u/Minute_Childhood949

I was inspired to make this post when I made a discussion on a certain subreddit on how Oda and Toriyama uses the same writing techniques but Oda seems to fumble his story while Toriyama seemed to enriched his. One comment criticized dragon ball (like normal) but strangely, this person didn't like dragon ball cos I kid you not one of his main criticisms was goku not having a specific goal. I was baffled. Is it that serious that he don't consider Dragonball good because of that?

Two other characters in here, Ichigo and yuji, doesn't have great goals either but bleach and jujutsu kaisen seemed to be beloved by many anyway. So I ask, should the goal of a main character be a serious criticism and should that really be a factor to avoid stories? I want your answers.

For those who don't know, retroactive foreshadowing is a writing technique where an author drops a statement vague enough to be retconned later as the story went on. At the time of writing, it has no meaning aside from it sounding cool or something.

With that out of the way, both author's used this technique multiple times in One Piece and Dragon Ball. And yet Oda seems to ruin his story the more he retcons stuff. From haki, Kuma's writing, "new" characters being added that existed together with old gens like Roger and Garp, Nika and imu, to some characters origins being retconned entirely. Haki being a thing destroyed our immersion of why shanks let that big fish bite off his arm, no he was actually connected to imu and he has that tattoo on his right arm that can make imu possess him anytime so him losing the arm is actually so he disconnects his relationship with imu and not because he wanna inspire Luffy or something. Kuma's latest writing made it seem like he was there in the beginning and yet in thriller bark, he has no qualms trying to kill the straw hats. Rocks entire existence made whitebeard's character shitty overall. Because it was foreshadowed poorly, we don't have scenes like whitebeard talking to teach about his father or something. Don't even get me started on Nika and imu, both pisses me off.

Toriyama had some foreshadowing like Goku seeing one guy escape in his attack in the RR army, Goku being a weird monkey boy, King piccolo and kami's origins being vague, the ultra instinct form, grandpa Gohan's cause of death, and many more. That one guy who escaped turned out to be Gero and what caused the android and cell saga. Goku being a monkey boy allowed toriyama to create a whole alien race with that concept together and their great ape forms. Toriyama used said great ape form to actually conclude grandpa Gohan's mystery death. Piccolo being a namekian and it allowed toriyama to create yet another alien race and make it the origin of the dragon balls. The ultra instinct form calls back to Goku's training with all his masters that goes all the way back to mr. Popo and kami. All of these retcons are fun to engage with despite being new info, it didn't ruin the story overall and it didn't ruin the quality of the characters' writing

Ya'll see what I mean? Oda is often considered a foreshadowing god and yet it just doesn't add up if you pay attention to some details of the story. Meanwhile Toriyama who is known to just make shit up on the fly and even admitted to it, has better foreshadowed his plot points