Ranked #3562

Dragon Ball GT

Picking up where Dragonball Z left off, Dragonball GT is considered by many as a poor final chapter to the Dragonball franchise. In some cases, they are right, as this is the only series not based off of Toriyama's manga and said manga-ka also had little to do with the series. However, judging it solely on that is unfair, so I'll try to do my best at giving GT a proper review.

The one major thing that Dragonball GT suffers from is an identity crisis. It starts off as a primarily comedy anime with action as a secondary, something that worked very well for Dragonball and occasionally worked here as well. Unfortunately, the series received poor ratings, mainly because everyone wanted more action and less goofing off. At about Episode 17, the focus shifted from comedy to action, and that's also when the plot started to suffer. It's difficult to be original when one uses plot devices that have been seen in so many other anime, not to mention done better. And as well all know, with a lack of originality comes boredom. At least this series is "only" 64 episodes in length, so it's not as much of a chore to sit through as, say, Dragonball Z.

On an more positive note, the art and animation received a nice upgrade. Some of the character designs are a bit iffy, but it's still passable. The music is also rather good, especially the opening, DAN DAN Kokoro Hikareteku, and all four endings. I can safely say that I enjoy listening to all five songs on a regular basis. The fights are enjoyable more often than not, though once again, I've seen better...much better.

It may be far from perfect, but Dragonball GT at least makes an attempt to be entertaining. If you still want to watch, then by all means, go for it. Just don't expect too much, and enjoy the opening and endings as they come. read more

Oh boy, I'm stepping into unholy ground here!
This review will be going into just about every plot hole, very F up, just about everything that is terrible and wrong in DBGT that I can find or remember.

*Just so you know, I am a GIGANTIC DBZ FANBOY, and I do know DBZ isn't "perfect" and yes this review is nothing but a whinny nit-picking troll intended bash fest, so if you hate reading about hate or if you are not familiar with the majority of dragonball and most of the stuff that accurs before GT cause this review will spoil most of the "plot" of GT, then go ahead and click unhelpful *

STORY: Sequels, well they usually give justice to the original, or remind you that the original is as good as it gets.
Dragonball Z, anime franchise king, the big long winded battle, overrated fail, BEST ANIME EVAR!!, whatever your take on DBZ is, you can not deny it's popularity, calling it a household name in Japan (And around the world) is more than an understatement.
Probably the best best comparison I can made is: DBZ is like Mario, everyone knows what is it is.

And of course one thing always happens when a series becomes popular, a sequel is made.
I remember when I found out about Dragonball GT, I went crazy! Fanboying like no tomorrow, but I was young and very easy to impress, and there was a side to me that wished DBZ never ended, and that Goku would continued to beat up baddies and fire Kamehamehas until the cows come home.

But enough of that.
I watched Funimation's version, the one where they skipped the first 20 or so episodes, but that was actually a present in disguise because those episodes were just a laughable gimmacky version of a dragonball search from Dragonball, but instead they're looking around the galaxy for the black star dragonballs!

Stop, I'm not going to ask what's the difference between these black star dragonballs and the original ones cause I don't give a damn, but I want to know why are they there.

From how DBGT explains it, the black star dragon balls were an extra set of dragonballs that Kami, the namekian guardian of the earth before dende, made for no apparent reason.
Hold on... Wasn't the earth destroyed by Kidd Buu? I'll explain this F up, you see when Kidd Buu destroyed the earth at the end of DBZ, they had to use the Namekian dragonballs to bring the planet back to normal... but before that, Super Buu destroyed the lookout(Where Popo and Dende live at), where these balls are said to be.

If memory serves me right, Dende had to recreate the Dragonballs again cause they got destroyed along with the earth... So no one except Dende could've made them, but it's pointed out that Kami made them... Sooooooo yeah, if you look at it this way, DBGT is completely non canon.

Next let's talk about the first major villian, Baby, who's name is impossible to take serious, I mean I laugh every time one of the characters say his name with anger or seriousness.
Baby's er... Babie's (I'm not sure how to write that) story is that he is the last of the race called the tuffles, and that he seeks revenge against the saiyans...
Wait a minute, something like this had already happened, although it was non canon, there was an ova about the last creation of the tuffles trying to get revenge on the saiyans, and said ova was made years before GT.
Unoriginality is one thing, but to use the same concept twice shows that there was no creative thought used in the making of this anime.
Anyway, after Baby gets his ass whooped twice, he goes to Earth and starts to take control of everybodies minds (Except Hercule, Buu, and Uub... and Piccolo). Mainly Vegeta's, and the result of baby taking over his mind? You get the worst named villian of all of Dragonball, Baby Vegeta... probably the least threatening name of a villian next to Buu.

Next up the Super 17 saga... which needs to be renamed the Fan Service saga.
This is without a doubt the most shallow part of DBGT, premise; all hell breaks loose on earth, literally! And the main characters have to go around the world rekilling their old foes (Except Baby for some reason) even the ones from the movies.
Oh my god, once again GT takes a pre existed plot, this time from the DBZ movie Fusion Rebirth, and just switches a few things around like who is fusing into a super fighter, actually both the movie and GT seem to rip off the OVA, cause they all feature villians coming back to life, except the OVA was the one that had the original concept of revived villians for the series.

The main villian this time is Android 17, 2 of them actually that fuse together into a super android named, heh, super 17.
I'm tired of naming similiarites between GT and the movies, cause fusing androids had already been used in the DBZ movie, Super Android 13.
Usual DBZ plot setups accur, super 17 beats every one to death until Goku arrives and Goku uses a last resort attack to beat him. But before any of that happens, two notable things happen:
1. Goku goes to hell and fights Frieza and Cell in a goofy battle, and Goku gets sends sent further down to hell with filler episodes.
and 2, An android 17 that already exists on earth (Which is actually canon, because Krillian, after the Cell games saga, wishes android 17 back to life but this part is pretty easy to over look), kills Krillian just to piss off android 18. This part really irritates me alot actually, just piece together what I said in this paragraph, and you'll understand.

And last but not least, the Evil Dragon saga, which isn't that bad actually.
While the villians revived on the last saga were on earth, their negative energy corrupted the dragonballs making them crack and when they gathered them together to make a wish, instead of shenron appearing, an evil dragon appears and spreads the dragonballs along with 7 evil dragons around the earth.

So Goku and his granddaughter, Pan, basicly just go around killing each dragon and taking each dragonball from each evil dragon, simple and probably the best arc GT has to offer.

But these is where I need to point something out, GT does not know what mood to take, sometimes it gets really serious and dark, then next episode it gets so silly and whimsical that the first dragonball series seems more mature, never does it get into a comforable middle of these moods like DBZ does.

I know I haven't touched everything yet (like super saiyan 4 for instance, or how Goku gets turned into a kid, sigh) but I feel like I have made my point.

Except I will actually admit there is ONE thing and one thing only that GT actually does better than Z.

And that is: The relevancy of the dragon balls, unlike Z where they simply used to bring people back to life, the dragon balls are so important to the plot that three of the major story arcs are heavily affected by the dragon balls, especially the shadow dragons arc.

ANIMATION: I know it's a pre 2000's anime, but even DBZ looks better than most of GT's animation.

SOUND: This is the only thing I'll say it's decent, Funimation's dub cast returns to repraise their roles, making the dub more than tolerable.
Hahahahaha, except the really stupid rap for the opening theme.

OVERALL:
+ It's another dragonball adventure, and dbz fanbase loses its shit.
+ The dragon balls are actually important to the plot.
- Completely unoriginal
- Doesn't know what mood to take
- More plot holes than a fan fiction
- It's another dragonball adventure, and dbz fanbase goes insane (DBAF) read more