Dragon Ball Super

Last July, the anime Dragon Ball Super premiered in Japan and quickly found its way over to the U.S. Fans of the immensely popular Dragon Ball series were understandably excited, as this was the first new story in the Dragon Ball universe since the last show aired its last episode in 1997. The series is known for its very well animated and ridiculous, over the top action sequences, and many were wondering what new show would have in store for them this time. However, during the first big fight scene of the show, which was currently telling a story arc that mirrored a recently released Dragon Ball movie in which Goku, the show's protagonist, fights the universe's strongest being, there was a noticeable drop in the quality of animation that fans expect from the series.

 



These are stills taken from the 5th episode of Super, and they contain some of the worst animation in the history of the Dragon Ball franchise. Quite a lot of outrage was thrown in the direction of the shows's animators, all of which I believe was justified. With such an iconic, almost revered series as this, it's very difficult to imagine that the show's producers would be okay with this kind of sloppy work. Since this point, though, the quality of the animation has continued to be on and off, with some episodes lacking many, if any real glaring issues and some not being pleasant to watch. The most recently aired episode, episode 39, has actually had some of the best animation that I have seen in all of the various Dragon Ball shows I have seen, which I hope means that the animators learned from their mistakes and that this will be the standard for the show moving forward. When such a large group of people have these kinds of expectations for what they consider to be an acceptable product (expectations that have, up until this point, been consistently met), a disappointment such as this can have serious ramifications.