Saiga steps into the Grand Tour: a GT blog review

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Saiga
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Saiga steps into the Grand Tour: a GT blog review

Post by Saiga » Thu Mar 28, 2019 11:30 am

With the announcement of GT Kid Goku's inclusion in FighterZ, I was reminded that I had been meaning to watch the subbed version of Dragon Ball GT for a while now. I'd only seen the dub previously, and while I strongly disliked the show I decided to watch it in its original version to give the fairest assessment of it. I also thought that it would be interesting to reflect on my original feelings of GT, and examine the show with the benefit of many years of hindsight, as well as the additional context provided by recent interviews about GT's production and comparisons to be made with modern Dragon Ball.

I'd previously endeavored to write a blog while reading through the original manga, but it didn't really pan out with how busy I was and trying to tackle it one volume at a time. I thought that taking GT one episode at a time would be much more practical, and a more interesting exercise because I'm not really sure how I'll react to it this time around. I will say this much though: I don't expect that I'll like GT by the end of this.

But I'm mostly just looking forward to examining GT and talking about what has gone down, getting into what aspects of it I do or don't like, what I may have liked to have seen done and what I've heard a lot of other people would have liked to see from the series. If nothing else, it will certainly be an experience.

I decided to post my blog here to share my thoughts and opinions, see how others felt and hopefully start a discussion. I've taken some inspiration from GafferTape's Dragon Ball Dissection series, so I figured it was appropriate to post here.

Here's my post about the first episode. Any feedback on formatting and style is appreciated, but I'm also curious about what people think of the episode - particularly about Oob's treatment, and the decision to turn Goku into a child. Did you like both of these things the way GT handled them? Would you have preferred to see them done differently, or not at all?

PS. You can ignore the posts from 2013-14. That was when I first created this blog and never actually delivered on my plans. :lol: I'm off to a better start with one entry actually covered before I throw this out there!
I'm re-watching Dragon Ball GT in full on my blog. Check it out if you're interested in my thoughts on the series as I watch through it!

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Gyt Kaliba
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Re: Saiga steps into the Grand Tour: a GT blog review

Post by Gyt Kaliba » Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:08 pm

I for one will be very curious when you get to the tail end of the Baby material, for two different reasons, to compare and contrast against my own feelings on those particular 'performances'. :P
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Saiga
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Re: Saiga steps into the Grand Tour: a GT blog review

Post by Saiga » Sat Apr 06, 2019 9:11 pm

Gyt Kaliba wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:08 pm I for one will be very curious when you get to the tail end of the Baby material, for two different reasons, to compare and contrast against my own feelings on those particular 'performances'. :P
I'm very curious what you mean now. I'm not sure what performances you're talking about. :think:

Episode 2 is up now, which I found pretty enjoyable for the character interactions involved and being able to feel the passage of time in the characters.

I'll probably do another update before episode 3 to talk about GT's character designs, since they're a big change and quite contentious.
I'm re-watching Dragon Ball GT in full on my blog. Check it out if you're interested in my thoughts on the series as I watch through it!

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Re: Saiga steps into the Grand Tour: a GT blog review

Post by RandomGuy96 » Sun Apr 07, 2019 7:41 pm

Looking forward to the inevitable Super comparisons.
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Gyt Kaliba
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Re: Saiga steps into the Grand Tour: a GT blog review

Post by Gyt Kaliba » Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:21 am

Saiga wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 9:11 pm
Gyt Kaliba wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:08 pm I for one will be very curious when you get to the tail end of the Baby material, for two different reasons, to compare and contrast against my own feelings on those particular 'performances'. :P
I'm very curious what you mean now. I'm not sure what performances you're talking about. :think:
Working on reading through your reviews so far, and I actually thought of a third performance choice I'm not crazy about (I'll list it first though since the character comes in first).

1) Atsushi Kisaichi's Oob - I realize the role doesn't have a lot going for it, but I've always found his performance to be particularly lacking and just without energy. I'm not saying Teague is a perfect choice either, but I'd definitely take him or the lady who voiced Oob at the end of Z in Japanese over this guy any day.

2) Masako Nozawa's Oozaru Goku - I won't elaborate further on this one. I'll let it be a surprise. It's...a choice. That's about all I can say for it. It's an interesting choice the voice director made. :lol:

3) Yusuke Numata's Baby Vegeta - For this one, I might be alone on this, but I greatly prefer Numata's performance before Baby gets to Earth and takes over Vegeta. Before that, he does this really great, creepy read. He sounds overtly calm most of the time, and it's just a great, different kind of villain performance than what we've had with any other character before. ...And then Baby Vegeta happens, and for some reason, that entire shtick is thrown out the window in favor of a more generic (still well acted from what I recall, but still) screaming villain that we've had so many times before. It was a huge disappointment.

Anyway, so far your reviews are making for a pretty fun read, especially with the real-world production info that pops up in relevant spaces regarding episodes. Keep it up!
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Re: Saiga steps into the Grand Tour: a GT blog review

Post by Kid Buu » Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:37 pm

The problem with these early episodes is that the villains never really much of a threat. Shame because I do like how they tried to go for an adventure aspect.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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