So I’ve been a fan of everything Dragonball and to some who may be in shock that does include Dragonball GT.  Yes, I can hear a lot of people warning me not to go there, but you know what I’m going there.  Now as a disclaimer whether you love or hate GT I find both opinions of the show to be valid so you’ll get no judgment from me.  Now with that said I think a lot of the hate for the series comes from the fact that it does have glaring flaws and for the most part all of them happen in the first several episodes, but it starts to get pretty good after enduring that.  So today I want to go over what those flaws are and why it has such an impact, but also why I think for fans it negates the valid high notes of the series.

So first I’ll go over the flaws and I will admit they are pretty bad.  The first mistake was to make Goku a kid again while keeping the personality of adult Goku.  Then you have the fact that kid Goku, adult Trunks, and Pan are now traveling all over space to look for the black star Dragonballs, a retconned new set of Dragonballs that were used to make Goku a kid and will destroy the earth if not returned to the planet in a year. There are a lot of problems in that alone.  First of all while kid Goku was an amazing character in Dragonball it was largely due to his over-naive nature some of which was lost when he became an adult and it was enough to make this new kid Goku a far less interesting character.  Plus it’s hard to see Goku as a kid again when you know he can do things like destroy planets and turn super saiyan 3. Then you have the supporting cast.  In Dragonball, you have characters like Krillin and Bluma both of them offer incredible banter.  However, in GT you have a less interesting version of adult Trunks and Pan who wound up being a rather insufferable character who for some reason can’t turn super saiyan.  Then you have the fact that their actions to obtain the Dragonballs took a serious drop in the number of action scenes that we grew used to in Dragon Ball Z and when you put that together you get a really boring set of episodes and there’s enough of them that it proves to be a trial for even the most serious fans of the series.  I know I did it.

Then once the journey for the black star Dragonballs ends the series starts to have some promise.  First is the introduction of Baby an enemy who fights by taking over characters including Vegeta and uses his power to become a serious threat.  This forces Goku to learn a new form called Super Saiyan 4.  Now first of all this sort of reverts the flaw of kid Goku because this transformation instantly makes him an adult again for the duration.  The form itself is also really cool and offers a completely new take on the super saiyan transformation and references previous lore of the series by using the Great Ape form to unlock this transformation.  Something that hasn’t been referenced since the saiyan saga.  After that, the fight between Goku and a Baby possessed Vegeta follows the traditional formula of a Dragonball Z fight so a lot of what we liked about the series was brought back. Then you have the return of the villains arc and well the villains return and you have some really cool dialogue between characters we haven’t seen in a while and that was pretty cool but then you have a new version of Andriod 17 called Super 17 and this was a very memorable villain and the flights were really entertaining to watch.  Plus it’s very clear that regardless of what version of Dragonball you watch if it has Andriod 17 he will be a high note of some kind.

Then you end with the Shadow Dragon arc which in my opinion sadly brings back some of the flaws but has one of the best original ideas of the franchise.  The flaw is that the focus is on Goku in Pan which we’ve already seen at this point makes for a very boring team to watch.  The idea of using the Dragonballs too much actually corrupts them and turns them into evil dragons is a fantastic idea though.  The new concept gives a sense of dread that we haven’t had in the franchise for a while because when a character dies you can no longer infinitely revive them because the method of doing so now has limited uses.  It is a cool idea that not only introduces seven new villains but also changes the tone of the combat.  During this arc, we also get introduced to Vegeta as a super saiyan 4 and a super saiyan 4 fusion which made for very memorable scenes. While not all of the shadow dragons were interesting a few of them made for very entertaining villains.

So knowing the series’ lows and heights what can we say about the overall entertainment value.  Well, it starts off rough because it introduced new concepts that were just very unenjoyable with characters that weren’t that entertaining to watch. Franky if you couldn’t get past this part I can completely understand why.  Then you get past it and GT starts to return to the format we’ve grown to enjoy in Dragonball Z with the high action scenes and a new world-ending threat, but these new enemies come with very interesting twists to the series.   You now have enemies that turn Goku’s allies against him, returning villains with new powers and forms, and villains that turn the entire safety net of the series into the greatest foe they have ever faced.  Then you have incredible new forms for our favorite characters and some unforgettable banter between them.  So as a whole GT was one big creative risk that had some massive fails and successes but the fails were sadly enough to destroy the reputation of the series because a majority of them were right at the start of the series and lasted a while. So if you can get past or better yet skip the horrendous start it is an entertaining show, but looking at it as a whole it is still rough.