Dragon Ball GT

Continuing from Dragon Ball Z was a near impossible task considering how good it was. GT seems to want to try to mix Dragon ball and Z into a darker show. Its worth a watch but probably not another.

Dragonball GT began life in 1996 as the immediate 'sequel' to Dragonball Z. However, its creator Akira Toriyama was only used as a character consultant and its clear from watching the show that it has taken on a new creative and artistic spin.

For the first 25 episodes the show returns to its roots with the original Dragonball, filled with oddball humor, various locales (and its denizens), and of course the hunt for the black star dragonballs. The premise of the whole series is that Son Gokuh has been turned into a little boy again by the evil Pilaf, and now must beat the clock to recover the black star dragonballs which have now spread out across the galaxy (as opposed to merely the Earth).

As they wrap up their dragonball hunting, they unleash a mutant machine named Baby whose goal is to get revenge on Gokuh and take control of everyone on Earth. I won't spoil the plot from here on.

What I truly enjoyed about this series was that all the characters seemed to have evolved and changed, although not in a way that alienates their original personality. Vegeta is still a hardass who wants to be the strongest fighter ever, but (as he had conceded at the end of DBZ) knows Gokuh is #1 and has made a life for himself with Bulma and his two kids. Trunks has turned from an arrogant brat into the mature Future Trunks we saw back in the Cell saga. It is this great attention to detail and plot that made this a joy to watch.

The final two episodes are filled with raw emotion- deservedly so, for it represents the end of three generations of great anime. So long, Gokuh!

This show is taking a lot of heat from die-hard fans of the popular manga and anime Dragon Ball Z, because it is a revisitation to and - in some fashion - a retelling of the original dragon ball series, on a much grander scale and in increasingly obfuscated terms. The basic plot and premise of the beginning of this series is simple; a trio of child heroes disembark from earth in a rocketship to find powerful magical artifacts called 'black star dragon balls', that have been scattered across the galaxy. The result, known under the name Dragon Ball GT, is an anime series that is fair in its own right, but succumbs to its ambition. Not only does the fact that GT has been written by a large number of different storyboard writers cause the whole to be diffuse and incoherent, but the series had been canceled before its due date as well, making watching GT a laborious effort for some.

Despite this, it's hard to blame GT for how it might or might not have turned out, because the series is at its very core a large marketing exercise, a service to fans worldwide who were not ready for their favorite anime series to be decommissioned just yet. The moral of the story behind GT, then, is that trying to please everybody at the same time is a fool's errand.

GT incorporates the playfulness and adventure-element of the early Dragon Ball series, as well as the high-octane fighting from Dragon Ball Z. Fans of the former may just end up complain about the latter, and vice versa. At the same time, the resulting series is neither as original nor as exciting as either Dragonball or Dragon Ball Z. The first half of GT utilizes the same archetypical main characters as in Dragonball - Goku, Trunks and Pan in GT, compared to Goku, Yamcha and Bulma from Dragonball. The 'new' character of Pan, although often fun and rebellious, is not always interesting and may at times test the limits of your patience with her pre-pubescent levels of self-reliance. GT is a mixed bag, a mutt amongst anime that you either learn to like or love to hate.

What vexes many Dragon Ball afficionados the most is that GT introduces a lot of plot holes to the formerly reasonably tight storyline of its predecessors. Many of these storytelling oversights can be attributed to alterations of the original plot. Resultingly, GT can be considered somewhat of a retcon because of it, if not a downright non-chronicle addition to the Dragonball universe. BUT...

... let's be fair now and consider that Dragon Ball Z itself isn't exactly famous for its storyline depth to begin with. One might even argue that if it weren't for the Saiya-Jin and Freezer sagas, and the thoroughly interesting and well-developed character of Cell, Dragon Ball Z wouldn't have enough story to wrap around on itself and make a hole in the first place. What GT doesn't fail to bring, then, is an engaging little plot, even if it diverges from the canon. Said plot is interspersed with a myriad of interesting locales, characters and villains, and allows for a variation not seen since the early stages of Dragonball (I am of course referring to the recurring theme of high-octane battles over barren mesas). Also, perhaps by virtue of their absurdity, GT boasts less emphasis on the by then truly cyclopean power levels of the characters it features, whether that is for the better or worse.

In conclusion, GT is definitely worth a once-over. Find out for yourself if you love or hate it, but don't think it isn't worth watching, because it is. 6/10

Still, it was a nice series, I do believe the main problems the show has are both rather easily fixed. Granted, it is to late to do that now. The first problem is the show needed more development. A good twenty episodes more could have helped this show immensely. That way some fights could have lasted longer, Vegeta could have had more face time and new characters explored a bit more. The other problem is the problems in the stories plot. These are not mistakes I am used to seeing in a Japanese animation, but rather the type found in American animation of the type found in a lot of the cartoon shows I watched in the 80's. Like they said let's forget about what happened here, and try this idea that does not fit in the universe anyway. However, complaints aside there is still a lot to enjoy about this series. It starts out like "Dragonball" with Goku being reduced to child form by black star dragonballs that for all purposes should not exist (see the plot problems complaint). These balls are scattered across the universe and Goku, his granddaughter Pan and Trunks must track them down or the earth will be destroyed. Why they pick Trunks is a mystery, I would have rather seen Vegeta tag along as seeing his and Goku's friendship continue to develop after the Z series would have been nice, not to mention Trunks is virtually a non factor once the fighting portion of the show begins with the battle between Goku and Baby. During the search portion of the series the adventures tend to be on the humorous side and sometimes the annoying side as you wonder why Goku and Trunks do not simply turn into super saiyans during some of their fights as that would have simplified things immensely. Once Baby enters the picture the show shifts to more of a "Dragonball Z" feel to it. Then Android 17 reenters the fray and finally there are numerous battles with what are called shadow dragons with the final battle against a rather tough foe called Omega Shenron. Piccolo is almost a no show through the whole series only really making a contribution in the short Super 17 saga. Vegeta was needed more too, but he really makes an impact during the final battle with Omega as he fuses with Goku and Gogeta is born, for like a half an episode (a place where another episode would have worked). All in all though the fighting once Goku begins his battle with Baby as a Super Saiyan 4 is nearly nonstop the rest of the way. Shame it had to end the way it did, I would have liked to seen more, however as the original creator had stopped doing anything Dragonball at this time it was time for this show to be laid to rest.

Many people bash Dragon Ball GT for being simply a commercial hit by Toei Animation, because it's not made by Toriyama, and because Z is 100000 times better. I can agree on these points, they are all true, but GT is not as bad as it could have been.

Biggest Dragon Ball fans know full well that after GT ended, fans were so wanting for more, even if GT wasn't quite the big deal - it was even cancelled after only 64 episodes, compared to the total of over 400 of the previous 2 series. Many, many fan-fictions were made (at times, I even made a few, I so loved the world created by Toriyama). Dragon Ball GT, in a way, is a fan-fiction, as it's hardly even related to Toriyama, if not for a few concepts like the SSJ4. So, a Dragon Ball made purely to make the crying fans shut up, by different authors who didn't properly follow the previous events of the series? Well that sounds just terrible. The series though, isn't all that bad.

The Dragon Ball fan-base was always split in 2 - those who preferred the comicity and absurdity of the 1st Dragon Ball series, and those who loved the sci-fi macho fights between ubermuscle'd saiyans of Z. GT obviously tries to give bread to both fan-bases, making the 1st part of the GT series a tribute to the 1st series with all the searching of the Dragon Balls - some plots even rip-off completely previous plots from the 1st series! Even the trio, Goku, Trunks and Pan seems a homage to the Goku - Yamcha - Bulma trio of 1st series. In fact, the 1st part of the series is actually pretty lame. It gets interesting in some parts, but only the Baby part really changes the things for the best, thus making GT actually worth a watch.

This part is obviously a homage to Z, more like to Buu series, and it's the longest enemy in GT, lasting quite some episodes - which is good, because I find this part far the most interesting in the series. Here we get some insane combats, some actually pretty inventive, but most of them kind of missing the thrills of DBZ, but with many situations that are resolved by luck and not by skills. This thing happens later on as well, in the following enemies, which are far less interesting than Baby in fact. The way Toei tries to continue the android-saga over 3-4 years after it ended is quite mad, as it really adds no depth - except for the final words about it maybe, which I won't spoil. The last part of the series focuses on a situations that fans were "what-if-ing" from several years - what would happen if the Dragon Balls turned against our friends? Well, despite the logical happening of that, this part is actually very boring, and only at the very end it gets any interesting, even thought it's very much like the Janemba movie of Z. The ending is fairly logical, but it's not worth the wait, and I think a better ending should have been made.

At the end, GT is not bad, considering. The core fighting is still very good, and some fights are really well-done, especially for the time. Some parts though fail very hard, because they completely rip-off earlier plots. The characters aren't as good as before either, with Pan being so whiny that it's often annoying. Goku turned out to be stupid as well. And there's some heavy plot-hole. But at the core, this is Dragon Ball. If you liked the mindless combats in Z, there's no reason for you to miss GT either. Just be prepared that GT is a cheap and unofficial way to end an amazing series, and while it's not bad compared to general animes, it's quite a downfall for Toriyama.

A must for hardcore fans, otherwise you won't be missing much.