DBGT: Criminally underrated!!

[OutRun2]

OK, to follow up on my having watched DBZ, I figure I'd put this into it's own thread and give my impressions of Dragon Ball GT.

In a nutshell, LOVED IT! I can honestly say DBGT is nowhere near as bad as most fans claim it to be. I don't know where this reputation even came from. In fact, it's right up there with Z as far as I'm concerned. Sure there are some slow episodes during the first 6 or 7, but once the whole Lood scenario comes into play, and we get introduced to Dr Mu for the first time, things really get going.

I really enjoyed the way things flowed in DBGT. And how Toei sped up the pace a bit while introducing a numerous and variety of different villains. Enjoyed Rild, enjoyed Baby, enjoyed the Evil dragons, and especially loved Dr. Gero and Dr. Mu teaming up to develop Super Android 17. That was badass! Not to mention how awesome it was to see Freeza team up with Cell and go against Goku in Hell. MAJOR props to Toei for that one!

So my question to you guys is this....what's the deal? Why is DBGT considered the bastard child of the Dragon Ball franchise? Why do so many fans thumb their nose at it?

And more importantly...how in the WORLD could this show get canceled because of low ratings in Japan? That is absurd! Were the Japanese audiences THAT burnt out on all things Dragon Ball? Could they not stand to see their hero as a little kid again? Were they bitter at how some things unfolded in the storyline?

The show isn't without it's faults and I personally have a few problems with it:

1)They made Trunks a pussy. Plain and simple. After watching him be such a badass in Z, it seems he all but lost all his will to fight in GT. Sure he goes SSj in GT but not very often and doesn't appear to be the menacing threat he once was when he first arrived on the scene in Z during the android saga. WTF happened to you, Trunks?

2)Fat Buu: this was arguably THE strongest character in DBZ prior to evil Buu, so what happened? In GT, he is nothing but a mere afterthought and doesn't do ANYTHING to stop Baby from ravaging the earth until he decides to fuse with Uub. Which brings me to nitpick number 3.

3)Uub...this guy is supposed to have the strength of Kid Buu and after merging with Fat Buu, he appeared to posses all the abilities as well, save for actually being able to turn his skin into goo/taffy and absorb/reform anything. So what's the deal? Kid Buu was able to literally destroy planets in a nanosecond. So with the same strength and abilities, why wasn't Uub able to kick Baby and Super Android 17's asses to kingdom come? There's no doubt Kid Buu would've torn both of those guys a new asshole. Maybe not Xi Long or whatever that last enemy's name was, but certainly Baby and Super Android 17. I was pretty disappointed to see Uub get the shit beat out of him most of the time. I kept hoping and hoping and HOPING he'd become enraged and do some kind of bizarre transformation into this Kid Buu-looking guy with a thing growing out of his head and red eyes or something, but it never came The only thing I can muster up is maybe his re-incarnation left him with only about half of Kid Buu's strength, but that is a long shot theory on my part.

Other than that though, great show. I actually wonder why they changed the name to "GT". I know Toriyama wasn't involved in GT, but they should have kept the name DBZ. The events in GT are certainly different to those in Z, but the main characters are all there, and everything takes place in the same universe. Characters continue to develop in GT, and we learn certain things in the show that we wouldn't have known in Z. That's why I would've preferred them to keep the name the same. Maybe it was actually the name change itself to "GT", that really irked the Japanese audience and hence the low ratings. What do you guys think

[Darknat]

I really hate DBGT heh


The worst problem is not that goku is a kid again. But the fact that he is always the protagonist and he does not allow any other char to shine.

In DBZ goku was not the one who defeated all the villains.
Trunks killed Freeza, and Gohan killed Cell. Every char had his moment there, but in GT it is all about goku and that's what hurts the story the most.

Another big problem are the fights. There is rarely enough melee combat involved. And every one has this "throw lots of energy balls" move that's really stupid.


Uub and Pan should have been the main characters here as Gohan was the main char in DBZ.

Then we have the plotholes. Like the Dark Star Dragon Balls that the Dragon Radar did not detect ever (and should have since the time Piccolo fused with Kami).
or the Saiyans not going SS2 (and even if they actually did it it was not noticeable because there was no lighting).

Gohan being really weak. Even if he didn't train enough he should have been way stronger.

And I really hate SS4.... there was no need to make another SS form....


and the part were Freeza and Cell team up.... is one of the worst.... Goku should have at least go SS to defeat Cell....

[Humpski]

I absolutely HATE most of the designs for the GT characters. SSJ4 just looks like total ass. Rildo, all the ShenRons and Super 17 with his lack of eyebrows are all ugly beyond compare.

The only ones I actually liked the designs of were Pan and Ubuu(Majuub).

[Jerseymilk]

I'm sorry, but I just can't ever like GT if only for the fact that they relegated Gohan to almost an afterthought and made him really weak. It was ridiculous watching him struggle against a "revived" Rildo. Give me a break.....

[sangofe]

I hate the fact that the fights are super slow in Dragonball GT, plus there is no originality in the story.

[caejones]

The only episode of GT I like... Goten Vs Bebi, and Goten(possessed) vs Gohan. Although I only saw this in the dub... it didn't seem to butcher Goten as badly as I expected (though I can't say I'm happy with any butchering)... the only real problem I had is... "Der, Gohan was strong enough to manhandle a really strong Buu...".

Which, of course, extends to the rest of the series. Goku killed things. And... that's the story. Goku kills things. Well, some good plot ideas actually showed up... but were they really used worth anything? Not really, because Goku has to kill things, and oh yeah, Vegeta is second strongest. What, you didn't know that somehow Gohan gave all of his powers to Vegeta so he could continue to stand the chance of a snowball in Hell against Goku? Pfft...

GT was an appropriate name change. "Goku's time" describes the series nicely.


Though really, I think I prefer not-funi on this one... what the crap were they doing with the music? I mean... was that even music? It makes the Season3 Faulconer arrangement (decent songs, horribly horribly used most of the time) bearable...

*ahem*. I guess it wasn't bad. Just galaxies inferior to its predecessors.

[Kaboom]

Thank goodness for well-thought out, reverent rewrite fanfics, eh?


I'll agree that it isn't necessarily the pus-spewing, vile, pile of refuse that a lot of people make it out to be, but I do know that GT was pretty bad.

The main problems were the innumerable plotholes and inconsistencies, and the over-focus on Goku. And a lot of the character designs were either retarded or ugly.

However, for every, say, three bad things, there was a good thing. Some character designs were pretty cool looking (such as Babi, Super Uub, SSj4, Super 17, and the last three dragons, IMO), several of the fights were very large-scale and epic (Goku vs Rildo, SSj4 Goku vs Babi [the first chunk of it before the animation got crappy], and Goku vs S17...hey, all Goku! Who'da thunk?), and if you step back and look at each of the sagas as a wider concept (Tuffle exacting revenge, disgruntled dragonballs spewing evil dragons), you'll see that they weren't bad in concept. A lot of GT's story problems were a matter of good initial concepts being ruined by terrible execution.

[Darknat]

Thank goodness for well-thought out, reverent rewrite fanfics, eh?


I'll agree that it isn't necessarily the pus-spewing, vile, pile of refuse that a lot of people make it out to be, but I do know that GT was pretty bad.

The main problems were the innumerable plotholes and inconsistencies, and the over-focus on Goku. And a lot of the character designs were either retarded or ugly.

However, for every, say, three bad things, there was a good thing. Some character designs were pretty cool looking (such as Babi, Super Uub, SSj4, Super 17, and the last three dragons, IMO), several of the fights were very large-scale and epic (Goku vs Rildo, SSj4 Goku vs Babi [the first chunk of it before the animation got crappy], and Goku vs S17...hey, all Goku! Who'da thunk?), and if you step back and look at each of the sagas as a wider concept (Tuffle exacting revenge, disgruntled dragonballs spewing evil dragons), you'll see that they weren't bad in concept. A lot of GT's story problems were a matter of good initial concepts being ruined by terrible execution.

I agree with you about the concepts for the story being good. That's true.
But the fights were really bad....
Everyone was throwing those multi blast things that never did any good (unless you were a villain because then those will knock out everybody).
The Battles in DBZ were really good, but in GT they are mostly crap...

The only actual fights I did like in GT were Goku vs Ledgic, Goten vs Baby and some minor parts of the last battle with Omega Shenron.

[Kaboom]

I agree with you about the concepts for the story being good. That's true.
But the fights were really bad....
Everyone was throwing those multi blast things that never did any good (unless you were a villain because then those will knock out everybody).
The Battles in DBZ were really good, but in GT they are mostly crap...

The only actual fights I did like in GT were Goku vs Ledgic, Goten vs Baby and some minor parts of the last battle with Omega Shenron.

I agree. There weren't that many good fights. In my opinion there were only two really good ones...

SSj4 Goku vs Babi (The first chunk) - The first (and only and last) time we were shown just how PURE AWESOME Super Saiyan 4 was. I mean, Goku had been completely helpless against Babi before, and now Babi's punches FREAKING TICKLED. The tables were not only turned, but picked up, flipped over and thrown over the horizon. It was animated and portrayed very well, to boot. About the only GT DVD I'd like to actually own for repeated viewing. Even the dub of that episode or two isn't that bad.

Of course, like I said, I'm only talking about the first half of this fight. About two episodes if I recall correctly. The fight degraded into badly-animated, nonsensical rubbish rather quickly after the initial WOW part I'm talking about.


The second would be Goku vs Super 17. Now, despite how overall crappy and on-big-plothole-ish the saga was in general, once it got to Goku vs Super Seventeen, it was pretty good, IMO. The main reason being that the scale of the battle was on the level it should have been, which so few GT fights were. Goku and 17 were throwing punches hard enough to knock each other across entire continents, for crying out loud. THAT is how it should be at that point.

[Smooth Criminal]

Are you kidding me? The fights are fucking abysmal in GT. They hardly ever use any sort of hand-to-hand combat. It's nothing but mindless power blasts and occasional rat-tat-tat lock ups that are two frames going back and forth.

GT is the definition of low-budget. 85 percent of the time it looks like shit. The plots are almost always non-sensical, any sort of logic (though logic and DB really don't belong together in the first place) needs to be thrown out the window in order to get ANY sort of enjoyment out of the series at all.

There's no sense of excitement, EVER. Goku is an immortal God who miraculously overcomes his enemies just because he's Goku. Can't beat your enemy at full power SSJ4? No problem! Just power down and beat him in your weakest form. How is that possible? Because you're Goku! Hooray!

This show sucks shit.

[Steven Perry]

Are you kidding me? The fights are fucking abysmal in GT. They hardly ever use any sort of hand-to-hand combat. It's nothing but mindless power blasts and occasional rat-tat-tat lock ups that are two frames going back and forth.

GT is the definition of low-budget. 85 percent of the time it looks like shit. The plots are almost always non-sensical, any sort of logic (though logic and DB really don't belong together in the first place) needs to be thrown out the window in order to get ANY sort of enjoyment out of the series at all.

There's no sense of excitement, EVER. Goku is an immortal God who miraculously overcomes his enemies just because he's Goku. Can't beat your enemy at full power SSJ4? No problem! Just power down and beat him in your weakest form. How is that possible? Because you're Goku! Hooray!

This show sucks shit.

[desirecampbell]

I've watched al of three episodes of GT. The one with the doll-cult, the one with Pan dressed up as a bee, and the one where Goku freaks out because there's a spinning fan blade (which isn't even going that fast). I thought, 'maybe he's lost his powers or something? Why would he even flinch at such an underwhelming threat?' And then in the next scene he goes Super Sayain. So no power-loss. The whole giant-world thing was fun, and the doll-cult leader's loli-complex was kind of interesting. But the whole rejection of anything resembling logic killed it for me.

[Xyex]

I love the ideas to GT. Many of them. Not overly fond of the Tuffles but the general concept of someone the Saiya-jins wiped out coming back to kick their asses is a good one. Super 17's kinda meh. But the Evil Dragon's idea was pure genius. Badly executed genius, but genius just the same. And I looooved SSJ4. It's something new (I see it more as a Super Oozaru than an SSJ4, really) and looks badass (aside from Vegeta's mullet, anyway). But the things I didn't like.... oi, where to begin.

Character Designs
Aside from SSJ4 Goku, Pan, Uub, and Omega Shenron they were awful. Goten looks more like Gohan's clone than his younger brother which shouldn't be possible (Gohan's face was based on Chi-Chi's while Goten got Goku's, obviously). And Goten's hair? WTF? Vegeta's hair isn't much better. Bra looks like she's 16 when she's only supposed to be 8. And all the "Pez Heads" Seriously, how do you screw up so many designs for established characters? Bulma, Chi-Chi, Videl, and 18 all looked like crap. 17 looked the same so what the hell's up with 18?

Plotholes out the Wazoo
There's just... so many of them. I guess some could be chalked up to other things than plotholes, but I'll lump 'em together. First, we've got Gohan weaker than hell. Sure, he's not trained, but he should still be at least a little stronger than SSJ3 Goku. He was galaxies beyond him 15 years ago and 15 years isn't enough time to lose that much power.

Then you've got the Super 17 saga where dead people who can't be in Hell come back such as 19, who's purely Android and thusly has no soul to send to hell. On the case of 19, since when did he have a detectabel Ki?

Goku Time!
I'll move on so I don't rant for hours on the plotholes. This is, quite easily, my biggest gripe with the show. If you're not Goku (or Vegeta, helping Goku just to make Goku look more amazing later) you suck. Goten sucks, Gohan sucks, Trunks sucks, Pan never goes SSJ even though she should be able to, Piccolo's pretty much forgotten, Gotenks never shows up... It's all Goku. Goku's nice and all, but even Dragonball wasn't all Goku.

The Fights
The fights I saw were... pretty boring. Now, I've not seen the whole thing yet. But they were all energy blast - dodge - energy blast - dodge - energy blast - block - gimicky move - counter - repeat. And I'll lump this in here too. I hated the pacing. It was way to fast. By the time you think they might be able to make something out of their current plot.... it's over.

[Casual Matt]

Are you kidding me? The fights are fucking abysmal in GT. They hardly ever use any sort of hand-to-hand combat. It's nothing but mindless power blasts and occasional rat-tat-tat lock ups that are two frames going back and forth.

GT is the definition of low-budget. 85 percent of the time it looks like shit. The plots are almost always non-sensical, any sort of logic (though logic and DB really don't belong together in the first place) needs to be thrown out the window in order to get ANY sort of enjoyment out of the series at all.

There's no sense of excitement, EVER. Goku is an immortal God who miraculously overcomes his enemies just because he's Goku. Can't beat your enemy at full power SSJ4? No problem! Just power down and beat him in your weakest form. How is that possible? Because you're Goku! Hooray!

This show sucks shit.

I liked the Baby Arc, and some of the animation was good, and I liked the pacing, but other than that, I agree with Smooth Criminal, here.

I mean, the Baby Arc was the only thing that was really interesting. It was kinda cool to see all the cameos in the Super #17 Arc, and Yi Xing Long was a decent villian, but the Evil Dragon Arc on a whole was pretty boring, sad to say. Fortunately the last episode was still a good ending to Dragon Ball as a whole, IMHO.

[Duo]

Every opportunity the show had to do something amazing, it just shat upon itself even more. We finally see Goku turned Ssj3...and his one punch is dodged and he reverts? Majin Boo shows up. What's he do? Nothing.

Goten and Trunks want to fuse? SCREW THAT.

Ugh...I could even get over how they threw previously established character strengths out the window if they just wrote some good plot or made the fights look cool, like the movies.

[Ex-Dubbie369]

I think that most things about GT have been pretty summed up in this thread.
It had good ideas that could have come out really well but were executed extremely poorly. All four arcs had a good moment that shined out and showed the potential that the concepts had.

The Black Star DB arc had some entertainment by trying to revive the older, funnier style of DB, while still trying to hold the action of DBZ, which failed horribly. It also had the Goku vs. Ledgic fight which was awesome, probably the best fight in the series.

The Bebi arc had brought in the SSJ4 concept which was, IMO, pretty damn cool. I have to agree with Kaboom in he fact that the early half of the fight with Bebi was pretty cool, but could have been done better. I really wished they had done a little more with Piccolo when he died. There was like 10 minutes left in the episode and it was like "Oh yeah, uhh, I'm gonna stay and go boom, so....bye!"

I didn't care for the Super 17 arc or the fight. It bored the shit out of me until that last part with #18 at the end. I definitely think that was the best part of that arc.

The Evil Dragons.......it could have been so good, it was the only original concept that they had for GT, and it was a really good one, but most of the dragons sucked ass. Ii Xing Long should have been so much more of a badass and that last battle should have been so much more titanic. Kaboom, I pray that when your fic reaches the point of that fight that you make it much cooler than it actually was. I just didn't get that "This is really the final battle ever" feeling that should have been there by watching it.

If nothing else, they nailed the last episode which was basically perfect, IMO. it's definitely the episode I watch the most since it was so good.

So there's my rant on GT. It was what it was: Good ideas that turned out like shit with a really good ending.

[SuperSaiyan3Goku]

I don't care what shit people say about GT, I still like it.

I'll admit, the first few episodes of the series are slow to start, but when Myu (spelling) and Bebi arrive, the show really starts to go. I really like Goku's first fight as a Super Saiyajin 4. He looks really bad-ass!

The Super 17 arc was pretty good, but not nearly as good as the final episode of GT. That was by FAR the best ending to one of the greatest Animes ever created.

[SaiyaMel]

Not to mention the characters other than the "chibis", having bigger noses, looks so gay.

[Drunken Master]

GT is weak. Weak plots and weak, flat characters. The "action" and battles are slow and boring. Ki attacks look somehow weak and feeble. There's too much talking and not enough fighting. Super #17 was the best of GT in my opinion, and that lasted...what? A couple of episodes? Even those couple of episodes had many plot holes. How about when Hell breaks loose and villains are everywhere to be seen? Goten and Trunks are talking, then they finish their words, turn around and both blast ki waves behind them killing Android #19. Er...you can't sense androids, and he wasn't even moving, just spying. Can they see...the future!? Wait, wait, wait...How the hell did #19 come back from Hell when he was never alive in the first place?

Edit
(Didn't see your post about this Xyex, I'm glad other people noticed that little tidbit)

See what I mean? Doesn't even have to be a plot hole to not make sense. I remember when Pan and Goku were fighting that stupid pollution dragon, and they both got knocked down into the water. They were sinking to the bottom, and they were both talking and somehow breathing underwater. They stayed down there so long that the situation was just getting stupid. I was hoping that the dragon would win...

Edit
Oh damn, I agree fully with Smooth Criminal.


Oh and yeah, honestly now...Does anyone here really think that Cell and Freeza would actually team up? Cell would kill Freeza just for giggles.

[MagicBox]

Already posted my thoughts when he created this topic on the FUNimation Forums, and a lot of what I think has already been said here, but while I have it all written, I guess I'll post it here.

I really enjoyed the way things flowed in DBGT. Not to mention how awesome it was to see Freeza team up with Cell and go against Goku in Hell. MAJOR props to Toei for that one!

Yeah, major props to Toei for having two major villians do something completely out-of-character by working together and still be defeated by a non-Super-Saiyan Goku. Way to go, Toei! Seriously, Cell and Freeza would never team up, no matter what the circumstances were. They're far too proud to do so. Not to mention the fact that Cell shouldn't even be seeking revenge on Goku in the first place. He should be mad at Gohan, but Cell doesn't mention him even once.

And more importantly...how in the WORLD could this show get canceled because of low ratings in Japan? Could they not stand to see their hero as a little kid again?

They probably couldn't stand seeing their hero get 100% of the spotlight. Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were better because they acknowledged the fact that there were other protagonists besides Goku. In GT, it becomes apparent that it doesn't matter how much training you do or how much you can transform because you will be easily defeated and Goku will rescue you, enter the fight, and effortlessly defeat the enemy in his normal form. Pay attention to the major story arcs in the series. Notice that Goku is the only one that makes a difference.

The Super #17 arc was the worst. Oob, Super Saiyan Gohan, Super Saiyan Goten, Super Saiyan Trunks, and Super Saiyan Vegeta all attack Super #17 at once, and they don't even damage #17 at all. He effortlessly beats the crap out of every single one of them, and then Goku shows up and the fight ends with a non-transformed Goku killing #17 all by himself. It's pathetic, and it sounds like a poorly-written fanfic by a Goku fanboy. His power is far too exaggerated, and it damages the show as a whole.

It's the main reason GT is a bad series. None of the other characters get a chance to shine. Having the same frikkin' person be the hero every single time not only makes the show boring, but also dangerously predictable.

If you pay attention to the fights in DBZ, you'll see that Goku doesn't really defeat a single enemy until he kills Yakon in the Boo Saga. Sure, he plays an important part in every battle, but he never saves the day all by himself.

Raditz: Killed by Piccolo.
Nappa: Killed by Vegeta.
Vegeta: Defeated by Kuririn and Gohan.
The Ginyu Force: All pretty much killed by Vegeta.
Freeza: Ultimately killed by Trunks.
Cell: Killed by Gohan.
Boo: Killed by Goku's technique, Vegeta's idea, and Mr. Satan's help.

See there? That's why DBZ was so exciting. We didn't know what was going to happen or who was going to prevail. It made the show suspenceful. GT was so formulaic that you already knew that the enemy was going to be killed the second Goku arrives. One of the less obvious themes in the franchise is the importance of teamwork. I don't think a single major enemy in DBZ was defeated by just one person alone. Making Goku the only hero also takes away everything he had been training Gohan, Goten, and Oob for in DBZ. Goku knew he wasn't going to be around forever, and he wanted other people to be able to defend the planet. Not in GT, though. Nope.

Characters continue to develop in GT, and we learn certain things in the show that we wouldn't have known in Z.

Wait, characters develop in GT? We learn things about the characters that we never knew before? Can you list a few examples, because I cannot even come up with one.

I actually wonder why they changed the name to "GT". I know Toriyama wasn't involved in GT, but they should have kept the name DBZ. The events in GT are certainly different to those in Z, but the main characters are all there, and everything takes place in the same universe. Maybe it was actually the name change itself to "GT", that really irked the Japanese audience and hence the low ratings.

They changed the name of the show to GT because it's an entirely different series. Everything in Dragon Ball and DBZ was part of Toriyama's storyline in the manga, but GT wasn't, so it doesn't belong in either of the two previous shows. DBZ ended because Toriyama ended the manga; the ending of DBZ is a true representation of how the creator wanted the story to end. Toei was smart enough not to mess with that, so they created a new series for their non-canon continuation.

And also, the name change wasn't the reason the show got low ratings. C'mon, fans are smarter than that. The reason the ratings decreased is because the quality of the series decreased. GT had so much potential and so many cool and interesting ideas, but only a handful of them were executed correctly. In the end, it's predictable, it's boring, the fight scenes were terrible (There's hardly even any real combat; all they do is fire energy blasts!), Goku's strength is too unrealistic, and there are too many plotholes. It's a mediocre side story.

I did like the Baby arc and A Hero's Legacy, though. Those were probably GT's only interesting points. The Baby saga played out very well; it's pretty much just a better version of the Garlic Junior saga. It was fun to see Goten get as much spotlight as he did, and Gohan got quite a bit of action as well. Baby's a very fun villian, and his saga had a plot about as complex as the ones in DBZ. That arc also contains one of my favorite two-parters in the entire trilogy of shows: the episodes where Goku plays that wierd board game against Sugoro and his son. For some reason, I really love those episodes. They bring back something that I felt was sadly missing from most of DBZ: pure Dragon Ball humor.

As for A Hero's Legacy, I think it's one of the better things to come from the anime, simply because of how many formulas it breaks and how likeable Goku Junior is. His main motivation throughout the special - his desire to help a family member - is a feeling that every person has and anybody who watches the special can easily identify with the little guy and care about his problem. It was also very refreshing to see a protagonist in the series that isn't brave, heroic, strong, or anything. It provides great contrast to the "Let's go get'um!" attitude that EVERY OTHER member of his family has, and seeing him finally believe in himself in the ending gave me a great feeling of satisfaction. He's a great character to root for. The only thing I didn't like was him being able to turn into a Super Saiyan, which was too unrealistic for my taste. That's only a minor complaint, though.