Early Buu Saga (Great Saiyaman)...A High Point in Popularity?

[Cure Dragon 255]

I know this thread is probably going to flop like all my OTHER ratings threads...but it seems that both Japan AND the USA responded very favorably to the Great Saiyaman portion of the story.

It has THE highest rated ever episode in Japan and if ratings reports from Anime News Network are to be believed so is the case (Although it doesnt single out any particular episode) in the United States.

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/episode/dbz/eps-218/

[Matches Malone]

I wasn't a fan of it in Z, as it went on too long for my liking, but Kai reducing it to 3 episodes made me appreciate it more, as it didn't overstay its welcome.

[sunsetshimmer]

That's unpopular opinion, but Gohan in school, great saiyaman, training with Videl etc. are my favourite episodes of entire Z. Basically everything in Buu saga until actual Buu story begins.

[PurestEvil]

Well, I suppose that it did come after the Cell Games, which was also immensely popular, so it makes sense.

[MasenkoHA]

Well, I suppose that it did come after the Cell Games, which was also immensely popular, so it makes sense.

The episode linked to aired a good 6 months after the Cell Games ended so I don’t think the Cell Games would have factored that much

[Robo4900]

It's because, following the successful "Z" rebrand of the anime in 1989, the viewership decay that had set in at the tail-end of the "DB" era was curtailed, and in fact viewership trended upwards on average for a remarkably long time. But the 2-year-long Boo arc is where all this ran out, the viewers became tired, and viewership irrecoverably fell off. But between the up-trend and the down-trend, it naturally reached a peak. Great Saiyaman was that peak.

[Jord]

That's unpopular opinion, but Gohan in school, great saiyaman, training with Videl etc. are my favourite episodes of entire Z. Basically everything in Buu saga until actual Buu story begins.

I liked the focus on comedy and social interactions a lot. It should have lasted longer. Probably the best slice of life arc Dragon ball has done. Super tried to emulate this a few times, which I aprreciated but it didn't come close.

[Robo4900]

That's unpopular opinion, but Gohan in school, great saiyaman, training with Videl etc. are my favourite episodes of entire Z. Basically everything in Buu saga until actual Buu story begins.

I liked the focus on comedy and social interactions a lot. It should have lasted longer. Probably the best slice of life arc Dragon ball has done. Super tried to emulate this a few times, which I aprreciated but it didn't come close.

I agree with both of you. Great Saiyaman is the best thing Toriyama did after the 23rd Tenkaichi. It's a real shame the rest of the Boo arc discards everything that was cool about it.

[90sDBZ]

I wasn't a huge fan of it back in the day, but I've come to like it more in recent years. It has some fun humour and I actually like the Gohan Videl dynamic.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It's definitely an arc you appreciate more with retrospect. I didn't think of Dragon Ball much as a gag manga when I watched as a kid, but once I became aware it all made much more sense and the Great Saiyaman was another one of those little things that has the special Toriyama charm. I've also loved the use of Great Saiyaman in Super.

[ABED]

I like this less and less over time. It's not funny or even clever. There is no real story or stakes and it goes on entirely too long. What happens if people find out who Gohan is? He'll be mildly inconvenienced. It's awful and I'm baffled by why it's held in such high regard.

[MasenkoHA]

I appreciate the balls it took for Toriyama to just go “No really kids Gohan’s like the biggest fucking nerd ever . You thought he was a bad ass when he unleashed his hidden power at the Cell Games and saved the earth? Well now I’m gonna make him a Peter Parker pastiche who dresses as dork super hero and does Kamen Rider poses”

[ABED]

I appreciate the balls it took for Toriyama to just go “No really kids Gohan’s like the biggest fucking nerd ever . You thought he was a bad ass when he unleashed his hidden power at the Cell Games and saved the earth? Well now I’m gonna make him a Peter Parker pastiche who dresses as dork super hero and does Kamen Rider poses”

I like that part as I enjoy the subversion.

[MrSatan2099]

I was in the 8th grade when these episodes hit Toonami, and I recall the excitement for them was obvious even outside my circle of nerdy friends. So the ratings do make sense I suppose, though I would never have guessed.

I always thought that Great Saiyaman would have made a great spin off Manga, if there just hadn't been so much going on in the Dragon World to deal with otherwise.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

It's a decent little story to kick off the Buu arc before things really get started, and given this is the biggest time skip (by two years more) in the entire series manga and anime wise after the five year period going from the end of Dragon Ball with Goku's victory over Piccolo Jr. at the 23rd Budokai plus his and Chi Chi's getting married to the beginning of Z it was fitting in starting off by having Gohan move past the home school days with mom and finally start in institutional education. The Saiyaman stuff is mostly ok, though the thing which kind of dragged it down for me is how obsessive Gohan is about concealing his identity at all costs and keeping his peers from finding out albeit not having the same luck when Videl catches on pretty quickly. Personally, this part just seemed a little overdone to me because at most as stated above he'd be inconvenienced and maybe embarrassed a little but nothing which really makes it that big of a deal with the tournament.

Of course, after some time a ways into the battle against Majin Buu i think franchise fatigue was really starting to set in which given Toriyama was soon about to wrap up the manga it was already on the way down.

[Jord]

I wasn't a huge fan of it back in the day, but I've come to like it more in recent years. It has some fun humour and I actually like the Gohan Videl dynamic.

That dynamic was very well done. Too bad Videl got basically all of her character punched out of her by Spopovitch since after that she became such a generic character. Losing all her spunk and basically becoming a Gohan cheerleader.

[precita]

Seeing adult Gohan was a big deal at the time. We saw Gohan for a kid for so long and seeing a big time skip was unheard of in the series at the time.

[MasenkoHA]

Seeing adult Gohan was a big deal at the time. We saw Gohan for a kid for so long and seeing a big time skip was unheard of in the series at the time.

16 is an adult now?

[MyVisionity]

Aside from the anticipation, it was the freshness of the arc that attracted audiences. Everything since Raditz had been same old same old, but this was like another new beginning for the series. The high school setting and characters brought a new teenaged energy with it. Toriyama continuing on with Mr. Satan was a really smart move in particular.

Besides the new characters, seeing the old characters in a new stage of life added to the attraction as well. It's this blending of old and new that had the most promise. That's why the opening credits works so well.

Great Saiyaman along with the Budoukai and Bobbidi arcs were the best of the Boo saga to me. Seems like after Majin Vegeta vs Boo Toriyama was done and you can see it in the story. I thought that bringing everybody up to God's temple was a poor choice. They spent so much time up there just sitting around, for so many episodes. It reminds me of BtVS final season where they all sat around the house every episode. I guess that's a bad sign for any series.

Seeing adult Gohan was a big deal at the time. We saw Gohan for a kid for so long and seeing a big time skip was unheard of in the series at the time.

16 is an adult now?

I guess if 9/10 year old Gohan at the Cell Games is "Teen Gohan", then apparently 16 is adult.

[ABED]

Are we just assuming that the ratings peaked with these episodes becaused they liked this story that much? I don't think that's what was going on at all.

I just watched all 120 episodes of Batman 66 and I kinda wish I hadn't as like the Great Saiyaman, the joke wears thing very quickly. This wasn't a return to Toriyama's gag manga roots as at least Goku and Bulma did stuff and there were obstacles that stood in their way.