Dragon Ball has been going on since the manga was released in 1984, and it has garnered a fanbase that is still alive today. Whether it is alive and well or not is up to interpretation. The thing is, Dragon Ball ruled the internet for a brief period in the later 90's and early 2000's. Despite a luke warm reception at first, where Dragon Ball was cancelled in the United States, Dragon Ball Z was much better received. Once it came onto Cartoon Network's new Toonami time slot, it exploded into a mainstream phenomenon. Dragon Ball Z merchantdise became a staple to so many children and so many of them needed to run home from school to make sure their VCR recorded the episode at the proper time.
Since its hayday, and once the Dragon Ball community found itself all over the information super highway, something happened to the fans. There came a period of Dragon Ball Z where a lot of fans began to splinter into smaller groups. Once the dust actually settled and the hype died down, there came a clear segregation of fans and what they considered true Dragon Ball lore. This was not helped at all by the revival of the series as Dragon Ball Super. Many considered it far better than GT, some considered it worse. Some people even considered it Z, even when it was so clearly derivative of it.
Dragon Ball was, sadly, not made with a complete creative freedom of its creator, the late great Akira Toriyama. Many fans did not see it as it was happening, but soon we began to notice the cracks in the preverbial mirror. When it was initially created, Akira Toriyama was not going to go nearly as far with the series. After the Cell Games, he was planning to end the series, but once the studio caught wind of this, they told him no, the show must go on.
Enter Buu. Many will cite Cell as the greatest villain and highest peak of the series, and Buu is often seen as a very low point. There are many, many reasons for this. For one thing, the Buu Saga is entirely too long, Buu is entirely too powerful and the storyline for the entire Saga sees the death of major characters, the Earth itself, and Buu himself is just flat as a character. This was only the beginning, though, as Dragon Ball GT was flat out of decanonized by fans.
After GT ended, the series went radio silent, so of course, after nearly 20 years of nothing but a couple specials, the fans were more than ready! Of course it was going to be better than GT, how could it possibly be any worse? Was it worse? Yes and no. The real problem with Dragon Ball Super was that it borrowed so heavily from Dragon Ball/Z that it may as well have been wearing its skin. Not only did it keep stealing scenes and ideas, but it kept making more and more transformations for Goku to reach so he could defeat enemies. It kept reaching milestones like the first female Super Saiyan, Vegeta reaching forms he never had before and on and on. There was even an episode that teased bringing Kaiosama back to life, which never happened that I'm aware.
Meta jokes, bringing in characters from Dr. Slump, it really seemed like nothing was off the table for Super. It descended into the same problems of late Dragon Ball Z and GT, too many ideas while feeling the need to bring back old ideas. Much like Hollywood, it really seems like the studio has no intentions of letting this cash cow die. It has grown to ridiculous levels and what was once Dragon Ball lore has become confused and lopsided.
A huge example of the lore becoming muddled and convoluted is the Black Goku Saga bouncing back and forth between the Trunks future and the present. In the name of making a horribly contrived arc in this new show, they destroyed everything that they fixed in the Cell Saga. Everything that Future Trunks did was undone and the future continued to be garbage.
With continued repeated arcs, like tournaments, new gods descending on Earth to destroy it for more and more contrived reasons, someone should really start to look at the forest for the trees to see how far we've fallen off the rails. Son Goku was once a child prodigy fighter who travelled across the world to search for the Dragon Balls and do good in the world along the way. It was comedic, it delved into themes like friends, family, loyalty and learning to be part of new worlds. It became more popular with the fighting, but it never lost its comedic element, though it was not seen as often in Dragon Ball Z.
Now, it doesn't seem like the show knows anything about where it's going and if it does, it doesn't seem to know how to execute these ideas. Bringing back Freeza, making Freeza an ally, bringing back Captain Ginyu only to kill him off almost immediately after, nothing really seems to be off the table anymore and that sort of chaos is not very good for a show while the real brains is no longer at the helm. Toriyama had very little to do with Dragon Ball Super, other than a consultant.
The answer to this question is fairly clear. Dragon Ball Z stopped being fun and imaginative when Akira Toriyama started to lose his gusto for the series. He was very happy with how popular it became, but he was still a mangaka with other ideas. When he was forced to make the Buu Saga, he did his best, but it was clear that he was lacking focus or any good ideas for things to do.
Now with the passing of the master himself, Dragon Ball should be laid to rest as well. It's obvious that whoever they have holding the reigns or the people at the writing table just can't come up with anything real or concrete. The show is nowhere near as popular as it was during its hayday and that has to do with many things, but the quality has to be one of them. Dragon Ball Super may be better than GT, but only just so. Toriyama didn't have all of the best ideas, but he obviously had better things planned for his characters than dragging them through endless amounts of mud and making them get higher power levels with new forms. They're not going to end it officially anytime soon, but I really hope they at least give it another long rest at some point.
Now, ending this on a high note, I will say that Dragon Ball Daima looks pretty good. It at least looks like a fresher start than Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT combined. I'll more than likely give it a look at some point and present my findings in the future. Until then, keep classic Dragon Ball alive and keep drinking water.
