Dragon Ball is mainstream and genre-defining and paradoxically does everything wrong

So I previously touched up on how Dragon Ball basically did everything wrong in an Action Anime

Let's unpack that and get a good grip on the proverbial Dragon Balls

Ceaseless power escalation, also found in Naruto and surprisingly One Punch Man, which was supposed to be a genre-aware parody of other Action Anime

Tournament Arcs in lieu of actual Lore, one of the most disgusting things you can do in an Action Anime, now obviously Dragon Ball isn't Tournament Arc garbage like YuYu Hakusho and Flame Of Rika but nonetheless we still get the occasional Tournament Arc

Artificially created stakes, every single time, also found in Naruto, surprisingly Noriyaki Kubo, the Mangaka of Bleach is very genre literate, his Arcs are beautifully balanced from the perspective that not every Arc or side story is complex or high stakes

Constant retcons, regarding both macro and micro decisions, frustratingly also found in Naruto

Central Protagonist Problem and Messiah Complex Problem, frustratingly also found in Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto is paradoxically Akira Toriyama's best and worst student

Constant abandonment of side plots and elements, frustratingly also found in Naruto

After writing this I realized that Dragon Ball is the clear candidate for an Action Anime that somehow manages to do everything wrong but Naruto is a close second

So there you go, something can be "mainstream" and "genre-defining" and still manage to do everything wrong