GT Writer Atsushi Maekawa Story Q&A

[TheMikado]

Good read. But I don't understand why they just didn't create more unique and bizarre situations while they were in space.... There's an insane amount of ideas that could go into space travel concepts and adventures.... They began to lose interest in writing space adventures because they noticed that their ideas were bland so they decided to take it back to Earth.

You need to read the other interviews then.

http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/ ... interview/

■ The switch from adventure drama to battle!

Midway through the story, enemy characters like Doctor Mu, General Rild, and Baby started popping up, giving a stronger battle tint to the story.
Initially we made about 26 episodes worth of rough plot outlines. But around when the final script for episode 3 was finished, we thought “these travel episodes aren’t going to be interesting no matter how long we keep doing them, are they?” and so we stopped (laughs). That’s why Gill and the spaceship stopped appearing midway through, even though we had sensei go through all the trouble of drawing them for us (laughs).
It’s a shame (laughs). By the way, what did the scrapped episodes consist of?
We thought up an entire planet of prisoners and various things like that, but we could make countless such episodes, which on the flipside made them boring. So during meetings the direction emerged that “a story where the Earth is in danger would be good” and “it would be interesting to have enemies with strong personalities appear and have the story revolve around battles with them”. In the end, a Dragon Ball series needs to have a sense of exhilaration.
So you changed course from a road movie to battle.
No, it was a natural shift rather than a sudden change in course. When Goku’s not the main character, the story gets out of hand, or perhaps I should say it becomes unstable. After roughly 500 TV episodes and over 15 movies worth of Dragon Ball, I can tell that Goku is no ordinary character. For instance, back with Dragon Ball Z when there were episodes with characters other than Goku fighting, even if the ratings didn’t suffer, younger viewers lost interest. Adults watch for the story, so they can still enjoy watching how things play out even if Goku doesn’t appear, but children watch for the characters. So you have to have Goku appear. That’s why with Dragon Ball Z, when Goku didn’t appear for a while in the original manga, we thought long and hard about how to have him show up in the anime (laughs).

[ABED]

I don't quite understand, Gill didn't stop appearing. Or did he just mean he wasn't as prominent?

No, it was a natural shift rather than a sudden change in course.

I thought they did a good job of the shift from the journey around the galaxy to the more standard DB structure of building up to the fight against the big bad.

[TheMikado]

I don't quite understand, Gill didn't stop appearing. Or did he just mean he wasn't as prominent?

No, it was a natural shift rather than a sudden change in course.

I thought they did a good job of the shift from the journey around the galaxy to the more standard DB structure of building up to the fight against the big bad.

Probably just meant not as prominent.

[TheMikado]

I don't quite understand, Gill didn't stop appearing. Or did he just mean he wasn't as prominent?

No, it was a natural shift rather than a sudden change in course.

I thought they did a good job of the shift from the journey around the galaxy to the more standard DB structure of building up to the fight against the big bad.

I think the key to this was incorporating it into the previous arc. It took a while before Baby had taken over the earth and actually he technically succeeded.. but he was out running around in space during their adventures before he even made it to Earth and technically he came about due to their interference in the first place.

[Cipher]

This interview is a treasure.

My takeaway from reading these last two translations is that Maekawa represents everything I love about GT, while Morishita represents everything I hate about it. Maekawa treats the series very differently than Toriyama would, but in a way that's surefooted and loving as a response to the material by that point. I think he largely helps the show succeed in spite of Morishita's more cynical requests and oudated modes of thinking.

I'm also pleased Maekawa seems to more or less confirm a reading of the ending I posted as far back as ... 2011? ... on this site.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Kind of funny how an interview managed to be far more interesting than the actual show!

[dbs fanboy]

This actually makes me angry, they were really trying to make GT even better than Z, all these ideas were amazing , GT could have been really great if they were well executed.

But at the same time, it makes me appreciate the show much more, and i'm going to show this to anyone claiming that GT was a product of Toei being greedy and wanting more after Toriyama stopped.

[JulieYBM]

This interview also sort of frames Maekawa as the unofficial head writer after Matsui Aya went on maternity leave. It is also interesting how the series director is never mentioned...sort of like he really wasn't involved at all after the initial episodes.

[ABED]

This actually makes me angry, they were really trying to make GT even better than Z, all these ideas were amazing.

What makes you think this?

[precita]

It's a shame GT had a lot of great ideas or concepts, just executed them horribly.

I really hope Super eventually does a "do-over" of some of GT's plotlines and irons them out and makes them work this time around. Particualarly involving the Shadow Dragons as the final arc.

[dbs fanboy]

This actually makes me angry, they were really trying to make GT even better than Z, all these ideas were amazing.

What makes you think this?

Because they wanted to make Goku a weakling so he wouldn't be the one saving the day and thus other characters may shine by trying to do things when the very strongest of all can't do shit. And also because the ending/last arc, i think if they succeeded in making every other character fight their own dragon (their own conflict) plus Goku's real death, could have made that arc the #1.

[ABED]

Because they wanted to make Goku a weakling so he wouldn't be the one saving the day and thus other characters may shine by trying to do things when the very strongest of all can't do shit. And also because the ending/last arc, i think if they succeeded in making every other character fight their own dragon (their own conflict) plus Goku's real death, could have made that arc the #1.

I don't recall them saying that. As I remember, they wanted Goku to be weaker to make his struggle greater. Why does anyone have such a problem with the hero of the story being the one to save the day? If the other characters require the main character to be weaker in order to get a spotlight, they probably aren't all that great.

[Robo4900]

Great interview.

I love GT, to be honest, and I've always been of the opinion that the primary reason it gets so much hate is down to the way it was handled in Funimation's dub. The Japanese ratings were basically what you'd expect from the ratings Z was getting in the later Boo arc, and UK fans from back in the day are generally of the opinion that it was just okay, so I really think all the GT haters need to give the show another chance, in Japanese. (Or the Blue Water dub if you can't/won't watch subs)
Granted, it's not a great show, and it's definitely a step down from Dragon Ball and Z, but it's by no means bad. It has a few bad episodes early on, but basically from the planet M2 material onwards, it was all good.
(Although IMO, it really picked up in the Evil Dragons arc; that's when GT became a worthy successor to Dragon Ball and Z. And then it ended. Oh well, better to burn out than fade away)

And honestly, even if the show was as bad as people say it is, I'd say it's still worth watching just for the music; Akihito Tokunaga's GT score was so amazing, it really does annoy me that Toei didn't bring him back for Kai or Super.

I can see why he cut the Gohan thing. It would have been nice to see, but I think keeping the story focused was the right decision.
I like that he keeps the ending of #64 rather vague, while still providing some insight.

[ABED]

GT's reputation preceded the dub.

[Robo4900]

GT's reputation preceded the dub.

I don't know a lot about the fansub days, but I doubt the repuation was as bad back then as it would become after Funimation had their way with it.

Plus, from what I understand, the fansub community tended to be full of edgelords anyway, so it's no wonder GT, being a light-hearted throwback to the origins of Dragon Ball, didn't go down particularly well with them.
Again, I don't know a lot about the fansub days, so maybe I'm wrong here, but this is the general vibe I've got from the stories I've heard.

[ABED]

The reputation was that it was bad. The only thing that's changed is the number of people who have seen it.

[Robo4900]

The reputation was that it was bad. The only thing that's changed is the number of people who have seen it.

Again though, I don't think it would've been as bad.

Funimation dub fans, regardless of what their number is these days, are very loud. After that lot saw GT, you couldn't find a single corner of Dragon Ball fandom that wasn't filled with hatred of GT because of these guys. I highly doubt it was that bad before Funimation's version went out.
(Plus, as I said, weren't the fansub guys edgelords who wouldn't've liked GT anyway?)

Anyway, I think we're getting a little off track here...

[ABED]

The reputation was that it was bad. The only thing that's changed is the number of people who have seen it.

Again though, I don't think it would've been as bad.

Funimation dub fans, regardless of what their number is these days, are very loud. After that lot saw GT, you couldn't find a single corner of Dragon Ball fandom that wasn't filled with hatred of GT because of these guys. I highly doubt it was that bad before Funimation's version went out.
(Plus, as I said, weren't the fansub guys edgelords who wouldn't've liked GT anyway?)

Anyway, I think we're getting a little off track here...

I'm telling you, as someone who was there, the reputation was there well before the dub. It's reputation had to do with the show, not the dub. If it was the dub, then you'd expect the same to be said of Z's dub which was much worse. GT's reputation began long before 2003.

[sintzu]

I love GT, to be honest, and I've always been of the opinion that the primary reason it gets so much hate is down to the way it was handled in Funimation's dub.

I first saw it with Funi's 15 set singles and I think had they not cut out those first 15 episodes then I wouldn't have liked it as much as I did. I still have major issues with it but at the same time I remember it very positively.

[ABED]

FUNi probably did the right thing business wise by cutting to the action portion of the series. It's much more DBZ like. It feels like they started the story in media res, but I still would've preferred it if they started at the beginning. Then again, I'm a completionist.