Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 102 - GT 1-5

[Robo4900]

Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 102 of the first Dragon Ball rewatch of the decade.
We're doing five episodes a week, and we'll be watching every single episode of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT. All 508 episodes. Plus the TV specials and the movies.
I encourage you all to watch in Japanese with subtitles, especially if you have never done so before, but watch along in whichever way brings you the most joy.

The beginning of the end. Awesome Tokunaga music, the best animation in the franchise, and in my opinion, the very beginnings of GT in terms of actual episode quality are stronger than most give it credit for, but I'll get into that in more detail in a separate post, later on.

Do note that we've changed the format of trivia for GT. We'll now be listing trivia relevant to each episode underneath that episode, rather than having all the trivia in a list at the bottom of the post. This would have been difficult when the primary source of trivia was just KBABZ reading the manga, but since KBABZ and I are both watching the show now, there's no problems with the manga chapters not lining up precisely with the episodes. Since we're also ending up with a lot more trivia per episode, this separation of trivia is possible, and so the new layout will be quite beneficial, we think.

Previous thread: Week 101 (DBZ movie 13, episodes 289-291)
Next thread: Week 103 (GT 6-10)

Anyway, without further ado...

Episode 445 - The Mysterious Dragon Balls Appear!! Goku Becomes a Child?! (GT episode 1)
Ocean dub title: The Mysterious Dragonballs Appear! Goku Becomes a Child!
Funimation dub title: A Devastating Wish
Originally aired 7th of February 1996
Written by: Aya Matsui
Episode director: Osamu Kasai
Animation supervisor: Kazuya Hisada

The Pilaf gang returns to use a new set of Dragon Balls, and they accidentally squander their wish on making Goku a child.

Anime-only/filler content: All of it. Huh, how about that...

Post-Manga, Pre-GT trivia:

Spoiler:

• Missed Trivia: In the anime, Vegeta's Badman shirt is famously coloured in pink. This is the same colour as the lens of his Scouter back in the Saiyan Arc!
• Missed Trivia: In the title page for Chapter 512, Trunks, Goten, Kuririn, Gohan, 18 and Piccolo all have halos, since they were dead at the time the issue came out. Vegeta has one too, since he only had his body restored, not brought back to life entirely (that would happen thanks to the wish to Porunga).
  • Chapter 512 would also mark the 30th and final time Toriyama would design a variant of the Dragon Ball logo for use in the manga.
• Missed Trivia: in the manga, Sno has the longest stretch between two appearances, last seen when Goku reunites with Kinto'un before leaving Jingle Village, and appearing again to donate to Goku's Genki-Dama against Boo. In the anime Suno appeared during Daimao's assault on Central City and so is second to Bora and Upa, who threw Goku and Yajirobe up Karin's Tower in Episode 113, then appear to also donate to the Genki-Dama.
• Missed Trivia: Thanks to the wish granted by Porunga, the fight with Pure Boo is the only final battle where the victor has all of their ki at the end of the fight. Despite this, Goku is visibly exhausted afterwards, presumably because just throwing the Genki-Dama into Pure Boo took that much effort.
  • The Pilaf Gang would normally hold the anime record for this, only they appear in Dragon Ball Episode 151 to try and steal the Basho Fan inside the volcano. If you stick to storylines Toriyama contributed to then they do hold the record, between being dumped from their own airship by Piccolo Daimao and then in Battle of Gods to try and steal the Dragon Balls from Capsule Corp. (which Freeza's men would do successfully in Resurrection of F).
• Missed trivia: In the filler where Goku takes Pan through the Tournament attractions, he holds her up on his shoulders so she can be level with the bunny mascot, despite the fact that she can fly.
• Missed Trivia: in the Dragon Ball: A Visual History art book, the manga panel used to represent 1995 is the shot of Oob on Kinto'un with the image of Kid Goku doing the same next to him. As you might have guessed, this is highly anachronistic: it's from the Kanzenban ending, which Toriyama wouldn't draw for another 7 years!
• On the 20th of June, less than a month after the final Dragon Ball chapter released, Daizenshuu #1 came out. The Daizenshuu are a series of databooks that collect materials about Dragon Ball, particularly facts and stats (which means they are often taken as The Final Word when it comes to the series). Only the first Daizenshuu has been translated into English, likely because it was a ready-made book of Toriyama's art with little text to translate.
  • The topics covered by the Daizenshuu are as follows: Toriyama's Dragon Ball illustrations, the manga's storyline, the original Dragon Ball anime plus the Saiyan and Namek Arcs of Z, a guide to the Dragon World, DBZ from the Android Arc to Vegetto, the movies and pair of TV Specials, and an encyclopedia. Three more were released afterwards: two Extra Daizenshuu that covered all the Carddass cards, and a Supplemental Daizenshuu that covered the end of the anime and the 10th Anniversary Movie. GT would be covered in the GT Perfect Files.
  • The artwork for the first nine Daizenshuu were all drawn by Toriyama, depicting Goku throughout the story. These include fighting the Pteranodon, training with Kuririn, confronting Piccolo Daimao, facing Vegeta, Gohan reacting to Freeza (the only one without Goku), squaring up Imperfect Cell (which never happens in the manga), and the group shot from the end of the manga (which is in full color; the manga used limited inks). The Boo Arc is the only one not represented in the main Daizenshuu line: it's covered as part of the Supplemental Daizenshuu that covered the end of the anime and The Path to Power, showing Goku and Majin Boo using anime artwork.
  • Toriyama would revisit the Daizenshuu's cover art idea with the Kanzenban, drawing new digital artwork for the 36 books in that line. Notably, Toriyama actually re-read his manga in full to help with the artwork. To date the Kanzenban covers are the only ones using Toriyama art that actually represent the story contained inside them: the Tankobon often showed scenes that were impossible or somewhat out of character, usually as an excuse for Toriyama to draw vehicles and weapons.
  • The cover to the 15th Kanzenban shows Kaio wearing purple, green and orange. When the Dragon Ball manga was released in the Digital Colour line, this was the coloring used, but for the later Full Colour release, he was changed to his more familiar anime colours.
  • If you line all seven Daizenshuu books up in a grid (4-5, 3-1-2, 6-7), the background artwork forms Shen Long (appropriately, Daizenshuu #1 is at Shen Long's head and #7 is at his tail). This artwork of the Dragon God would be used on ViZ's Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z manga box sets.
  • Daizenshuu #1 also marks a significant change in Kid Goku's design: he's depicted in a dull blue-and-green gi (like the manga's End of Z), and the bottom of his pants are tied to his ankles with small wrapping. With rare exception, Toriyama would depict Goku this way in all future artwork if it was set before he acquires the Turtle School gi at the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai. Presumably, it's to reflect a rougher, more mountain-boy feel for when Bulma first finds him. Despite this however, the 10th anniversary movie (released nine months after Daizenshuu #1) shows Goku in his original anime gi and in his GT gi instead.
  • Despite their hallowed reputation, the Daizenshuu are ultimately collations of existing information with the occasional hint of non-committal speculation, but are helpful for western audiences since they're straight from the Japanese version, no Funimation or ViZ to worry about.
  • The seventh and final book of the main Daizenshuu, which contained a farewell message from Toriyama, released on February 5th 1996, the week after Dragon Ball Z ended and two days before the first episode of Dragon Ball GT aired.
  • The Daizenshuu would be followed up 17 years later by the Chozenshuu to hype up Battle of Gods. While this series was based on the Dazienshuu and only had four books rather than seven, they were thicker and contained new information that was revealed since the manga had ended. The only topic they don't cover are Toriyama's artwork and the Carddass cards, the former of which was served by the A Visual History book that is essentially an updated Daizenshuu #1.
• Toriyama's comments in the Daizenshuu themselves are also quite revealing:
  • For Daizenshuu #1, Toriyama says that he's shocked and appalled at much of the artwork. The only one he liked was one of Goku and Gohan on a Vespa with chicken legs, which is why it became the fold-out page for A Visual Story.
  • For Daizenshuu #2, Toriyama says he liked thinking up the story more than he did drawing it, which would explain his later role in helping shape Dragon Ball Super and its various movies. He also says that he really had to force himself to write the story in the second half (which would be starting partway into the Namek Arc) and that he suffered for doing so.
  • For Daizenshuu #3, he says that he disliked the first half of the anime because of how similar its naive tone was to Dr. Slump. Not an unfair observation: the anime tended to add lots of feel-good moments for children, like the storyline with Goku and the monkeys while facing Colonel Silver, not to mention several of its insert songs.
  • For Daizenshuu #6, Toriyama says that he never went to see any of the movies in a theater because the thought of sitting among strangers watching his characters was too mortifying. He also explains that his son initially didn't pay attention to Dragon Ball until he saw some of the movies, while his daughter hates Dragon Ball entirely and won't even bother to watch the anime when it shows up on TV.
• Amusingly, Toriyama's comment in the first Dragon Box Z has him recall a story where he almost advised a couple to not buy it in case it broke their budget!
• The earliest publication of Toriyama's artwork for Dragon Ball GT is in Shonen Jump's 43rd issue of 1995, which released in October, four months after the manga ended. It showed Toriyama's designs for Goku, Trunks and Pan, and notably has a sketch of Goku with his gi colours reversed: a yellow shirt with blue pants. It also had a group shot of them with Gill.
  • Toriyama in fact drew up designs for all of the Earth-bound characters, including Gohan, Videl, Goten, Chichi, Oob, Mr. Satan, Kuririn, Bulma, Bra and yes, even the moustachioed Vegeta. Gohan, Goten, Chichi and Bulma practically remained the same as their End of Z designs, while Videl gained Chichi's pulled-back hair and an outfit reminiscent of 18 in the Android Arc. Bra meanwhile got a rather... questionable pleather getup for a 9 year-old.
  • Vegeta was infamously given flat-top hair and a moustache, the latter of which breaks the established rules for how Saiyan hair works: that it retains the same shape from the day they're born, meaning if he didn't have a moustache before, he wouldn't have one now. Toei would turn this into its own mini storyline when GT changed course and returned to Earth for the Baby Arc, as part of Vegeta's redesign.
  • As noted by Toriyama in a 2013 Chogasu interview, he drew the new character designs with little enthusiasm. If we were to speculate, this may be because he was hoping to get a break and was instead asked to make these new designs, which may explain some of his design decisions.
• The next showing of Toriyama's art was in Shonen Jump's 52nd issue of 1995, including two art pieces on coloured paper (which Toriyama found to have few merits for the trouble they were to work with).
  • The first art piece was of the GT Trio on a giant-scale world that would be used for Episode 6. The art would be redone by Toei and used in GT's third ED, Blue Velvet, making it the only piece of Toriyama's GT art that made it directly into the show.
  • The second art piece showed the GT Trio dehydrated in an arid environment with a defeated red centipede behind them. This would inspire Episode 15 where Pan abandons the group into the desert, with the giant red centipede made significantly larger so that it can be a more formidable foe in the episode.
  • This issue also showed Toriyama's designs of Gill (referred to only as "Meddle-Bot") and the spaceship, explaining that nozzle on the front is used for extracting water, which it uses as fuel (Toei uses this for drama in Episode 15 where the ship crashes on a desert planet and loses its fuel, using the nozzle at the end of the episode). It also says that the yellow panels are for gravity control. In this piece is a note that Goku calls this ship an "Octopus", which became a line of dialogue when Goku first sees it in Episode 2.
• The final time new Toriyama GT artwork was shown is the main trio fighting alien monsters, which debuted in Shonen Jump's third issue of 1996 in January, a month before GT's debut. Here, Pan is wearing a Future Trunks-like denim jacket instead of a backpack, and her shoe soles have circles. The setting wasn't used unlike the previous two art pieces, however one of the monsters did appear in the scene set in Hell in GT's final episode.
  • In that final piece, Trunks is firing and reloading a pistol. Trunks never uses guns in the show itself, however he is depicted holding them in his sensationalized Wanted Poster on Imegga.
• In his comment for Dragon Box GT, Toriyama explains that he didn't have it in him to write new stories for Toei, so he let them take over the whole thing, including the story. He was apparently thrilled to be released from the manga's deadline hell.
  • One thing Toriyama said in his comment that's often taken out of context is the phrase "Dragon Ball GT is a grand side-story of the original Dragon Ball", often used as a catch-all "Yeah, well GT isn't REAL because Toriyama said so"; with context, he was actually talking GT up and thanking Toei's staff (especially Tadayoshi Nakatsuru) for continuing his story on TV with non-manga material he didn't have to work on. He even ends the remark with "It'll make me happy for us to watch and enjoy it together." and drew an illustration of Super Saiyan 4 Goku.
• Finally, Toriyama also came up with GT's name, much as he devised the name for Dragon Ball Z. As a car enthusiast, Toriyama knew that GT typically means Gran Turismo (a fast, high-powered car, as made famous by the Gran Turismo video games), but in this case he intended "Grand Touring" to reflect the story taking the characters across the universe.
  • Incidentally, Grand Tourer is a real type of sports cars designed for high-speed, long-distance driving with a focus on luxury.
  • The GT Perfect Files oddly speculate that GT could stand also for "Galaxy Tour", despite Toriyama stating what it means in that very book. It's also inaccurate because they scatter across the four "cardinal" galaxies, unless they mean "a tour of the galaxies".
  • GT's logo meanwhile is directly based off of Toriyama's sketch: he drew GT and the triangle, as well as "DR--ON ---L to show where the main title goes. The final logo would be incredibly faithful to its appearance, arguably to a fault. Its design of having "Draogn Ball" in small yellow letters to the left of the much larger addition on the end of the name.
• The last two pieces of publicly-released Dragon Ball art by Toriyama in the classic era both released on the same day: Super Saiyan Goku for the cover of the second Cardass Daizenshuu, and a "Thank You Dragon Ball" page for Shonen Jump's 13th issue of 1996, both released on May 11th, almost a year after the manga ended. In the latter, Toriyama says that he hasn't done much work since ending Dragon Ball but was crazy busy with things in his personal life (likely raising his son and daughter). He also talks about the upcoming movie (The Path to Power), and he also mentions GT, which he makes clear he didn't work on.
  • At the end, Toriyama says that the next time you'll see him, he'll have a new manga. This would occur three years later in the form of Neko Majin in 1999, and Neko Majin Z in 2001. It wouldn't be until 2002's Kanzenban covers that Toriyama would release brand new artwork for Dragon Ball itself, five years since his last.
  • Also amusingly, in "Thank You Dragon Ball" Toriyama notes that thanks to the hardworking anime staff and passionate fans, Dragon Ball "just won't die". Given this and other interviews, it certainly paints a picture that he was beyond over with Dragon Ball at this point in time.
• In an interview with Kozo Morishita, it was revealed that Toei's original plan was for the sequel series to depict the events during the ten year gap between Boo and End of Z, covering the exploits of "next generation" characters like Pan and Trunks. This changed after word was sent to Toriyama and Shonen Jump's editorial department: after a meeting at this point, they decided to do an original story separate from the manga's events, so as to not drag it out.
  • This idea also ignores that Pan wouldn't be born until five years into the post-Boo timeskip, and Oob would also be far too young to be a major character until shortly before End of Z. Not that this stopped Toei, because...
  • As we all know by now, Toei would eventually return to this idea with the 2008 Jump Special, the two modern Dragon Ball Z movies, and Dragon Ball Super. Rather than being about the next generation, Super focuses on Goku and Vegeta meeting stronger guys.
• Initially, 26 episodes of plot outlines were created for GT, but after finalizing the script for Episode 3 the team realized the planet-travelling ideas weren't going to be interesting. Episode 3 would be the first episode of Imegga and is before Gill is even introduced. However if we're generous and assume Morishita meant planets instead of episodes, it would be the one where Trunks has to dress up as a bride, which is where the first rumblings of the Baby Arc transision appear in the Para-Para Brothers.
  • Notably, the Dark Dragon Ball Arc doesn't even last 26 episodes, and the transition towards the Baby Arc begins around Episodes 10-16. This means that there's at least 10 story outlines for the original Dark Dragon Ball hunt arc idea that were never developed into full episodes or scripts. One touched on by both Morishita and Atsushi Maekawa in another interview involves a planet of prisoners, which may have inspired some shots in the OP.

OP and English dubs trivia:

Spoiler:

• Each Dragon Ball anime name adds one extra letter to the end of the original name: Z adds one, GT adds two, and Kai adds three! Super bucks the trend by adding five.
• In GT's opening title shot, a Dark Dragon Ball flies away from the camera to form the O in Dragon Ball, only the logo's star is red, not black!
• Aside from the fact that the show was talked about in Shonen Jump soon after the manga ended, GT's intro is arguably the first to contain abject spoilers, considering it's a wholly original story rather than being based on events originally released months earlier in manga form.
• In the shot of the spaceship taking off from Capsule Corp., the skyscrapers of West City aren't as present, the grounds have no bushes or perimeter fence, and the second tower on the main building is missing despite usually being visible at this point in the anime.
• Mr. Satan is also seen in the orange space suit design in GT's intro. This suit originally appeared for a cover of Shonen Jump at the start of the Namek Arc to celebrate the story going into space for the first time, and became the de facto spacesuit design for Dragon Ball. It would appear one final time later in GT, but also appeared earlier in Cooler's Revenge and two Namek Arc filler stories.
  • The orange spacesuit colour was used a lot by NASA over the years, including the Launch Entry Suit that first saw use in 1988, and the Advanced Crew Escape Suit that first appeared in 1993, three years before Dragon Ball GT aired. It's also famous in 1952's The Adventures of Tintin: Explorers on the Moon, published three years before Toriyama's birth.
• The shot of Goku holding up an alien fish while in the nude is visually similar to a shot in The Path to Power where he defeats the River Fish for the first/last time.
• Thanks to the above shot, Dragon Ball GT's intro is the only one to have nudity in it. Thanks to two angles, we get the front and back!
• In the shot of the main trio flying towards the camera, Pan's pose of holding her open palms straight towards the camera is incredibly similar to a drawing of Goten that Toriyama did for Shonen Jump's 44th issue of 1993. Both of them are of course descendants of Goku.
• In the shot immediately after the above, Pan is the one driving the ship crashing through the buildings!
• In the quick shot of Goku firing a Kamehameha, his hands have no charged ki between them. This is accurate to how the move is depicted in the manga: the anime added the detail of the ki appearing between the hands while it was being charged.
• Trunks is shown slicing a robot in two with a sword. It appears to be a version of the Canuts Sword from DBZ Movie 13 (famously similar to Future Trunks' sword), only with a yellow hilt instead of a grey one. Regardless, this sword is never actually shown in GT at all, let alone used, so whether Trunks has this sword in GT and/or took it with him is conjecture at best.
• In the shot of the Dragon Ball in the pool of water, it's actually transparent, letting you see the water behind it.
• Towards the end of the intro, Pan gets her own panel where she kicks across the camera. Her end pose is incredibly similar to the third art piece Toriyama did for GT's pre-production where the trio fight alien monsters.
• In the shot of the trio escaping the cave, the statue on the left-hand side of the shot is based on a Japanese google-eyed "Dogu" clay figurine, which represent pregnant women.
• For a super fun time, check out this YouTube video of Kageyama and friends peforming an acoustic version of Dan Dan!
• After 444 episodes, 16 movies and 2 TV specials, Shunsuke Kikuchi retired as Dragon Ball's main composer. To replace him, Toei called into service Akihito Tokunaga, who also scored 10th Anniversary Movie and the Goku Jr. Special. Tokunaga primarily makes songs and is a member of Field of View, who created GT's OP theme, Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku.
  • Funnily enough, both Funimation and Ocean had a change of score for different reasons at this point: Funimation allegedly had years of trouble with Bruce Faulconer, so they used Z's end to switch to Mark Menza. Ocean meanwhile moved away from replacement scores altogether, likely because they switched to AB Groupe for their tapes, which contained the original score.
• When producing their dub of GT, Ocean had access to the instrumental versions of the original OP and ED, and wrote new lyrics and melodies unrelated to Dan Dan for their GT OP (as well as using a shortened instrumental version of Hitori Janai for the ED).
• Rather infamously, for their dub of Dragon Ball GT Funimation devised the "GT Rap" intro. It was directly inspired by the music videos that western DBZ fans were making by using music from bands like Linkin Park. The GT Rap and it's "rock-rap" style was meant to predict what genre they'd move onto next. As far as openings go, it's up there with 4Kids' One Piece intro.
• Another change Funimation made was to skip the first 17 episodes entirely, likely because GTs reputation was tepid both in Japan and Western fansub communities, and because GT doesn't have the intense fights and villains that Z is famous for until that point in the show. Instead, their first episode was a recap called "A Grand Problem".
• Funimation's first DVD release of GT would coincidentally mirror their plan for the original anime duo: they started on M2 where the action was rather Z-like, covered the rest of GT through to the end, then once it was over they went back and released the first 16 Dragon Ball-like episodes. These DVDs released in 2003-2005, and are all labelled with words ending in "-tion", including Ruination, Preparation and Generations.
• Today, GT is now distributed by Funimation via the 2008 "Remastered" DVDs (colloquially known as the Green Bricks) with the "lost episodes" included as a normal part of the show; A Grand Problem is not included among them. The Green Bricks also include an audio track with the original Tokunaga music behind the Funimation dub complete with cover versions of the original Japanese OPs/EDs (with newly-recorded instrumental tracks, sadly), bringing the show more in line with their second dub of the original Dragon Ball anime (outside of the Narrator, who now sounds incredibly out of place among Tokunaga's lighter score).
• Unlike the infamous "Remastered" Orange Brick DVDs of DBZ, the Green Bricks (as with the Blue Bricks that cover Dragon Ball) are not cropped to widescreen, and the automated cleaning and Digital Noise Reduction is far less intense and damaging. In fact GT is the best-looking of the "Brick" line because it uses Dragon Box footage as its source, however it is a bit saturated and has loss of detail in the background paintings, so as you would expect from the "Remastered" DVDs line, the original singles are visually superior.

GT episode 1 trivia:

Spoiler:

• Episode 1 of Dragon Ball GT is the first episode to not have a recap segment since the original Dragon Ball anime, which started doing this around the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai.
• GT Episode 1 is also the first episode to depict a different set of Dragon Balls in the title card artwork: Dragon Ball and Z stuck with the original Dragon Balls for the entire run, even during the Namek Arc.
• The exact amount of time that passes between End of Z and GT is never stated within the show itself. Kanzenshuu uses five years, likely sourced from the GT Perfect Files. Funimation meanwhile used 10 years, almost certainly so that Pan and Bra can be around 15 years old rather than 10, justifying why they're so much taller than Goku (and why Pan has a date in this episode).
• GT begins with Goku and Oob training at the Lookout. In End of Z, Goku says he'll stay with Oob in his island village, so presumably they relocated to the lookout for their "all-out" fight.
• The interior of the Lookout is depicted as being far more spacious than it was in the Boo Arc. Dende explains that the room was made specifically for them to train in; apparently making a subspace room like the Room of Spirit and Time wasn't an option.
• The Pilaf Gang were last seen in Dragon Ball Episode 151, almost seven years prior when they failed to get ahold of the Basho Fan in the Wedding Dress filler arc.
• The design of the Pilaf Gang's battle jackets are based on cars. Mai's is a lime green Volkswagen Beetle, Pilaf's has the BMW kidney grille, and Shu's is a BMW Isetta three-wheeler. All of them are based on German cars.
• It isn't explained exactly how Pilaf knows about the Dark Dragon Balls, but the information must have come from the last 25 years given that he knows there was a "previous" God (and however THAT is known isn't mentioned either). In the manga, Bulma learns of the normal ones thanks to an ancient book in an attic.
• Amusingly, Mai puts Pilaf back into his battle jacket, only to flip the battle jacket onto its feet and thus turn Pilaf upside-down.
• The shot of the doorway where Goku and Oob emerge after "sparring" is the same shot used in Dragon Ball Kai for when Goku is about to preview the next episode.
• After Oob and Goku collapse, Dende calls for Mr. Popo to see to their injuries, forgetting that he has healing abilities. This is even worse in the Funimation dub where he asks Popo to get a "med kit". The Ocean dub catches the error and has Dende say "Mr. Popo, quick, give me a hand!".
• One possible explaination for why the Dark Dragon Balls are never mentioned is their link to the Nameless Namekian: they may have turned to stone after he cast off his evil, and only reactivated after God and Piccolo merged back together. The fact that they scatter into space and then blow up the planet a year later also makes them a highly undesireable option to use in the first place.
• Shuu says that the previous Dragon Balls had red stars. Their actual colour tends to vary, often being closer to orange or brown.
• The Dark Dragon Ball that Pilaf picks up (and gets hit in the head with) is the One Star Ball, which is the same one he first acquires back in Dragon Ball Episode 1 in the castle filler scene. He pulls it from the mouth of a skull: in GT, after Pilaf pulls the red cloth from the altar, the Seven Star ball is held inside the mouth of one of the skeletons.
  • It's not explained where exactly the skeletons came from. Previous Gods? Mr. Popo's victims? Spirit of Halloween? Who knows!
• In the Japanese dialogue and the Ocean dub, the power of the Dark Dragon Balls is explained by God being at full strength before splitting. In the Funimation version, it's because he was still partially evil and so probably didn't know any better (which explains why the Namekian Dragon Balls aren't the same way).
• Oob says that he's going to see his brother and sister. In End of Z it's explained he has four siblings, so this raises all sorts of questions (do those two kids still live with their parents? Did the other two die??).
• Despite being a major focus for the conclusion of the manga, the opening scene of Episode 1 is the only scene Oob is in for the entire Dark Dragon Ball Arc, and he wouldn't appear again until mid-way into the Baby Arc. This makes a sort of sense for anime viewers, as Oob was only introduced two weeks before this episode.
• Dende says that the Earth couldn't stand Goku and Oob fighting on it. This is exactly what Vegeta says to Goku before he flies off with Oob in End of Z.
• Curiously, Mai's battle jacket is controlled with a normal steering wheel (with an indicator stalk!) rather than a flight yoke like Shu and Pilaf's.
• Pilaf is only the second character to have summoned a dragon god multiple times, beating out even the great Lord Freeza. He ties with Dende, who did it with Porunga in the Namek and Boo Arcs, and Bulma, who summoned him in the Daimao and Namek Arcs (with a possible total of five times if she did all the summons in the Namek Arc epilogue and during the Boo Arc).
• When Ultimate Shen Long is being summoned, the "bu-DONG!" sound effect for breaking through stone or rock can be heard in the background. This is likely to reflect that the Pilaf Gang summoned him indoors (however it appears they summon him outside at the start of the scene).
• Aside from his red colouring and sheer size, Ultimate Shen Long has a much stouter head and blade-like horns instead of the antlers and beard of the original Shen Long. He's likely larger than Porunga in sheer mass, however he is smaller than Super Shen Long from Super, who's large enough to swallow planets if he wanted.
• Ultimate Shen Long has the fewest summons of any dragon god in classic Dragon Ball: two. Porunga was summoned four times, while Shen Long was summoned at least eight times (possibly more).
• Missed Trivia: KBABZ just noticed that both God and Shen Long's names are literally just their descriptive titles (Shen Long meaning Dragon God), which is appropriate since they're connected!
• Goku refers to Pilaf by name despite not having seen him since the Wedding Dress filler arc. Chichi would be furious because Goku didn't remember her at all at the 23rd Tournament, despite the time gap being much smaller!
• In the Japanese audio, Pilaf is so old that he can't even whistle while pretending he's at the Lookout for an errand.
• The rockets that Goku catches stop thrusting a few seconds after being fired, meaning they mustn't have that much fuel!
• Ultimate Shen Long is a much more malevolant wish-granter: he grants Pilaf's request, despite it being hypothetical, Piaf saying "If only" instead of "I wish", and the request not even being directed at him. He is however kind enough to adjust the fit of Goku's clothes!
  • Both English dubs would have Pilaf explicitly say "I wish", to make Ultimate Shen Long's wish grant feel more logical, although it dulls a bit of his "trickster genie" character.
• The eyecatches and their accompanying music cues don't actually last the same amount of time, with some rather clunky editing in the first three episodes. This is almost appropriate, as the first episode of Dragon Ball had the eyecatch cues the wrong way around!
• Kaio displays knowledge of the Dark Dragon Balls, which is notable because 15 years ago in the Boo arc, Elder Kaioshin had no idea what Dragon Balls were, let alone the older Dark ones.
• Kaio is also still hanging around the Grand Kaio's White House grounds, which appears to have multiple Washington Monuments. It hasn't occurred to anyone to just wish Kaio's planetoid back, although considering the events of GT's final arc, it's a good thing they didn't!
• Mr. Popo says that the Dark Dragon Balls scatter across all four galaxies. Unless you're watching the Funimation dub, where it's just the one local galaxy. Why is unknown, but it's not like GT ever highlights when they've travelled to a different galaxy in the first place. It's possible that this was more obvious when there were 26 episodes of the GT Trio visiting planets, before the Baby Arc transition occurred which limited it to 10 (six of which are connected to Baby in some way).
• In addition to refitted clothes, Goku's boots have also returned to their old style.
• The police shields at the robbery are tough enough to sustain rocket launcher blasts!
• One of the policemen appears to be the franchise's first hybrid, being a human with the muzzle of a hippopotamous. However it's possible that he was simply mis-coloured during production.
• The bus that Roshi disembarks from is a modern, real-world hovercraft that lifts using a skirt and fan. Another one would appear in Episode 4 as the truck that tows away the Octopus ship.
• GT uses various instrumental versions of its first ending theme, Hitori Janai, in association with Pan. This is another way it links back to the original show, as Bulma was often linked with instrumentals of Romantic Ageru Yo.
• Pan's date is wearing a shirt that reads "Sorry, Now Printing". This is somewhat truth in television; it's seen by some as being quite fashionable in Japan to wear clothes with English words on them, even if the words actually have no meaning together. Indeed, Dragon Ball includes English words in its designs very frequently.
• Roshi's duffle bag has "The Master" written on it. This is in fact a pun, as "Muten Roshi" means "Master Muten" (which is why some fans feel that "Master Roshi" is a terrible name because it's redundantly redundant).
• Pan, not realizing that the kid she saved is Goku, tells him that he should let an older girl like herself handle the robbery. This is hypocritical because she's 10: the youngest Goku can possibly be after Pilaf's wish is 12, since that's the youngest Pilaf ever saw him.
• When the second hostage bites the hand of the robbery leader, the robbery leader shoots at Pan instead of the fleeing hostage.
• Roshi is the only character in GT to actually be happy that Goku's been turned into a kid.
• The house that Goku visits is in fact the dual property that Trunks goes to in End of Z. GT is the first time we get to see the inside of Chichi's yellow building.
• Kaio says that the only way for Goku to return to his old form is to use the Dark Dragon Balls again. The common theory is that this is because Shen Long and Porunga cannot over-write a wish made by Ultimate Shen Ron.
  • Another theory is that Shen Long and Porunga wouldn't be able to affect Goku's body because his strength vastly exceeds theirs, while the rule-breaking Ultimate Shen Long doesn't have this limitation. The specifics of the "the subject is beyond my power" rule are vague however, and never explained: Shen Long can't kill Nappa and Vegeta, but is perfectly able to teleport Vegeta to Earth in the Namek Arc. Porunga meanwhile is able to restore Goku's ki in the Boo Arc.
• Kaio explains that the Dark Dragon Balls must be gathered again to prevent the Earth from exploding. Contrary to popular belief, a wish isn't actually required (otherwise that would cause the planet they were wished on to explode a year later).
• When Kaio reveals the above, lightning flashes around him, despite Dai Kaio's planet never having a cloud in the sky!
• In GT's first ED, the background of their TV in the shot of Pan and Trunks waking up is an aerial view of Gohan's house from End of Z (likely because that's where Pan lives).
• GT's first ED is also the first in the franchise to use a shot taken directly from the show itself.
• One of the ED shots is the GT Trio in a boat. Goku has only canonically used a boat in a Dragon Ball search once, just after meeting Oolong in the Pilaf Arc.
• The shot of Goku and Trunks riding on a purple dragon is taken from the cover of Tankobon #38, which depicted Goten riding a blue dragon with a basket full of food instead of, well, Gill.
• The shot of Goku feeding apples to a Brachiasaurus-like animal is reminiscent of the famous treetop scene from Jurassic Park. It's also not even that alien, considering how many dinosaurs their version of Earth has!

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Episode 446 - I’m the Star! Pan Blasts Off into Space!! (GT episode 2)
Ocean dub title: I'll Take the Lead: Pan Takes Off Into Space!
Funimation dub title: Pan Blasts Off
Originally aired 14th of February 1996
Written by: Aya Matsui
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama

Some kidnappers try to hold Goku for ransom. Meanwhile, Trunks is bored with his job and both he and Goten are total slackers, so Vegeta thinks up a plan to whip them into shape. While this is all going on, Pan is tired of being treated like a child, so she plans to sneak on board the ship.

Anime-only/filler content: Still all of it. What's going on?

Trivia:

Spoiler:

• To tie into Goku's reversion to the body of a child, many of his old traits are brought back, including constant hunger and being happy-go-lucky to the point of characters pointing it out. Goku notably reverts while in a serious fight or during Super Saiyan 4.
• Goku suggests moving everyone to another planet, a surprisingly logical idea that would in fact come to pass in Episode 40.
• One of the cars stuck in traffic is a red Lamborghini Countach with a hover conversion, looking identical to Yamucha's car that was caught by Trunks in the "You're Late, Goku!" filler episode at the end of Dragon Ball Z.
• This episode is the first time we get to see a facet of Capsule Corp other than the private building that Bulma resides in, and shows that it is in fact a fully-fledged corporation by now rather than an incredibly popular garage startup.
• Practically all the women in Capsule Corp. fawn over Trunks as he passes by. No word on if any of them are Meri.
• Also fawning over Trunks is a man who looks a lot like Otosuki from the End of Z Tournament, which is... consistent.
• Trunks' schedule apparently keeps him busy until at least 9:00pm!
• While flying, Trunks says that Bukujutsu is the only way to do it. Appropriate, considering he dumped a flying craft in favour of it in End of Z!
• The TV Pan watches the dog on is quite possibly the same TV from the first End of Z episode where Mr. Satan's ad for the Tenkaichi Budokai played, since both are widescreen (a unique trait for 1996!).
• Pan teases Goten about his habit of getting dumped, despite complaining about that very habit in the previous episode.
• Oddly, Chichi is insistent that Goku go into space rather than staying with her. She also seems happy that Gohan wants to leave despite all his duties as a scholar.
• It isn't clear how exactly Bulma was able to build a functioning rocket ship in one day. The fact that she apparently also has an underground rocket ship hangar ready-to-go suggests she's at least tinkered with building one at some point in the past.
• The Octopus Ship is the second spaceship in the show to have a circular platform that rises up between levels, after the Namekian Ship found in Yunzabit. Both take the main characters to their grand adventure in space.
• When Pan wheels in the cart to hide the dent she kicked in the wall, the cart moves closer to the wall between shots.
• Bra isn't named in dialogue until this episode (not that she herself has any lines). Her name is an undergarment pun like the rest of Bulma's family, and is as on-the-nose as her brother's name. Funimation changed it to Bulla, which according to Chris Sabat was to avoid kids googling "Dragon Ball Bra". Ocean meanwhile went with what's pronounced as "Byuu-lah" (no spelling is given).
  • For science, KBABZ actually tested how risky googling "Dragon Ball Bra" is in 2021 by googling that exact search term, with the only remotely-risque option being Sports Bras as the third result even with Safe Search turned off. The rest is things relating to the character, since by now she's well-known enough to override any awkward search results.
• Pan's outfit at Mr. Satan's dojo is incredibly similar to the gi she wore as a four year-old in End of Z, mixed with a bit of Goten's End of Z gi.
• The car that the second kid-napper uses is a Mini Cooper in the classic British Racing Green.
• The second thief says that he hasn't heard of any grandchildren from Bulma. However Bulma does have two kids in Trunks and Bra, the latter of which is younger than Goku is at the moment!
• Goku's food bill is 700,000 Zeni, which is 230,000 Zeni more than he spent after the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai (which Roshi had to pay using his prize money for winning the tournament in the first place).
• The thief pays for the above in 72 installments, which would mean he'd pay it off in chunks of 9,722 Zeni each.
• Regarding the kid-napping, Bulma says that Goku is old enough to look after himself at this point. He arguably ALWAYS has, considering he can survive bullets and took down an entire army at age 13!
• In the wide shot of the café where the Pan is eating with Mr. Satan, the Mini Cooper with the kid-nappers and Goku drives in front of the camera.
• A very easily-missed detail in the café scene is Mr. Satan and Pan's orders: Mr. Satan wanted a sundae while Pan wanted a coffee (presumably to make a statement that she isn't a kid). The waitress however delivers the sundae to Pan thinking that it was hers, so after she leaves Mr. Satan swaps their orders around. Turns out, Pan finds her coffee too bitter!
• One of the places the kid-nappers take Goku is an amusement park. This isn't the first time Goku has visited one in West City, having gone to the Dreamland tower in the Red Ribbon Arc filler!
• When talking to the second kid-napper on the phone, Vegeta is wearing the same outfit he was wearing to the Tournament in End of Z.
• The numberplate of the kid-napper's Mini Cooper is 12-34.
• The first kid-napper guesses that the whole Briefs family must be able to fly, which is in fact mostly true: Bulma is the only one who can't (and her parents aren't present in GT).
• The telephone box that Goku delivers appears to have been lifted straight out of the ground with no cables hanging off it or anything!

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Episode 447 - Super Greedy!! The Merchant Planet Imegga (GT episode 3)
Ocean dub title: Imecka, a Planet of Super-Calculating Merchants!
Funimation dub title: Terror on Imecka
Originally aired 21st of February 1996
Written by: Aya Matsui
Episode director: Kazuhito Kikuchi
Animation supervisor: Yūji Hakamada

The gang crash land on a planet of Americans greedy salesmen; they lose their ship, their radar, seemingly everything!

Anime-only/filler content: Yeah, seriously, none of this was in the manga.

Trivia:

Spoiler:

• Pan drops the ship's master control key down the front of her shirt in order to prevent Trunks from getting it. Not only does she lack the, well, attributes to catch the key with, but her shirt is notably open on the bottom, meaning the key should have fallen straight out and into her lap.
• Chichi seems to be surprisingly okay with her granddaughter flying off into space unprepared! Maybe she got used to it after sending Gohan to Namek.
• GT Episode 3 is the second time Chichi has been seen doing the washing at her newest home.
• Of the shirts that Chichi is hanging out, one of them is a green shirt with Happy Sun from Dr. Slump on the front.
• Unlike when Bulma, Gohan, Kuririn and Goku went to Namek, space is depicted as blue in GT, looking like a stylised blue night sky instead of a more realistic black night sky like in the Namek arc and any shots from before GT that are in space (like the Final Flash).
• Karmically enough, Pan taking off early causes the ship to crash on Imegga where she meets her nemesis, Gill.
• Goku's lack of vehicular experience shows in that he doesn't know how seatbelts work, tying all four in a knot rather than buckling them all up.
• Trunks proposes that they find a place to stay for the night and repair the ship the next day. This is actually unessecary: the Octopus ship already has bedrooms (as seen in the first ED), and Goku is plenty strong enough to flip the ship the right way around again.
• Seen among the various spaceship parts offered to the GT Trio are several bullets, which aren't very spaceship-like at all!
• The name Imegga comes from the Japanese word Gametsui, or "greedy". The tsu is droppped ("Ga-me-i"), and the remaining syllables are reversed to give I-me-gga. The planet's currency of gammets also comes from this word. Both English dubs called the planet Imecka instread, likely to move away from egg connotations.
• The trio are forced to pay for their wares in gamets, despute not coming to Imegga with this local currency.
• Trunks and Pan have to scan the room for any peddlers, apparently not thinking to use ki sensing.
• Don Kia's name comes from the Japanese word akindo, meaning merchant; "do" and "n" were swapped, then moved to the front, and then "ki" and "a" were swapped. Funimation altered his name to Don Kee, to play into his name sounding sorta like the English word "Donkey", themselves associated with merchants, trade and wares.
• Trunks somehow has the bed chain attached to him without him realizing it was put on him.
• If this episode is good for anything, it's for teaching the pitfalls of free-to-play models!
• GT Episode 3 is the second time Goku wears a turban; the first time was Dragon Ball Episode 133, which aired nearly five years before this one.
• Pan complains about having to go all the way back to the spaceship, despite having circumnaviated the Earth at the age of four.
• The Dragon Radar that debuts in this episode is the third design, and the first not designed by Toriyama. It's much more puffy-shaped, and unique in that the button sticks out of a vent-like protrusion (which would make it difficult to press). It's also the first to have the wrist strap on the bottom of the radar rather than wrapped at the neck below the button. The Radar is visible for two whole shots before it's absorbed by Gill and lost forever.
  • In GT's canon it's the fourth Dragon Radar, after Bulma's original, the second made by Turbo in Penguin Village, and the third made for Namek. This of course assumes that the Namek Radar isn't a refurbishment of the Turbo Radar, and that the GT Radar isn't a refurbishment of the Namek Rader.
• The machine that drags away the Octopus ship uses the same sound effect as Pilaf's Airship from back in the Daimao Arc.
• Exactly what Gill's name is referring to is unclear. It's been suggested that it's a phonetic form of "Gear-u", which would fit with his true origins later in the story but was almost certainly not planned at this point in production. Others meanwhile use Gill, which is almost identical to the currency used in all Final Fantasy games, and thus is more fitting for Imegga.
• Despite their speed, Pan and Trunks can't catch Gill, and consider their ship lost when it's a kilometer away.
• The next episode preview at the end of GT episode 3 was originally broadcast with a trailer/preview for the 10th anniversary movie, featuring some interesting animation differences such as the placement of the Red Ribbon logo on the tanks (movie, preview), or the giant robot completely changing colour (movie, preview).

.

Episode 448 - Wanted!! Goku’s on the Wanted List?! (GT episode 4)
Ocean dub title: A Criminal: Goku Gets on the Most Wanted List!
Funimation dub title: The Most Wanted List
Originally aired 28th of February 1996
Written by: Masashi Kubota
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Toshiyuki Kan'no

The gang are put on the most wanted list for stealing their ship back.

Anime-only/filler content: Still everything.

Trivia:

Spoiler:

• While Goku's inability to use Instant Transmission is pretty transparently a way to depower him and add some tension, it doesn't excuse GT for constantly forgetting that these characters can fly and are able to lift entire buildings, one of its most frequent mistakes (for example, there's no need for them to jump across the beams in the scrapper's yard).
  • Most of the time the GT Trio prefer to make huge jumps to get about. Initially this was what Superman was able to do ("leap tall buildings in a single bound!"), but the live-action Adventures of Superman in 1952 got DC's permission to change this to flight because it was much easier to film, and it became a natural part of the character after that.
• While the trio falling the first time after Instant Transmission kinda makes sense, Goku Pan and Trunks have more than enough time on the second attempt to start flying before they fall.
• Of the two under Don Kia's command, only Gel is actually named in dialogue. His pun is unclear, but it's possible that it's a pun on "Geld", the German word for money.
• The lady is called Shila in the japanese credits, which may be a pun on Shilling, an old imperial denomination of British currency, Schilling, the Austrian word for money, or "shill", a person who is "randomly" chosen to demonstrate a product but is actually being paid under the table to make it look better than it really is.
• The fight with the scrapyard guards and Redjic is the first proper fight sequence in Dragon Ball GT.
• Pan beats out her grandpa for the record of the youngest person to drive a vehicle by two years (Goku having driven Bulma's Capsule Bike at age 12).
• Redjic's head design is visually quite similar to Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which debuted three years before GT in 1993. Interestingly, Quark is also from a greed-focused planet!
• Don Kia wears two earrings that look like Potara.
• The bill that Don Kia gives his two underlings is 11,487,260 gamets.
• In his checkup of the ship, Trunks overlooks the missing chip that fell off the ship back in Episode 2.
• Among Imegga's residents are dog-like beings, which is a huge co-incidence considering they're on an alien planet.
• The reward for handing in each of the GT Trio is 100,000 gamets. This is actually an incredibly poor reward considering simply using the hotel fridge cost Goku at least 58,149 gamets.
• Pan complains that her Wanted Poster looks nothing like her, despite her poster being the only one to make no major alterations to her appearance.
• In a classic Scooby Doo moment, the GT Trio are able to hide by ducking into an alley despite being in the police's line of sight.
• GT Episode 4 is the second episode in a row where Pan complains about the rainy weather.
• Trunks' offer to return to the spaceship is shot down by Pan because it can't fly at the momemt, however Trunks was probaby offering it as shelter from the rain instead.
• Trunks is able to tell that Gill was sensing ki despite never actually opening up the backpack to check.

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Episode 449 - Finding a Strong Guy!! The Bodyguard Redjic (GT episode 5)
Ocean dub title: Find the Tough Guy: Lezick the Bodyguard!
Funimation dub title: Goku vs. Ledgic
Originally aired 6th of March 1996
Written by: Masashi Kubota
Episode director: Hiroyuki Kakudō
Animation supervisor: Shingo Ishikawa

To free the people of Imegga from their terrible overlord, Goku must fight Redjic, the bodyguard.

Anime-only/filler content: Ya know what, I give up.

Trivia:

Spoiler:

• Dragon Ball GT Episode 5 marks an important first for Dragon Ball: every episode is mixed and broadcast in stereo. However for all releases and distributions, Toei and Funimation instead used the poor optical audio track, despite Japanese TV stations broadcasting GT with the superior audio to this day.
  • Dragon Ball Kai would be the second Dragon Ball show to be mixed in stereo. For this, Dragon Ball sound designer Hidenori Arai remixed all of his classic sound effects to be in stereo... only for Toei to replace them with different sound effects starting with Battle of Gods five years later.
  • Funimation provided the first 5.1 surround sound mix of a Dragon Ball anime, which they accomplished by putting the music and sound effects on the corner speakers and the vocals and sound effects on the center speaker. Kai would be the first to get a bespoke surround sound mix and thus was much more complex.
• As Gel opens and closes his mouth, he gains upper teeth whenever he clenches his teeth together.
• As Pan correctly alludes to, she Trunks and Goku are more than capable of breaking free of their captors.
• GT Episode 5 starts a repeated plot beat of Pan charging into a fight only to immediately get captured and placed as a damsel in distress, which means she hardly ever gets to demonstrate any fighting. This is a rather stark change from her incredibly capable and talented characterization in End of Z.
• Redjic's name should actualy be rendered as Redict, as his name is a rearrangement of the word credit. This is a name the subtitles and both English dubs fail to render properly; Funimation called him Ledgic (similar to ledger, which is used for recording transactions), while Ocean called him Lezick.
• While Redjic tells Don Kia not to order him around, Don at least says please when he gives him the order!
• After Redjic removes the two shoulder spikes to form swords, two more spikes appear, meaning he has an effectively unlimited amound of melee weapons on-hand (which he uses to draw a spear later in the fight).
• One-upping the Android Arc, Goku is able to catch TWO swords at once!
• Redjic is able to identify Goku as a Saiyan, despite them going all but extinct 52 years prior (although to be fair, Raditz, Vegeta and Nappa were still in active service for a fair while after that).
• It takes five episodes for GT to show the Super Saiyan form (it isn't present in the OP or ED).
• Goku fired the Kamehameha to protect himself from Redjic's attack at point-blank range, something Vegeta called him a madman for doing against Nappa back in the Saiyan Arc.
• Redjic has a very easily-missed tail.
• Goku has a reputation for changing the perspective of villainous characters, and Redjic is the first character he does this for in GT.
• At the end of the episode, Gill says that a Dragon Ball is located "North". This is a TERRIBLE way of giving inter-stellar directions because North is defined by the magnetic field of a planet, and thus doesn't work at all in space (not to mention there's no concept of up). A better method would be the XYZ co-ordinates displayed on the monitor.

____

Trivia primarily written by KBABZ. Episode summaries, airdates, and titles courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide.

[Koitsukai]

I don't know why, but GT and Star Wars keep getting linked in my brain. Maybe it's because the Phantom Menace premiered around the time I started watching GT, and that the first arc is kinda SW-esque.
I know it's like frowned upon to like the first 15 episodes, but I really enjoy the grand touring. The new planets and characters, the new environments, DB never went so much out of their confort zone, the grimmer look.

Also, daaaamn GT Perfect Files couldn't even get the standing of the G and the T right? and people still take to heart whatever bull they've included.

The hiatus between Z and GT has always been up in the air, it's 5 years, but I grew up thinking it was a whole decade, based on magazines and stuff.

--
Also, maybe I missed the trivia, but did Vegeta, in the original dub, say to Trunks and Goten, that Gohan wasn't slacking when giving them a reason for why they are going instead of Gohan?

[KBABZ]

I know it's like frowned upon to like the first 15 episodes, but I really enjoy the grand touring. The new planets and characters, the new environments, DB never went so much out of their confort zone, the grimmer look.

I like them too. Personally I think the problem with GT's original concept is that unlike the Red Ribbon arc, there's no persistent opposing force or character to act as the villain. The opening DB arc doesn't have this (Pilaf doesn't count, c'mon) but supplements it with a focus on the characters who for the most part get along or at least don't bicker as much, so it's fun to just be with them as they search for each ball. When Toei introduces some, it's the INCREDIBLY messy dogpile that starts with the Para-Para Brothers and ends with Baby.

The hiatus between Z and GT has always been up in the air, it's 5 years, but I grew up thinking it was a whole decade, based on magazines and stuff.

I personally prefer Funimation's gap of 10 years, because it justifies why Pan is taller than Kid Goku as well as her having a boyfriend in Episode 1.

Also, maybe I missed the trivia, but did Vegeta, in the original dub, say to Trunks and Goten, that Gohan wasn't slacking when giving them a reason for why they are going instead of Gohan?

I don't recall hearing him refer to Gohan specifically when I watched with the Japanese audio.

[MasenkoHA]

The 10 year from the end of the Z also makes Bra/Bura/Bulla/Bulma Jr’s character design easier to swallow because it makes her 13 not 8.

I actually quite like what Blue Water did with the theme taking the instrumental of the Japanese theme and creating a song with entirely different lyrics to fit in with a more western style of cartoon theme songs, not unlike what Harmony Gold attempted actually. The more faithful Funimation opening they brought in for the 2008 remaster wasn’t bad but it falls into that “This is clearly a Japanese song being awkwardly translated and sung in English” something Funimation had avoided with their renditions of Mystical Adventure and I’ll Give you Romance

[Koitsukai]

I know it's like frowned upon to like the first 15 episodes, but I really enjoy the grand touring. The new planets and characters, the new environments, DB never went so much out of their confort zone, the grimmer look.

I like them too. Personally I think the problem with GT's original concept is that unlike the Red Ribbon arc, there's no persistent opposing force or character to act as the villain. The opening DB arc doesn't have this (Pilaf doesn't count, c'mon) but supplements it with a focus on the characters who for the most part get along or at least don't bicker as much, so it's fun to just be with them as they search for each ball. When Toei introduces some, it's the INCREDIBLY messy dogpile that starts with the Para-Para Brothers and ends with Baby.

The hiatus between Z and GT has always been up in the air, it's 5 years, but I grew up thinking it was a whole decade, based on magazines and stuff.

I personally prefer Funimation's gap of 10 years, because it justifies why Pan is taller than Kid Goku as well as her having a boyfriend in Episode 1.

Also, maybe I missed the trivia, but did Vegeta, in the original dub, say to Trunks and Goten, that Gohan wasn't slacking when giving them a reason for why they are going instead of Gohan?

I don't recall hearing him refer to Gohan specifically when I watched with the Japanese audio.

Yeah, the first 15 episodes you don't really know where this is going; sure, they are searching for the DBs so the Earth doesn't go boom, but besides that, there's nothing else aside of the bad guy of the week of the planet they are currently visiting at the moment.

But even so, I still enjoy the slice-of-life-in-outer-space episodes... it's feels like an extension of the opening.

Also, yeah, the 10 year gap sounds much better than just 5... consider, well considering everything in GT. Designs, stuff that happens, powerscaling, character development, everything.

[KBABZ]

I actually quite like what Blue Water did with the theme taking the instrumental of the Japanese theme and creating a song with entirely different lyrics to fit in with a more western style of cartoon theme songs, not unlike what Harmony Gold attempted actually. The more faithful Funimation opening they brought in for the 2008 remaster wasn’t bad but it falls into that “This is clearly a Japanese song being awkwardly translated and sung in English” something Funimation had avoided with their renditions of Mystical Adventure and I’ll Give you Romance

Me and Robo were talking about this over Discord, and I think the reason why is because their English versions of GT's songs were only ever heard on the DVDs. The OG-DB songs however were on the original TV broadcasts in 2001-3, so much more effort was put into their production. Similarly, their "song that plays over the Japanese intros" was also quite low-effort. This theory carries through to Kai as well: I don't think it's a co-incidence that the version of Dragon Soul that went to broadcast (Vic's) happens to be the one that sounds the best of the six.

Also, yeah, the 10 year gap sounds much better than just 5... consider, well considering everything in GT. Designs, stuff that happens, powerscaling, character development, everything.

Makes me wonder just WHERE the GT Perfect Files say they got 5 years from. Because I'm starting to think it was never decided upon and it was just made up for the book! Vegetto, halp??

[Koitsukai]

Also, yeah, the 10 year gap sounds much better than just 5... consider, well considering everything in GT. Designs, stuff that happens, powerscaling, character development, everything.

Makes me wonder just WHERE the GT Perfect Files say they got 5 years from. Because I'm starting to think it was never decided upon and it was just made up for the book! Vegetto, halp??

I believe GT PF had 10 years, when it actually were 5.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I can tell that the thought process at first with decisions made in the series early on like having Goku get de aged to a child again, and the adventure aspect of his, Pan's and Trunks' travels through space in the first 20 some odd episodes was clearly done with the intention of trying to essentially recapture that adventureous feeling of the original Dragon Ball series. Not to mention that it premiered on TV just a few weeks before the tenth anniversary of the anime itself, so surely that played a factor to some degree regarding the tone of those early episodes before transferring midway through with the Baby arc into more DBZ style action for the second half.

[KBABZ]

I believe GT PF had 10 years, when it actually were 5.

So where does 5 years come from then??

EDIT: Also did anyone notice the logo we used for this week?

[Koitsukai]

I believe GT PF had 10 years, when it actually were 5.

So where does 5 years come from then??

EDIT: Also did anyone notice the logo we used for this week?

I believe(and I'm probably 95% wrong) it was on an official website or something of that sort(maybe when stating Goku's age?) .

The show never even attempts addressing the time skip, but I think the English dub and GTPF went with 10 years and we all went with it and because it makes more sense. This seems to be a case for Mr. VegettoEX.


Also yeah, what's up with the logo? Did Future Gohan or Cyborg Tao draw it?

[Robo4900]

Also, maybe I missed the trivia, but did Vegeta, in the original dub, say to Trunks and Goten, that Gohan wasn't slacking when giving them a reason for why they are going instead of Gohan?

I have no idea about the Funi dub, but in Japanese and in the Ocean/Blue Water dub, Goten asks Vegeta why Gohan isn't going (as he said he would earlier in the episode). Vegeta's response is as follows...
Japanese: This was my suggestion. It would be best if you two went, since you've been slacking off with your training. Going together with Kakarrot will be a good experience for you.
Ocean: I convinced him to stay. He's not the one who's been neglecting his training and getting soft like you two have. Going on this mission will do the two of you a world of good.

I actually quite like what Blue Water did with the theme taking the instrumental of the Japanese theme and creating a song with entirely different lyrics to fit in with a more western style of cartoon theme songs, not unlike what Harmony Gold attempted actually. The more faithful Funimation opening they brought in for the 2008 remaster wasn’t bad but it falls into that “This is clearly a Japanese song being awkwardly translated and sung in English” something Funimation had avoided with their renditions of Mystical Adventure and I’ll Give you Romance

Agreed.

I do still prefer the Japanese vesrion, but the Ocean version of the GT OP is honestly very nice, and doesn't sound overly like a translated piece of work... which is honestly something that applies to the whole dub: It's not 100% accurate to the original literal words said in Japanese, but you're not missing anything and you're not being fed any nonsense; the differences are all acceptable adaptational choices that create a more natural script than if you had a bunch of actors just read the subtitles, and it does all that while fitting in the lip flaps.

Also yeah, what's up with the logo? Did Future Gohan or Cyborg Tao draw it?

It's a slight edit of Toriyama's original draft drawing of GT's logo. KBABZ and I thought it would be fun to go with the sketch version for the first GT week. Here's what the original looked like:


---

KBABZ thought of a couple of extra trivia entries. I've added them to the OP, but for anyone who's already read it:

• Missed trivia: In the filler where Goku takes Pan through the Tournament attractions, he holds her up on his shoulders so she can be level with the bunny mascot, despite the fact that she can fly.
• The Octopus Ship is the second spaceship in the show to have a circular platform that rises up between levels, after the Namekian Ship found in Yunzabit. Both take the main characters to their grand adventure in space.

With the housekeeping and responses out of the way, it's time to inflict my opinions on you all. Muahahaha!...

Don't expect this kind of comparison to become a regular thing, but to give a taste of the difference between the Ocean/Blue Water and Funimation dubs of GT, here's a comparison of the Simmons subtitled, Ocean dubbed, and Funimation dubbed versions of a scene from episode 4:

Simmons:

Spoiler:

[Servant silently lifts lid on Don Kia's food]
Don Kia: Nothing beats Imegga parfait, right after you get out of the pool.
Gel: Don Kia-sama...
Don Kia: Gel-chan, is that you two?
[Gel & Shila teleport in]
Gel & Shila: Yes!
Don Kia: What's the matter?
Gel: We've recovered the spaeship that the security team discovered in the wastelands to the East last night, Don Kia-sama.
[Screen turns on, shows ship]
Shila: It's a ship whose type we've never seen before, so we think it may have come from an unknown planet.
Don Kia: That doesn't matter! Value! Does it have any value!?
Shila: N-no, not in particular...
Don Kia: What about the crew? Were there any cute girls among the crew on board, who we could pass off as dancers, or as idols, to any talent producers?
Gel: I-I've received information that there wasn't anyone on board. What's worse, upon further inspection, the ship will not hold up as merchandise.
Don Kia: In that case, scrap it immediately. It will bring at least some money as scrap iron, right?
Gel & Shila: Aye!

Ocean:

Spoiler:

[Servant silently lifts lid on Don Kia's food]
Don Kia: Nothing beats a sundae after a dip in the pool!
Mr. Kiru & Shila: May we enter, my lord?
Don Kia: Come in, you two.
[Mr. Kiru & Shila teleport in]
Mr. Kiru & Shila: Sir!
Don Kia: What do you have for me?
Mr. Kiru: The spaceship that was spotted last night by our forest patrol has been located and seized, your lordship.
[Screen turns on, shows ship]
Shila: Our engineers have never seen a ship quite like it before, so it's believed to come from a planet we know very little about.
Don Kia: That's of no interest to me! Were there any valuables recovered from its hull -- like gold or precious metals?
Shila: I'm not sure. Nothing's been reported, my lord.
Don Kia: Well, instead of just wasting my time, you should go and find out just what do you know about this ship! Is there a crew or did it just fly itself?
Mr. Kiru: We conducted a magnetic search sweep of the ship and determined it was abandoned; based on preliminary research, due to its foreign design and the extent of damage, the ship is unmarketable.
Don Kia: If that's the case, then tear it apart immediately. I'll get something for it even if it's just as scrap metal!
Mr. Kiru & Shilla: Right.

Funimation:

Spoiler:

Servant: Your midday meal, my lord. If it pleases you, sire. [Lifts lid on Don Kia's food]
Don Kee: Yes it's fine, my compliments to the chef!
Ledgic: Your scouts have returned.
[Gale & Sheela teleport in]
Don Kee: Yes, what is it, Gale?
Gale: My lord, that spaceship that was found in the desert, we've got it, it's all yours now, finders keepers!
Don Kee: Show me.
[Screen turns on, shows ship]
Don Kee: Sheela, what's your evaluation?
Sheela: Lord, whoever designed it had function in mind, but not fashion. It may work well, but as you can see, it's an eyesore. It's not going to fetch anywhere near what the sleeker models are getting in the marketplace. In a word, it's ugly.
Don Kee: Well then what good is it? There's no rare treasure inside, no crew members for slaves, so why have you brought me this ridiculous ship?
Gale: Sire, you're the one with the good taste! I'm just a grunt, only a refined person like you can truly know if a thing has any value or not!
Don Kee: You're not as stupid as you look, Gale. Now tear that ship apart and sell it as scrap, that's my word. Make it happen!
[Silent shot of Gale and Sheela]

And, my thoughts on this comparison, and on the Ocean/Blue Water dub more generally:

Spoiler:

Aside from Ocean's translator mistakenly using the word forest in an inappropriate place (unless I misheard, which is entirely possible!), the only differences from the Simmons subtitles can be easily argued to be minor alterations to create natural dialogue that fits the flaps, rather than an optimal translation for reading as subtitles. It's rather reminiscent of the Pioneer movie dubs in terms of being faithful to the original dialogue without being clunky for the actors to read. Funimation's dub can't even get basic details right most of the time unless it's explicitly depicted on screen (Don Kia eating food, though they missed his dialogue calling attention to his pool) or is very plot critical (the ship being deemed to be destroyed), and particularly if you're hearing the actors say the words, a lot of the dialogue feels very obviously padded to fit the flaps, though part of that is probably just the poor direction. The Menza score makes Funi's dub even worse, sounding very edgy despite the goofy, fantasy visuals that are supposed to go with the fun, nostalgic feel of the Japanese score.

The Blue Water dubs get particular flak among the Canadian dubs for being a cast most people are unfamiliar with (since it's neither the Texas Funimation cast or the Vancouver Ocean cast), and while I certainly agree with the assessment that they're a step down from the Vancouver cast, they still put in good work (at least as good as Funi was doing at the time), and the better scripts and lighter tone create a very enjoyable feel in my opinion, and provided I can be bothered to sync up audio to good video sources (and that I can find good copies of all the episodes, which will certainly be a challenge for at least a few of them!... Episode 4 took some filtering to have it not be immensely irritating to the ears due to persistent high-pitched humming), I plan on watching through GT with the Ocean dub for this rewatch, meanwhile KBABZ will watch the Japanese version, this way we get two angles on trivia.

And as it turns out, despite my worries that this dub, especially of the much-maligned GT, would come off as bad as its reputation, I originally wrote this entire schpiel as a trivia entry (KBABZ suggested it would be better as its own post rather than as trivia) over halfway through episode 4 while thoroughly enjoying myself! It's a kids' show, because it's Dragon Ball. It's a cartoon. Some of the acting is very hammy, some of it is a little weak, but the main players are good, the villains are fun, GT itself remains quite enjoyable, and the Ocean/Blue Water dub is a good version of it!

As for my thoughts on GT episodes 1-5 themselves... Episode 1's first half is, in my opinion, very strong. The second half is a little weaker, but still good. Episode 2 is mostly not very good, just a little dull and trite. Episodes 3-5, however, I really like. It feels like a different take on Dragon Ball that still keeps the essential ingredients, and ends up being a lot of fun. I liked it, and I'm looking forward to watching episodes 6-10 (though I remember episodes 6-8 being the very worst GT has to offer).

[MyVisionity]

Oh GT!

I enjoy GT, particularly when taken alone as its own thing and not as a legit continuation of the original story. It's ridiculous and nonsensical, but that's really a part of its charm, I guess.

GT lets you know right off the bat just how absurd it is, starting in the very first episode. It's like each new plot development becomes increasingly silly one after the other. But at least it's trying to do something different!

What I enjoy most in these episodes and probably the whole show is Yūko Minaguchi as Pan. She brings real life to the character and a welcome new energy to the series.

The music and OPs and EDs in this show are all great, but I tend to avoid them because they are too easy to get stuck in the head.

I like Otokosukī fawning over Trunks in the crowd at Capsule Corp!

GT really does Roshi dirty in the first episode. That might be the character's lowest point in DB at the time. And he sounded terrible.

I believe GT PF had 10 years, when it actually were 5.

No, the 5 years comes from the Perfect Files. 10 years was a popular fan theory and then Funimation.

I have zero problems with Pan going out on a date in the first episode and think it's cute. Little kids around ten like to act mature and go on dates, plus it's funny and fits the character.

I also totally ship Pan and Trunks in these episodes.

Redjic's name should actualy be rendered as Redict, as his name is a rearrangement of the word credit.

It's a rearrangement of the word "credit" without the t. So "Redic" would probably be more accurate. "Redjic" is taking into account the Japanese ji kana used to approximate the "di" sound in the English word, so while an equally accurate spelling, it obscures the pun somewhat.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

GT really does Roshi dirty in the first episode. That might be the character's lowest point in DB at the time. And he sounded terrible.

Indeed, and Kohei Miyauchi's passing less than a year earlier near the end of DBZ was a huge blow. Hiroshi Masouka and Kinpei Aizawa despite their best efforts and talent (i've heard them both in other roles) weren't able to deliver performances as Roshi that lived up to Miyauchi. I think the only one that has really been able to come close is Masaharu Sato from Kai onward.

[PremiumSalt]

Hope y'all don't mind me barging in on your rewatch at the 11th hour, but I've been looking for an excuse to do a GT rewatch anyway, so, here I am. I've only watched Episode 1 atm so I'll keep giving more thoughts as I watch.

Positives:
-I really enjoy how unbothered Goku is by his transformation. To his knowledge atm, it doesn't affect his life in any real way, by Goku logic anyway, so it's very in character for him to act this way.

-I like how we see that Pan has gone on a similar path to her mother, fighting crime. Her then being revealed to be a "crybaby" kinda reminds me of how Z Episode 1 puts Gohan in similar situations to Goku in DB #1, but has him react very differently to show the contrast between the two.

-This first episode does a good job of establishing much the updated "status quo" for GT in a succinct manner.

-The music is phenomenal, frankly some of the best in the franchise. Tokunaga knocks it out of the park for the entire series.

Negatives:
-I find the existence of the Dark Dragon Balls...confusing. How do they still exist after Kami's death/merger? Dende clearly didn't restore them like he did with the other set of balls, since he didn't even know where they were ("Apparently, the previous God put them away deep within the temple.") Hell, how did they exist after Kami split into two beings, for that matter? Why does Popo know almost everything about them but neglect to mention the part about the Earth's destruction? How was Pilaf of all people able to find out about them? Just a headache, imo.

-Speaking of Pilaf, it kinda bothers me a bit that they're so integral to the inciting incident of GT, but then basically disappear aside from a brief cameo at the end of the Baby arc. If they're going to bring them back, they should've done more with them, or found a more relevant character(s) to use instead.

-I'm also not a big fan of how the premise of Z's ending, that of Goku training Oob, is pretty much glossed over. I feel that if you're going to continue past the manga's ending, you're obligated to do something meaningful with that.

[MyVisionity]

-I find the existence of the Dark Dragon Balls...confusing. How do they still exist after Kami's death/merger? Dende clearly didn't restore them like he did with the other set of balls, since he didn't even know where they were ("Apparently, the previous God put them away deep within the temple.") Hell, how did they exist after Kami split into two beings, for that matter? Why does Popo know almost everything about them but neglect to mention the part about the Earth's destruction? How was Pilaf of all people able to find out about them? Just a headache, imo.

The GT stuff isn't supposed to make much sense. You kind of have to just go with it...

But as far as the Black Star Balls, they were created when God and Piccolo were one singular being. So the logic is that post-merger they still exist, as long as Piccolo still lives. They didn't go away after the split because the original God/Piccolo still existed via the two halves.

Pilaf was the one who released Piccolo Daimao from his seal, and they were allies briefly. It kind of makes sense that he might know. Well, not really...

-Speaking of Pilaf, it kinda bothers me a bit that they're so integral to the inciting incident of GT, but then basically disappear aside from a brief cameo at the end of the Baby arc. If they're going to bring them back, they should've done more with them, or found a more relevant character(s) to use instead.

Pilaf and co. are gag characters in essence. Their place in the series ended during the early arcs. However, I agree that we could have at least seen more of them in short bursts, but GT would probably have had to continue on for longer in order for that to happen.

-I'm also not a big fan of how the premise of Z's ending, that of Goku training Oob, is pretty much glossed over. I feel that if you're going to continue past the manga's ending, you're obligated to do something meaningful with that.

The manga's ending was never really about Oob, it was about Goku. That's why Oob just takes off like nothing at the start of the first episode, because it truly was about the manga ending and not much else. The whole point was that Goku was always looking for stronger people to fight, and that would never change. We didn't need to see the training, we saw that they had their big fight. And Oob returns to fight later on.

If the Oob stuff seems random and awkward in GT, that's probably because GT is continuing on past the ending of the story, so it's all unnatural to begin with.

[KBABZ]

Also yeah, what's up with the logo? Did Future Gohan or Cyborg Tao draw it?

It's a slight edit of Toriyama's original draft drawing of GT's logo. KBABZ and I thought it would be fun to go with the sketch version for the first GT week. Here's what the original looked like:

Absolutely! As I point out in my trivia, I feel that GT's final logo adheres to Toriyama's sketch a bit too closely; it lacks the solid confidence of the logos Toriyama would devise for the mangas like Shenlong Straight, Shenlong Shuffle or the Tankobon logo.

This is why I personally prefer Funi's version: it's overly edgy, but it doesn't look like a dossied-up sketch like the Japanese logo. Thus their revised logo for use in video games is close to the best of both worlds by making GT white:

[Xeogran]

Oh nice, we're finally doing it! Many of the things I wanted to point out are already included in the Trivia, well done

• Pan, not realizing that the kid she saved is Goku, tells him that he should let an older girl like herself handle the robbery. This is hypocritical because she's 10: the youngest Goku can possibly be after Pilaf's wish is 12, since that's the youngest Pilaf ever saw him.

It's true that statement is hypocritical, but Pan herself isn't. She had no idea to know about his age and judged him by his size, and Kid Goku is considerably smaller than she is. If he was an ordinary boy then she would be correct, but since he's a Saiyan who ages slowly..

• While Goku's inability to use Instant Transmission is pretty transparently a way to depower him and add some tension, it doesn't excuse GT for constantly forgetting that these characters can fly and are able to lift entire buildings, one of its most frequent mistakes (for example, there's no need for them to jump across the beams in the scrapper's yard).

I believe it's just done for the adventure factor, they could fly and solve everything instantly if they wanted, but that's not the point of exploring new planets. In Episode 5 they did lift these gigantic shelfs like it's nothing.

Spoiler:

(though I remember episodes 6-8 being the very worst GT has to offer).

I found all three of these pretty enjoyable, and it's Episode 9 that drags on and doesn't do much.

All things considered, I'm enjoying GT and particularly liked the action scenes in Episode 4, where the trio fights off the security guards. It's animated very nicely and overall fun. If only we could get a Dragon Ball Musou game with this kind of spectacle, it would be great

[PremiumSalt]

Episode 2: I’m the Star! Pan Blasts Off into Space!!

Positives:
-I feel like I see this episode disparaged a lot for being boring, but personally I found to be just fine. The scenario of Goku being kidnapped, but being too oblivious to even notice, is a fun idea that gets a few laughs. Incidentally, I've been watching some Dr. Slump recently, and it occurs to me that this scenario is extremely similar to Episode 6b of that series, "Arale is Kidnapped!". I wonder if it's an intentional reference/recycling, or if it's just a coincidence.

-This episode does a good job of establishing Trunks and Goten's characters as they will be depicted in GT, and similar to the last episode, I think there's some solid world building here regarding the current status quo of Dragon World.

-For the moment anyway, I'm enjoying Pan's character. Wanting to be taken more seriously at a young age is a feeling many people can relate to having had as a kid, and this is probably amplified by the feats/importance of her family.

-Since it's introduced here, I'll mention it: this series has far and away my favorite Adult Trunks outfit. Not much to say here, just think it looks great.

Negatives:
-As much as I found the stuff with Goku being kidnapped to be fun, it does occur to me that the previous episode felt a little weirdly paced, and threw a lot of new info at the viewer about the Dark Dragon Balls. I feel like maybe they could have trimmed down some of the, again fun, but in the grand scheme of things unnecessary Goku kidnapping plot to move some of the info from the previous episode. This kind of weird pacing is something I remember there being a lot of in GT.

-On the flip side of the design coin, good lord, what did they do to Vegeta!? I sincerely do not understand how anyone at Toei thought that design looked good.

[KBABZ]

Incidentally, I've been watching some Dr. Slump recently, and it occurs to me that this scenario is extremely similar to Episode 6b of that series, "Arale is Kidnapped!". I wonder if it's an intentional reference/recycling, or if it's just a coincidence.

Considering they also reused the Oolong village story idea, I'd say this is intentional.

-On the flip side of the design coin, good lord, what did they do to Vegeta!? I sincerely do not understand how anyone at Toei thought that design looked good.

If you read our trivia, you'd know that it's a Toriyama design. Toei would design Vegeta's revision in the Baby Arc where Bra calls him out on how dumb he looks and he shaves it off (and his hair is back to normal too). C'mon man I didn't spend three days working on trivia for you to not read it!

[PremiumSalt]

If you read our trivia, you'd know that it's a Toriyama design. Toei would design Vegeta's revision in the Baby Arc where Bra calls him out on how dumb he looks and he shaves it off (and his hair is back to normal too). C'mon man I didn't spend three days working on trivia for you to not read it!

My bad, apologies for not reading it then. I'll be sure to look over the trivia stuff going forward, seems like you put a lot of work into it!