What went wrong with GT

 
All right, I'll admit it. When I first heard about DBGT, I was excited. Though I've been known to sometimes complain that the series' length deluded both its quality and popularity, I'm still very much a fan at heart, and a continuation of Toriyama's series sounded pretty exciting, even though there were plenty of reasons to be apprehensive at first. For one major thing, the series' creator and writer, Akira Toriyama, wouldn't be writing anymore, and that was definitely bad, no matter how you looked at it. Furthermore, the series was mainly being made for economic reasons, and that didn't bode well either.

 Still, I opted for the optimistic outlook. Sure, it was being made for money, but so was the latter half of DBZ, and there was some pretty entertaining stuff there. The most daunting thing for the series' potential quality was Toriyama's limited involvement, but I rationalized this. TOEI would be writing for this series, and they occasionally delivered some entertaining filler. I enjoyed many of the movies, and although they don't fit into the series' continuity at all, they're enjoyable as stand-alone films. And hey, if anyone other than AT could write DB, it had to be TOEI, right?

 Oh, how wrong I was.

 The series picks up right where DBZ ended, with Goku and Uub sparring. Not a bad fight scene, but something about it gives me pause, and later on, the seed sown here would go on to overtake the series with sheer bad taste. (More on that later.) After the spar, Emperor Pilaf appears and makes a wish with the Black star Dragonballs, which turns Goku into a kid again.

 A few things:

 1. Dende's wish at the end of Z asked for Porunga to revive only the good people. Pilaf spent his entire life in pursuit of selfish desire. Even if he was more of a clumsy, charming oaf than a truly amoral villain guy, I'm pretty sure Porunga's wish shouldn't have revived him.

 2. Do we really need another set of Dragonballs?

 3. Goku's a kid again, and about to have to go hunting for the black star dragonballs, because of he doesn't find them in one year, Earth will explode. Right.

 Okay, this sounds familiar. Then I realize what was is ostensibly the attempt: to combine elements from DB and DBZ into one hybrid series. It's a great idea on paper, but the execution left a little to be desired, to say the least. Regardless, the next few episodes are actually not too bad, as Goku and the gang scour the Universe in search of the dragonballs. There was a lot of ridiculous humor, which was a plus, as I felt that its absence in the latter half of DBZ hurt the series a bit. Of course, it felt forced at times, but even in its worst moments I never found it to be too grating. Outside of plot-holes and some jaw-dropping stupidities (The death of General Ruudo), the show actually stayed decent up until a certain moment in the Bebi saga.

 Before I go into that, it'd be best to examine Bebi a bit. Here was a villain with an interesting back-story. A sympathetic villain, something you didn't see much of in the DB universe, which was generally a word of moral absolutes with little ambiguity. Bebi wasn't a Cell or Majin Buu-style creation made solely to destroy; he was the last member of his race, desperately trying to survive, gain his revenge, and regain what was taken from him in the only way he could against the insanely powerful Saiyans that took it from him in the first place. Once he arrives on Earth, he defeats everyone in his path and achieves his ultimate goal: the possession of Vegeta's mind and body, son of the man who oversaw his species' destruction. Bebi comments on the irony of this. Good stuff so far.

 Later, Bebi and Goku are fighting on Bebi's recreated home planet, which Bebi made using the black star dragonballs. Fine. At some arbitrary point Goku goes SSJ4 and it seems that Bebi will be killed, when Bulma comes up with an idea that will give him the upper hand in the battle - and allow him to kill the only Saiyan left alive that can oppose him. As for why Bebi didn't just try to posses SSJ4 Goku as he did everyone else...maybe it's better not to ask. Bulma's plan has a problem, though: it will force Bebi to transform into the very same kind of monster that destroyed his old planet, an Oozaru.

 After some inner turmoil and deliberation...Bebi becomes Oozaru, sacrificing and losing himself, becoming the thing he hates most to gain his revenge...and after that, not a single word about the dramatic irony of this. Not. One. Word. In fact, after that, Bebi's character falls apart completely. He starts blowing up his own planet and killing his own people. When asked why, he comes up with no suitable answer, basically saying "just because." If the intent was to show us how far gone his insanity had become, I didn't buy it. It seemed, rather, that the convictions and motivation of the character were thrown to the wind for no good reason at all, and what could've been an excellent twist, showing us the true depth of Bebi's single-minded determination, was instead rendered pointless to prolong the saga.

 From that very moment on, the show only got worse and worse.

 The next saga, Super 17, was mainly based on illogical filler and otherwise only proved how useless everyone else in the central cast was, by having them all simultaneously get effortlessly beaten down by Super 17. It was so effective in proving their relative worthlessness that the majority of cast didn't even bother to show up during most of the final saga, "Shadow Dragons," and even when they did, they contributed absolutely nothing, outside of Vegeta going SSJ4 with Bulma's brute ray. But even then, he still got beat down for the most part, and in the end, it was Goku and his spirit bomb alone which won the day. Again.

 Though the series fell apart toward the end of the Bebi saga, the cracks and chips in its armor had been apparent since its very beginning. And as the series dragged on, these cracks and chips only widened and widened.

 And widened.

 I mentioned that there was some disheartening about Goku's spar with Uub, and here it is: Uub was only barely winning against Goku in his BASE FORM. Uub, who has the power of Kid Buu! That alone is completely ridiculous. There is no form of training on Earth that could have yielded Goku such a massive increase since the end of DBZ, and especially not since he couldn't use the room of spirit and time anymore. This problem will only compound itself later. Goku's SSJ4 form is so stupidly strong that it becomes highly annoying later on. Alone, he does better than SSJ Trunks, SSJ Goten, SSJ Gohan, Ubuu (the fusion of Fat Buu and Kid Buu, which has their combined powers), and SS Vegeta against Super 17. Alone.

One, is the loneliest number that you'll ever do...
Two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one...

 Not only does this make everyone except Goku look like totally superfluous weaklings, but it completely undermines the themes of friendship and camaraderie that were present all throughout the course of the true series.

 It gets worse. Since the series focuses entirely on the Saiyans, with the exception of Uub, all the variety is sliced out of the series, meaning it gets quite boring fast. Beloved fan favorites from days past like Piccolo, Tien, Krillen and Yamcha are nowhere to be seen, in their place annoying, useless new characters like Giru and Pan.

 Just as bad, the remaining characters received horrible treatment. Witness Vegeta's mustache, for example. Or how about the fact that his character development from the Buu saga was completely reset, and he now hates Goku once again and can't stop thinking about beating him? How about Gohan, the guy who was originally supposed to succeed his father? His entire role in this series to to get beaten up effortlessly by whatever baddy happens to be around, and then shout a line or two about how much stronger his father is. He does this twice.

 Obviously, all this de-emphasizing of everyone who wasn't Goku was a grave error. Dragonball has such a large and diverse cast, and with such a huge overall fan base, each fighter had their own group of die-hard fans, and cutting them all out or reducing their roles only served to anger those loyal fans. Were they trying to create a new fan base for Pan? If so, it didn't work out too well. Sure, Trunks was a large part of the early episodes, but then TOEI just went and killed him off too.

 Hindsight being 20-20 and all, perhaps it was a mistake to have hopes for the series in the first place. Though some of TOEI's filler was good, all too often it was obnoxiously bad and even unneeded, only serving to weigh the story down and annoy fans. ("Drag-ON Ball") Stuff like the fake Planet Namek and adventures in Buu ranks high as truly odious and pointless, and more often than not, TOEI's filler introduced large, gaping plotholes into the series, as well as non-storyline related logic errors. (Saiyans breathing in outer space, anyone?)

 TOEI's penchant for creating logic gaps via filler was of course taken to an insane new level in GT. As mentioned earlier, the entire Super 17 saga is based on filler which contradicts official information given in the manga. In this particular saga, many villains come back from Hell, somehow with their physical bodies still intact. If you'll remember, this privilege was only reserved for goodhearted, protagonist warriors. Piccolo, Tien, Yamcha and others received this when they were revived, and ultimately, so did Vegeta, which finally revealed his true moral allegiance once and for all in the Buu saga.

 I think the worst thing, though, is all the wasted potential. TOEI had an infinite number of possibilities and directions to take the story in since there was no manga to adhere to, and what they chose was probably the most boring, standard method of progressing the series of all: just give Goku another SSJ form and let him take care of everything. Again.

 Greed smothers artistic expression; innovation gives way to lazy writers looking to make a quick buck off a popular name/franchise. Hardly a new story. Just too bad it had to happen to a series as well loved and respected in the anime world as Dragonball. If you've never seen any GT, I say check it out so you can form your own opinion, but just be warned: it definitely deserves its bad reputation.

Ten.