Dragon Ball GT - Reviews

I know, I know. By the majority of the dragon ball fanbase this is hated. Though to its credit, its really not all that bad. For me it seems like most of the haters are all fanboys who just went along with the hate wave. I mean it was disappointing, and thats why I think it got a much more hate than it deserved. But in this review I will try to justify the goods things in Dragon ball GT and at the same time show that im aware of the negative things.

To begin with why not point out the good ones first. I mean after the end of Dragon Ball Z, many people(including me) hadn't had enough of Goku and friends. At the time Dragon Ball was the only manga/anime in my life. So naturally i wanted more, and of course Toei Animation made the sequel. The thing is that Akira Toriyama didn't want to create a new series and was tired of Dragon Ball thus he played a minor role in Dragon Ball GT's production. The series was not based on the official manga, but in return they showed us some promising things. After Dragon Ball Z I had completly forgotten that the series started out with a more comedy-based approach. Goku as a kid with unbeliable strenght, yet at the same time had so little knowledge about the modern society was funny and charming to read.

Thats why i think it was decided that Goku was to be returned to being a kid again, by accident of course. So the series could go back to its roots. The thing here is that Goku still has his adult mind, but even as an adult he is very diffrent from other adults. But not did they just make him a kid again, they even brought back some of the older villains, which i thought was a promising attempt. Not just did they bring back some of the older villains, but also the arch-nemesis of the Saiyans, namely the Tuffles. The Tuffles already existed in the Dragon Ball universe, though they had yet to make an apperance. So seeing the Tuffles having a major role in the series really made me excited.

The character are mostly ok. The ones we know from before like Goku, Pan(barely, but she have made an apperance) and Trunks, they are recognisable. We know them from before and few things have changed. Its mainly those characters that the plot focuses on, for the most time the older character makes very few apperances. The show introduces some of the older villains with a creative twist, which I liked. Though when it comes to the new villains, i must say "what were they thinking?". The character design is goofy and well you might have a hard time taking them serious, because they look so weird. The only new villain i liked is the tuffle, which is introduced towards the end of the show(without trying to spoil anything). Also i just love the sitations that occur when Giru and Pan is in the same scene, they really made me giggle.

The plot somewhat holds through. They really made a drastic change to the rules for the dragon balls. Though then again that change actually led to an ending I was satisfied with. The plot is generally about that the dragon balls have been filled up with so much negative energy because of all the selfish wishes that have been made, so they took form of seven dragons and that they were sent into all the directions of the universe, so Goku, Pan and Trunks have to go on a inter-galactic travel in search of them to revert Goku back to his normal state. What I really like about this plot is that they reveal, the dragon balls true intentions. This ending truly gives an end to Dragon Ball while it also teaches a valuable lesson to those who just could not get enough of Dragon Ball and wished for a sequel after Dragon Ball Z. If it wasnt for the ending the plot led to, it would have been ridiculous. They also bring in a creative twist when it comes to the evolution of the saiyan stages.

Another thing that I actually love about the series is the opening theme for the japanese version. I love it. There is actually a part of the very last episodes which has this theme playing, while the narrator tells you that the adventure of Son-Goku and his friends are finally over and at the same time it show various flashbacks chronologically from the moment Bulma and Goku met for the first time and showing many of the greatest moments from all the diffrent parts in the series, up untill the end of GT. Which i swear to god is the most emotional anime moment in my life. I can just remeber that ive felt tears running down my face while i watched it.

From that I actually recommend this to all Dragon Ball fans. It might not be canon, but its still a part of the franchise. And if you feel that you've been cheated from a more conclusive ending to Dragon Ball, I really recommend that you should check it out. However to enjoy this for what it is, you do have to have a few things in mind before you begin. One: This is not the work of Akira Toriyama, and he only played a minor role in the production. Two: don't have expectations. And three: Many anime series, which is based of a manga, do seperate from the main story, but that doesnt make the anime bad. Enjoy it for what it is and not what it should have been based of. It does alot of things which shows that it can stand by itself.

-Krissdafish

       I'd rather watched this ten times over than continue with whatever the heck this new 'Dragon Ball Super' is going.

       GT is given a buntch of crap, and yeah, it wasn't the best. Well, I mean, you gotta admit that the Shadow Dragon's were the best part. Baby and his involvment wasn't too bad. An' you gotta love that SSJ4 design~

Er.. anyways... Point being, GT is far better than Super; in my opinion.

       In Super we have, an out of character Vegeta who isn't acting like himself in many episodes. An even more overpowered bs Goku; who is /still/ better than Vegeta in the show's portrayal. (Vegeta admitting it, no-! C'mon! If he even did that he'd be beating himself up for it!)
       After all that time... none of the other's have gotten stronger? Freakin' Piccolo trains his butt off, mentally and physically, but, nOPE.
He fused with not only a strong Namekian, Nail, but with /Kami himself/. 

Change the title to something like; 'The Goku and Vegeta Show' or somethin'.

-rambles on and on about the horrendessness of it all-

... Ahem. Excuse me. 
Childhood show being turned into this 'Super' crap just riles me up. uwu; Forgive me for the rant.

Toriyama had gotten so fed up with the franchise, he only made the character designs and left Toei to make whatever plot they could think of. The result was a mediocre show many came to hate as non-canon, since Toriyama, the genius of good storytelling, did not write a bunch of bullshit for somehow making the show any less terrible that it had already become. It’s kind of hypocritical on part of the fans to call it awful when most of them kept making fan fiction and fan art out of GT, regardless of not being canon. All it mattered was getting more damn Dragonball goddammit, so let’s stop complaining about something most eventually accepted as an excuse for writing and drawing. Toyotaro included.

The beginning of GT was somewhat promising, as it had to do with looking for the dragonballs all across the universe, with a time limit before Earth blows up. Goku becoming a kid again was an attempt to power him down, so he wouldn’t be spamming his teleport ability, or defeat everyone with SSJ3. There were still issues with the premise, such as retconning an extra set of dragonballs, found by Pilaf in Kami’s palace. Entering a place no mortal can simply walk in, was a plot hole.

But it was not the first time the plot didn’t make any sense and not even the biggest problem of GT. What really damaged the overall was how plain it was. Toriyama may have foddered everyone who was not a saiyan in Z, but he still bothered to show them trying to do something, as useless as it was. Toei didn’t even do that. By now there were two dozen super powerful heroes on Earth, aware of the situation, and nobody seemed to care much. They just send three children to gather the balls and did nothing thereafter, as if it wasn’t a big deal. That was the actual problem with GT. It didn’t know what to do with its cast.

Even if you tired to evaluate the story as a simple adventure with a small cast, like back in the beginning of the franchise, it was still not good, because the characters were not selfish jerks with character flaws, trying to backstab each other for personal gain. They were a team of generic good guys, facing every danger with a common goal in mind. And even the challenges they were encountering weren’t threatening, as the villains were easy to defeat.

It became somewhat more interesting when Baby was introduced as a major threat, a life form who could not only steal powers, but also possess anyone he was touching. His goal of avenging the deaths of his civilization at the hands of the saiyans was also very interesting, as it was leaving an opening for the heroes to have a personal connection with something from their past once again. Technically, he was a much better version of Cell.

Vegeta in particular could be facing the demons of his past when confronting this guy. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened. The only chance Vegeta got was a lame moustache, and Baby didn’t force anyone to consider the vanity of fighting, since he was simply brainwashing them with a touch. Mind control doesn’t leave any room to get philosophical.

As if that wasn’t enough of an issue, Goku was the one defeating him, as always, and not only he didn’t think about the constant problems his battle frenzy was causing, he also defeated Baby with another power-up that came seemingly out of nowhere. SSJ4 was, again, an interesting concept, as it was bringing back the saiyan tails and, in theory, was the next logical step in their evolution, as they could stack their giant ape forms atop their SSJ forms, while also having control of their battle frenzy. This could have been the ultimate answer to what Baby was representing. And again, nothing remotely smart came out of it, it was just another generic power-up Goku used for defeating a villain.

The ending to this arc was bizarre, since they failed to save the Earth. This could have been the chance to make humanity turn against the Z warriors in their frustration for losing their planet and having to relocate elsewhere. And not even that was treated like something important, since they kept living on a completely different planet and that was the end of it. So basically, this entire arc was a constant middle finger, as it kept throwing all these great concepts at you, without even bothering to do something with them.

The next one about Super 17 was so lazily written. Somehow the gates of hell open, somehow the bad guys build another android 17 in hell, and it somehow needed to fuse with the original for getting a power up. What was that bullshit, other than an excuse to show Goku fighting Frieza and Cell again? And even that wasn’t any fun, since they only used a freezing machine of all things, the lamest thing ever. And as before, the dead came back to life, which was technically the apocalypse, yet it meant nothing for the characters or humanity as a whole. There was no gravity behind these events, as if everyone had been completely desensitized. So what was the point of even making this crap? Because the shonentards wanted to see more damn Dragonballs goddammit.

Predictably, the last arc with the shadow dragons, suffered from the same issue. The dragonballs became evil after being abused for so many years and turned into monsters aiming to destroy everything. The heroes were facing the consequences of their pride and vanity. What did they do about it? Nothing. They just send the same kids to fix everything, since nothing matters. And seriously, as the strongest and final opponents, the shadow dragons looked so lame. How were you supposed to take them seriously when they looked like shit and were waiting to be defeated one at a time by a bunch of kids?

The final showdown between Gogeta and Omega Shenron was fun on a superficial level, but it had none of the energy of the earlier arcs. Everybody was moving so slowly despite getting constantly stronger, SJJ4 was nerfed to the point it can be achieved with a simple machine, and Pan was a useless addition, being there just for making embarrassing jokes. Even at the very end, GT proved to be full of good ideas that were never used properly. It was a shameless cashgrab with no passion for whatever was going on in it. That’s why it’s so bad and deserves no more than a 1/10.

I know, I know. Many don't like DBGT to much still, It's a great show in my OPINION(keyword there, I'm a big dragon ball fan). The show is great, the story is pretty damn good. Goten being older is a plus for me as he was always my favorite person in the whole series. The end built for the movie even better than all the other movies. It's a must watch for a Dragon ball fan, and for most that arn't even the biggest of fans.

Dragon ball GT, unlike other Dragon balls, one of its main focuses is to make you feel emotional about what happens, and for me it worked.
A lot of people didn't like Dragon Ball GT because of the fact that Goku was back to being a kid, like he was in the classic, the fact that many characters were destroyed, like Vegeta, and the presence of some annoying characters like Pan.
A positive point in my opinion is that the villains are very striking and have their story very well explained, and parts of their sagas are very nice to watch.