By Willard S. Squire
I'm going to start this one off with a disclaimer: This is going to sound a lot like I'm hating on Dragon Ball. This might be because I am, but only just a little.
That's it, disclaimer over.
I have never liked Dragon Ball.
Not as a kid when I watched every single anime that came on Toonami. Not now as an adult when I enjoy more high class animes like Berserk and Neo Yokio.
It just bores me to no end. I almost fell asleep during my research for this article because I delve too deep into the fan-made Dragon Ball wiki.
Now you might have already labeled me a snob in your mind, I most definitely am one. However, I’m a snob who loves Hype Shit.
“What is Hype Shit?,” you may ask?
Hype Shit is watching Godzilla punch King Kong in the face.
Its watching John Wick shoot up a bunch of Russians because fuck yeah!
You have high quality Hype Shit like Mad Max: Fury Road.
You have low quality Hype Shit like any movie Michael Bay directs.
I think a lot of people see the super strong men throughout Dragon Ball touching each other really hard, blasting each other willy-nilly, and think “This is some Hype Shit”.
And it could’ve been if it hadn't committed one cardinal sin:
The Sin of The Infinitely Scaling Character.
Superman. The Hulk. Goku.
Yawn. Yawn. Yawn.
The Infinitely Scaling Character is a lazy writing device in which an author creates a character that no matter what obstacle he/or she faces, they will always have the ability to power up even more and beat the shit out of said obstacle.
Why is this a bad thing? Because their is no drama, no tension, in any of the majority of the story lines that feature an Infinitely Scaling Character (save for when a talented author gets their hands on one of these characters)
Are you really on the edge of your seat when The Hulk fights Abomination? Or when Goku battles the third buff alien boy of the month?
Of course not, because the good guy always wins in these situations. Even if said good guy gets the pulp beaten out of them, they’ll power up, enter a new form and win.
Boring.
Boring and poorly written.
You know what isn’t boring though? When your characters and the foes they fight both have limits and boundaries that they need to work around to win. Add in the real possibility that either one of these characters can beat the other one, good or bad, and you have an interesting story.
You have successfully achieved Hype Shit status.
The best example I can give is Part One of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood. There are spoilers here, but it’s literally the first nine episodes of the first season and the shortest part in the 30 year history of JoJo.
In Phantom Blood, the titular character Jonathan Joestar is facing off with the head (yes the head) of Vampiric Dio Brando for the last time in the engine room of a ship. Jonathan can energize his blood with the power of The Ripple, which, through breathing, gives him sunlike energy that allows him to hurt Dio, but is still a mortal human. Dio is a head, which is surprisingly deadly in the world of JoJo, but does have the help of a powerful zombie henchman. Dio is there to kill Jonathan, and attach his vampire head onto his body. Jonathan is there to stop that from happening.
The stage is set. The parameters for each character is put in place.
Both Dio and Jonathan have ways to win and lose this fight.
And guess what? They both win AND lose.
Jonathans victory is pyrrhic at best, as he dies cradling Dio’s head as the ship goes down in a fiery blaze, his pregnant wife escaping to live another day.
Dio’s victory is less imminent, but will come into play in almost every single part to follow.
Part One of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is arguably its worst (especially in comparison to what follows it, which isn’t fair to it), but it was still more interesting than almost any story involving an Infinitely Scaling Character, because it’s characters play in and around the boundaries set for them. This creates tension, it creates drama, and most importantly it creates an interesting story for the viewer.
Be a good writer, don’t use Infinite Scaling.