrings worked. Originally, once two people put on the earrings, they were fused forever. Goku and Vegeta were only separated after being exposed to the magic within Majin Buu. But during the Goku Black arc, how the Potara Earrings work was retconned.

Now they work as long as the Fusion Dance, and much like the fusion dance, more powerful fusions last less time. Explanations like this serve only to make the universe feel less vast and more knowable. Worse, the answer to a question no one was asking to begin with.

As early as Dragon Ball Super: Broly, fans started to learn about the ridiculous wishes Shenron was being used for. The early portion of the movie saw Bulma and Frieza both wanting the Dragon Balls for something petty. Bulma wanted to look five years younger, while Frieza wanted to be five centimeters taller.

They’re both equally absurd wishes, but it turned out Bulma regularly wished on the Dragon Balls to keep them inert. It’s a smart answer, as expected from one of the smartest women in anime, but it also trivializes all the work that used to go into discovering the Dragon Balls.

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Staff Writer for CBR, Sage Ashford has also written for Comicon as well as other sites such as The Gamer, and has been doing freelance work since 2014, and been working for CBR since 2017. His focus is primarily on spreading the word on obscure anime, comic books, and games whenever possible. Follow him on Twitter @ sageshinigami, or on Twitch @ sageshinigami.

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