MistareFusion's Dragon Ball Dissection! (Updated 4/1/24!)

[FoolsGil]

The placement of when to watch this special and the confusion that arises is just like the Return of Cooler movie when Dende was on the lookout, before the manga even set that up. Unlike that situation, I do think that the last episode timeskip was planned and this special was made to get kids to be comfortable with Grandma Pan and Goku Jr ahead of the last episode.

[DB1984]

How did I not notice the red bandana and 2009 movie references?

[coola]

Had no idea GT Special aired right before Super 17, i thought it was epilogue as well Am i only one who thought it was strange (as well as missed opportunity) to have pictures of Pan just from Black Star saga? Like how would she look as teenager and adult?

[Koitsukai]

The SS transformation kicked me out faster than camping in CS. I was so invested in Goku's silly journey until bam... blond hair, and then I automatically signed off. That fucker came out of nowhere.

Even if they were trying to link this with the finale, I'd rather see Goku Jr. show SS for the first time vs Geets Jr.

[Gaffer Tape]

A Match Made in Hell - Dragon Ball Dissection: The Super #17 Arc Part 2

Between a tournament and a special, there have been a lot of detours, but we are finally into the Super #17 storyline proper. Um... yay? There is so much about this that just doesn't make any sense to me. Does it make sense to you? Can you help me? How do you make another #17? How do you open a portal to Hell? What a fever dream!

[Scsigs]

This arc is just so bad, probably the worst in GT. I can get over them using the "bad people keep their bodies in the afterlife in Hell" idea from the Z anime, but everything else is so dumb. How'd they make another 17 in Hell? How does that link the original with his duplicate? How does that open a portal to Hell?
Not only that, but the plot is clearly a rip-off of the Fusion Reborn movie. Now, that movie has a lot of plot holes & inconsistencies too, but that's par for the course with most of the Z movies, so you tend to place it outside of the normal DB timeline. This, no. It expects us to just roll with everything, but it's too much at once. And what's more is that this arc is used as set-up for the next arc. Plus, what happens in the arc isn't too terribly great to excuse all that, unfortunately.

[Gaffer Tape]

This arc is just so bad, probably the worst in GT. I can get over them using the "bad people keep their bodies in the afterlife in Hell" idea from the Z anime, but everything else is so dumb. How'd they make another 17 in Hell? How does that link the original with his duplicate? How does that open a portal to Hell?
Not only that, but the plot is clearly a rip-off of the Fusion Reborn movie. Now, that movie has a lot of plot holes & inconsistencies too, but that's par for the course with most of the Z movies, so you tend to place it outside of the normal DB timeline. This, no. It expects us to just roll with everything, but it's too much at once. And what's more is that this arc is used as set-up for the next arc. Plus, what happens in the arc isn't too terribly great to excuse all that, unfortunately.

It really is a mess. And it doesn't even do fanservice all that well, not nearly to the level of charm of the movie you mentioned. I think Nappa is the biggest disappointment on that front, as he and Vegeta have nothing meaningful to say to each other. He's just... some guy to kill. It's just pointless.

[Scsigs]

It really is a mess. And it doesn't even do fanservice all that well, not nearly to the level of charm of the movie you mentioned. I think Nappa is the biggest disappointment on that front, as he and Vegeta have nothing meaningful to say to each other. He's just... some guy to kill. It's just pointless.

Fusion Reborn is a movie filled to the brim with fanservice.
Like the Otherworld Tournament filler, or at least its ideas? The movie starts with a callback to it.
Like the Otherworld aspects of the Z anime's afterlife? Most of the movie takes place in Hell against a monster with admittedly cool powers that, even though he's a less intelligent Buu, is no less dangerous to the main characters.
Like Paikuhan? He's a supporting protag to Goku.
Like SS3? Goku goes it & fights Janemba while in it like he did Buu, even mentioning it.
Like Fusion? Goku & Vegeta fuse into Gogeta & Goten & Trunks fuse into Gotenks while fighting a parody of Hitler when the dead come back to life on Earth.
And much more, plus some other fun bits where the writers & animators really went all out for & you can tell Toei spent their budget really well.

GT's arc doesn't have anything like those, unfortunately.

[AliTheZombie13]

Yeah, the Super 17 arc is just... why?
There's a few moments I like though, mostly Pan and Giru going gangster against Gero, the scenes with #18, and the scenes with Great Saiyaman #2.

[FoolsGil]

As most are wont to say about GT: Good ideas, poor execution, there is something there for bringing back Seventeen, and definitely the cracked dragonballs, but when it came down to making it work...well...

[anameraucana]

It's been a while since I watched the Super 17 arc. I remember the stuff with 18 being pretty good, Piccolo sending himself to hell was kinda badass, and I like that Super 17 found a way to circumvent Goku's teleportation, only for Goku to turn around and find a workaround for that, but the arc overall felt half baked. While the sunset and forest backdrops to the Goku vs Super 17 fight were cool, I remember the fight itself consisting mostly of Ki spam. Heck, besides Mu's betrayal I can hardly remember everyone else's fight against Super 17 since it was basically just them punching an invincible brick wall until Goku showed up. Outside of Cell and Freeza, the returning characters at best got a few words and a little bit of fighting in, and at worst showed up for maybe 2 seconds only to be forgotten. It's a mess of an arc and I can't feel anything but "meh" about it.

[Scsigs]

I honestly think that Toryama did it better with bringing 17 back in Super. Having Goku recruit him for the Tournament of Power, him becoming a reformed good guy with his own family while being a park ranger, reuniting with his sister, fighting in the Tournament for his universe, & ultimately winning it while wishing the other 12 universes back into existence.

Making Super 17 was really a waste of potential with brining 17 back. I kinda get what they were going for, but the execution was really lacking. 17 feels more like a plot device for setting up the Shadow Dragons than anything else. You could literally replace 17 with any other kind of villain, then have him do mostly the same shit & nothing about the Shadow Dragons would be different. It sucks.

[dragonballhero]

I wonder if MistareFusion will bring up how Krillin's relationship felt oddly strained throughout GT. Like, I know #18 and Marron occasionally come off as a bit difficult to please, but it REALLY felt as though those two had it out for Krillin in GT, and they just don't really give a crap about him until #17 KILLS him.

Heck, we don't even get a proper reunion between him and his family, with GT opting to instead have him at Roshi's, SOMEHOW???

Really, it makes their relationship come off as depressingly 'artificial' in some ways. That said, I'm SO glad modern DB mostly seems to go out of its way to have their marriage be more positive...

[AliTheZombie13]

I wonder if MistareFusion will bring up how Krillin's relationship felt oddly strained throughout GT. Like, I know #18 and Marron occasionally come off as a bit difficult to please, but it REALLY felt as though those two had it out for Krillin in GT, and they just don't really give a crap about him until #17 KILLS him.

Heck, we don't even get a proper reunion between him and his family, with GT opting to instead have him at Roshi's, SOMEHOW???

Really, it makes their relationship come off as depressingly 'artificial' in some ways. That said, I'm SO glad modern DB mostly seems to go out of its way to have their marriage be more positive...

It's hard to say, because they show up in a grand total if four scenes together.
During the first two, they're brainwashed. And the third one is a call back to the second.
The whole "inconsistent behavior while being brainwashed" thing MistareFusion mentions makes it hard to determine.
During their last scenes together before #17 attacks, they seem pretty respectful towards each other.

I will say, though. On the topic that modern DB made their relationship more positive, I loathe the scene in Super where #18 and Marron call him weak and say he needs to man up.

[Majin Buu]

The Super 17 arc has always been GT's low point for me as well. It is a mess, and I love that Gaffer cut to the chase on that right from the start.

It's funny that the pre-Baby episodes have (had?) the reputation of being so bad that Funimation had to skip them in comparison to this.

[lancerman]

For an arc that was already short and was retreading an old villain as its main antagonist, no clue why they didn't double down on the one cool part of the arc where they could actually explore the impact of returning villains.

I understand that most of them are so under leveled at this point that they are essentially one-shot fodder, but that just makes it dumber that they all came back to just rush headfirst into attacking Earth. First off why are the Red Ribbon Army characters even bothering with that? It's never really been their MO. Wouldn't they rather just take the win that they are essentially resurrected and hide out and regroup to scheme? Why are the Saiyans like Nappa and Raditz attacking. They aren't looking for Dragon Balls and they aren't working for Freeza anymore. If it's straight up revenge, they waste a lot of time not going after main characters.

Do something interesting with them while you have them. Even Super did cool stuff bringing Freeza back beyond the usual. Honestly they were better off just making them demons or something from hell. Because they just ripped off old designs and used them as Putty Patrol.

[Scsigs]

The Super 17 arc has always been GT's low point for me as well. It is a mess, and I love that Gaffer cut to the chase on that right from the start.

It's funny that the pre-Baby episodes have (had?) the reputation of being so bad that Funimation had to skip them in comparison to this.

They skipped them because they were so bad, even the original writers ended up not liking how they were turning out. Hence why 15-16 episodes in, they switched back to how DBZ handled things rather than doing their poor imitation of the original DB. So, they just made a cutdown recap of everything important that happened in that stretch of episodes. The Super 17 arc, unfortunately, is very important to understand why the Shadow Dragons arc happens, even if the episodes themselves weren't any good.

[Koitsukai]

Crazy that everybody came back, except for Baby. Even Baby's creator came back.

[AliTheZombie13]

They skipped them because they were so bad, even the original writers ended up not liking how they were turning out. Hence why 15-16 episodes in, they switched back to how DBZ handled things rather than doing their poor imitation of the original DB. So, they just made a cutdown recap of everything important that happened in that stretch of episodes. The Super 17 arc, unfortunately, is very important to understand why the Shadow Dragons arc happens, even if the episodes themselves weren't any good.

I mean, other than two quick-and-you-miss-it moments where the Dragon Balls crack, and the resulting devastation, I don't think Super 17 was that necessary. Also, I like the early 16 episodes because despite all of their problems, they have personality, judge me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Scsigs]

I mean, other than two quick-and-you-miss-it moments where the Dragon Balls crack, and the resulting devastation, I don't think Super 17 was that necessary. Also, I like the early 16 episodes because despite all of their problems, they have personality, judge me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, the Super 17 arc was written to be a quick solution to the problem of "How do we get them to use the Dragon Balls so we can have them go bad for this Shadow Dragons arc we wanna do?" They treated it with barely any real seriousness, but it IS important to understanding the set-up to the Shadow Dragons.

I mean, like them all you want. They're not that good. Literally, the writers & producers said that they weren't gonna be interesting no matter how they wrote them. Which is why they decided to pivot away from them & to the Baby arc. That's just a fact.