Was the Cell saga the worst saga in your eyes?

[Aoi]

IMO the way Toriyama explored/contrasted the father-son relationships between Gohan/Goku and Trunks/Vegeta in this arc is some of the best writing in shonen history. It's also some of his most heartfelt writing. I'm surprised that this has been so overlooked on this thread.

[JulieYBM]

I think the arc takes a nose-dive around the time Takeda took over as Toriyama's editor. Gohan's sudden unwillingness to do anything really hurt the credibility of the character and story and really shows just how little Toriyama cared to write a story worthy of appreciation.

[ChroniclyFlaming]

Personally, I really dig how Toriyama exposes his characters' biggest flaws in this arc. It's something we hadn't really seen before. While facing Cell, you see the characters at their worse: selfish (Krillin), greedy/arrogant (Vegeta), and vengeful (Gohan). Cell is symbolic of this too. He's literally made up of these characters and represents the absolute worst sides of each of them. The Z-Warriors' entire cause is hurt by their actions/insecurities. It almost seems very purposeful of Toriyama to have Goku sacrifice himself for the sins of the other characters. I love it. I feel Toriyama provides an unexpected amount of depth to a story that should otherwise have been very straight forward Shonen story.

This is my favorite post about the Cell saga posted on this forum. It really was about their actions catching up with them. Even from the start like sparring Gero and letting him have three years to make the androids: Goku seemingly immediately gets struck by that heart virus as soon as Gero shows up and kills all those people.

And I'm not sure why anyone thought that Krillin was going to use that remote on 18. The entire season (from possibly even Garlic Junior) was setting these two up. They're constantly being contrasted. Aside from even the kiss, 18 gets the most screen time/lines out of all the androids, sits in the passenger seat when they go hunting for Goku just like Krillin does when their looking for Cell. Krillin has the most run-in with all of the androids, and before confronting 18 with that remote even saves a random girl and her brother from Cell.

...Then he finds 18, and 16, and they're both hanging out with some squirrels (not killing animals like Gero did for a distraction), looking afraid, and it just hammers home how non-evil the androids are. It's just pretty subtle, maybe even Jungian for this show how those two got together.

[Saiga]

It's not the worst in all of Dragon Ball, that'd easily be the Uranai Baba arc (I've started seeing that as it's own arc rather than part of the Red Ribbon Army arc) followed by the first arc (for reasons penguintruth mentioned). That said, it's not exactly the best arc. It has some pretty serious pros and cons.

What I liked:

*Future Trunks' introduction, killing Freeza and Cold. The scenes of him taking them out were cool, and I liked seeing Freeza's mechanical form but glad he didn't stick around since I was so sick of him.
*The Androids themselves. Good choice of concept for the next villains in the series, and I like the different types Toriyama used.
*Time travel. Just seemed like something that would fit in Dragon Ball.
*The third timeline. Having Cell come from another timeline makes the time travel aspect more important to the arc's plot, as it's not just where they got news to prepare and Goku's antidote.
*Imperfect Cell is a wonderful, crafty villain who was creepy and genuinely felt like a threat even when he was weaker than the heroes.
*Super Saiyan being given to other characters, and the exploration of different branches. Especially the fact that some of these transformations were inefficient and they had to return to basics to advance the right way.
*Gohan as the hero. I really like the idea of the passing of the torch, and it made good use of Gohan's massive dormant power that was being built up over the course of the series.
*Some pretty good fights. Goku vs Cell was really great, and even some of the one-sided fights were also good.
*Vegeta's relationship with Trunks. Especially since this arc otherwise reduced his character's charm, this helped offset it somewhat.

What I didn't like (and maybe even hated):

*Piccolo's hax training gain. Makes his fusion with God seem a little less spectacular later.
*Piccolo not achieving anything with his fusion with God, making it seem a LOT less spectacular. I think if Cell reached his Second and Perfect forms from stealing the Z fighter's ki instead of absorbing the Androids Piccolo could have at least defeated 17 (and then have his ki stolen by Cell)... but then Cell wouldn't tie into the arc as well without the connection to 17 and 18, which would make the change of antagonist even more jarring.
*Lots of plot holes. I think this arc has the most plotholes of the series.
*Vegeta loses some of his charm as his character isn't nearly as good as in the Namek arc. It's in character, but not as good.
*Kuririn's crush on 18 making him act like an idiot was hard to read/watch.
*Imperfect Cell is introduced as being great, but gets worse each time he transforms. Perfect Cell is an utter moron who falls for the tricks he himself invented.
*The arc turns to shit at some point between Cell's first transformation and the start of the Cell Games (I can't tell where exactly this point is for me).
*Toriyama didn't handle the shift to Gohan very well, and his sudden pacifism was a terrible plot device to introduce SS2. The beatdown of Cell was satisfying to see, but otherwise the battle was really lacking, and there wasn't a proper SS1 Gohan vs Cell battle despite the fact that it was hyped up.
*Nobody ganged up on Cell at the Cell games. Until the Cell Juniors were released, this seemed pretty damn illogical. Cell shouldn't be that far ahead of the other fighters that they wouldn't be able to help. I know Dragon Ball focuses more on 1-on-1 fights and I appreciate that but this is probably the case where it makes the absolute least sense. They were all present on the battlefield, and had trained to battle Cell. Yet they don't truly join the battle.

[ABED]

*Imperfect Cell is introduced as being great, but gets worse each time he transforms. Perfect Cell is an utter moron who falls for the tricks he himself invented.

What trick did he invent?

*Nobody ganged up on Cell at the Cell games. Until the Cell Juniors were released, this seemed pretty damn illogical. Cell shouldn't be that far ahead of the other fighters that they wouldn't be able to help. I know Dragon Ball focuses more on 1-on-1 fights and I appreciate that but this is probably the case where it makes the absolute least sense. They were all present on the battlefield, and had trained to battle Cell. Yet they don't truly join the battle.

Cell is in fact that far ahead of the other fighters.

[Saiga]

Well, not really "invent" since it's not a new trick, but the appealing to people's egos to allow him to get strong enough to win. He actually then goes and uses this on himself - twice - in his Perfect Form, which is just insanely stupid.

And no, I really doubt that. He never proved himself to be that powerful, even if everyone went "whoa" at his power up. They didn't even try to gang up on him, even before they knew about his power up, even when he was exhausted after the fight with Goku.

[ABED]

He's cocky and believes he's the most powerful individual in the universe. Villains are allowed to let their arrogance get the best of them.

And no, I really doubt that. He never proved himself to be that powerful, even if everyone went "whoa" at his power up. They didn't even try to gang up on him, even before they knew about his power up, even when he was exhausted after the fight with Goku.

Of course he proved himself to be that powerful. Even during the Cell fight it's clear that he has vast depths of power, and the fact that even Trunks and Vegeta had problems with the Cell Jr.'s implies that Cell is far more powerful. If they had tried to gang up, it's likely the weaker ones like Yamcha, Tenshinhan and Kuririn would've been killed.

[mAcChaos]

Well, not really "invent" since it's not a new trick, but the appealing to people's egos to allow him to get strong enough to win. He actually then goes and uses this on himself - twice - in his Perfect Form, which is just insanely stupid.

And no, I really doubt that. He never proved himself to be that powerful, even if everyone went "whoa" at his power up. They didn't even try to gang up on him, even before they knew about his power up, even when he was exhausted after the fight with Goku.

It wasn't really a trick, since Gohan never tried to appeal to his ego. Cell was just that sure he could never lose again, so to him it would never be a real threat anyway. He would just be entertained by Gohan for a while and kill him, then the rest of the Z fighters. But Gohan ended up being way stronger than he thought.

Besides, he learned from his mistake when he came back as Super Perfect Cell. He just got right down to business.

[DBZAOTA482]

Well, not really "invent" since it's not a new trick, but the appealing to people's egos to allow him to get strong enough to win. He actually then goes and uses this on himself - twice - in his Perfect Form, which is just insanely stupid.

It can't be helped. He has Saiyan blood within him.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Cell saga is my least favourite, yes
But saying that it's still pretty cool!
I personally love all the arcs! Even garlic junior lol

[Saiga]

He's cocky and believes he's the most powerful individual in the universe. Villains are allowed to let their arrogance get the best of them.

No, they're not. There's no excuse for bad writing, and there's a difference between typical arrogance and Cell gleefully duping himself into further stupidity.

Of course he proved himself to be that powerful. Even during the Cell fight it's clear that he has vast depths of power, and the fact that even Trunks and Vegeta had problems with the Cell Jr.'s implies that Cell is far more powerful. If they had tried to gang up, it's likely the weaker ones like Yamcha, Tenshinhan and Kuririn would've been killed.

I'm not talking about the humans in this, they're useless and should stay out. But Cell never proved that he could have taken Gohan, Goku, Vegeta, Trunks and Piccolo all at the same time. And again, this is before he even powered up and was exhausted with his fight with Goku. No-one tries to do gang up on him, even though there's no real reason not to do so. Even if he was too powerful for them to gang up on, that just means they'd fight even WORSE trying to fight one-on-one. They can't do better by standing on the sidelines.

@MAcChaos That's what makes it so bad, he didn't have to be tricked by anyone... he willingly went and tricked himself into it. He should know better than anyone why what he was doing was an extremely stupid idea, and he just dove straight into it. If Cell had pants, they'd be on his head the minute he absorbed 18.