Majin Boo arc - Your opinion?

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Boo arc is criticized as the worst part of the manga by many fans of the forum. What do you think about it? What are the pros & cons of the arc in your opinion?

[Sinestro]

Boo arc is criticized as the worst part of the manga by many fans of the forum. What do you think about it? What are the pros & cons of the arc in your opinion?

First time I experienced it?

Pros - I had no idea what was going on with Buu.

Cons - I had no idea what was going on with Buu.

[Beji]

The bad was definitely the tension. With there being access to two sets of Dragon Balls and Potara earrings being so powerful and Instant Transmission with Gohan on the Earth I was just waiting for Kaioshin to go and get him if Goku wasn't up to the challenge.

But the pros are definitely the character designs added. With SSJ3 being almost an otherwordly transformation and fusion having also cool designs with them being temporary. I also liked seeing the Gohan in high school part. It depends on what you mean by the Majin Boo arc. Seeing him interact with normal earthlings is something I enjoyed.

[Marco Polo]

The resolution of Vegeta's character arc is definitely one of the best part of this arc.

[Bagginses]

I think the Buu arc is great -- it's an indispensable arc for me, and the series wouldn't be the same without it. There are some flaws, I guess, but then, all the arcs have their flaws.

Oh, and the Buu arc is HIGHLY imaginative, I might add.

[Gaffer Tape]

The best parts of the Boo arc are generally the humor: stuff with Gotenks, Great Saiyaman, #18 versus Satan, etc. It's such a refreshing change of pace from what we'd seen for a while, and Toriyama is at his wackiest and best in that regard. And its handling of the character of Mr. Satan is heartwarming, fulfilling, and takes that one-note annoyance from the Cell arc and turns him into an actual, fleshed out character.

However, the actual story is the worst part about it. It takes his usual randomness and lock of plotting and turns them up to 11. There are so, so many plot holes, and the last half of the arc is just such a long string of useless fights, where every super power up is set up for so long only to accomplish absolutely nothing. Over. And over. And over again.

[DBZAOTA482]

Back at the day of Toonami it was my favorite story z arc but after analyzing it in recent years, it hasn't age nearly as well as the previous arcs.

The biggest problem is that the plotting is all jumbled up. For being a threat to all mankind, I felt the carelessness of the Z-Senshi was the real enemy rather than Majin Boo himself. They go on and on about how dangerous he is yet they take him shockingly lightly. Before anyone says anything, I don't think character simply making stupid decisions worsens the quality of the story. It's just means the characters are flawed which can adds to the conflict, and conflict is good for the series but here, they should know by now to defeat enemies as quickly as efficiently possible. I know it'd make for a less interesting plot-line but so is relying on dead-horse tropes. It's also played dead straight for the most parts, and it doesn't help that it doesn't happen only one, two, or even three times. It happens a total of six times (bar the ones where they do act in-character). Various major concepts are also thrown into the mix but are carelessly tossed aside. The most flagrant would be the absolute (and almost unnecessary) of Gohan's character. Not mention like Gaffer Tape said, the entire second half of it is essentially one huge pissing contest and the glaring holes.

That said, there are some really good stuff about it. For example, everything from Gohan's misadventures at Orange Star Highschool leading up to Vegeta's sacrifice was great stuff (minus Kaioshin's prattle). There is also Vegeta's character maturation, the scenes like Vegeta lamenting over his life while at Majin state is a real threat for Vegeta fans everywhere and him accepting Goku as the better man even though Goku's a douchebag in this saga only with sound judgement and Mr. Satan became a really worthwhile character in this saga....we get to more about him than being just being a two-faced liar but a man struggling with social perceptions. I also liked a lot of the comedic elements, mainly when they're not influencing the flow of the narrative too much like 18 vs. Mr. Satan, Muten Roshi finally snagging a grab after a long time, Fat Boo's bond with Mr. Satan etc. It's also the best that the most visually impressive as far as the anime's concerned (save for the Last House episodes).


All in all, it's not a terrible arc but it's a very frustrating yet still entertaining one.

[Herms]

Overall I really love the Boo arc, but there's no denying that it's more poorly executed than probably any other part of the series. Especially in the manga, it's often obvious Toriyama was putting less effort into the artwork than before (the most concrete examples being the lower number of pages per chapter and the lack of proper title pages for most chapters). The anime takes up the slack and improves a number of parts considerably, notably Goku and Vegeta's fight and the battle with pure Boo.

Curiously, Toriyama seems relatively fond of this part of the series, citing Gotenks' battle with Boo as a favorite fight, the Kaioshin Realm as a favorite location, Mister Satan as a favorite character, saying if he were to continue the series it'd be as the adventures of Satan and Boo, Boo's inclusion in Neko Majin, etc. I'm reminded of Terry Gilliam's quote to the effect that the more miserable he'd be making a movie, the better it would tend to turn out. With the Boo arc, Toriyama seems to have taken it easy and enjoyed himself, comparatively speaking...and maybe the results show.

But like I said, I do love it overall. It's wild and crazy, with at least as much imagination and humor as any other point in the series. Sometimes it feels like a paint-by-numbers version of the by now standard formula, but for the most part it avoids this by injecting humor into what was previously played straight, or by doing things just plain stranger than before. It simultaneously feels like a throwback to Dr. Slump, and a preview of Neko Majin's self-parody.

The bottom line, for me: it's got lots of great moments...but they don't quite hold together to form a coherent story. The final battle with pure Boo is great and different from any other climatic battle in the series (except Goku and Piccolo versus Raditz, perhaps appropriately), but it makes almost no sense as the conclusion to the series of events beginning with Gotenks fighting Boo. Which more than anything is probably what the incessant "which Boo is strongest?" debates are about. The whole arc seems like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book that's been rewritten so that all the branching paths are combined into one long, incoherent story.

I dove into this a bit in the Intended Endings Guide, but I think the ultimate underlying problem is Toriyama's final editor, Fuyuto Takeda, who Toriyama has described as easy-going compared to his first two editors, pretty much letting him do what he wanted. It seems like Toriyama does his best work when he's got someone to crack the whip; someone who will curtail his laziness and not just accept his first draft ideas for stories. His first two editors, Kazuhiko Torishima and Yu Kondo, were stricter, with Torishima being particularly infamous for rejecting his ideas. It's well-known how Toriyama originally just planned on having No.19 and No.20 be the first and only villains for that story arc, but thanks to the combined efforts of Torishima (technically no longer his editor by then) and Kondo (his then-current one), he was forced into coming up with 17 and 18, then Cell, then Cell's second form, then his perfect form. Fans have often wondered how the story arc would have otherwise turned out. Well, the evidence suggests it would probably have turned out like the Boo arc.

Actually, Kondo was editor from the Saiyan arc up to the first portion of the android/Cell arc, with Takeda taking over around the Cell Games, and it's interesting how in some ways the Cell Games anticipate the Boo arc. Cell's transformation into his "super perfect" form seems to contradict what we're previously told about how his perfect form works, and almost feels like a teaser for Boo's contradictory transformations. And of course there's the infamous bit where Cell claims to be able to regenerate as long as his head is intact, even though he not so long ago regenerated after having his head blown off. I'm not saying there weren't contradictions in DB before (a ton are caused by Torishima/Kondo making Toriyama replace 19/20 as villains), but somehow the Cell Games contradictions seem closer in spirit to the Boo arc's loose logic. But I'm getting pretty off-topic.

There's a lot more I could say on the Boo arc, but that's probably more than enough for now.

[Fox666]

deleted

[DBZAOTA482]

The moment Cell was introduced he explains how he was created with the intend of absorbing No.17 and 18, I don't see how his transformations could possible not happen.

And as far I remember Toriyama's editor wasn't very strict about No.19 and 20, it was more like in the sense of the two aren't very frightening and it was just natural for Toriyama to replace them. But I guess that also raises the question of when exactly Toriyama decided that No.19 and 20 are not the true Androids that destroyed the future. Before they even fought, Piccolo said No.20 was talking like he was Dr. Gero himself, which he answers that their creator died a little ago. Isn't that different from Trunks' story? Not to mention that No.19 was hopeless against a weakened Goku, not exactly the invencible monsters they were told about. And then you have the characters constantly saying that they expected more from them.

I hear 19 and 20 were dropped for the opposite reason, in that they were too menacing and scary-looking.

[Herms]

The moment Cell was introduced he explains how he was created with the intend of absorbing No.17 and 18, I don't see how his transformations could possible not happen.

Cell is first fully shown in chapter 361, but doesn't mention needing to absorb 17 and 18 until chapter 363. So that's a two week gap, without even counting the big lead-up to his full-fledged appearance. Quite a bit of time. Of course, the impression I get is that Kondo only approved the design for Cell in the first place on condition that he eventually transform. So by the time he first appeared in the series the plan for him to absorb 17 and 18 could have already been in place, even though that wasn't Toriyama's original plan. It's not quite clear from interviews what the precise timing was, but generally the editor rejecting his ideas happens in the pre-planning stage. The whole incident with Torishima seeing 19 and 20's Jump debut and calling Toriyama up to complain about them happened because he was no longer Toriyama's editor and so no longer in the loop. Like a regular Joe he had to wait for things to appear in Jump, but the current editor was in on the planning stage (and yes, Toriyama did plan ahead to a certain extent, just not very far ahead).

I hear 19 and 20 were dropped for the opposite reason, in that they were too menacing and scary-looking.

Nothing like that has been said in interviews.

Actually, at this point it's probably worth reviewing just what exactly was said on the subject. From Shenlong Times #2:

Akira Toriyama
At that time it began to be more fun to think up the story than to draw the pictures. But with the story, I basically only thought of each chapter. That’s why I end up getting caught in these quagmires. (laughs) Around the time of Trunks’ time travel, it was dreadful. I kept drawing, and it just got more and more incoherent.

Kazuhiko Torishima
You couldn’t have done that if Kondō-san wasn’t your editor. I can’t stand that kind of troublesome stuff. (laughs)

Akira Toriyama
You’re terrible to say that, Torishima-san. Right around then was when Artificial Humans No. 19 and No. 20 appeared. You weren’t my editor or anything anymore, but you specifically called me to say, “I thought that the enemies had finally come, but aren’t these just a geezer and a fatso?” (laughs) In truth, I hadn’t had plans for anyone but No. 19 and No. 20 to appear. But there was no helping it, so I brought out No. 17 and No. 18. Then you called me up and said “What, this time it’s just some brats?” So I brought out Cell. (laughs)

Fuyuto Takeda
So you hadn’t planned on Cell appearing at all?

Akira Toriyama
That’s right. I liked No. 19 and No. 20 just fine. And I liked the initial Cell fine as well.

Fuyuto Takeda
The bug-like one?

Akira Toriyama
Yeah, but Kondō-san said, “He looks ugly. Of course, he can transform.”, so I had no choice but to transform him into his second-form.

Yū Kondō
Was that how it was?

Akira Toriyama
And then you were really awful, Kondō-san. “This time, doesn’t he look like a moron? Hurry up and make him into his perfect-form.”, you said.

Yū Kondō
But he really did look like a moron. (laughs)

Akira Toriyama
With second-form Cell as well, I liked him well enough. Actually, I had wanted him to play a more active role. But since I was told he looked stupid, I had no choice but to change him. (laughs) So I made him into his cool-looking perfect-form, which was to Kondō-san’s liking.

[DBZ Mick]

I think all the best parts of it are higher than the Artifical Human/Cell arc. Those arcs felt all over the place IMO with constant villian changes and only felt right once the Cell Game rolled around (even then I have some issues), it also didn't help that I really didn't like the Artificial Humans as villians and some of the character changes (Vegeta to annoying anti hero and Gohan to pacifist).

It does suffer from an ADD (no offence to anyone) like plot and isn't as well structured as other arcs.

[bleed0range]

I honestly like the Majin Buu arc just fine. I like how it jumps all over the place, lots of stuff happens... lots of unexpected twists and turns. I enjoy how it sort of makes fun of how serious the previous arcs were and toys with it a little. It makes it entertaining! It may be the weakest arc, but really, it's the weakest out of a bunch of great ones.

Can someone name out a few of the plot holes in the arc though, because while I don't doubt there are some I am not completely aware of what they are.

[medama_oyaji]

I'm a big fan of the Buu arc!

I remember when I was first getting into DB, and learning about it in bits and pieces. On websites and email lists the question of 'Most/Least Favorite Arc' would come up a lot, and the overall impression I got was that the Buu arc was no good. I recall the common complaints being that at this point the power-ups are out of control, everybody's going SSJ without any effort, the Dragon Balls' are now so easily found and so strong that death is no longer threatening to the reader and even the whole world is destroyed without much worry because we can bring everyone back, etc etc.

I totally bought into that and also would point to the Buu arc as a low point for the series. But as I watched the anime more thoroughly and read the manga and became more and more familiar with the series as a whole, I remember looking up one day and thinking, "Huh! I really do like the Buu arc a lot!" After reevaluating the situation, I realized that the core of what I love about the series is the humor and the characters. The general FUN element of the series. I love the action too, and Buu's got plenty of it! But power levels and SSJ forms and the specifics like that don't interest me as much, so while I'm aware of these complaints as being valid, they don't really reflect what I'm personally looking for in Dragon Ball. My favorite part of the series are the first 10 volumes, and I think the Buu arc marks a return to the earlier feel of the series, while building on the world and characters that have grown thru the volumes in between.

When I think about my favorite Z-arcs, I kind of flip-flop between Freeza, which was super creative and interesting but leans more towards the serious side, and Buu, a bit of a return to form for the Dr. Slump and early DB-era fans like myself!

[shreddinghead]

I love babidi. "dabura, dabura, DABURA!" He's like a hardcore evil version of pilafs impishness.

[MCDaveG]

Hah, no way! Buu arc is the best arc in the series ever!!!

[TheGreatness25]

I like that arc. I like the continuation of the story, Gohan grown up, the fighters finding life after fighting, etc. What I didn't like was the fusion. Total cop-out.

[JeffJarrett]

My favorite part of the series are the first 10 volumes, and I think the Buu arc marks a return to the earlier feel of the series, while building on the world and characters that have grown thru the volumes in between.

When I think about my favorite Z-arcs, I kind of flip-flop between Freeza, which was super creative and interesting but leans more towards the serious side, and Buu, a bit of a return to form for the Dr. Slump and early DB-era fans like myself!

I agree, the Buu arc is Toriyama back to his original writting style, ala Dr. Slump. He was too much influenced by his editors at the beginning of Z, with Toriyama's science-fiction influences (aliens, Star Wars, Terminator, Back to the Future?!) taken too seriously by Yū Kondō. Not that it is a bad thing, but the most popular times of Z don't look like a pure Toriyama style.

When looking to the beginning of Dragon Ball and now at the Majin Buu arc, we see how Toriyama wanted Dragon Ball to be a real success and didn't really allow him to do whatever he want with the Goku arc (and also because he planned it to be a retelling of Journey to the West and nothing more). As the series was a confirmed success during the Buu arc, he was more free to do what he want and we feel more freedom in the Buu arc (like in Dr. Slump) than in the previous arcs.

Also, the Buu arc is like a new manga series more than the other arcs. Evertime Toriyama started a new arc for Dragon Ball, it feel like a new series but with the purpose to clear things that hadn't been clear in the previous arcs: Goku's alien origin in the Saiyan arc, Goku's come back in the Androids arc. At the end of the Cell Games Saga and in the Saiyaman Saga everything is fine. The series could have ended here without introducing Buu, with the Saiyaman Saga being a bonus/spin-off manga of Gohan's everyday life after Cell's defeat.

[Codarik]

The Majin Boo arc gave us Vegetto. That automatically make the Boo arc the best in the anime/manga, no ifs, ands, or buts.

[SSJ4_Zankuto]

I liked Majin Boo Arc for being much darker than previous two arcs involving Frieza and Cell, where characters we love gets killed off. I liked the art design for Super Saiyan 3 Goku, Evil Boo and Pure Boo.