Mr.Piccolo wrote:The Buu Arc wasn't very complex, imo. The Cell Arc had some good elements in it, but the Buu Arc seemed like it was just a formula. New transformations, fuse some characters, and have rivals fight again. Just looking at Gohan's fate in that saga shows how that saga was thrown together.
Maybe it was thrown together, but I think the Buu saga was actually less formulaic then people give it credit for:
1. The new super transformation and it's power isn't the deciding factor in the villian's defeat in the end.
2. The villian is something different than the previous ones: He's goofy, funny, and childlike in addition to being evil. Even when he becomes Super Buu he retains some of that funny goofiness (were Freeza and Cell characters you could honestly laugh at even though they commited acts of evil?). It isn't until he absorbs Gotenks and Piccolo that he becomes more like Freeza and Cell (IE, formulaic). And lets not get into all of his wierd but cool ablilities (regeneration and absorption were used before yes, but Buu's got his own unique take on both them)
3. The major villian temporarily becomes a good person, but because of the henious actions of two foolish humans, literally has a good vs. evil struggle with himself and relapses into evil.
4. The final form of the villian isn't his strongest form (looking at the evidence from the manga).
5. The strongest person isn't the one who kills the villian.
6. Everyone has a hand in killing the villian, not just the strongest person/hero.
7. The Genki Dama is successful for once.
8. For once the villian does incredible damage to planet Earth, killing just about everyone on it and even completly destroying it while the other villians mearly boasted about destroying said planet and killing everyone on it (you could argue that Freeza ravaged and destroyed planet Namek but that wasn't our heroes' home planet unless you count Piccolo).
9.
Well maybe (though I don't remember that happening much in Dragonball), but given that Goku and Vegeta were "rivals", they'd only fought each other once before (and by this point that was a hell of a long time ago), doesn't it make sense for them to fight again at least one more time?and have rivals fight again.
10. You mentioned this yourself: Fusion, while really just a new way to make stronger characters, was something new and interesting.
11. There's an increased emphasis on humor, which we hadn't seen since early Dragonball.
12. And finally, almost the entire cast is killed off.
The Buu Arc wasn't very complex, imo.
Maybe, but that's something the whole series is guilty of.
So, what do you all think based on that?
)
)
