Dragon Ball GT is coming to a close. And back in 1997, when these episodes were produced, that meant that Dragon Ball itself would end; Presumably, forever. Dragon Ball GT, which was a barely passable sequel to DBZ up until this point, had the unenviable task of drawing to a close the biggest anime and manga series of all time. A task that, with their current track record of being mediocre at best and offensively terrible at worst, GT was almost certainly destined to fail.
As usual, you can find all my other reviews here: http://dragonblog.net/search/label/review
My rating system works 1 through 3, with 1 being "Poor", 2 being "Good", and 3 being "Great". Keep in mind I'm grading the story against itself, not other things; Dragon Ball is still my favorite, even when I'm critical of it.
Evil Dragon Saga
Rating: Great (3 out of 3)
Story
Here, these episodes are a mixed bag. While you have some episodes bringing their A game, you have others that just look plain awful. Toei, Seigasha, and Shindo animation studios are as great as they ever were, giving us some really striking and beautiful animation. On the flip, Last House limps their way to the final episodes of DBGT, giving us some pretty memorably terrible stuff like the above Key Frame. Doga Kobo's episodes are more hit and miss, rather than outright bad. Luckily though, Last House only animates one vitally important episode, and it still manages to be great despite how shit the drawings are. Oh well.
... But surprisingly, the DBGT team didn't fail. Here's a test. Go find a Dragon Ball Z fighting game. Does it have playable GT characters on it? I bet they're SSJ4 Goku, SSJ4 Vegeta, SSJ4 Gogeta, and Yi Shen Long. There might be some others, but if there's any GT characters on a DBZ fighter, it's those four. Why? Because they're reminders of the one thing DBGT did right.
This fucking storyline.
Because they had overused the Dragon Balls in the past, when Goku and the gang attempt to summon Shen Long to fix the aftermath caused by Hell opening up, the Dragon Balls break open and emit a strange dark energy. This is Minus Energy. It is created when the Plus Energy from the Dragon Balls is used to grant a wish. After a hundred years or so, the Plus and Minus yin and yang will return to normal from a single wish... but when you ask for dozens of wishes within the span of 40 years, and constantly "upgrade" the Dragon Balls without thinking of the consequences... well, the Minus Energy can overload, enveloping the planet that abused the Dragon Balls, destroying it.
Seven Evil Dragon warriors, one for each of the seven Balls, scatter to the four winds and merge with the elements around them. In order to right the wrongs he helped create, Goku leaves to defeat each Evil Dragon in turn, with Pan and Giru in tow. After besting most of them, the strongest Evil Dragon, Yi Shen Long, shows himself and proves to be more powerful than even Goku and Vegeta can handle when they're both Super Saiyan 4.
And it's fucking awesome. The first few episodes have Pan and Goku as equal partners against very fun and unique villains. The fights aren't the typical DBZ formula, but harken back to the Tenka-ichi Budokai days where baddies were often beaten by exploiting a weakness in their style, rather than by overwhelming them with power. Pan excels in these episodes, finally giving her the space to breathe as an equal member of the team. After that, the fun stops with a startling episode where Goku is forced to choose between his precious granddaughter and the Earth itself, and it turns into a emotional rollercoaster from there until the end.
There's maybe three episodes in the lot that I wouldn't give full marks to... Everything else is solid gold. The whole story comes full circle. The villain actually has some moral high ground above our heroes. Goku isn't the only person who is useful. Vegeta is his most brilliant self. Yi Shen Long is a brilliantly fun, well acted bad guy. And you couldn't ask for a more thought provoking finale from fucking Dragon Ball.
Fuck, man. This story is as close to perfect as any show can hope for. My hat is off to the folks who worked tirelessly on these episodes. Fantastic work.
Animation
Here, these episodes are a mixed bag. While you have some episodes bringing their A game, you have others that just look plain awful. Toei, Seigasha, and Shindo animation studios are as great as they ever were, giving us some really striking and beautiful animation. On the flip, Last House limps their way to the final episodes of DBGT, giving us some pretty memorably terrible stuff like the above Key Frame. Doga Kobo's episodes are more hit and miss, rather than outright bad. Luckily though, Last House only animates one vitally important episode, and it still manages to be great despite how shit the drawings are. Oh well.
Music
I am not on any drugs. I have not been drinking. And I'm not messing with you. I like the music. Is it Kikuchi? No, of course not. But it's good. The 10th Anniversary OST by Tokunaga is employed a lot in these episodes, especially his enchanting Shen Long theme. The more generic fluff is scaled down in favor of Tokunaga's more exciting tracks, with an absolutely gorgeous new theme written for the Universal Genki Dama. I don't know how he did it, but he won me over before the end of his run on Dragon Ball. Well done, sir.
The final DBGT ending theme is Sabitsuita Machine Gun by WANDS, and it's probably my favorite in the lot. It doesn't sound like a Dragon Ball song at all, and it isn't really, but it's a beautiful composition nonetheless.
Fights
Bet you thought I wasn't doing these anymore?! Well, that's because the fights in the last three storylines were total shit. Since I'll be moving onto Dragon Ball Kai next, with material I already covered in Z, I won't be ranking fights again. So this is my last chance... until Dragon Ball Super! But you could give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck about that.... LETSRANKEMUP!!!
7. Goku and Pan vs Qi Shen Long (Mole Form)
6. Goku vs Qi Shen Long (Pan Form and True Form)
5. Pan (and Goku) vs Liang Shen Long
4. Goku vs San Shen Long
3. Goku vs Si Shen Long
2. Goku vs Yi Shen Long (Before Vegeta Arrives)
1. Everyone (But mostly Goku and Vegeta) vs Yi Shen Long
Conclusion
It's worth struggling through the other 47 episodes just to see these final 17 (and the TV special, which honestly gets a 3/3 as well). Or just watch these episodes. You won't be missing out on anything half as good as what we're given here. Trust me.
I'm glad you are still doing Kai. It will give you some buffer before moving onto Super. :D
ReplyDeleteMy intention atm is to catch up with everything that has been subtitled officially into English. I wanted to do Super, but having watched multiple fansubs of it, I don't trust that I'll be able to get the most accurate picture of the dialogue - especially key phrasing for moments that will, inevitably, become cornerstones of DB nerd debates. So, I'm going to catch up with the stuff that *does* have official subtitles (Dragon Ball Kai 1-98, the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans 2010 remake) and then do the others as they're released.
DeleteOr I might just disappear for another year without a word. Me and Goku have that in common. :D
Gogeta vs omega best fight of the entery series
ReplyDeleteTwo episodes
Vegito is better in ssj4
Gogeta is non canon
I figured that you found this to be the only good story arc in GT when I noticed the difference in the way you wrote about these episodes compared to the other two arcs.
ReplyDeleteI was not expecting it to get a 3 out of 3 from you, though.
If you honestly think that is somehow better then anything in Super or or most of the Dragonball arcs that rated a 1 or 2 then it is abundantly clear that you are an idiot who's opinion is not worth taking seriously at all. But then that's already obvious as you think early Dragonball was deep and that the 21st century stuff is somehow some great betrayal of the past.
ReplyDeleteLashing out at me won't make Super any less garbage.
DeleteAlthough not the worst of GT I'm surprised to see it get such a positive review, it did have some good animation and good fights but the overall designs of the dragons and story was really generic, with only the water goddess dragon standing out in terms of design and for having a thematic moral connection to the wider story of relying on a magic crutch instead of solving your problems through hard work. The fire and ice dragons were just rehashing the honorable fighter vs the "I will do whatever to get a result" fighter schtick that dragon ball has been using since Tenshinhan and Master Shen and the the 7 star dragon has no motivation beyond spreading evil for the sake of being evil, evil which of course takes the generic form of evil black light energy. Even in a series that has given us such generic enemies as Lord Slug, the 7 star dragon stands out as being generic, he just some random tough guy for goku to punch.
ReplyDeleteIt was a bit of a sad way for the show to go out, as the baby saga although getting off to a bad start with the metal planet rubbish grow into something on par with the best of dragon ball z, with an actaul enemy who had somekind believable motive, at least up until the point that he changed into vegeta's Ozaru form and they decided that he was just going to randomly kill everyone instead.
Not the worst I've seen but not good either.
>story was really generic
Delete>having a thematic moral connection to the wider story of relying on a magic crutch instead of solving your problems through hard work
I guess we have a different idea of what is generic, then.