Board 8 > saddest thing about the buu saga *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

a literal dragonball topic in 2020

saddest thing about the buu saga

everyone shows up for this tournament and it's actually been a while since we had a serious one. like not at any point in all of dragonball Z did a real tournament take place. and don't say the cell games. the cell games was not a tournament. it was a narrative excuse for cell to have a 1 v 1 battle with the strong opponents he hadn't actually fought yet, instead of having all of the characters gang up on him like they should have done.

the shifting and balance of power is not yet well established and as readers, and for the characters in the story, we really don't know what could happen.

piccolo has gained power, vegeta has gained power, gohan has regressed. these are three of the previously strongest characters. with goku returning from the dead to participate in one last budokai everyone is highly motivated to give it their all and compete on the world stage for the first time in countless arcs -- we have the potential for some great matches and potential toss up victories.

oh yeah. nevermind. let's not do the tournament. let's completely sideline it for a plot about a sentient piece of gum.

aside from toriyama being on crack, what are your least favorite things about the buu saga?

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Not enough vegito
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No, the saddest thing about the Buu saga is that there won't be any DBZA for it.

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Buu saga in general is just disappointing. There are a few decent things in it, but you can tell it really feels like Toriyama just gave 0 fucks about the content. My least favorite part of it is that it spends the bulk of it building up Gohan as the only one who can stand a chance of beating Buu only to throw him under the bus. It wouldve been a great character moment for him if he recalled how his cockiness in the past nearly got the Earth destroyed so he made things right by not toying with Buu, but I guess it wasnt meant to be.

People seemed to have a hard time understanding the futility of punching a regenerating pink djinn.
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it is weird how the tournaments in dragon ball just kind of... disappear as the story goes along. maybe toriyama just got sick of them.

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The only correct answer to the question is Gotenks
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gotenks is probably the best part of the buu saga

mystic gohan and vegito both being wasted is the worst part of it
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The buu saga had the worst UMS in StarCraft BW so that's why it's my least favorite

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a lot of terrible decisions but i appreciate that he was going for something fresh. some cool ideas and great moments are mixed into the garbage well enough to keep things interesting

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I think the android saga was the peak of what he was actually able to accomplish from a story-telling perspective so with this he just said "fuck it" and threw every cool idea he'd ever had onto the page with little regard for how to make it make sense as a story

like Brohan said, it was a mess, but there were a lot of REALLY cool moments in there. Vegeta's Pride. Vegeta's Sacrifice. SSJ3. Gotenks. Mystic Gohan. Vegito.

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ChichiriMuyo posted...

the saddest thing about the Buu saga is that there won't be any DBZA for it.

this might actually be the truth. DBZA is so good. they might have even been able to make the buu saga great.

swordz9 posted...

My least favorite part of it is that it spends the bulk of it building up Gohan as the only one who can stand a chance of beating Buu only to throw him under the bus. It wouldve been a great character moment for him if he recalled how his cockiness in the past nearly got the Earth destroyed so he made things right by not toying with Buu, but I guess it wasnt meant to be.

that is pretty sad, yeah. I don't love Gohan as a character, but I wonder how much of that is -because- he was thrown under the bus like this?

KingButz posted...

The only correct answer to the question is Gotenks

yeah I hated all of the stuff with gotenks so I can't really argue against this either. it was just so silly, but not in a good way. it was like he wanted to recapture the magic of goku being overpowered in early dragonball as a child, but the level of power scaling has gone through the roof at this point. even putting aside the idea that gotenks was meant as a precursor to show us how much of a power boost can be gained through fusion... it just, doesn't work. because fundamentally, goten and trunks should NOT have been as strong as they were.

like, it diminishes so much of the narrative that these kids were basically born already able to go super saiyan. what even is a "super" saiyan anymore at this point?

ExThaNemesis posted...

I think the android saga was the peak of what he was actually able to accomplish from a story-telling perspective so with this he just said "fuck it" and threw every cool idea he'd ever had onto the page with little regard for how to make it make sense as a story

like Brohan said, it was a mess, but there were a lot of REALLY cool moments in there. Vegeta's Pride. Vegeta's Sacrifice. SSJ3. Gotenks. Mystic Gohan. Vegito.

the last few tournaments in dragonball are all fantastic, and the saiyan saga just raises the stakes and everything gets even better. namek continues to be awesome and culminates in the battle against freiza which is also done super well.

I don't know if I'd call the android saga the peak, but I do agree it was done really well (and I'm actually MORE into the android saga lately than I used to be). but it really was just another great arc near the end of a long stretch of fantastic arcs. I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying at least, and it's crazy to watch how the show diminishes in quality so rapidly after all of this.

the vegeta stuff is pretty good. the issue is how it's buried under all of the other crap.


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Vegeta put it best

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xflI5gkF8Ns

Pretty much any Saiyan can go Super Saiyan easily these days. Goten and Kid Trunks were still the worst with it though. Kid Trunks never has his first Super Saiyan transformation even explained and I think Goten went Super Saiyan because his mom slapped him XFD what a joke. The worst part is they literally never do anything with either of them. Goten just exists as Gotenks fusion material and Kid Trunks aint much better off either.

IMO I think goten's actually makes a bit of sense when you examine the nature behind the SSJ Transformation. It's born out of desperation, and goten is a small child who doesn't like to fight who's getting attacked by his mom and sees no other way out. Though it's not to the level of Gohan's ssj2 scene, imo there is a bit of the same elements of a kid being forced to fight and they just don't understand why. Goten was probably scared out of his wits even though all we got was a short flashback. Even moreso because at least gohan was raised around fighters and simply thought cell was out of his league. Goten wasnt' raised in a time of battle AT ALL so he has even less desire to fight than gohan did at that level.
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nah super saiyan goten and trunks is wack

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I don't think you can have a normal tournament with the main characters at that point. They can fly and shoot ki blasts that can casually destroy the whole stadium. They would have to be fighting nerfed or like in the sky where no one can see them anyway. They already destroyed the ring out rules once they learned to fly, something that was already true at the end of dragonball but didn't really become the norm till after.

The most disappointing part of the arc to me is that Majin Boo clearly had a character arc. It was the typical incredibly powerful being that was ultimately innocent at heart. The Z warriors failed to defeat it with brute force, but what's this...Mr. Satan is befriending it! And the dog too! It should have been brand new space for storytelling in Dragon Ball...but then the REAL boo eventually shows up, is pure evil, and the characters have to muck around for a while until it's dead.

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Count me as ok with Trunks and Goten, because it's ultimately unsuccessful and I think getting the two children characters fighting (as in the fused gotenks and the childlike boo) is more important than some logical consistency. I think you'd have to be already bothered that the all SSJ transformations have been outscaled already.

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I always wanted a movie where Goku and the other heavy hitters were off somewhere and (weaker) guys attack the Earth and it's up to the Z-Team with maybe Piccolo and Android 18 being the strongest around.

PerfectChaosZ posted...

I always wanted a movie where Goku and the other heavy hitters were off somewhere and (weaker) guys attack the Earth and it's up to the Z-Team with maybe Piccolo and Android 18 being the strongest around.

Bio Broly is a thing, you've got the kids, 18 and krillin vs ****in broly (but severely weakened)

Also I dunno about a movie but isn't this basically the garlic jr saga?
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the filler tourney battle with pikon was p neat
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Which is worse?

Goten and Trunks achieving SSJ with minimal effort or Kefla and company doing it via back tingles?

ShatteredElysium posted...

Which is worse?

Goten and Trunks achieving SSJ with minimal effort or Kefla and company doing it via back tingles?

Caulifla doing it
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Yeah but I meant more like Videl and cop Krillin and Tien have to fight, not the kids, no saiyans at all.

Emeraldegg posted...

Caulifla doing it

Oh right, that's her name. Kefla is the fusion.

I think the more ridiculous part of Caulifla doing it is not just the staggering ease and stupid oversimplification. It's that Goku then talks her through other stages during the tournament in such a quick timeframe. Meanwhile there's never even an attempt to get Gohan to blue where who knows if he can mix it with the Mystic form.

To be fair I don't think Gohan cared enough to try for Blue considering her wasn't even training anymore.

But Caulifla and the back tingles is just, weird.

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PerfectChaosZ posted...

Yeah but I meant more like Videl and cop Krillin and Tien have to fight, not the kids, no saiyans at all.

The Saiyans are the vast majority of the focus and always will be whether theyre heroes or villains. Its sad to say, but a lot of people simply would not care if there was an arc or movie without them. Makes me miss the days of Dragon Ball.

gimme some far future era dragon ball

after majin buu splits off a female buu and they go on to populate a whole species

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Grimlyn posted...

gimme some far future era dragon ball

after majin buu splits off a female buu and they go on to populate a whole species

Xenoverse

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swordz9 posted...

The Saiyans are the vast majority of the focus and always will be whether theyre heroes or villains. Its sad to say, but a lot of people simply would not care if there was an arc or movie without them. Makes me miss the days of Dragon Ball.

Honestly it's why I prefer rewatching db over z

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Man no one actually wants to see Yamcha and Tenshinhan adventures. They fell out of importance because they're less interesting than Vegeta and the main character and his son!

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pjbasis posted...

Man no one actually wants to see Yamcha and Tenshinhan adventures.

I do!

also did MWC die or something


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pjbasis posted...

I don't think you can have a normal tournament with the main characters at that point. They can fly and shoot ki blasts that can casually destroy the whole stadium. They would have to be fighting nerfed or like in the sky where no one can see them anyway. They already destroyed the ring out rules once they learned to fly, something that was already true at the end of dragonball but didn't really become the norm till after.

I think it's fine. The tournament just needs to be the characters taking turns fighting each other in a bracket format. It's for us, the viewers, not for the audience in the stands. We already had matches in Dragonball where the viewers in the audience couldn't even follow the action because it was moving too fast.

Whether they fight inside of a ring or not is less of an issue, I'm more just interested in seeing the tournament arc used as a narrative device -- something we sorely missed out on.

pjbasis posted...

I think you'd have to be already bothered that the all SSJ transformations have been outscaled already.

believe it or not, this DOES describe my exact feelings. I already thought it was stupid that Gohan had such an easy time going SSJ as a kid just by training in the hyperbolic time chamber. him going SSJ2 and defeating Cell felt incredibly forced and unearned. and this is coming from someone who read the entire manga just two years ago, so this is all still fresh in my mind.

I know the story is that Toriyama wanted to phase out Goku and replace him with Gohan, but then had to bring Goku back later on because fans weren't happy with Gohan as the protagonist. I don't know how true this rumor actually is, but I can say that I personally felt pretty unsatisfied with Gohan's sudden rise to power and everyone accepting that he was the only hope for defeating Cell. especially when you remember he was 11 at the time.

yes, Goku was powerful at 11. but he wasn't the most powerful. and he was nowhere near THIS powerful.

Tom Bombadil posted...

also did MWC die or something

I legitimately don't think MWC has ever responded to a post I have made in any topic. whether he has me on ignore or he just manually ignores my posts, I don't know.

PerfectChaosZ posted...

Yeah but I meant more like Videl and cop Krillin and Tien have to fight, not the kids, no saiyans at all.

also joining in with this response. the bio broly thing sounds cool on paper, but then they tie it in with the crappy super saiyan children characters that I -DON'T- want to see. honestly I'd rather get a movie or an arc where Vegeta has a chance to shine and doesn't have to settle for the second place jobber role. the last thing I want to see is overpowered child characters forced into the spotlight when characters like Piccolo and Vegeta were neglected and underused.


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MariaTaylor posted...

believe it or not, this DOES describe my exact feelings. I already thought it was stupid that Gohan had such an easy time going SSJ as a kid just by training in the hyperbolic time chamber. him going SSJ2 and defeating Cell felt incredibly forced and unearned. and this is coming from someone who read the entire manga just two years ago, so this is all still fresh in my mind.

I know the story is that Toriyama wanted to phase out Goku and replace him with Gohan, but then had to bring Goku back later on because fans weren't happy with Gohan as the protagonist. I don't know how true this rumor actually is, but I can say that I personally felt pretty unsatisfied with Gohan's sudden rise to power and everyone accepting that he was the only hope for defeating Cell. especially when you remember he was 11 at the time.

I wouldn't call it a sudden rise to power though. Him having this dormant, latent power was foreshadowed from the very beginning of DBZ during the Raditz fight. The Time Chamber training was the first time Gohan likely had any serious training (and no I personally dont' think the pre-android 3 years counts, as we saw Goku and Piccolo mainly training amongst themselves and gohan butts in. Since he's still a child at this point and Goku doesn't seem aware of his hidden power, I doubt Gohan got much run in this timeskip. Likewise, the year between the saiyan saga gohan was stupid young and piccolo's training consisted of throwing him to the dinosaurs and hoping he lived.) Goku went into the time chamber with every intention of beating cell himself, but once Gohan started making huge strides due to actual training, Goku pivoted and placed his hopes on him.

It may have been rapid, but I felt it was far from unearned or forced. This to me was the payoff of many arcs of foreshadowing. Besides, it's not even the first time gohan made a rapid jump, as iirc his power level more than doubled in the single year between Raditz and the Saiyan Saga, and he was even younger then.
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MariaTaylor posted...

I know the story is that Toriyama wanted to phase out Goku and replace him with Gohan, but then had to bring Goku back later on because fans weren't happy with Gohan as the protagonist. I don't know how true this rumor actually is, but I can say that I personally felt pretty unsatisfied with Gohan's sudden rise to power and everyone accepting that he was the only hope for defeating Cell. especially when you remember he was 11 at the time.

yes, Goku was powerful at 11. but he wasn't the most powerful. and he was nowhere near THIS powerful.

Goku was incredibly powerful at 11, Gohan was more powerful because everyone in the story was more powerful, and if Gohan was just Goku level he wouldnt have a place in the story.

Anyway, obviously its purely anecdotal, but I remember everyone being hype as hell about Gohans potential when I was a kid.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Goku was incredibly powerful at 11, Gohan was more powerful because everyone in the story was more powerful, and if Gohan was just Goku level he wouldnt have a place in the story.

Even this has a reason in story besides "just to make the story work" since a saiyan's defining trait is getting stronger after undergoing intense physical strain/injury/etc.
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Goku basically was the Gohan of DB power wise. Its just that things were scaled way back in comparison, but even as a child/teen Goku defeated assassins, ninjas, an entire army, aliens and basically became the strongest person on the entire planet.

Emeraldegg posted...

It may have been rapid, but I felt it was far from unearned or forced. This to me was the payoff of many arcs of foreshadowing.

I understand feeling this way, I just totally disagree. I think Gohan's character is pretty whack honestly. like the entire point of the Saiyan and the Freiza saga -- the entire point of the introduction of Power Levels -- was to display the narrative foil between Goku and the Freiza empire. how Saiyans had their power levels measured at birth, and their worth to society was pre-determined.

Goku, this saiyan who was discarded, due to his lack of potential, was able to rise up and become the legendary Super Saiyan that Freiza always feared... because Freiza just didn't "get" it. he thought that your innate power, how you were born, meant EVERYTHING, and like Vegeta and all of the Saiyans, and everyone else in this empire, they had a blind spot toward how a "weak" planet like earth could produce such powerful fighters despite their lack of innate power from birth. the fact that Goku was raised on such a planet was a blessing in disguise because he learned many things that you could never learn as part of Freiza's empire.

oh, but Gohan? yeah, he was born with this immense power deep inside of him that was always going to make him powerful. it just spits in the face of the entire two arcs that came before it. it says that Gohan's worth WAS pre-determined. just because it was foreshadowed doesn't mean that I have to be satisfied with it. foreshadowing is not the only aspect by which we gauge the quality of writing.

lastly, while Gohan reaching super saiyan in the hyperbolic time chamber might not seem as bad as some of the later examples, it's still a case of someone reaching that status with no real impetus. he just trained really hard in isolation and reached an emotionally volatile state which Goku could only achieve by watching his best friend murdered before his eyes. Gohan was the gatekeeper, and he opened the door for all of the bullshit discount super saiyan transformations that came after him. I just cannot be happy with this, personally.


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MariaTaylor posted...

yes, Goku was powerful at 11. but he wasn't the most powerful. and he was nowhere near THIS powerful

Yo but gohan was doing things like that since Raditz showed up. He was gonna take part in the fight against the Saiyans and had bursts of power throughout Namek. I think it was foreshadowed enough.

I see you've addressed this already.

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pjbasis posted...

I think it was foreshadowed enough.

MariaTaylor posted...

foreshadowing is not the only aspect by which we gauge the quality of writing.

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I dont think you can blame Gohan for that. Vegeta and Trunks were able to become Super Saiyans before him. Vegeta literally just because he was pissed off at himself and Trunks just casually went Super Saiyan the first time he appeared for cool mysterious new character factor. Gohan didnt become a Super Saiyan until quite a while after those two. I agree his first transformation was lame since it wasnt used for anything special like a great battle or character moment though. I guess once Toriyama came up with Super Saiyans he felt he had to make them all reach it and you can tell over time his writing got lazier as if he just didnt care at all anymore. That ultimately peaked with the Buu arc which is just fucking terrible and all over the place writing wise. It sets Gohan up, throws him under the bus, brings back Goku and ultimately lets the biggest joke on planet Earth actually play a huge part in saving the universe. It really feels like a huge middle finger.

MariaTaylor posted...

I understand feeling this way, I just totally disagree. I think Gohan's character is pretty whack honestly. like the entire point of the Saiyan and the Freiza saga -- the entire point of the introduction of Power Levels -- was to display the narrative foil between Goku and the Freiza empire. how Saiyans had their power levels measured at birth, and their worth to society was pre-determined.

Goku, this saiyan who was discarded, due to his lack of potential, was able to rise up and become the legendary Super Saiyan that Freiza always feared... because Freiza just didn't "get" it. he thought that your innate power, how you were born, meant EVERYTHING, and like Vegeta and all of the Saiyans, and everyone else in this empire, they had a blind spot toward how a "weak" planet like earth could produce such powerful fighters despite their lack of innate power from birth. the fact that Goku was raised on such a planet was a blessing in disguise because he learned many things that you could never learn as part of Freiza's empire.

oh, but Gohan? yeah, he was born with this immense power deep inside of him that was always going to make him powerful. it just spits in the face of the entire two arcs that came before it. it says that Gohan's worth WAS pre-determined. just because it was foreshadowed doesn't mean that I have to be satisfied with it. foreshadowing is not the only aspect by which we gauge the quality of writing.

lastly, while Gohan reaching super saiyan in the hyperbolic time chamber might not seem as bad as some of the later examples, it's still a case of someone reaching that status with no real impetus. he just trained really hard in isolation and reached an emotionally volatile state which Goku could only achieve by watching his best friend murdered before his eyes. Gohan was the gatekeeper, and he opened the door for all of the bullshit discount super saiyan transformations that came after him. I just cannot be happy with this, personally.

I have 2 points I disagree with:

First, I don't really think Gohan was predestined to reach this power. Goku was able to nurture it and allow it to grow, and before that happened it's not like Gohan's power was some sort of instawin card. We see him help beat raditz and then...do nothing to Nappa, fail to really hurt stage 2 frieza, almost get killed by stage 3 frieza, at-best stall final form frieza, and then finally reach his potential against cell. And if there's any doubt to this claim, I'd personally point to Future Gohan, who we see reach SSJ but ultimately fall to the androids and thus amount to nothing because he never reached his potential. Did he have more innate talent that Goku (who despite his hard work, imo still had plenty of latent ability himself)? Sure. But that doesn't mean he was ever going to be a shoo-in to surpass Goku without the same sort of proper training that Goku was given. He still had to work for it. He may not have had the exact same amount of life-threatening injuries and battles that Goku went through, but he was no slouch himself.

I also disagree that Gohan had no real impetus, if you listen to his short monologue right when he turns SSJ, it's clear that his failings as a warrior in previous arcs have weighed heavily on him, it's just that the saga in general doesn't focus on Gohan until the cell games, so it's not given as much focus as Goku's rise to SSJ. Goku may have watched his best friend get murdered, but Gohan's trigger was arguably just as effective as not only was he envisioning the same happening to him, but he's still a child so such events would be affecting him even more than they would a grown man like Goku. Add on top of that the pressure he felt to live up to his dad's expectations (another common issue many people in real life struggle with) again exacerbated by his young age, and I think his impetus--while not as actually terrible as goku losing krillin--was probably just as bad if not worse to him specifically because of the reasons I laid out.
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Vegeta's transformation isn't great either but at least it was revealed for the first time in a cool way. Future Trunks transformation was directly from the result of Future Gohan dying.

I mean, I think liking gohan is fine. if you like him I'm not going to stop you. I'm just explaining why -I- don't like him, and it has nothing to do with whether or not he was foreshadowed.


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MariaTaylor posted...

Vegeta's transformation isn't great either but at least it was revealed for the first time in a cool way. Future Trunks transformation was directly from the result of Future Gohan dying.

I mean, I think liking gohan is fine. if you like him I'm not going to stop you. I'm just explaining why -I- don't like him, and it has nothing to do with whether or not he was foreshadowed.

Yeah don't get me wrong, just cause I disagree, I'm not trying to come at you for reals or anything. Just a healthy debate.
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That is a good point about future gohan being weak, though. You can still chalk it up to him failing to reach his innate potential, but at least it does show that he wasn't going to become strong "no matter what." Heck, the androids of the future were even stated to be weaker!


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I dunno if the manga is different, but the first time you ever see Trunks as a Super Saiyan in the anime series is when he makes Frieza look like a joke. Sure his first real transformation is that iconic moment when Future Gohan dies, but its not what you see first in the anime series at least. Its like Vegeta where his first happened off screen so the one you really see for the first time is after the fact instead of in the moment. Only Goku got that for the standard Super Saiyan transformation and even then he literally let the dude who murdered his friend live even knowing he would never change and was a heartless monster that thought nothing of life aside from his own.

Gokus character bugs me the most in the series. As a kid he killed villains who were way less evil than the villains Z had and yet in Z he constantly lets people who murdered his friends live and even gets angry when somebody kills one of the villains. It makes no sense at all and his character only gets even worse as the series advances. By Super he is probably worse than most of the villains even and yet nearly everyone in universe treats him like some great guy even though he lets genocidal monsters live because theyre fun to fight. By all rights despite having saved the world countless times Goku is also a monster who cares more about the thrill of the fight than actually being a good person as an adult

dbz always gets the people going

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I always liked that Gohan's biggest impetus was actually what 16 says to him.

Too lazy to search for the quote but I read it that 16's gentle personality is what resonated with Gohan more than anybody he knew.

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There is literally no good reason why kid Trunks was able to achieve Super Saiyan more easily than Future Trunks

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