Where would you have ended the series?

[WittyUsername]

There seems to be a fair amount of debates in the fandom as to where the manga should have ended. The general consensus seems to be that the Cell saga would have been the most appropriate since Gohan's character arc pretty much came full circle, and it ended with Goku passing the torch to him.

Me personally, I think the Freeza saga would have been the best place to end the series. Goku's backstory was fully explained, and in a way, Freeza was essentially the big bad of the entire series up to that point when looking back.

[Hellspawn28]

I personally like how the series ended with Uub, but if I had to choose then Cell would have been my best place to end it.

[Kamiccolo9]

23rd Budokai. It already had an epilogue feel to it, and ending with Goku beating Piccolo and marrying Chi-Chi would have been perfect for me.

[ABED]

23rd Budokai. It already had an epilogue feel to it, and ending with Goku beating Piccolo and marrying Chi-Chi would have been perfect for me.

While I love the Saiyan arc, you can't miss what never existed, and I really like that ending. It feels the most like DB while keeping an upbeat hopeful ending.

[Kakacarrottop]

How the anime ends (The Shadow Dragons then a very large time skip to show everything's still okay) is perfect for me.

[Sin]

I actually really liked the ending to Kai episode 97: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_8PWVu9EC - I feel like that's a good spot to end the series at the end of the Cell Arc. Goku is gone but still has a presence and is watching over everything, Trunks is going back to his timeline with his new found strength, we see the relationship between Vegeta and Trunks which shows how much Vegeta has developed and that he will be a father to baby Trunks. And Gohan hasn't yet become a redundant scholar and shows promise that he can protect the Earth in Goku's place.

[Codarik]

I would've ended it at the Freeza arc. Every arc after that just seems forced.

[Saiga]

I would have ended it with Gohan defeating Boo, then a timeskip showing his new family with Videl and Pan and how Goten/Trunks grew up.

There's too much I like in every arc to finish things off earlier than the Boo arc, even if I feel the Saiyan or Cell arcs could have been good endings.

[RandomGuy96]

I wouldn't have ended it any earlier than it ended. DB isn't some big epic overarching story or anything. It doesn't really have a good place to end. Which is why the "ending" we got was so appropriate.

Me personally, I think the Freeza saga would have been the best place to end the series. Goku's backstory was fully explained, and in a way, Freeza was essentially the big bad of the entire series up to that point when looking back.

Except:

-Gohan's rage still means nothing.
-Piccolo and Kami are still separate.
-A genocidal maniac is now the most powerful person in the universe... and on Earth.
-Freeza doesn't have jack to do with any big bad except Freeza.

I would have ended it with Gohan defeating Boo

How, exactly? I've considered this as an ending too, but I can't think of any version that doesn't feel anticlimactic. The closest I can think of right now involves Goku showing up to fuse with Gohan, with Gotenks' fusion breaking down inside Buu soon after he shows up. Buu refuses to let them fuse and attacks Gohan, who in this version would be injured from that Vanishing Ball Buu was charging up earlier (having managed to just stop it from destroying Earth with his Kamehameha at the cost of being critically injured and fatigued himself). Goku holds off Buu for a few seconds while Dende heals Gohan, and then Buu absorbs Goku. Then the final battle is Buuku vs Gohan, with maybe some last minute help from teleporting Kibitoshin (though I don't know how). I guess the battle could still be set on the Kaioshin planet due to Buu blowing away the solar system (because Earth still needs to be destroyed, in my eyes), and still somehow result in Mr. Buu surviving (maybe they could just wish him back?).

I guess if I really had to make a change to the ending, it'd be to remove the Kaioshin absorption subplot from Buu's back story. Fat Buu and Super Buu are both far more interesting if you view them as the same guy, opposite sides of Majin Buu's true nature, rather than artificial personalities caused by the addition of the Kaioshin to an essentially mindless being. Oh, and keep Vegeta dead.

EDIT: now that I think about it, am I the only one who thinks that it would be interesting if Mr. Buu had a Lunch-style quirk where he switched between personalities?

[Kid Buu]

It should have ended when Super Buu kamikazed against Gohan, but only it wiped out all of existence.

But seriously, I like the Buu arc ending, but the path that got there was way too much of a clusterfuck. They'd need to rewrite everything from Vegeta's death to the final Buu to avoid so many plotholes at the end.

[Kakacarrottop]

It should have ended when Super Buu kamikazed against Gohan, but only it wiped out all of existence.

But seriously, I like the Buu arc ending, but the path that got there was way too much of a clusterfuck. They'd need to rewrite everything from Vegeta's death to the final Buu to avoid so many plotholes at the end.

I sort of liked how the arc pretty much decayed to the point where it became the good guys and villains basically trying to out transform each other, with the strongest transformation ending up being a little kid (inb4 Buuhan and Vegito fanboys). I don't know if the writers/AT were doing this on purpose or were just fixated on transformations during that period.

[RandomGuy96]

I sort of liked how the arc pretty much decayed to the point where it became the good guys and villains basically trying to out transform each other, with the strongest transformation ending up being a little kid

If you're talking about Pure Buu, he's far from the strongest transformation. Super Buu (all forms), SS3 Gotenks, Ultimate Gohan, and SS Vegetto could all one-shot him. And it wasn't just the characters trying to out-transform each other.

[Chuquita]

I'm fine ending right before the 28th Tournament because nothing ever came of Gokû running off to train Uub; that feels more like a set up for GT than a cliffhanger ending. GT would have had to have done something meaningful with Uub to make that manga ending feel like it had a pay off, but they don't, so it doesn't.

[Zephyr]

EDIT: now that I think about it, am I the only one who thinks that it would be interesting if Mr. Buu had a Lunch-style quirk where he switched between personalities?

That would honestly be pretty damn cool.

[WittyUsername]

Except:

-Gohan's rage still means nothing.
-Piccolo and Kami are still separate.
-A genocidal maniac is now the most powerful person in the universe... and on Earth.
-Freeza doesn't have jack to do with any big bad except Freeza.

Well first off, I never said that the Freeza saga wrapped EVERYTHING up, I'm merely saying that I personally would have ended it there. Second, Freeza was connected to Goku's backstory, I didn't say he was connected to other big bads, but if it wasn't for him, you could argue that the Saiyans probably wouldn't have sent Goku to conquer Earth in the first place.

[RandomGuy96]

First off, I never said that the Freeza saga wrapped EVERYTHING up. Second, Freeza was connected to Goku's backstory, I didn't say he was connected to other big bads.

Saying it would be the best place to end it generally doesn't imply that many plots are left unresolved. Toriyama obviously didn't think of it as a good ending point, since he continued the series week by week past it.

You said that, looking back, he was the main antagonist of the entire series... which he really wasn't.

That would honestly be pretty damn cool.

I think so too. Now, obviously, his Pure and Super personalities would have to be toned down if he still had them and wasn't going to become a villain again. I'm thinking that a calmed-down Pure personality would basically be like the MCU Hulk (destructive and animalistic, but overall helpful), while the calmed-down Super personality would be like God from F:NV:DM (cruel and conniving, but the sanest and most intelligent personality despite still retaining some issues, and roughly aligned with the side of good). Though the Pure personality obviously wouldn't exist if the story followed my version (because Pure Buu wouldn't exist), or the actual version (because Pure Buu would be Uub). I think it'd be a cool gimmick.

[WittyUsername]

I never said Toriyama intended to end the series there, I'm saying that I think it could have been a good place to end the series. As far as unresolved plots are concerned, Gohan's rage still did show up in the Freeza saga, and the whole thing about Piccolo and Kami being separate wasn't really an unresolved plot, it wasn't something vital to the story at the time. As far as the thing about Vegeta is concerned, Goku was never dead in the Freeza saga, so Vegeta technically would not have been the strongest in the universe had the series ended at Freeza.

[Zephyr]

his Pure and Super personalities would have to be toned down if he still had them and wasn't going to become a villain again. I'm thinking that a calmed-down Pure personality would basically be like the MCU Hulk (destructive and animalistic, but overall helpful), while the calmed-down Super personality would be like God from F:NV:DM (cruel and conniving, but the sanest and most intelligent personality despite still retaining some issues, and roughly aligned with the side of good). Though the Pure personality obviously wouldn't exist if the story followed my version (because Pure Buu wouldn't exist), or the actual version (because Pure Buu would be Uub). I think it'd be a cool gimmick.

I was imagining more of him switching between Fat/Pink and Skinny/Grey, but having Super Buu integrated into the cast would be pretty amazing. Someone needs to make a fanmanga based off of this, pronto.

As for the topic proper, I honestly don't know where I'd end it. RRA/Uranai Baba, 23rd TB, Saiyan, Namek, Cell, Buu, and GT are all pretty solid ending points, in my opinion. I do feel that Buu's ending (being more open ended and what not) fits a lot more than any sort of "everything is resolved!" ending, so I'd probably go with that. And if the series were to continue, I'd just end it in a similar way to how the Buu arc ended.

[RandomGuy96]

I was imagining more of him switching between Fat/Pink and Skinny/Grey, but having Super Buu integrated into the cast would be pretty amazing. Someone needs to make a fanmanga based off of this, pronto.

I wasn't really considering Pure Evil Buu, mostly because he never showed much of a personality. Though, I guess his personality should be rather similar to Super Buu's, since he was the base of that fusion. Or maybe it would be closer to Pure Buu's, because Good Buu seemed largely the same being as Mr. Buu? Either way, it'd be cool.

On fan-mangas: the only really interesting ones I've read are DBM (sometimes) and "Who wants to be A superhero?". I do think that something like that would make for a cool comic, but, to quote Rocketman:

Hell, once you cut out "Broly IV: The Quest for Broly", "old enemies return" and "superpowered relative of old enemy", there's practically no DB fancomics at all.

Add "Evil Goku" on, and that basically describes 95% of fan comics.

I never said Toriyama intended to end the series there, I'm saying that I think it could have been a good place to end the series. As far as unresolved plots are concerned, Gohan's rage still did show up in the Freeza saga, and the whole thing about Piccolo and Kami being separate wasn't really an unresolved plot, it wasn't something vital to the story at the time. As far as the thing about Vegeta is concerned, Goku was never dead in the Freeza saga, so Vegeta technically would not have been the strongest in the universe had the series ended at Freeza.

I'm aware.

Gohan's rage amounted to nothing, and was left dangling as a plot point (it seems fairly obvious that Z was meant to end with Gohan as the protagonist and stronger than Goku, going by his introductory arc). Kami and Piccolo's separation was alluded to multiple times in the Freeza arc, with Guru and Nail saying that, if they merged, the results would be legendary. Goku wasn't dead, but Vegeta could still do whatever the hell he wanted while Goku was gone.

[Zephyr]

Though, I guess his personality should be rather similar to Super Buu's, since he was the base of that fusion. Or maybe it would be closer to Pure Buu's, because Good Buu seemed largely the same being as Mr. Buu?

Both good points, but I'm more inclined toward the latter, due to him seeming more un-negotiably evil and chaotic.