I didn't say anything like that. I just explained that I prefer more complex stories.
Uh, not a whole lot of characters have much development if at all as far as I can remember. The only character who I'd say has really good development is Piccolo tbh. And yeah very generic, but not generic for its time I guess? Examples please.
That much is true. It is basic but it was the first to do what it was best at.
Buu Saga? Let's see. SSJ3 was forced af and served no purpose. Gohan was shafted entirely two times in the arc effectively rendering the point of the Cell Saga moot. The arc felt very drawn out with a lot of unnecessary additions and conflicts to the plot. Well over half of the cast were irrelevant in the arc up until like, literally the ending of the series. I could go on. There isn't a lot of good things about the Buu arc in my opinion but I'd love it if you mentioned some that I might not have seen?
"phenomenal character work"
Vast majority of the characters we are introduced to early in the franchise become non-factors in Z pretty early on and are only really brought up for the sake of nostalgia or to show how Goku has grown or something. Actually this is pretty much a trend. 90% of the characters we are introduced to in the franchise lose their importance depending on how the writers feel, the Saiyan's are the only exceptions. Toriyama introduced Goten and Trunks decades ago and hyped them up massively and they've done virtually nothing besides a decent battle involving Gotenks. Tien was literally the main antagonist of an arc and one of the main characters in OG Dragon Ball. Now he is about as relevant as a microbe. I'll give you a lot of these points but on no planet does Dragon Ball have phenomenal character work. I'm not saying there AREN'T good characters, but there are only a very small few imo.
The 23rd Budokai is one of the best parts of the series, what about it?
"god tier fights" Mm, they're not as good as they used to be by new standards, but they hold up pretty well and WERE god tier for their time, only a good handful of the fights I would really put on that pedestal, like Goku Vs. Cell.
"fantastic villains"
Sure. Though a lot of them are very one-dimensional and there are extremely few villains who have a desire other than "destroy everything" "rule everything" etc. and it gets tiring. I am not saying that makes a villain bad, a villain doesn't have to be relatable or have some kind of particular goal or anything else. Aizen is one of my favorite anime villains ever and he's not exactly complex or deep. Frieza is an amazing villain and there's a REASON why he's iconic. Just saying that it'd be nice if Dragon Ball had more VARIETY instead of like, 99% of the villains just being "I'm gonna kill everyone!!!" over and over again. And if we get into the Super manga...Jesus Christ.
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You see though, the thing I'm saying isn't just about the plot, but that it has very little complexity or emotionally compelling narrative story telling, and that I PREFER series' like that, like Arcane, or Attack on Titan, or the Chimera Ant Arc in HXH, and so on. Dragon Ball has almost none of that to speak of.
What I would say is, for what DRAGON BALL IS, I'd give it a 6-10/10 depending on the arc, but for my OVERALL preferences, Dragon Ball peaks at an 8/10 even at its best, because while it is entertaining, nostalgic, iconic, genre-defining, and has some emotionally compelling moments and characters, it just lacks a certain depth to it that I find more appealing in a story, which is what stops it from ever getting higher than an 8/10 in my book.
Also, might be a hot take, I've always thought Dragon Ball's humor was extremely lacking even though it tries to be funny very often. There are some good jokes here and there but a lot of it is toilet humor, a character falling over because someone did or said something "wacky", or "SEXUAL HARASSMENT XD" which is a trope I despise in anime overall.
Alright let's go through all this bit by bit since there is a lot wrong here.
The 'oh i understand that simple isn't bad but villains are bad because they are simple' really wasn't a great start. As for why calling Dragon Ball generic is ridiculous? It fostered a majority of shounen anime's most popular tropes, and even back in the 1980's Dragon Ball still had its own unique and wacky identity.
While side characters not being relevant is a fair knock, the only fair knock you make, the story as a whole was about the pursuit of happiness, and these characters found their happiness in several ways. Krillin got married and had a child and eventually got back into martial arts, Yamcha got a baller baseball career, Tien is now teaching his own school, I mean they moved on with their lives. I would like to see them get relevance again, most fans would.
Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks, Piccolo, they all have a vast array of development, Vegeta and Piccolo explore redemption and forgiveness, Trunks has his hope storyline, and Gohan and Goku both have nature vs nurture stories. Besides, a character doesn't exactly need to have development to be good, take King Kai or Beerus or Whis.
Now, Buu Saga. SSJ3 was a plot device that wasn't meant to actually do anything because the time of one person saving everyone was long gone, no one person was gonna defeat Buu. Goku wanted a successor and threw Gotenks and Gohan at Buu, only for Buu to throw his sucessors back at him. Gohan didn't get shafted, the entire point of the Cell Saga was that he hates fighting because he's been traumatized as a child and these outbursts of anger are the defensive mechanic-isms of a scared child. Goku told Gohan to beat Cell, then go be a scholar.
So like, there isn't a whole lot of ground for Gohan got shafted in the arc when his failure came down to already established flaws he had as a fighter. The most you got was Toriyama going back to Goku as a protagonist, which I think told a much better story due to him realizing it wasn't about one person but everyone working together, ya know, that why he used the spirit bomb, why he needed energy from earth and from those irrelevant characters.
If you have any critics of the Buu Saga with actual narrative grounds I'd like to hear them, because so far they seem to just stem from misunderstanding the story.
Things like Goten and Trunks are points I agree with, just about everyone wants them do something but beyond that I don't see any meat to the rest of those statements. Dragon Ball is the story of Goku, characters come and go throughout the story. And there is no 'writers', mostly just Toriyama and sometimes an editor.
Villains?
Uh, Vegeta was a saiyan elite looking to establish himself as the strongest while secretly vying for the dragon balls to wish for immortality to overthrow Frieza, Frieza is a galatic ruler who acts one part tryant one part buisnessman, Cell wants the perfect fight because of the saiyan cells within him as well as the fact his creator and everything related to that have been destroyed leaving him with literally no other purpose than the want a perfect fight. Buu is really the only 'ounga bounga blow up shit' villian, and even then he constantly switches from naive to sadistic to cunning to black air force. There aren't a ton of villains in Super, just opponents like Beerus, Hit, and Jiren. Zamasu loved the universe and wanted to cull the mortals from it so they'd stop ruining it. Moro literally feeds off planets to sustain himself, he's evil yeah, he is also the encapsulation of nearly every past villain, so he was written like that on purpose. Granolah wasn't a villain but he wanted to take revenge upon the saiyans and whatnot, and the heaters wanted to do the same, plus get rid of Frieza too, which is why that arc was about the cycle of violence and pride and how it manifests.
So uhh, if you have a point here beyond reductive framing, that'd be nice.
So far, your reason for thinking Dragon Ball lacks depth comes from not understanding the story it was trying to tell. From the line of examples you've given, you seem to prefer shows that are upfront about their complexity and depth, which is all well and good, but to say Dragon Ball has none of that after misunderstanding several core narrative threads from the shows later arcs like Cell and Buu just isn't a strong argument for Dragon Ball to not have any of the 'depth' you look for. Dragon Ball's depth isn't in your face, which if anything is more subtly than just about any of the shows you mentioned, not to saw they aren't all fantastic pieces of ficton.
The other stuff about the humor and the fights and the rating you'd give it are personal opinions, you are entitled to them, but everything else just isn't an accurate representation of Dragon Ball's story.
