Post
by Li'l Lemmy » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:08 pm
The Buu saga dub was the first saga of DBZ I got to see nearly all of . . . and since it was also the first saga I taped off of CN, I watched the hell out of it again and again. Then I scooped up the DVDs and watched the Japanese version, and in both the original and the dub I would find now and then a reference to the previous sagas that would get me curious about the events that happened before Buu. That curiosity is about where my fandom really started to take off, and I started to take in the other sagas one by one and work my way backwards.
However, speaking for the Buu saga:
No matter what the end result would be, I don't envy Mr. Toriyama for the task he had at hand. The final saga of Dragonball Z must have been the most difficult to envision and create, being that after Frieza and Cell had come and gone fans were likely expecting Mr. Toriyama to outdo himself in the most incredible fashion and conclude the series on its highest note ever. Whether he did or not is a matter of opinion, but I think an important point to bring up is that it's really much better if you can watch the rest of DBZ before making your opinion on the Buu are your final one. DBZ really does all come together once you've seen it in order, at least for me.
Fusion was amusing, and I think it harkens back to the older days of Dragonball in that (despite the major power-up) it's just very silly and fun. That Mr. Toriyama stuck something like that in what by Buu was the fully matured and a fairly serious DBZ is almost classic in a way, I think, as if it were a hallmark of the man's sense of humor.
I can forgive that Fat Buu later morphs into a series of death-and-destruction forms if only to have the saga start with Fat Buu and end with Kid Buu. Fat Buu is unlike anything we ever see in DBZ, and it wouldn't have suited the series to have a powered-up version of Frieza or Cell with the constant mentality to conquer and kill. He is very powerful and malicious but not in quite the same way as his predecessors; his real motive, if you can even call it that, is probably just to have fun. That it's at the Earth's expense isn't even really his fault, which leaves his character open for change and development.
Kid Buu is almost a polar opposite. He isn't merely more powerful than the other bad guys, he's flat-out crazy with no real sense of pride or motivation that kept Cell and Freeza going. His delight in killing and death is unbelievable and his only purpose is to do as much of it as possible . . . if Frieza or Cell is the train you can see coming down the track, then Kid Buu is the train grinding over your body as it screams past. And in that respect, he is the most intense foe Goku or Vegeta face, and the universe really does hang in the balance.
Something that always tickled my mind was the introduction of Super Saiyajin 3. It's truly awesome. But thinking back on how and where it was integrated into the story, I can't help but imagine other ways it could have been done.
I once heard someone say that SSJ3 was cheap eye-candy and over-the-top. I don't agree with that myself, but I've heard some pretty strong opinions on the matter. There's people out there who say another Super Saiyajin stage was unnecessary and those who believe it was absolutely vital because every saga before that had introduced a higher power.
And then there's the bunch of in-betweeners who simply disagree who should have been the strongest Saiyajin during that period.
Who says that it had to be Goku? Maybe it should have been limited to Gotenks. Which one is really a personal choice, but definitely I think it would have been better for SSJ3 to have been displayed by one or the other and not both. It's not necessarily cheap to have both of them reach that level, but sometimes it feels like the SSJ3 transformation is brought out every now and again just to remind us that it exists . . . like when Goku shows it off to Trunks and Goten, or when Gotenks says he can use the form for "an incredibly short time" but wastes all the time he has nonetheless.
It's a very divisive topic, I've discovered!
If Goku's your pick, then you might be the person who feels a little cheated that Gotenks, a fusion of two children who separately are both unable to reach the second level at all, could when joined ascend to that third godly level with even more ease than Goku himself, or that it somehow makes a mokery of him.
If you want the SSJ3 to be Gotenks, your argument could be that you find it difficult to believe that Goku could find the second level, transcend it completely and stumble upon the third in just seven years. Gotenks' incredible power could, after all, be attributed to Fusion . . . and perhaps that's the only way SSJ3 could and should be reached by one individual without Goku having had at least a few more years' worth of training.
Along similar lines, the idea has been given that perhaps things like SSJ3 and Fusion could have been saved for the final conflict with Kid Buu to make those episodes even more progressive, as opposed to introducing them as techniques that debut against but don't kill Buu's weaker forms. If I look at the Buu arc from beginning to end, it looks like there are plenty of opportunities to obliterate this unbelievable menace that for some reason or other are lost . . . the fight between Goku and Fat Buu, the fight between Gotenks and Super Buu, the fight between Gohan and Super Buu; the list goes on . . . and it seems almost as if the Saiyajins had control of the situation all along. The only other example I can think of where something like that happened outside of the Buu saga was when Vegeta allowed Cell to absorb 18 and become perfect, but that was really more about the ferocity of Vegeta's pride; a recurring theme throughout all the sagas, so as outrageous as Vegeta's foolishness was it still feels like it has substance . . . but what could the point be to SSJ3 Gotenks' fusion running out just as he's about to annihilate Super Buu? Was it to drag out the arc even longer? . . . well, actually, yes it was; Gohan hadn't finished his training yet, and I'll wager just about all of us wanted to see if THAT bore fruit.
Even so. A lot of DBZ is failing to match up against an overwhelming opponent, but in the Buu arc the opportunities are given away in great numbers . . . it's just a little strange to me.
Another subject I hear a lot about is the fact that Trunks and Goten are Super Saiyajins at such a young age. I never saw a problem with that myself, since I think it would be only natural that each Saiyan generation would be more powerful than the last . . . but more than a few people have a problem with miniature Super Saiyajins, so I suppose it's worth mentioning.
All of this doesn't mean that I don't like the Buu saga; quite to the contrary, in fact. I just like to pick the meat off the bones, so to speak, but the truth is that perhaps it really couldn't have been handled any better than the way it was. It would have been too obvious for either Goten or Trunks to be another super-powerful youth who would win the day in the same fashion Gohan triumphed against Cell, though it's certainly expected and appropriate that the two are as powerful as they are.
And that's my two cents . . . whew! Who's next??
(Li'l Lemmy, wishing he knew when to shut up.)
Goten of Japan wrote:Don't go 9... Go 10! (Go-ten. Goten. Get it? DOOD.)
The
NUMBER ONE Goten fan, and a fucking epic one at that.
