So, where do you all stand on the Boo arc?

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

Gohan? It would be one thing if Gohan had an arc about him wanting to be his own man and maybe not necessarily a fighter and that he got that in the end. But that was so far from the case. He had one foot in and one foot out the door the whole arc. He stops training after Cell, but wants to play hero. He then goes back in his father's shadow and plays the defender of Earth even dawning his father's apparel. Then he beats one version of the villain up only to get jobbed out quickly after, and then absorbed. Then he dies.

His presence in the the Tournament and Babidi arc was his closure arc. The debate shouldn't be seen as whether or not he would live up to the potential of what the fans demand him to be, it was about if he would choose to himself. While he only became the Saiyaman because he could exploit his super strength to stop easy evil, but he also wanted to stay subtle and not in the limelight. It wasn't until Videl found out that he was yet again forced to train to meet someone else's expectations. First Videls, then Vegeta's, then Goku's again. The entire arc he struggled to live up to the gap created from him not having his own incentive to train, but Goku again kept insisting he just had to feel the same feeling he had against cell and then just magically get back in that prime again resulting in him literally repeating his constantly denied character flaw that caused Cell to self-destruct as Buu did. Buu then took advantage of this, overwhelmed him and then beat him mentally and physically. That was his closure. He has arrogance of a Saiyan but doesn't have the adamant pride of one. Powering him up over and over into the "strongest unfused character" for a forgettable moment in time, won't fix it, but he never was a "protector of Earth" by any design, so for that "fanbase closure" won't happen.

[Faustus]

Well, I wrote an ecstatic post about it not two months back which, lazy as I am, I already feel comfortable recycling.

Read at your leisure...

It's Toriyama’s flawed masterpiece, and my favorite portion of the whole doggamn franchise just ahead of the second half of Red Ribbon and nearly all of the Namek stuff leading up to the final bodyswap. Seriously, I love this shit, and it will always baffle me that the community largely believes otherwise. Just a real blast to read through.

Three big reasons as to why that is (and this shit gets me real excited and I am going to be gushing, so heads-up):

1) THE BAD GUY: The baddie. Folks say it all the time, but what a stroke of brilliance it was to have a god-gobbling, big genocidal ball o’ pink gooey goopglob for a final boss -- who goes round magically zapping folks into chocolate and jawbreakers, no less! Add on to this absurdity the arc's initial mystique, an escalating sense of dread and the friendship that’s later woven rather compellingly between Messrs. Satan and Boo -- whose dynamic also happens to hark back in some subtle way to some of Bulma and li’l Goku’s very first interactions to bring us back around full-circle -- and you’ve got one hell of a concoction.

2) ERRTHANG: Almost everything else (ok, ok so I’m cheating): The frenetic energy, the horror and the humor; it’s such a wonderfully hectic ride, and an almost totally careless one at that on the part of the author. Few would contest that this is Toriyama at his most unbridled, one might even venture to say unhinged, artistically, as far as Dragon Ball goes -- where, almost totally unburdened of editorial pressure, he's free to perform whatever footloose swerve of heel his whims dictated for him at any given moment of any given week. I couldn’t stand it if the series had had this tone the whole way through, but holy mother does it work for a finale. Taken on those terms, this is an arc that simply can’t be beat: the mane-trailing Super Saiyan 3 is deliciously irreverent self-parody; Gotenks’ wacky, power-drunk cavorting explodes riotously on the page, like comic dynamite (rollingthunderpunch); and the trite and expected conclusion that would have Gohan beat big bad Boo is fortunately averted thanks to a sharp improvised turn near the end of the arc that while not without leaving its blemish on the plot structure helps set the stage for what is a far more satisfying ending for the series at large. Speaking of which...

3) DAT ENDIN’: Increasingly throughout the arc we’ve seen device heaped on plot device without reserve and with lots of flash and verve, running the whole gamut from fresh spanking new form, to mega-fusion, to Arthurian sword, to yet another beyond-the-beyond potential-unlock but this time on steroids, to god-bestowed magic earrings -- all, ultimately, to no avail, leaving no one to finish the job but a pair of tired old dogs depleted and worn to the bone and teetering on their last paws, with no recourse to victory left but an old trick that’s never worked: a big ball o’ fire. Hot damn! color me engaged. (Admittedly, the excuse for why Gohan and Gotenks are not brought to fight remains, at least on a technical level, one of series’ most egregious narrative defects, but I think the end result is well worth this expense.) A last-minute turnabout. The accustomed flash and sparkle of new props and powers is brought onstage as for show -- to be briefly toyed with but ultimately discarded. Completely counter to initial expectations -- lo and behold! -- the old elbows out the new in the final act.

What a shout-out this is. In one blow barriers between the dead and the living are shattered, and the old (proverbial) skeletons of the Nameks, the cyborgs, Snow, Upa and Bora are resurrected for a last hurrah of cosmic proportions. (Why do I feel like I am 10 again?) What a tribute to everything the series is and has ever been. Really, how could anyone forget the impact of that sheer dramatic tour de force at the climax, where everyone of note and their grandma and their pet dragon in both this life and the next (and the dragon balls, too) get to contribute to the mighty deathblow -- oh baby -- culminating, of course, in that timeless, comically (and cosmically) contagious globe-spanning piece of blasphemy that’s sure to echo down the ages for the rest of eternity: “Satan is our savior!!”?

Friggin’ glorious.

And that -- ladies and gents, girls and boys, friends, Romans, countrymen -- is the Boo arc. (And that’s still leaving out quite a number of other things about it I enjoy, like Piccolo’s mentorship, or the rather fitting closure brought to Vegeta’s character.) /giddyramble

[lancerman]

Gohan? It would be one thing if Gohan had an arc about him wanting to be his own man and maybe not necessarily a fighter and that he got that in the end. But that was so far from the case. He had one foot in and one foot out the door the whole arc. He stops training after Cell, but wants to play hero. He then goes back in his father's shadow and plays the defender of Earth even dawning his father's apparel. Then he beats one version of the villain up only to get jobbed out quickly after, and then absorbed. Then he dies.

His presence in the the Tournament and Babidi arc was his closure arc. The debate shouldn't be seen as whether or not he would live up to the potential of what the fans demand him to be, it was about if he would choose to himself. While he only became the Saiyaman because he could exploit his super strength to stop easy evil, but he also wanted to stay subtle and not in the limelight. It wasn't until Videl found out that he was yet again forced to train to meet someone else's expectations. First Videls, then Vegeta's, then Goku's again. The entire arc he struggled to live up to the gap created from him not having his own incentive to train, but Goku again kept insisting he just had to feel the same feeling he had against cell and then just magically get back in that prime again resulting in him literally repeating his constantly denied character flaw that caused Cell to self-destruct as Buu did. Buu then took advantage of this, overwhelmed him and then beat him mentally and physically. That was his closure. He has arrogance of a Saiyan but doesn't have the adamant pride of one. Powering him up over and over into the "strongest unfused character" for a forgettable moment in time, won't fix it, but he never was a "protector of Earth" by any design, so for that "fanbase closure" won't happen.

But that's the thing though. The only things Gohan ever choose to do in the arc he failed at. It was dictated for him. He choose to be the hero and fight Dabura and Buu, he failed. He choose to take up his father's mantle, and he failed. Then he spends the rest of the arc on the sidelines and the next time we see him he's pretty much in the natural extension of where he was at the beginning of the arc.

There's a clear change in Goku in this search for a successor that he wanted in Trunks and Goten, and then in Gohan. He got rewarded with Oob. There was unfinished business with Vegeta and he got his closure and found some peace.

Gohan was sort of directionless the whole time. I did NOT need Gohan to end up being a/the hero. That's not what it is about. There is a perfectly good story in their if you want to tell it.

Here's how it goes. Gohan is this kid that from a very young age was around high level fighters and was forced to face traumatic experiences for a kid his age (from being kidnapped, to training with a demon, to watching all his friends die multiple times, to essentially being a key reason his father died) and all that led to him being the defacto successor to his father that he never wanted to be. That's a good arc. Then you have things you can play with. Like him returning to Earth dressed like his father and thinking this was his role. Or his father literally asking him to fuse with him forever. Then you can pay it off with him actively choosing to find another way to help save the day besides getting transported to fight Kid Boo. Imagine if he is the one that comes up with the grand plan of how to beat him? Why does Vegeta need that? He's already selflessly letting Boo pummel him and nearly kill him. Then you have a nice little arc that doesn't change a whole heck of a lot and gives Gohan a resolution as a character.

Instead he basically got the same treatment most of the side characters got, in that he was just another strong guy that was knocked down for Goku to eventually take care of.

[TheUltimateVegito]

Well, I wrote an ecstatic post about it not two months back which, lazy as I am, I already feel comfortable recycling.

Read at your leisure...

It's Toriyama’s flawed masterpiece, and my favorite portion of the whole doggamn franchise just ahead of the second half of Red Ribbon and nearly all of the Namek stuff leading up to the final bodyswap. Seriously, I love this shit, and it will always baffle me that the community largely believes otherwise. Just a real blast to read through.

Three big reasons as to why that is (and this shit gets me real excited and I am going to be gushing, so heads-up):

1) THE BAD GUY: The baddie. Folks say it all the time, but what a stroke of brilliance it was to have a god-gobbling, big genocidal ball o’ pink gooey goopglob for a final boss -- who goes round magically zapping folks into chocolate and jawbreakers, no less! Add on to this absurdity the arc's initial mystique, an escalating sense of dread and the friendship that’s later woven rather compellingly between Messrs. Satan and Boo -- whose dynamic also happens to hark back in some subtle way to some of Bulma and li’l Goku’s very first interactions to bring us back around full-circle -- and you’ve got one hell of a concoction.

2) ERRTHANG: Almost everything else (ok, ok so I’m cheating): The frenetic energy, the horror and the humor; it’s such a wonderfully hectic ride, and an almost totally careless one at that on the part of the author. Few would contest that this is Toriyama at his most unbridled, one might even venture to say unhinged, artistically, as far as Dragon Ball goes -- where, almost totally unburdened of editorial pressure, he's free to perform whatever footloose swerve of heel his whims dictated for him at any given moment of any given week. I couldn’t stand it if the series had had this tone the whole way through, but holy mother does it work for a finale. Taken on those terms, this is an arc that simply can’t be beat: the mane-trailing Super Saiyan 3 is deliciously irreverent self-parody; Gotenks’ wacky, power-drunk cavorting explodes riotously on the page, like comic dynamite (rollingthunderpunch); and the trite and expected conclusion that would have Gohan beat big bad Boo is fortunately averted thanks to a sharp improvised turn near the end of the arc that while not without leaving its blemish on the plot structure helps set the stage for what is a far more satisfying ending for the series at large. Speaking of which...

3) DAT ENDIN’: Increasingly throughout the arc we’ve seen device heaped on plot device without reserve and with lots of flash and verve, running the whole gamut from fresh spanking new form, to mega-fusion, to Arthurian sword, to yet another beyond-the-beyond potential-unlock but this time on steroids, to god-bestowed magic earrings -- all, ultimately, to no avail, leaving no one to finish the job but a pair of tired old dogs depleted and worn to the bone and teetering on their last paws, with no recourse to victory left but an old trick that’s never worked: a big ball o’ fire. Hot damn! color me engaged. (Admittedly, the excuse for why Gohan and Gotenks are not brought to fight remains, at least on a technical level, one of series’ most egregious narrative defects, but I think the end result is well worth this expense.) A last-minute turnabout. The accustomed flash and sparkle of new props and powers is brought onstage as for show -- to be briefly toyed with but ultimately discarded. Completely counter to initial expectations -- lo and behold! -- the old elbows out the new in the final act.

What a shout-out this is. In one blow barriers between the dead and the living are shattered, and the old (proverbial) skeletons of the Nameks, the cyborgs, Snow, Upa and Bora are resurrected for a last hurrah of cosmic proportions. (Why do I feel like I am 10 again?) What a tribute to everything the series is and has ever been. Really, how could anyone forget the impact of that sheer dramatic tour de force at the climax, where everyone of note and their grandma and their pet dragon in both this life and the next (and the dragon balls, too) get to contribute to the mighty deathblow -- oh baby -- culminating, of course, in that timeless, comically (and cosmically) contagious globe-spanning piece of blasphemy that’s sure to echo down the ages for the rest of eternity: “Satan is our savior!!”?

Friggin’ glorious.

And that -- ladies and gents, girls and boys, friends, Romans, countrymen -- is the Boo arc. (And that’s still leaving out quite a number of other things about it I enjoy, like Piccolo’s mentorship, or the rather fitting closure brought to Vegeta’s character.) /giddyramble

Love this review!

[Cipher]

Well, I wrote an ecstatic post about it not two months back which, lazy as I am, I already feel comfortable recycling.

This is everything I didn't have the energy to post when first replying to this thread. Nailed it.

[Kuririn Fan]

I like it because it pretty much wraps up all the major character arcs and does great world building with the other Kai's, Buu, and how the universe essentially works. I also think the filler with the Otherworld tournament at the beginning and all the Saiyaman episodes improved the arc tremendously too.

Well, i consider Otherworld Tournament to be part of Cell arc. Not because Cell appears for an episode, but because filler arcs are at the end of main arcs and the opening and ending both changed with ep 200, the beginning of Majin Boo arc.

[Bullza]

When I first watched it years ago I didn't like it as much as the other arcs in DBZ. I thought it was much more childish when compared to the rest of the series.

Didn't like Goten and Trunks (still don't care for them), Mr Satan I wasn't a fan of, Majin Buu was purposefully childish and my favourite characters like Piccolo and Krillin had little screentime and even Vegeta to an extent.

Over time I've come to enjoy it a lot more. It's better the Saiyan Saga but not as good as the other two sagas but it's still fun and pretty unique with what it added to the series. It expanded the Universe a lot more compared to the Cell arc I think.

I did think the arc went a little overboard with all the forms though. Too many forms of Buu, the kids shouldn't have been Super Saiyans and I was never that keen on the fusions.

It also didn't seem to be as well thought out either. They spend all that time hyping Gohan up just to make him useless so very quickly. Then they had Vegito and that was supposed to be permanent but then it suddenly wasn't.