Backlash Mounts Against “Dragon Ball Is the Greatest Manga” Claim — 5ch Erupts in One Piece Comparison Debate

Has this freak never read anything besides Dragon Ball?

And Gundam or One Piece fans would never say something this arrogant

Re: #15
It's not that One Piece fans won't say it — they can't say it.
Chidori couldn't exactly say "we're the top" in front of Downtown, right? (comedy duo analogy: a junior act can't claim to outrank a legendary senior one)

Gundam isn't even manga to begin with, plus it's a different category — those fans probably think they're already the top of the robot genre anyway.

Re: #26
No, the point is: if you're gonna call it the greatest manga, back it up with an actual explanation.
"It's popular" alone doesn't cut it — that's no different from Demon Slayer.
You need substance to talk about, like people can with One Piece.

Re: #26
For what it's worth, I can flatly say One Piece is better than Dragon Ball.
And I can actually explain why.

It's lesser than Gundam or Pokémon, sure, but the sheer density of the content is real.
You could talk for hours about nothing but the side-branch Carddass trading cards.

I'm an otaku so I've devoured all kinds of manga, and I still think Dragon Ball is supreme.
Plus, even Tezuka praised it (Osamu Tezuka, the "god of manga").

Re: #21
Weak, weak~ ♡ (a mocking taunt — "zako zako," meaning "weakling, weakling")

Re: #20
Re: #21
It's just people punching each other, isn't it?
What do you even mean by "high density"?

Re: #38
Oh! That's interesting! Go ahead and explain it!

Re: #42
For one, it doesn't have random, aimless power inflation.
And the worldbuilding never falls apart.

Re: #46
Oh, okay then…

Re: #49
It introduced real, proper foreshadowing for a shonen manga.
Monkey D. Luffy
Gold Roger
↓
Gol D. Roger (Volume 17)

Re: #49
What's that supposed to mean?
"Oh, okay then" — that's no different from a Demon Slayer fan.

Re: #55
I'm asking what's actually amazing about One Piece, and when you answer with stuff like Re: #46 or Re: #54 — things basically every manga does — of course all you get back is a reaction like Re: #49.

Also, it actually has real thematic depth.
It's impressive that a top-tier hit shonen manga takes on the topic of discrimination and actually sees it through to a resolution.

Re: #59
Dragon Ball doesn't do that, sure, but it's basically the textbook example of power inflation to begin with.

Re: #67
Umm… could you try to understand Re: #68?
Every manga develops its own original story — if it did the same thing as some other work, that would literally be called plagiarism.
One Piece, like every other manga, develops its own unique story, so being told "that's amazing" about something every other manga does as a matter of course doesn't actually make One Piece amazing.

Re: #88
Dragon Ball couldn't pull this off, could it?
Same goes for Re: #67, too.

Does One Piece even have foreshadowing?
Isn't it just stuff like "actually, this is what was really going on" or "actually, he had an older brother" — the same kind of thing Dragon Ball did with the Red Ribbon Army or the Gero father-son reveal?

Re: #82
https://wakatake.zashiki.com/wj/wj506btaiyo.html
Check this out — you can see it was tackling discrimination from quite early on.
Side note:
Arlong suddenly flying into a rage, shouting about it almost like he'd personally "been discriminated against."

Re: #154
> But hey, as he got older, he probably got embarrassed about spending his life drawing childish shonen manga
Look at Re: #88 and 89 — you can see it's been handled since volume 6.

So? What about Dragon Ball?
Did it just keep doing Anpanman-style slugfests all the way to the finale?
Weren't you the one saying "One Piece is shallow"?
Where's that "greatest manga" now?

Re: #82
Buggy, Kuro, and Krieg all treated their own crews like garbage, yet Arlong has this bizarrely strong sense of loyalty to his crew (almost like he'd been on the receiving end of discrimination).

Re: #82
The Arlong Pirates covering up their World Noble branding with a sun mark.
And Nami, the one member of the Arlong crew, has a tattoo that looks like her path was completely different from the rest of them.

What's good about Dragon Ball is that it has no agenda and doesn't try to make you cry.

No agenda means: an absolute evil shows up, everyone unconditionally agrees it's evil and has to be beaten — that's it.
Not trying to make you cry is exactly what it sounds like.

Now compare that to One Piece.

A nation from 800 years ago, criticism of the World Government running the current world, gods, the World Nobles — are they running some kind of sketchy religion over there or what?

Re: #94
It does the whole "kill a character for emotional impact" thing though.
Total tearjerker bait.

Re: #98
Dragon Ball takes that and throws in the thrilling Gohan-awakening attack — and when Gohan comes up short and looks like he's about to die, it keeps the thrill going with Goku's arrival.

Meanwhile, One Piece, come on —

Bell-mère dies and it's "BELL-MÈRE-SAAAAAN!!!"
Vivi begs "please stop the war!" and Nami's on the verge of tears going "you all, stop this war!"

Re: #115
Are you serious right now?
Stuff like Re: #98, or Vegeta's "excess fat" line —
I remember thinking "what a one-trick-pony writer!" at those.
Where does One Piece even come into this?

It's a'ight, we can bring him back with the Dragon Balls (Goku's signature line, in his rustic accent)

Re: #109
Piccolo's death was a thrilling development too, since it meant the Dragon Balls would disappear along with him.

Re: #110
But in the end it just gets solved with the Dragon Balls anyway, right?

I mean, I do think Dragon Ball is a fun manga, but if it were being serialized today, I don't think it would've gotten anywhere near this popular.

Re: #117
Never mind that, eat up while you can!

Re: #117
How the Dragon Balls get used is part of the appeal too, you know.

Re: #106
So what's your point?
"Thrilling development" is something literally any manga artist does.
More importantly, "using someone's death as emotional fuel" —
a manga that does that isn't the greatest manga.
It's a one-trick pony to begin with, and honestly, kind of tasteless.

Re: #113
What's gotten into you, suddenly trash-talking One Piece?

Re: #113
Lol, that's a technique One Piece uses plenty too.

Re: #120
Pell, was it? The bird that dies — using a death as emotional fuel, exactly like that.

Re: #123
He's not even dead.
And you call that "doing it plenty" lol

Re: #125
Bell-mère, for one.

Re: #125
Playing it up like a total death, then "actually he was alive after all!" — that's a total buzzkill lol

Re: #141
This whole time you've been calling One Piece shallow, and now you're switching to "simple is best!"?
Try seeing it from my side for once.

Take Naruto, for instance.

It tackled the idea that revenge breeds more revenge, an endless chain with no real solution — and while it couldn't offer a clear answer, it was a work that posed that question to its readers.

Now, how about One Piece by comparison?

Is it even trying to tackle that kind of problem?
No — One Piece only ever brushes the surface, leaves readers with some tidy platitude, and calls it done.

Well, setting aside whether a socially-conscious work like Naruto is good or bad,
it's nothing like One Piece.

Re: #168
We're talking about Dragon Ball here.
Don't go changing the subject.

Re: #170
Nah, honestly I'm not really into it when an author starts playing "social commentator" and makes social issues the theme — if Dragon Ball had been that kind of work, I probably would've hated it.

A manga for the poorly-educated, kids, and women trying to play social commentator, give me a break.

Re: #173
And a copycat power-inflation slugfest manga isn't for poorly-educated kids?

Just be honest and say "I like Dragon Ball and I don't like One Piece."

Re: #175
It inflates the power levels with proper justification behind it, though.
I just think it's well-crafted manga, that's all.