Kid Boo Finale... Was Namek Necessary?

[Zephyr]

I agree with all of the positive things said here about the use of the Dragon Balls and the Genki Dama, but Vegeta's rationale does bother me, at least a little bit. It's time for the people of Earth to defend themselves for once would be a good line of reasoning...if you two weren't the ones who put this threat on their doorstep in the first place. I don't like Vegeta's comment here for the same reason I don't like the idea of Gohan being the one to defeat Boo. Someone else having to come along and clean up Goku and Vegeta's mess just doesn't feel right. Of course, in practice, they really are cleaning up their own mess. Vegeta cooked up the plan and Goku is the one using the technique; they're just getting some much needed assistance.

Another thing that bothers me about what Vegeta says is that they're not so much defending themselves as they are the entire universe. If Boo isn't stopped here, he's just gonna keep destroying planets and wiping out entire populations. He's already wiped out Earth, what are the chances he'd bother thinking to go back any time soon? And if we wanted to focus more on the plight of the Earthlings in relation to Boo, if you think about it, it's less that they're defending themselves and more that they're avenging themselves. Which is just another cool thing about the climax.

[Mr Baggins]

I didn't even know this thread existed. I thought this subforum was centered more on in-universe perspectives exclusively, which I guess is why I rarely visit it, though literary topics of this nature pique my interest. More to talk about and unpack.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with Vegeta's rationale for Earth's Genkidama. Despite however one might interpret the minutiae of Earth "defending themselves for once", it's clearly a line that calls back to what we see throughout the series, but especially the Buu arc itself. Literally the very first page of this arc talks about humans being up to no good again because they've become accustomed to years of peace, which is exemplified a couple of pages later when robbers are shown attacking cops. The story is clear even from the outset that humanity is deeply flawed on a collective level and that saving them from all these bad guys over the years hasn't changed the world one iota, so what's the remedy?

Let's zoom out for a bit.

Humanity and unity are expounded upon separately all throughout the story. Vegeta's entire character arc is centered on accepting his own humanity, and Majin Buu fundamentally changes as a character after meeting Satan and experiencing the best (and worst) of it. Goten and Trunks, and later Goku and Vegeta, are each motivated to cooperate with the other to (quite literally) unify via fusion. Neither of these things serve as the full answer on their own, so everyone invariably fails. So when Vegeta talks about Genkidama in the climax, he's marrying those two concepts by just flat-out saying it's up to humanity to unite to put down this pink chaotic monstrosity for good, allowing both throughlines to come full circle as everyone joins in contributing to that final attack – with help from the Dragon Balls, fittingly enough. And by the end, even Pure Buu himself becomes human thanks to Goku's wish.

Humanity having to save themselves in an arc that constantly illustrated what it meant to be human, even to the point of cynicism, really is the perfect ending. It's such a great finale to Dragon Ball that GT shamelessly copied it later without doing so nearly as effectively, IMO.

That, for me, is a much clearer theme than "passing the torch to the next generation", a hypothetical from Goku that only really gets any narrative focus in the arc when fusion is introduced. It also lasts for just 30 chapters out of nearly 100 in total. Part of that is because it's pretty obviously a red herring – we're shown explicitly that Goten and Trunks were never equipped to handle Buu, nor even capable of it potentially thanks to their own hubris – though part of it is (again) because it's the arc playing with the concepts of unity and humanity; they're learning to cooperate while Mr. Satan is the one actually accomplishing things in the story by exposing Buu to the humanity that changed him.

No story is perfect, of course. But if you asked me for a critique, I'd sooner point to what was already mentioned in this thread with Vegeta knowing an awful lot about how Genkidama functions (which isn't even a big deal, really, and works very well on a character level) than to the Saiyan tykes getting whooped, up to and including Gohan.

Buu arc is best arc.

[Saiya6Cit]

It was to evoke feelings from nostalgia in a similar way that we get to see characters from original DB during GT's Genki Dama.

Please excuse me as I have not much to say. I never liked the ending from Buu saga. In my mind Gohan, Trunks and Goten would fight again and/or there would be more fusions... the ending was extremely disappointing...

[PhantomSaiyan]

I wholeheartedly agree with the comments above, the ending of the Buu arc is not only the best part of the arc itself, but one of the most satisfying Dragon Ball moments in general

[Zebra]

In-universe (this thread is pretty meta, honestly), Nameck was obviously necessary to restore Earth and revive everyone who died.

As for whether or not it benefited the narrative, the real question is whether or not the Super Genkidama did. And in my opinion, not really. I like the idea of the Earthlings striking back against Boo after he killed all of them, but it falls flat on its face considering the fact they weren't helping out to be better people; they were only helping out because of their deluded love for their fraudulent false savior, Mr. Satan. Then, their memories of the ordeal get erased and they resume being an awful people. What's the point of having the Earthlings "save themselves" when they ultimately learn nothing from it?

And it was Gokuu and Vegeeta's fault Boo came out in the first place, so why make the Earthlings have to help out? It's quite ridiculous Vegeeta is asking the same 200+ people he killed days earlier to help him, and complaining when they refuse to. Overall, it's a very contrived, convoluted finale.