What made GT so bad ?

[DBZAOTA482]

GT is actually better received here than in Japan.

[Hades]

A lot of excellent concepts (The revenge of the Tsuffles, Kami's past, the misuse of the dragonballs biting the heroes in the ass), but they were wasted.

[voltlunok]

GT is actually better received here than in Japan.

Really? I actually thought it was the other way around.

[Kakacarrottop]

GT is actually better received here than in Japan.

Really? I actually thought it was the other way around.

It was well received by casual fans over here but most of the hardcore fans despise it. The show bombed in the ratings when it originally first aired in Japan. I assume people in Japan just ignore it's existence.

[JulieYBM]

GT is actually better received here than in Japan.

The Dragon Ball GT Dragon Box sold 31,696 units, the highest of any of the Dragon Boxes. The singles have sold a combined 21,227 units at last counted.

[Kid Buu]

Yeah, GT has better reception in the West.

GT is actually better received here than in Japan.

The Dragon Ball GT Dragon Box sold 31,696 units, the highest of any of the Dragon Boxes. The singles have sold a combined 21,227 units at last counted.

Keep in mind GT is only available in anime-format for the most part. A lot of fans could have opted for the manga instead of the Dragon Boxes for DB and DBZ.

[JulieYBM]

The Dragon Ball GT Dragon Box sold 31,696 units, the highest of any of the Dragon Boxes. The singles have sold a combined 21,227 units at last counted.

Yeah, but GT is only available in anime-format for the most part. A lot of fans could have opted for the manga instead of the Dragon Boxes for DB and DBZ.[/quote]

Nobody spend five hundred dollars on a TV series they don't want to own, especially in a country where space is a premium.

[NeoKING]

A lot of folks are of the opinion that Oob should've been the main character but I don't think that would've been such a great choice. Actually, I like what they did with Oob, sort of. The way he had a whole episode to himself to fight Baby Vegeta was cool. I'm watching it now, and even the way they had him flashback to training with Goku upon hearing of his untimely demise was great -- not too mention the musical score for that scene was pretty appropriate and set the tone too. Oob vs. Baby was pretty good writing if you asked me. If I give Toei 's writers one thing, it's keeping Oob the secret ace in the hole for as long as they did.

GT Episode 32 is one of the best episodes of the series. I recommend checking it out subbed, if you want to entertain yourself with GT for a bit. It's one of those episodes that makes you actually want to watch the rest of the series.

[Kid Buu]

Nobody spend five hundred dollars on a TV series they don't want to own, especially in a country where space is a premium.

Collecting a 64 Episode series is easier than collecting a 153 and 291 episode series, and like I said before, a lot of fans might not have bothered to buy the DB/Z Dragon Box if they already had the manga.

I mean, I don't doubt GT has fans in Japan, but I'd pretty surprised if it was more popular than the Z era.

[Michelle91]

GT is actually better received here than in Japan.

The Dragon Ball GT Dragon Box sold 31,696 units, the highest of any of the Dragon Boxes. The singles have sold a combined 21,227 units at last counted.

How much money it sold does not mean anything. Something can sell very well and still be highly dislike. For example; Spider-Man 3 made nearly 900 million worldwide and Transformers 3 & 4 made over one billion, but they are hated by their fan bases. I don't think GT's rep in America is anything in Japan. I talked to people who grew up watching DBZ in my local area and they said that GT was pretty bad to them. I remember people were yelling boo in the Battle of Gods screeing when someone ask "Who likes GT".

[Mystic Tien]

6. Strange revamps in appearance for characters like Goten and moustache Vegeta which make them practically unrecognizable. This is one of those dumb ideas that should never have left the planning stage as it just serves to alienate fans of Z even further (never mind the fact that the new designs looked terrible).

They were all designed by Toriyama by the way.

[Dyno]

Transformers 3 & 4 made over one billion, but they are hated by their fan bases.

Half of the fanbase hate them because they are "geewunners", they can't even write a good explanation to their "haterism", it's all the same thing. All because they are still stuck in the past with the first cartoon.

[Cipher]

Quick and inelegant thoughts:

I really like GT. Like really, really enjoy it. It is objectively worse than the first two series, and far more limited in its narrative choices (being designed by committee rather than Toriyama writing in his slapdash style), but, by intent or by accident, Toei wound up creating something I think is a lovely cap for the series.

And I should add that as a caveat -- GT is hugely appealing to me as the final act of the series, though I'm not sure I could view it as being successful or compelling on its own (though it's not designed to be).

There are many fair complaints in this thread. Some of its ideas are unimaginatively delivered, at least compared to what Toriyama might have done. The show is even less consistent with its displays of power, which -- while I'd argue Dragon Ball was never that consistent with them -- can be frustrating and distracting at times. The humor is often one-note and repetitive (though there are still some gems; Goku mimicking the wanted poster on Imegga while Trunks and Pan ignore him, for example, along with nearly the whole of episode two). Pan's inclusion in the main cast is a great call, but forgoing Super Saiyan with her is baffling and slightly problematic.

But I don't care.

The atmosphere of the series is fantastic, and if you can lighten up on in-universe inconsistencies (which are exaggerated), and accept some of the artifacts of its audience, age and origin (which we've always done with the anime adaptations of the manga), its intangible qualities make it. What others have cited as flaws -- the frumpy character designs, the pastel art -- I view as some of the series' greatest strengths. There's a feeling of nostalgia and ending about it I find nothing short of a small miracle to have gotten through committee-led writing at Toei. It's certainly different from what Toriyama would give us, but I like it. In all of its design choices (and man -- does GT really get to have fun with its setting designs in a way the manga adaptations never could; check out the comparatively real-world cities in the Evil Dragon arc), there's a sense of the real world catching up.

I feel in some ways that disliking GT has become a sort of right of passage for fans, to the point that even more casually interested viewers will cite its supposed badness almost as a way of establishing ethos as a real fan. In part, yes, I can see the flaws. In others, I think some of its poor reputation owes to the fanbase's pre-occupation with relative powers and in-universe explanations, which GT is comparatively less concerned with (though, again, its problems are vastly exaggerated). There's a bit of an echo-chamber effect. People ought to at least be encouraged to give it a shot.

I'd argue it's not quite as far removed from Toriyama's style as others make it out to be as well. Certainly parts of it are more staid or derivative, but true to form, I'd challenge anyone to guess that the first arc would end with Goku fighting a giant monkey Vegeta on the Tsufuru-jin planet (the mark of a Toriyama arc is that, at its start, you'd have to be some sort of savant to even come close to guessing what the climax would be).

Ultimately my frustrations with it -- and there are certainly things I wish were better -- don't outweigh the qualities I enjoy. While I'm happy to have the newer material and the new continuation that provides, part of me will always leave room for the original anime trilogy and the nice, if unexpectedly somber ending GT provides.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

But even without that, I do believe there is some merit to the idea of the Dragon Balls backfiring or giving birth to new enemies. But absolutely not in the way GT chose to do it (and I'm not talking about execution, this is still in the idea phase). GT's idea was "The misuse of the Dragon Balls lead to this enemy, and the group will have to learn from their errors for the ending of the series".

That's completely fucking stupid.

Goku and the gang didn't even mis-use the Dragon Balls. They weren't irresponsible with them. In fact, to act in any other way than what they did would be irresponsible. The main purpose of the Dragon Balls was to either to enable them to defeat current threats, or to restore the Earth and its population after a villain laid waste to it. If they were to decide not to revive the innocent victims of Cell's rampage because "oh it's not natural" they would be assholes. Just straight up irresponsible assholes.

This should not constitute misuse of the Dragon Balls. There's no lesson to be learned from that, except to try and minimize damage in the first place. But that's a completely separate lesson that shouldn't be tied to the Dragon Balls, it should be tied to everyone not learning to go along with whatever Earth-endangering whim Goku has. Which is something that never happens.

Hell, if there's any lesson to take from the Shadow Dragons arc, it's that selfish wishes are the way to go - they outright say that positive wishes create negative energy in the balls. Ergo, negative wishes would actually be good for the Universe. That's a pretty fucked up moral right there, and that's what happens when you try and take "yin and yang" and equate it to "good and evil".

I disagree. I don't think the main thing of the saga was "they over used the balls, thats abuse." at all, I think it actually had more to do with when the Elder Kai mentioned that using the balls to distort events by manipulating the balls to connect the physical world with otherworld, or to use magic to restore things in such masses was bad for the "natural flow of evolution." like if we were to wish back the Dinosaurs, the future of humanity would irregularly diverge from what the laws and limits of what happened gave way to. The negative energy from what I see is the build up of containing of whatever force was sealed in order to undo things unnaturally. Not that wishing for certain things was wrong. It was also said that the balls werent supposed to be found by humans, and Bulma's radar made them too accessible. There has to be some consequence somewhere for wishing people back to life.

Frankly, I disagree with the notion that GT had good ideas and bad execution. I will always stand by the opinion that GT had bad ideas with worse execution.

No, I don't want them to steal from the PTES plot, or Fusion Reborn's plot. No, I don't want to see Goku turn into a child, or Vegeta get possessed again. No, I don't want a carbon copy of the Oolong episode, only with more plot induced stupidity. No, I don't want the nonsensical as fuck Shadow Dragons to be a thing. etcetera, etcetera.

GT did some things right - it gave Vegeta a logical characterisation for most of GT, it had a great sense of despair near the end of Omega Shenron's fight, and some of the fights were enjoyable. But it fell down in so many, many different ways, and it earned the vitriol it gets.

It will take a lot for you to convince me that FnF or the Fusion saga was better than GT in anyway. It seems like people give GT all the weight of the hate they have for some of the writing in Z but are either in denial or refuse to admit it. They just want to tell themselves GT was the worst thing ever released regardless of how bad Z is because they find more good in Z (despite GT's problems STILL just worsened problems carried over from Z and repackaged in modern Z). I don't get the double standard.

[Michelle91]

My biggest issues with GT for me was:

- It was boring
- The writing was pretty bad compare to DB and DBZ
- The characters and story lines are not as memorable compare to DB and DBZ
- Goku has too much spot light
- The later half of GT feels rush and some things felt like that they where created to drawn in ratings (Super 17 saga and SSj4 Gogeta comes to mind)

GT to me gets a D- while DB gets a DB+ and DBZ gets a C+.

[Lord Beerus]

- It was boring

That is the biggest problem. It's just fucking boring. And Dragon Ball should never reach that stage.

It will take a lot for you to convince me that FnF or the Fusion saga was better than GT in anyway.

FnF and the Fusion Saga has something major over GT: the supporting cast actually do something important.

[GTx10]

What I'd like to know is why GT is suddenly viewed as "non canon." How is a 64 episode program just disregarded by its fandom. People think BoG and RoF remove GT, but it doesn't. GT is after BoG and RoF. I think the hate of GT is weird.

[Cipher]

What I'd like to know is why GT is suddenly viewed as "non canon." How is a 64 episode program just disregarded by its fandom. People think BoG and RoF remove GT, but it doesn't. GT is after BoG and RoF. I think the hate of GT is weird.

The new movies' elements create major problems for the idea of their universes continuing on into GT. While they could conceivably be rectified, it would take some major events that I have trouble believing Toriyama would be interested in writing just so it could align with a previous anime series. Ain't no thang though. GT was already pretty cleanly a continuation of the original anime series rather than the manga, incorporating several anime-only elements into its plots. There's a whole wide (okay, still pretty small, but starting to be concretely acknowledged by ancillary media) Dragon Ball multiverse out there.

[Chuquita]

Turning Gokû into a child. Perhaps more so turning him into a child and then never turning him back to an adult outside of ssj4.
That final scene of the final ED for GT is a humongous tease.
So badly did/do I want to see an adult Gokû with his tail restored. That last scene is like a huge "Hah! You could've had this the whole show, but nope!".

Minor grievances are "ripping off plots that already happened in DB and Z", and "awful mid-late 90's clothes/hair; don't care if Toriyama was behind that or not".

Less so the (Freddy Mercury homage?) mustache Vegeta at the beginning of GT, because that's so-bad-it's-hilarious.

Also, whoever decided to overlay the clip in GT where Vegeta prepares to shave with Goten on the phone telling Paris how pretty her face is.
I wonder if that's in the subbed version too. I just went to google "Vegeta mustache".

[Michelle91]

What I'd like to know is why GT is suddenly viewed as "non canon." How is a 64 episode program just disregarded by its fandom. People think BoG and RoF remove GT, but it doesn't. GT is after BoG and RoF. I think the hate of GT is weird.

GT still exist as a product but GT and the new movies can't really exist with each other in the same timeline. Vegeta and Goku don't have their god forms in GT, Freeza never uses his new form against Goku when he had the perfect time to use it and also why would Freeza team with Cell if he's much weaker then him. A weakling like Cell won't do much to help Freeza to kill Goku. Toriyama comment on how Goku no longer need to use SSj2 & SSj3 also plays apart as well. At this rate, GT is another alternate timeline to the franchise just like how DB Movie 1-4 and DBZ Movies 1-13 are.