As for the Baby saga, I actually liked it quite a bit! I thought Goku's tail-stretching was a great side-story, and I'm glad that Baby had an actual goal. Some villains' goal is just "destroy everything", which I don't particularly like...I don't find that to be very interesting. But given that Baby had a real goal, a reason to be destructive, and an end-game planned out, I appreciated that. Also, c'mon...SSJ4! I don't care if its canon or non-canon, SSJ4 is pretty cool, in my opinion. I like the idea of being able to control the Oozaru power as being SSJ4, versus just conjuring some extra power. The idea that Goku's always been able to be an SSJ4 (when he had his tail), but he just could never control it before, was a cool idea. I'm also glad that Piccolo was involved in the end, and again proved how badass he is! All-in-all, I think this saga has been my favorite in GT so far.
In regards to the Super 17 saga, I felt like it was a throwaway. I went back to the episode guide and I guess I didn't realize how short it was (only 7 episodes according to Funimation), but I feel like I barely remember it...and I just watched it! This is like the "Garlic Jr." of GT, ha. I barely remember what happened, and I'm sensing that the events will never be addressed again or really affect the remainder of the series. The only thing I actually liked in this saga was Piccolo helping Goku escape Hell by going crazy in Heaven, ha. I thought that was amusing, but otherwise I think I could have done without this saga, personally.
I've started on the Shadow Dragon saga, but I'll reserve judgement until I finish it. I will say that I liked the original premise for it, the negative energy building up in the DBs over time. I'm not sure why Old Kaiōshin didn't bother mentioning this "negative energy" thing before, though...he did warn them in Z, but if I recall, he didn't really give a technical reason. I'm going to assume that he didn't think it would build up that much over time, or that he didn't know exactly how much the DBs had been used in the past, so he didn't bother mentioning it as he assumed it wasn't applicable. While I like the idea, I dislike the fact that it's becoming an Earth-bound rehash of the first saga, more or less. I'm hoping that it will shift gears soon into something a bit more unique, but I guess I'll find out soon... (I'm currently on Episode 52, so only 13 episodes left!
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