Which is worse, GT or the Garlic Jr. Saga

[DBZAOTA482]

Concerning both TOEI-original creations, they are widely considered low-points of the Dragon Ball anime but my question is, which one do you think is worse?

Personally, I'd go with GT.

At least with the Garlic Jr. Saga, it tried to establish a coherent story line (despite the story not being very good) and someone other than Goku could actually make a difference whereas GT's was just an excuse to milk the Dragon Ball franchise even more.

Not only that, the fighting was better because it actually resembles the style of fighting in the series instead of just spamming Kamehameha at anything that moves.

The only thing I can say GT has over the Garlic Jr. Saga is in the animation department but that's not hard to accomplish. Oh and the soundtrack (Japanese version only because the soundtrack FUNimation used for their dub of GT was a steaming pile of shit).

[Cipher]

This is like comparing something completely decent, a blind dislike for which has been passed down the fanbase like a family sweater, equally tired and full of holes, since 1996 or so, to something that actually isn't very good.

Only you can guess which is which.

[Insertclevername]

Garlic Jr. by far. Hey, I don't particularly love GT or anything, but it ain't that bad. It has it's problems and does irk me, but it has some genuinely exciting moments and some cool concepts. Garlic Jr. is just drawn out garbage that just doesn't know when to conclude it's boring and uninteresting story.

[Saiga]

GT was far worse. The Garlic Jr arc was terrible, but it at least didn't have as many plot holes or Toei hax as GT. Characters even remembered they could fly!

One perk GT had was Vegeta, but they made him look stupid and shafted him until the last couple of episodes so really they'd be better off leaving him out.

The GJ arc moved Goku and Vegeta out of the picture so that Kurilin, Piccolo and Gohan could have the spotlight. GT had Goku shit all over everyone and hog the spotlight to himself.

And a minor thing, but a lot of the energy beams in GT looked absolutely terrible. Like this Kamehameha.

[samuraix123]

In my opinion GT is by far worse. even though I love the ending to GT. I like Garlic Jr. and I really don't have a problem with filler, I think there should have been more filler. Why would I want a series that I love to be over and done with so fast? maybe that's just me

[DBZnut]

Garlic Jr compared to the last 40 episodes, GT for the first 20.

[Cipher]

And a minor thing, but a lot of the energy beams in GT looked absolutely terrible. Like this Kamehameha.

"The animation in GT is so wonky. Here, let me pick this still image from a Last House episode." -- The Dragon Ball fanbase, for as long as I can remember

[JulieYBM]

And a minor thing, but a lot of the energy beams in GT looked absolutely terrible. Like this Kamehameha.

"The animation in GT is so wonky. Here, let me pick this still image from a Last House episode." -- The Dragon Ball fanbase, for as long as I can remember

...to be fair, I think that's a pretty good shot for a Last House episode.

[Saiga]

And a minor thing, but a lot of the energy beams in GT looked absolutely terrible. Like this Kamehameha.

"The animation in GT is so wonky. Here, let me pick this still image from a Last House episode." -- The Dragon Ball fanbase, for as long as I can remember

I honestly don't know what point you're trying to make here. I never said anything about wonky animation.

[Chuquita]

I haven't watched either of them in forever, but I say GT was worse simply for the sheer number of (imo) poorly-executed creative ideas. Example: Outer-space dragon ball hunt? Great! Going about it by turning Goku into a child and deciding on sending a boring version of Trunks and a grumpy version of Pan along with him instead of say, Gohan and Vegeta? Not great.


I mean, Garlic Jr's kinda bad from what I remember, but for me it was mostly because Goku and Vegeta were absent from the goings on on Earth. I would like to see how they would deal with battling their way to Garlic Jr through their mind-warped friends and family. The whole thing has a kinda-sorta zombie-ish vibe to it and no where else in DB or Z is there a villain who turns the entire planet into his or her possessed minions.

[Cipher]

I honestly don't know what point you're trying to make here. I never said anything about wonky animation.

You generally condemned the way energy beams look in the series, then pulled out a still shot from a studio responsible for less than a third of its episodes and notorious for off-model animation since the late Cell arc.

To be fair though, and this is more what I was getting at, it's not just you. It's a running theme in GT discussions.

The whole thing has a kinda-sorta zombie-ish vibe to it and no where else is there a villain who turns the entire planet into his or her possessed minions.

Not even going to touch this one.

[Chuquita]

I honestly don't know what point you're trying to make here. I never said anything about wonky animation.

You generally condemned the way, in this case, energy beams look in the series and pulled out a still shot from a studio responsible for less than a third of its episodes and notorious for off-model animation since the late Cell arc.

To be fair though, and this is more what I was getting at, it's not just you. It's a running theme in GT discussions.

The whole thing has a kinda-sorta zombie-ish vibe to it and no where else is there a villain who turns the entire planet into his or her possessed minions.

Not even going to touch this one.

Remembered about Baby right after I finished posting. =P
Which only goes to show how unmemorable GT was for me.
Also, weren't Baby's possessed more sentient than Garlic's black water mist victims? I'm pretty sure the mist victims didn't actually speak outside of growling at people.

[Saiga]

I honestly don't know what point you're trying to make here. I never said anything about wonky animation.

You generally condemned the way energy beams look in the series, then pulled out a still shot from a studio responsible for less than a third of its episodes and notorious for off-model animation since the late Cell arc.

To be fair though, and this is more what I was getting at, it's not just you. It's a running theme in GT discussions.

I only used that because it was on the DB wiki. I didn't want to go through my DVDs again to get screenshots but I remember from watching it that a lot of the beams look like that (I probably wouldn't have noticed it otherwise).

For the most part GT's animation doesn't bother me.

[Hellspawn28]

They both where written as bad fan fictions, but I would say GT was worst critically speaking. The writting, the humor and animation are terrible. At least the GJ saga was short and they never mention the whole saga again in the DBZ anime.

[Metalwario64]

At least the GJ saga was short and they never mention the whole saga again in the DBZ anime.

Marron returns in the Android arc for a few episodes.

[Gaffer Tape]

I can't say I'm an expert, as I have yet to see all of GT, but from what I have (which is the first 4 episodes, about six or seven of Baby, and the entirety of the Dragons arc), I'd have to say Garlic Jr. is worse. If you think both are terrible, maybe Garlic Jr. has the edge due to brevity, but I have to say that it feels longer.

Forget the Goku versus Freeza fight filler. At least that was connecting dots between actual plot-relevant events from the manga. The Garlic Jr. arc's fighting is the longest, most boring, most pointless extended fight sequence I've ever seen, and you might as well just skip to the end of it because nothing of any consequence happens until then. You know you have to be doing poorly when the cutaways to Karin, Maron, and Yajirobe feel like they might be something important when compared to the fighting, which feels like padding.

And Kami's palace has never been so boring to look at. Say what you will about GT, but, as one of my complaints about the actual manga is that Toriyama eventually got lazy in terms of thinking up places for fights to take place, GT was very interesting visually in that regard. But years earlier, they'd made the heavenly realm look like this boring, monochromatic negative space. Is this really the same Toei animation that gave us a gorgeous sunset when Goku was fighting his clay-formed doppelganger that Mr. Popo made for him?

The first two or three episodes and the last episode are great. If the arc was just that, I'd say it was a rousing success. But, no. In between that, the plot just slows to a crawl. You'd think since they were actually writing their own material, they'd have the freedom to not feel compelled to drag it out to the boundaries of its tensile strength. But, no. They had material for five episodes and dragged it out to nine. And then, on top of that, they quickly removed every interesting element. The fight at Kame House was very interesting. The locale was a place we hadn't seen a fight occur since the Red Ribbon Arc.

Turning the main characters into the villains was a stroke of genius. But it turns out that that's not what they were looking for. That was just an excuse to whittle the cast down to get them out of the way so we could just have the same old, boring kind of fights we've already seen plenty of, and completely ignore the fact that Garlic Jr. now has a planet-wide army at his disposal. So, of course, he hangs out at the one place in the entire world that none of his army is.

And Piccolo becoming evil was, again, a great idea... until they revealed he was just faking it... somehow. No need to try and explain it or anything, as that might take time away from the padded-out fighting.

And, finally, there's another brilliant idea: Kami-sama and Popo have to brave the space between realms. Not only does that give characters who don't normally have something to do a pivotal role in the story, but it also greatly contributes to the mythology of godhood in DB's earth and gives Kami-sama both a physical and emotional dilemma to overcome... Except that it's all wasted on recycled animation of Kami-sama and Popo jumping over the same lightning about ten thousand times, and the actual subject matter is never given any weight. Again, maybe if we'd cut out a bit of the tedious fighting with Garlic Jr., we might have actually been able to explore this idea!

Phew, sorry. Didn't mean to go on such a rant there. But getting the Dragon Boxes made me realize that I really hate the Garlic Jr. arc (except for the episodes I mentioned, which I love). So much wasted potential. So much boredom. And nothing I've seen in GT has ever provoked such a response from me, so I therefore have to say the Garlic Jr. arc is worse.

[sonikku956]

Garlic Jr. was the lesser of the two evils.

[dprez]

GT = 100% Goku

Garlic Jr. arc = 0% Goku

GT wins.

[Fizzer]

I actually enjoy both, although the last time I watched Garlic Jr was in Japanese, and I found it much less enjoyable that its dub counterpart. I'm currently watching GT in Japanese (after viewing all of DB and Z) and I like that much better this time around, so I'll say if we're talking about the original audio then Garlic Jr is worse, but if we're talking about the Funi dub, then GT is worse. The only problem I have with Garlic Jr is the plothole that Dead Zone never happened, other than that I think it's a decent story and a good chance for non-Goku, non-Vegeta characters to shine again. GT is fun, and gives a much better ending than Z did, but there's just something that seems sort of wrong with it. Maybe it's trying too hard.

[Gaffer Tape]

While I like the idea of the whole "characters other than Goku getting to shine" thing, I feel it loses a bit of punch when it's just using the same characters who just got done holding up much of the last two arcs.