Vegard Aune wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:58 pmAnd yes, this does indeed mean that criticizing GT for including movie villains, or Z the TV series including Garlic Junior, is a reasonable critique.
Once it is true that the movies take place in another dimension, their appearances anywhere else suggest that the place that they are appearing in (be it a series, an OVA or whatever) also take place in this other reality. You can't just simply want Dragon Ball GT to be the sequel to the Dragon Ball Z you watched with Coola in it. Or Garlic Junior filler referencing Movie 1 to take place in the "common anime continuity" (lack of a better name). If you want that, then that's a reasonable critique to have, because it doesn't even make sense.
• It is not the TV series that should adapt to your preferences = not wanting movie villains appearing in the series for whatever reason.
• It is you that should accept the TV series for what it is = movie villain appears in it. Therefore it can't take place where I want it does.
I see no "reasonable critique" for the former, I see for the latter, and it's what I'm doing here. Critiquing the apparent inability to accept that, if Toei want to put movie villains in the anime, they can. It won't be some fans not understanding the concept of multiple realities that should prevent them from doing it, because as far this concept goes, it makes sense (even if understandably a bit confusing due to different media being used simultaneously; the anime and the movie ones).
Like I said before, Dragon Ball Heroes supports this idea,
through implication (you cannot tell me the characters in these cards were chosen arbitrarily!) and
characters acknowledgement. Dragon Ball GT was never a sequel to the Dragon Ball Z you grew up watching. It is a sequel to "wholly separate" (as you put it) Dragon Ball Z.
Of course, I understand the refusal to change the way of thinking after so long thinking that old way. This is pretty similar to Ultimate, for a long time people thought it was a permanent state (even though in Movie 13 [1995] Gohan transformed into it). It was never something that was set in stone or clarified. And even after a few more evidences (Movie 14 and Dragon Ball Super), there were still those denying it was a transformation. Same thing here. This wasn't something set in stone or clarified. Now, for one source, it is.