"In dragon ball, iconography is not sacred" Cut to Dragon Ball Super where Vegeta is back in his most well recognized Sayian armor, and Krillin has less hair and somehow gained the six dots back.
Vegeta immediately backtracked on that whole "I'll never fight again" thing, huh? I know you have a problem with Majin Vegeta, based on your comments during Vegeta's stunt with Cell in the previous arc, but I always thought that was kind of a sensible mid-life crisis for a guy who was going from genocidal warlord to domesticated father (even if he didn't seem to have any issues with being a father prior to the transformation). But here, he goes back on his promise to never fight again because... Saiyans, I guess! I'm kind of jumping the gun with this comment, so I might just mention it on the relevant video later when it's uploaded, but I think it would've made more sense if Gohan stayed at Cell Arc level strength and *Vegeta* was the one to have gotten weaker. He hasn't fought again since Cell. He's goaded into going along to the tournament by Goku or Gohan, and wants prove to himself that he still has it. But the more he sees how Gohan and Goku have improved, the more insecure he feels about the whole thing, resenting his family and life choices for making him weaker until Babidi takes advantage of those feelings. I think that'd have been a better Super Saiyan 2 transformation set-up for Vegeta than "And then he got it off-screen somehow. Don't worry about it."
This entire arc doesn't handle Vegeta great. His rematch with Goku and Vegeta's sacrifice are entirely pointless. Buu saga is a mess and doesn't feel it has a direction.
That is again why the anime is better. You can always act like Dragon Ball Z Movie 9 Super Saiyan Gohan is part of the main story since it doesn't contradict anything major.
Honestly I always hated the idea that Super Sayian 2 is some new upgrade state that Vegeta and Goku just suddenly were able to "unlock". It was SUPPOSED to be Gohan just finally awakening to his hidden potential that allowed him to headbutt Raditz into submission as a toddler, but remain fully in control and aware during it, WHILE ALSO being in Super Sayian mode Saying its just a generic power up after all that every sayian theoretically has access to takes away what made it important and special for Gohans big moment.
@@randomfox12245 Yeah, SSJ2 kinda felt more like a "true" Super Saiyan for Gohan before it was given an official name. I like to think that's why his appearance actually changes significantly when he goes SSJ2 during that arc in contrast to his initial SSJ transformation.
@@randomfox12245 I have to agree on that, especially since the Cell Arc was largely about refining the already existing Super Saiyan form into a more usable state, not just outright replacing it with a 2.0.
I really wish Toriyama had committed to the Great Saiyaman persona instead of dropping it so quickly. There was so much potential there to take Dragon Ball into a widely new direction.
@@gavinlucas9761 Agreed, I know part of it was so Toriyama could write more of the manga, but watching the Great Saiyaman in the anime makes you feel like they actually liked the character and was gonna milk it as long as they could.
Oh yeah, It's pretty obvious that Toriyama started this arc with an idea in mind, but quickly changed his mind and went back to his old tricks afterwards. As you've mentioned, he goes to the effort of establishing a new setting and a new support cast for Gohan, and then quickly abandons it. I have to wonder if Shonen Jump and his editor didn't play a role in that particular decision.
His editor didn’t really seem to care, he was the most lenient Toriyama ever had so he didn’t seem like the one to force changes unlike his predecessors that kept making Toriyama change the villains and there designs in the Cell arc.
I think it was outside pressure. Fans didn’t like the abrupt change. Personally I don’t like it either, but I am curious what he had in mind. Maybe someone can do a spin-off series exploring the idea further… call it my saiyan academia. Part of me thinks he quickly realized that gohan didn’t have any real challenges as a superhero. Watch him easily stop muggers and bank robbers week after week while he righteously encourages kids to drink their milk, and don’t bleach your hair.
@@chrisblanc663 I hear in Dragon Ball Online Gohan was like a ki scholar or something. I guess he could introduce ki, aliens and all that shit to the world.
The 'next generation feel' is something WE GOTTA POWER tried to use... and it succeeded. That shot of Gohan on his (extremely underrated) battle gi, flanked by Piccolo and Vegeta with Trunks and Goten preparing a kamehameha before they all explode into a burst of energy... it was a pretty strong image. It really made me wonder of how they were going to interact in the future. And this timeskip? Hell, it felt *right* in the anime because outside of japan there was a big gap between the end of the cell arc and the start of the majin buu arc. I remember watching it for the first time and really getting into it. Really, the first third of the majin buu arc was extremely enjoyable to me as a kid, and it still is. It's a shame it all melted so quickly and so messily.
What are you talking about? The rest of the Buu Saga is pretty good. It's only bad for Gohan fans, sure, but aside from that the comedy and the fights are on point. Plus really good character development for Satan and Vegeta. Oh and Buu is the only villain in Z that actually has layers to his character.
Same. Alongside the Saiyan Saga, this was the most enjoyable part of DBZ as a kid and even now, just seeing the characters being like a big chaotic family that have been through a fuck ton of crazy shit over the years, and are now reminicing while the new generation is discovering it all over again, sad that most of the early Buu stuff is of no consequence, especially Videl :( i really liked her.
@@JackOfen good character development for vegeta isn’t this the arc where he off screen becomes domesticated only to snap and murder people just so he can fight goku?
@@feelgoodfandom5353 Was he ever domestic tho? Or did he just become docile because Goku was gone? what I mean is, by the end Vegeta finally accepts Goku as the better one and you could even call them friends. Well, at least until GT's Shadow Dragon Saga and DB Super reversed his character.
This is groundbreaking, he actually praised Resurrection F! On another note, this is very obvious and you already know this, but i like how the anime staff decided to give the Great Saiyaman a more lenghty portion of the story spending more time with Gohan as a superhero, when i first watched it, i felt how much time it passed in a more genuine manner than when i read the manga years later, they extended that time period of the story in a way that when Goku talks to Gohan and Vegeta again, it feels like an old friend is finally coming back (though, yeah, as a whole, the Buu arc is just as messy in anime form, if not worse, with all that nonstop fighting that doesn't matter, but this early parts of this story are very enjoyable for me). And besides that, the moment where Videl discovers Gohan is way more dramatic in the anime and has more going for it, but still i like the joke in the manga where he gets discovered in seconds. I know that they did this because they wanted to keep the manga ahead, instead of serious concern for the storytelling, but the end result i find it to be more enjoyable...until the fight with Evil Buu starts, then it gets stupid.
@@shenanigans8353 Yeah, it's just five episodes, but they expanded the story in a way that it didin't feel like it was a waste of potential, at least for me, they worked very well with what they had.
@@prometheusmodelow8322 Personally I enjoyed it as a popcorn arc where you can enjoy the fights and enjoy as villain be in canon form again (until the ruined that by having him come back again and again afterwards.). The only part I thought was really stupid was reintroducing Captain Ginyu again, like not only did that ruined any build up to the other guy (I forgot his name), but it becomes extra pointless as he doesn’t do much else but beat Gohan and crew up in the new body and then just dies from Vegeta in one shot. All it did was just make a pointless cameo and just seemed to pad out that short arc.
@@brandonlyon730 Well, i had fun with the movie itself, even if it did backtrack Vegeta's character development in regards to his relationship with Goku, but the arc itself was utter trash for me, not only did we get the same story twice, but with Ginyu's filler appereance and much worse animation and pacing, it just didin't translate well at all into an actual story arc.
I've recently been rereading Dragon Ball and I'm stunned to see how much of it was improved by anime filler. Specifically the Piccolo Daimao and 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai Arcs. I don't think this is really a case of it being outright improved, but I do really like what the anime does here with making more episodic Great Saiyaman episodes. Comparatively it's a massive shame how quickly that's dropped here.
Yeah, it's not much but I honestly really like Darkness. It's interesting that Goku has to go on an emotional journey inside of one of Korin's jars. It really reinforces the magical element of the series that Korin just shoves Goku in a jar and he's teleported into a cave. I love it because it also gives Yajirobe more screentime and lets their dynamic play out. It's way better and really rounds out the story. I've somehow missed this dissection series and only discovered it like 3 days ago and have been binging. I was a bit taken aback by the low score of The Daimo arc but I can see why it received such a low rating. That absolute same plot element in Korin's tower offered with no changes other than real sacred water this time drags the story down a lot because it doesn't feel in line with the story. One thing that I realised in my most recent watchthrough of the anime is that it's not really training that powers the characters up in the story but adventure, and it feels a lot better as the audience member to have Goku go on one last little journey before he confronts Piccolo.
I really wish Toriyama explained what he meant when he said it didn't work out. What about it was the problem? The school setting? The superhero stuff? The new supporting cast? I think it's because Goku's more static nature as a character makes him easier to write. He fights, he eats, he likes his friends, he dislikes bullies. For most characters in fiction that would be the first draft of character traits, but for Goku that's mostly it. That's not a bad thing, mind you; some characters simply don't change and have the world and people around them change and evolve. Gohan, on the other hand, is more dynamic. His relationships with the new and old cast, his desire to have a normal life contrasting his strong sense of justice, his lack of desire to fight (or the way I see it, his lack of desire to fight in life or death situations) all require a lot of care to not screw up. I think Toriyama felt like even he could pull a decently written story about Gohan's school day out of his ass, so he went back to Goku and the old cast while updating them(well, some of them) to the new setting. Could the new status quo have worked? Who knows? I enjoyed the small bits of it we got, and I think Toriyama could have gave Gohan a bit more time before giving Goku his protagonist status back.
"I think it's because Goku's more static nature as a character makes him easier to write. He fights, he eats, he likes his friends, he dislikes bullies. For most characters in fiction that would be the first draft of character traits, but for Goku that's mostly it. That's not a bad thing, mind you; some characters simply don't change and have the world and people around them change and evolve." could you be any more wrong? there was more to goku than that and DID change over the course of the story, dragon ball its a martial arts shonen battle manga, gohan doesn't work because he doesn't care about martial arts.
@@slifer875 No, I'd say they're right. TotallyNotMark has a whole slew of videos on this (not that people need to agree with him on everything 100%, but I feel he put the work in to justify his position), how Goku is a "flat character"; that's not an insult or saying he's a badly written character, it just means that he's consistent in who he is and how he reacts to things; when you meet him in the original DB, he's close to being the character he'll be for the rest of the journey already, and the characters around him change based on his presence rather than the other way around. Gohan isn't like that, nor are Piccolo, Vegeta, or anyone else who had to undergo a significant character arc or development of some kind. Toriyama always had a bad habit of taking his "dynamic" characters and putting them through their arcs, only to drop them and not really have much in mind for them once it was time to figure out a new story for them to play a role in, and that may well have been what bit him here while he tried to make Gohan the lead.
@@slifer875 Gohan has literally been a martial artists his entire life. It doesn't matter if he doesn't "care about martial arts." He's a martial artist and a story based around him is possible.
@@jmn327 i couldn't care less about "TotallyNotMark" videos, he is not the absolute law on dragon ball just because he is famous (same goes with TFS) i don't repeat what youtubers say, i try to form my own opinion on the matter. "when you meet him in the original DB, he's close to being the character he'll be for the rest of the journey already, and the characters around him change based on his presence rather than the other way around" couldn't be more wrong, the goku from the first chapters isn't even close to the more mature goku that came back from kami's training or the one who loses his head against frezzer, or the one who gives a speech to vegeta, his training change him, his fights change him, his teachers changed his view and his enemies give us new sides to goku that the child version would never gave us before. Saying he is pretty much the exact same character from chapter 1 is downright moronic, he is not the most develop character but to say he didn't change is ignorant.
I am too much of a fan of Videl to dismiss this part of the story as less interesting. I really really wish she would've become a bit more of a focus in the Buu arc, but of course her lack of Saiyan level strength really did her in :(((
No toriyamas lack of forethought and planning did her in. You can make a character as strong as you want insert any plot device.... he chose not to pay off on videl wanting to be stronger, blaming It on her lack of strength misses the point of shonen battle manga that anyone can get good, shit dude sakura surpasses a fucking kage in three years and she was just as normal to her world as videl is to hers. Actually no videl is more gifted then sakura was stated to be. This isn’t a lack of strength this is a lack of care
Feel good Fandom but you can’t think he becoming as powerful as Majin Buu would be any kind of good writing either in the context of Dragon Ball, her getting that strong for no reason would be retarded and would be the worst blight on the franchise.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 Dude who fucking cares, we're talking about the franchise that pioneered the concept of power-ups and transformations through character arcs. You people need to stop getting so pissy at the mere thought of a human character managing to become as powerful as a super saiyan or a main villain.
It is said that if you whisper the word "Fighting" three times in front of a mirror during anywhere between Easter to 9th of May while holding a turkey leg in your left hand, Goku will Instant Transmission behind you and challenge you to a fight which you can't back out of. Of just say "Fighting" several times in general, I don't know...
I loved the Gohan part of the story of the Buu saga and wish Toriyama stuck to his guns! But, it does seem he tried to have Gohan and Goku share the MC role for a bit, before defaulting to Goku.
I personally liked how all over the place these early parts of the saga. Just feels so fresh compared to basically 3 sagas of "this threat is coming that's bigger than anything you've faced before! Better train for it!" "Oh no, no amount of training could have prepared us for this!"
What you said about Dragonball characters changing hits me where I live. If there's one thing I hate most about Super is how much of a glorified toy commercial it is. "Here's bald krillin like you like. Here's Vegeta using the Gallick Gun, you know that attack he used maybe once in the saiyan saga" The fact that the characters were allowed to grow and change over time is one of the BEST aspects of Dragon ball. Bulma changes her hair and outfit nearly constantly, even Yamcha pretty regularly changed his hairstyle. Characters go on to have parents and raising families. Dragonball just doesn't feel like Dragonball without that sense of growth and change.
Having only watched the anime as a kid. I never knew Gohan's "high school superman super duper adventures super" were given up by Toriyama that quickly. I held on to the idea of Gohan being the new main character for a long time. Up until that part we all know that he fucked up that may be a repeat from the last arc except worse... avoiding spoilers here.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 There's always gonna be people discovering Dragon Ball for the first time. For all I know someone's reading the manga alongside watching DBD. I'd rather be safe and not talk too much about things that haven't been mentioned in the videos yet.
Tomberry I just think it would be weird to watch a video discussing something that is complete without completing it. Like I watch videos of ongoing series and get stuff spoiled but that’s just because the manga hasn’t been adapted yet. But DB has been compete forever, so it would be weird to watch a video like this without first finishing it.
@@TomberryPlays That's fair. I mean we have people who play a game for the first time alongside a Let's Play. So, why wouldn't someone be reading the manga for the first time while watching DBD? It would actually be a super fun way of experiencing the manga for the first time! :)
9:46- The Buu arc starts with Gohan then ends with Goku taking on an apprentice who reincarnated from the monster that wiped out his entire friends and family as well as the planet he grew up on for starters- sure the Cell arc begins with radically jarring start/end points- Future Trunks is set up as the foil to stop the messes that Goku left behind to Goku- still the main lead into Gohan being able to take the win, but at least it felt it like sorta made sense from a story telling perspective.
Not to mention the fact that the sons of goku and vegeta take on the mantle. Quite poetic and fitting end. As popular as ssj3 and fusion are since those two were considered the best new things about the buu arc, everyone can clearly see how useless those two things were now thanks to super.
@Eclipse I honestly wouldn't call fusion useless. It still sees use in Super, especially by antagonists. And let's not forget the Broly movie. But there is much more good stuff about the Buu Saga that I remember. All the fights were interesting. There was a lot more focus on techniques rather than just mindless ki blast spamming. Buu has a unique body which leads to unique animations and attacks from him. Buu himself is the only villain in Z with multiple layers to his character. And let's not forget the the awesome way they defeated Kid Buu, with true teamwork and help from everyone Goku has ever met. Perfect way to end the last battle.
Shenanigans8 I can’t wait to hear Lance’s opinion on that fight. I’m mixed, because it is very violent and very uncomfortable to watch Videl getting beat, but it has a lot of good narratives.
@@shenanigans8353 let's be honest, even if Videl still played a role in the story after the tournament it would still would have amounted to nothing and provide another willing womb for a saiyan.
I mean, atleast the Saiyaman outfit gives him a unique attire instead of Piccolos garbs or Gokus Gi. I think the black + green looks really cool and fits Gohan. The purple gi he's wearing in the few training chapters is also pretty dope
I do prefer Gohan to have the piccolo Gi because having Goku's Gi sort of makes him too similar to Goku. While Piccolo and Gohan look different enough where the wardrobe brings something different to Gohan. I do like the new outfit minus the mask and cape though.
I think the only time I liked Gohan in Goku's outfit was after Gohan achieved Ultimate, because that was more evocative of Gohan's bond with his father. A very visual passing the torch moment. Obviously it's short lived but in that moment, I like him in that gi. After that though? I prefer Gohan to either have his own gi or just a plain purple one.
Basically Toriyama decided to go back on writing about Gohan's superhero days and went back to to the whole "Tournament Arc" story he was telling with, and then he backtracks on that to introduce Buu and make it the "Save the World" story again. I get him being a Discovery Writer but not to this extent. Also I actually like bandana w/ sunglasses Great Sayianman more than the helmet one.
Thinking about it, if Dragon Ball committed to a Great Saiyaman Arc (as short as it could be), we could have ended up with a very interesting arc. A superhero arc where there’s no villain that can possibly confront the hero... It could have been One Punch Man years before there was a One Punch Man!
I used to think the Great Saiyaman stuff was a waste of time as a kid. Now, I wish the entire Buu arc was just that. All that lead up was disappointing once Buu hatched, but I see what you mean by the cracks in the narrative showing as early as Goku making his appearance. Not that I dislike Goku, but his character would start a trend that is still going even in Super.....
I never thought Saiyaman was a permanent fixture. I was always under the assumption of this is a transitional adaption of how Gohan would view his strength and identity. His father fought for sport and the challenge. While Gohan always thought of it as life or death with any implication of wanting to fight; being for the sake of others. I think it was Toriyama's intention to set up the plot this way to re-introduce what lessons and morals Gohan has growing up and how this could transition him into fighting whatever threat it may be. Saiyaman definitely feels like the stark re-introduction to Gohan, to set him up as the main character with obvious morals that he wears it on his skin to compare to Goku and the ways it effects others around him. But yeah. They immediately re-introduced Goku, so what could've been a neat way of throwing Gohan into the spotlight; falls hard on its ass.
Yo Tomoe it isn’t him, it’s Toei and Toyotaro trying to appease his fans, I never disliked Vegeta till I saw what his fan base was like and now I just have a hard time enjoying anything he does. I still like some of his Namek stuff, him during the Saiyan Saga and some of his Android shit, but honestly beyond that I just don’t care. I used to like Majin Vegeta, but I think I’ve been overexposed to that bit of him and now I don’t like it anymore.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 I like Vegeta ALL through Saiyan and Freeza arcs. It's moreso in the Cell arcs where he's sorta just shoved in the main cast that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "oh he's a super saiyan now. Oh he's with Bulma now."
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 the vegeta fan base is sadly a mirror of the character: "oh whats that now? goku got super saiyan? then they better give super saiyan to vegeta" "goku got super saiyan god? they better give SSG to vegeta or we will riot!" "they better give vegeta SSB too!" "whats that? goku got a new power call ultra instinc that makes sence with his journey and view? they better give it to vegeta too! even though it wouldn't make any sense".
Yo Tomoe yeah, I forgive all that though for Final Flash because that’s one of my favorite scenes also it’s fun to watch him fuck up 19, but him fighting semi perfect Cell is just dumb and awful.
I honestly love how messy and all over the place this arc is. It used to be my least favorite arc in the series, but it's grown on me so much over time. There's a unique charm to this arc that nothing else in the series has.
The idea that there was a huge fanbacklash seems weird to me. Gohan is the lead for all of one and a half months before Goku's return is announced. In the pre internet world that's not enough time for a backlash. Especially one likely to move a writer as contrarian as Toriyama. Hell, if there had been a letter writing camapign, I imagine he'd have doubled down on Gohan just to wag his tongue at people.
I'm guessing there would a lot of angry phone calls because that what toriyama's editor was expecting to happen we he decided to make goku a adult. So I say a month in a half would of been enough time for a lot backslash if there was one.
Honestly, I think the view of Toriyama going back quickly to Goku is a bit off. It sounds to me like there's a bit of too much hindsight in this analysis in that regard. While it's true that Toriyama gave up on the idea of Gohan being the hero, I don't think that decision was made here, but later on. Goku doesn't feel like the protagonist of the arc until the Elder Kai brings him back to life. Up to that point, Goku is more a guest star than anything else.
@@XanderVJ well goku feels like that in the previous arcs as well with the characters moving the story along while goku is separate until the end of the arc. For example Goku not belonging on the frieza arc.
@@Pooh396 Most Weekly Jump chapters are usually finished a few weeks before publication so given the turnaround time, Toriyama probably wouldn't have even gotten negative feedback until he'd already abandoned the idea!
Yeah, Toriyama stated himself that there was no fan backlash. It was his decision to not make Gohan a main character. But of course, the Gohan fandom had to come up with stupid rumors.
death-kuja but if someone finds this video in a few years it dates the video and is kinda jarring. Most of these videos just serve as a way to expand ones appreciation for DB, so if someone is binging the series it would kinda come out of nowhere and someone would be like “quarantine what”?
When you finally get to DBD TV, for this arc, how much will you address the expansion of the Great Saiyaman stuff? We see a lot more of Gohan in school and it takes Videl longer to find out Gohan's identity. The longer version of the arc is the longest time we've ever seen the world at peace with no threat or looming threat (I mean in terms of screen time, not actual time that's passed in universe) since the King Piccolo Saga. From the time Goku goes to meet the masters of the Next World to the point where Kaioshin first appears, there is no threat, the universe is at peace.
The biggest problem with Adult Gohan is that Toriyama tried to make him a fool. Gohan is a studious kid, thanks to Chi-Chi's strict parenting and refusal to let him fight, so naturally he should be the opposite of Goku - someone who tries to solve problems without fighting, trying to connect with his enemies instead, but having learned from the fiasco that was his power up during the Cell Games, he should be doing that *as he shows his opponents he can crush them with relative ease.* He also should be applying strategy to his combat, now that he spent 7 years without Goku and Piccolo sparring with him in the same way they've ever done, thus leaving him to discover new methods of using the terrain to his advantage. If Goku's enemies agreed to change locations, so they could fight in empty landscapes, Gohan's enemies should ignore that rule and make use of the human lives Gohan wants to protect and fight in the most populated areas. But alas, Toriyama only knows how to write Goku, and the Buu saga shows it. Adult Gohan is completely different from Teen Gohan, in that Teen Gohan was reactive to the characters around him, so the idea that he would take Goku's place when he did came off as a surprise. Adult Gohan is an active character, AT FIRST, but then falls back into being reactive the moment he decides to dress up as Saiyaman, this time putting him in a worse place than he was before because now his agency was stripped.
8:09 "It's been two months..." 8:13 "It's been five weeks since..." And one week since you looked at me. Cocked your head to the side and said "Im angry!"
I always figured he put gohan as a secondary protagonist around the point kid buu comes around. They even had the "gohan swoops in at the last moment" thing when he went mystic. But, then he got clobbered byy buutenks, so maybe it was a bit before that.
You know, I've always had this problem with not finding Tien or whatever...You guys can sense ki and have super speed + flight. If you miss him so badly, then fly around the world for a bit, look for Tien's ki, and then find him. It's not that hard.
I love the joke that Bulma says that she'll use all her engineering genius to make gohan a new disguise just to give him a turban and a pair of sunglasses to wear lol.
My theory is that as he was drawing it Toriyama realized that he didn't want to regularly draw that many desks and buildings, so, like the night sky, it had to go. Back to the domes and feature light wastelands.
It's a shame because I really liked the high school segments in the anime. Gohan has never been around normal Earthlings. He's spent more time with aliens so seeing him as the fish out of water in such an ordinary world was interesting.
Sudden thought. Given the high chance Toriyama was suffering from burnout and just wanted his manga done with, is it perhaps possible when he began Gohan’s high school stories, he realized how tired he was but didn’t want his fighting focused manga to abruptly end at high school antics and so came up with the tournament and either also or after that Buu to give Dragon Ball a final arc that for the most part tonally matched what had come before?
Couldn't Gohan just sense Tien and fly over? Minor thing but always wondered why "idk where he is" works when you can sense people's location through their ki
I love (he says sarcasticly) how Toriyama sticks Gohan in this Slice of Life Superhero parody style storyline, says its not gonna workout and then brings Goku back so that the story can go back to a typical Battle Shonen storyline. That's fine, but he didnt have to wash Gohan for the sake of giving Goku the spotlight again. Gohan, Goten and Trunks get hyped up so much in this saga just to ultimately be thrown to the side line for Goku. He could of made Gohan stand side by side with Goku, especially when he "becomes Ultimate Gohan".
It’s a real shame the Gohan concept is abandoned, because the satan family is an amazing start to building a supporting cast. Mr Satan is such a good fit with the main cast that he ends up sticking around and having equal prominence as Gohan himself. I’m in a tiny minority here, but the climax of this arc is the high point of dragonball to me - the moment where Satan rescues Vegeta. I’ll gush about it when we get there, but for now I’ll just say that every character in that scene is at their absolute best.
I found quite fascinating that Gohan as a Super hero have something from three other heroes Which are Spider-Man, Super Man and Batman/Iron Man. The Great Sayaman have the super strength, super speed, super durability, he can fly and have its own beam attacks. Just like Super Man. In the case of Spider-Man, in terms of characters Peter Parker and Gohan have a lot of similarities. They both at schools, they both are passive characters (in some ways) that reacts to the world, i believe they both got exposed by their future girlfriend (don't @ me) and both of their screw ups lead to the death of their father figure. In the case of Peter Parker its his Uncle Ben. In the case of Gohan its his father Goku. And what similarities does Sayaman have with Batman and Iron Man? They all just a normal guys. In DC, anybody can be Batman if they have his gadgets and moral code of no guns and no killing. In Marvel, anybody can be Iron Man if they have the armor and are pretty smart. So in Dragon Ball, anyone can be the Great Sayaman if they train enough to have super strength, super speed and super durability as well as to learn to fly and learn ki blast. And i am pretty sure anybody can learn all of that. Toriyama was definitely was onto something and i am sure that Sayaman against Babidi and Dabura would have worked out. But in the end it was all discarded. And i feel like there is 3 reasons why. 1. Toriyama probably found out that writing Gohan at this point is probably more difficult than Goku given how he used to write Goku. Toriyama also came in terms that Gohan is a scholar and a family guy, not a martial arts master and hero like Goku. 2. I imagine that Toriyama probably have missed and probably got too attached to Goku. It din't feel right to keep Goku dead forever and never include Goku in story again. I mean Goku was the main character in the entire series. and 3. (and probably a major one) Its not a bad thing that Dragon Ball does change. But man! It changed so much to the point its just unrecognizable! I mean if we look at the first few arcs of the original manga run or even from Saiyan arc to this arc. (the Sayaman part) It feels like the two separate series. It doesn't feel like the Dragon Ball anymore. Toriyama probably have noticed that too while writing this part and he probably felt really uncomfortable about it. Wow! I wrote quite a long comment here!
It also has some of the best humor, especially in the anime where they even added that visualisation of how according to Satan, the Cell fight actually went... :-P
I have this weird love hate relationship with the Buu arc. Like, structurally it's all over the damn place, and a lot of ideas and plot points either pan out poorly or are wasted entirely. But it's so goddamn FUN that I still love reading and watching it.
While I have some issues with this arc, I ultimately prefer it to the Cell arc which was essentially one big idiot pilot with everyone acting like an idiot.
The Majin Buu arc really is a series of dropped ideas, even more than the cell arc. Gohan as Great Saiyaman, the tournament itself, Gohan vs the devil guy, SSJ3, Goten and Trunks fusing, "mystic" Gohan, Vegeto...
@@JackOfen We had to get through a lot of crap to get to that point. It isn't as good as you're claiming it is anyway. Also [pushes up glasses] it's called Genki Dama.
@@spartanq7781 I liked a lot of the inbetween stuff too. Buu is the only villain with layers to his character. Mr. Satan is great. Gotenks vs. Buu had some of the most creative techniques in a looooooong time. Vegito was amazing. And then we are already at Kid Buu.
JackOfen me too a lot of the dropped ideas are fun & I wish we had more like more of gohans school live but what we got, even as a jumbled mess of ideas, was & is to me still super fun to read. While I like the Android arc, I’ve always found buu to be a lot more fun, maybe bc of the sillier tone that reminds me of early dragon ball
I don’t disagree with the fact that this whole plot line was abandoned but honestly as fun as I find it, I enjoy what comes next a lot more. For people that don’t like the Boo arc though I understand the frustration
I discovered this channel about 2 weeks ago and have binged all of the videos until this point, and I'm happy that I caught up to you dissecting one of my favorite sagas. Despite all of it's flaws I love the Buu saga, especially everything up until Gohan vs Super Buu, and your dissection so far has been spot on.
Oh yeah, don't ever be to scared to mull about and go too in depth about certain aspects of the series, especially at the start of an arc. That's my favorite part of these videos!
Lance, fine video as usual! But I feel I need some clarification in your analysis. From what I gather, you're interpreting Goku's reintroduction to the plot to Toriyama's dissatisfaction with the prospects of his experiment to change DragonBall. So bringing Goku back, even for a short while, would be Toriyama setting up the dominoes to overthrow Gohan from his newly-acquired main protagonist status (I'm amusing myself with a Cromwell analogy). But can we really say it so decisely? I'm not going to pretend to have a third of your knowledge on anything DragonBall related, so you could be thinking of some interview or circumstantial evidence that Toriyama's change of course happened around there. Still, I can't say I'm really that sure of it. From what I have, we know Goku would be an active character sometime after telling Gohan he'd take part in the tournament and we know Toriyama decided it'd be better to have Goku as DragonBall's main protagonist, but I can't say the two relate to each other. On the contrary, it seems that, with the other dominoes being placed - Videl's introduction, Krillin's new role -, Toriyama still intended for Gohan to be the main protagonist at the point of these chapters. He'd later take advantage of Goku's involvement to restore his status, alright, but I'm not sure this is what is being set up here. If he was thinking that far ahead, Toriyama might have had set up another "passing of torch" moment for Gohan, by subverting the expectation of Goku appearing late in the plot to manhandle the bad guys the other protagonists were struggling with, instead placing Goku in a fight early in the development so that Goku could fail and Gohan would step up to save the day. I mean, it's only one possibility, it might be impossible to know exactly what was going through Toriyama's mind, but I have an easier time seeing this than Toriyama giving up on Gohan this early and immediately recalling to have Goku back. It'd mean a lot to hear your thoughts on this. Cheers, and stay safe.
By this point, Toriyama was way too set in his ways. The only reason it didn't work out to have Gohan as the main character is because Gohan is not Goku and that would require drastically changing the status quo to accommodate him. But that wouldn't be the first time Dragon Ball took a drastic shift. Remember, Goku was a very passive character in the first arc, but by the next one, he became active and the story's focus shifted from a whacky adventure to be more fighting centric. Then the status quo shifted again when we learned of Goku's alien origins and the power escalated. The Freeza Arc really set the current status quo. But now, Toriyama is either too scared or too disinterested to commit to something new. He's so accustomed to the status quo that he plays it safe and lost his creativity. Even though we don't know where this superhero plot would have gone, I bet it would have been better than what the Majin Buu Arc winds up being.
Gohan becoming super hero becoming a school student Is some of my favorite moments in the series. It’s cool to see Gohan had become his own person, making his own decisions (finally) & how that looks. He had his own fun personality, makes it that much more disappointing when the concept gets abandoned for goku again, so quickly :(
I’m evidently in the minority with this but I really like bandana Saiyaman. Just looks so cool seeing it flutter in the wind alongside his cape. Although with the sunglasses either off or pushed up to his forehead, it does clash a little with the colorful uniform. Apparently the full color manga colors it orange which makes sense as that is the helmet’s color and it does lessen the color clash slightly. In the black and white manga, it’s no problem at all.
This is actually one of the rare cases where the anime does a much better job with a part of the story than the manga. The other example being the time between Raditz dying and Vegeta and Nappa showing up on Earth. In the anime they actually took the time to develop the story around Gohan and put more thought and time between him becoming Great Saiyaman and Videl figuring it out. It's also nice because we get more time with Videl interacting with Saiyaman which makes her romance with Gohan, later on, make more sense. They've had the time to bicker and banter, while also developing trust between the two. If I were Toriyama's editor I would have probably had him have Gohan be Saiyaman before the storey picks back up. Then, when he is introduced to Orange High and Videl is not initially suspicious until Gohan starts showing superhuman feats then she can more easily put two-and-two together. Then she can just confront him in the school as they did in the anime. It would've allowed the story to be quick-paced and also have a new status quo be established without needing two whole chapters establishing Saiyaman, to just toss it aside.
The Time skip allows Bulma/Vegeta and Krillin/18's wedding to not be shown as you got to wonder on what that was like as it's hard to see Vegeta being in a groom outfit
@@shenanigans8353 hahaha wow i never noticed, i mostly love both of those arcs because of nostalgia. The RR arc was because i bought 3 volumes of the manga when i was 8 and they were all from the RR arc, and the buu saga was always the saga i had the most fun watching whenever i turned on the tv. I've now read and seen all the sagas but those two always have a special place in my heart. It's cool how almost all db fans have diferent favourite arcs!
Lol, Great Saiyaman is done. No wonder the transition was Terrible. just a few chapters in and we already saw things back to normal. This should have either been a Side Story (In Weekly Shonen Jump's Sister Magazines V-Jump and Monthly Shonen Jump). Either that or just return the guys who were in High School back to the Martial Arts Tournament part with the Drama that ensues. Maybe Gohan is under investigation (as in "Who the hell is this delinquent dude?" and trying to find the Great Saiyaman and his own shit that ensues). Bringing in the police could introduce decent story opportunities for future plot points. Not to mention Curfews, Studying, and balancing School life, and fighting life. Then again, this is Toriyama. A dude who can't stick to one thing and tries to reset things back to zero with every little arc. This arc is gonna continue with this mess as we build upon this story. Though the Cell Arc was a mess, it kinda had an escalation factor and stuck to it. This is gonna get more confusing as it continues. Credit where it's due, at least Toriyama stepped out of his comfort zone for a bit with Gohan in an All-new world and more duties as the lead protagonist after beating Cell, and a try slice of life/superhero-delinquent story. I Can't imagine those reader polls at that point in the story.
I remember as a kid I was so embarrassed by great saiyaman & hated him. Now as an adult, I love saiyaman so much & wish we had more time with him. Gohan is such a huge dork & I love that about him
I know you don't like it, but I would love to see some of your ideas as to how this arc could've gone. Gohan as Saiyaman being the main character is such a great idea, and the few instances where you gave ideas onto how some stuff could've gone were great, so I would love to see how you would handle it
Lately, I've often wondered where the story would have gone if Goku would have just stayed dead... I honestly wonder if Mr.Toriyama just got bored drawing the Great Saiyaman, and didn't have an idea for a Big Bad Guy. If you think about it, a "main bad guy" in this stage has the marvel problem... the other characters would just come in and destroy said bad guy themselves (a.k.a Vegeta, who is already stated to be stronger than Gohan).
Personally, I think part of the problem became that the way to defeat each new big bad guy was just "get stronger"; I get that DB has always been built on the idea of working hard to become strong enough to overcome any obstacle, but at a certain point it becomes too much of an arms race to see who has the most transformations or hidden power-ups to beat the big bad. More interesting, I think, would be having villains based around other factors, as well, like intelligence or stranger powers that "get stronger and use a big attack" alone can't quite overcome; that'd allow for more chances for other characters to get big moments to shine in the series.
@Joe N Well, that's exactly what Buu is, isn't he? Strange powers and can't be defeated by raw strength alone. In the end they needed teamwork and a plan to defeat him. Literally everyone contributed to defeating Buu.
@@JackOfen but they had to use the big flashy attack, and hit really hard to beat the bad guy... Plus Goku came back as main character, not Gohan. yes, Every one contributed energy... But Not much else.
@@AxleMyths The Spirit Bomb hasn't been used in a long time and it never actually defeated anyone up to that point in the manga. Vegeta came up with the idea thanks to his smarts. Mr. Satan used his charisma. Majin Buu his durability. King Kai helped with communications. The Namekians helped with the dragon balls. They did a lot. It was also really cool to see characters from way back appearing again, even more in the anime. Also, who cares about Gohan? Seriously? This whole time in Z he was just a power fantasy for little kids to attach unto. I feel like the only reason you guys don't like the Buu Saga, is because you are so salty about Gohan that you disregard everything else and really reach for reasons to hate it.
There’s so many pointless things in this arc given how it all plays out. Great Saiyaman, Gohan in high school, SSJ3 Goku, Fusion Dance, Potara Earrings, Mystic Gohan, etc. All for Goku to use the spirit bomb and finally kill the character that can regenerate from nothing.
9:09 Seeing what the filler High School/Saiyaman episodes showed us in the anime, I think it's safe to say that the longer that part of the story went on the more mundane it would have become. Just the same scenarios over and over.
The problem isn’t so much the plot but the discarded setting. They could’ve grafted the Buu Saga elements onto the Great Saiyaman ones and it would’ve worked fine. The difference would be that it focuses on Gohan and his cast of characters rather than Goku’s.
Have you explored the possible influences over Toriyama, guiding him to go back to the "old ways"? Was it just him or editors (similar as in Cell Arc's villain changing) or fans pressure (as popular rumour) had something to do here?
Hey MistareFusion, worry not! modern db too has one istance of elements that are overblown for their importance... more precisely, the whole Minus part of the Broly movie! NOTHING of the first part of that movie has ultimely any importance for the plot, and it does detract from neo Broly's screentime and possible characterization... but you know... fanservice rules modern db, so of course it had to be thrown in to wet fans even though nothing was truly new.
Watching the Buu arc was both jarring and refreshing cause it was the first time in a while we saw the outside world again and normal characters that weren’t fighters it’s clear that the status quo going forward and Toriyama did not want to write a story without Vegeta or Goku. It would of been kinda nice if we got a story tho with Gohan teaming up with Krillian and the others to be the new heroes tho with Vegeta and Goku taking a back seat.
Jeez man, I really love the new drawn-on-paper introduction. Good work. I can't wait to see how do you make the case for this arc to being the N°1 but I sure as hell will wait for it.
At 7:42 on Kai's planet, we can see a weird jellyfish creature in the background that looks like he/she is the same species as Super's Galactic King. Never noticed that before.
18:36- A plain noseless face that ironically made him stand out from the nosed characters, especially when they became indistinguishable from Goku/Vegeta facial wise other than hair or lack of with the exception of Chiaotzu who has a perpetually wide-eyed, red cheek mark and Piccolo whose defining traits is that he's a green with pink/red parts slug alien former demon reincarnation.
This episode came out really fast, normally episodes take a bit unless it's DBcember. Must e the Quarantine giving you all that extra time. Still enjoy your work, and I can't wait to see the next episode!
This is what the Cell saga did better. That is, in terms of shifting gears with the story. Android #20 and #19 aren't very good villains? Well, have #20 turn out to be Gero and have him scurry to his laboratory for better Androids? #17 and #18 aren't that much? Slowly set up Cell as a new villain who needs the duo to complete his transformation. Here, there's a sort of connective tissue between each elements. Some parts may be more obvious when looking at the bigger picture but watching the Anime episode by episode won't give you the idea that Cell was just thought of on the spot. Especially with how the new big bad is slowly introduced from the mysterious time machine to cities becoming barren. The Androids are only moved into a third party villain role as #17 faces Piccolo who's trying to get at least one of them so Cell can be handled better. However, when Cell enters the fray, the Androids aren't so easily dispatched as they fight back before gradually being picked off. Compare that to the Buu Saga where you can painfully feel Toriyama going, "Yeah, this ain't working for me," too transparently. It's a case of the hand of the author showing itself and disturbing one's immersion beyond a mere plot hole or two.
Damn, i wish Gohan got to stay as lead character for longer, it might have such a better arc and DB might not be in the awful place it is right now or ever since.
I wouldn't have any problem with Goku still being around in the story despite being dead. He could've transitioned into a more mentor-like role that can't actually interact with the problem, similar to Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars trilogy, plus considering their world it'd be nice to see him try and still connect with his family despite death being an issue (a lot of people still talk about how Goku should bring back or at least visit Grandpa Gohan since death isn't that much of a barrier). The bigger issue I'd say is around the time Old Kai just revives him, removing the only restriction that was keeping Goku from taking the main character spot back from Gohan, which I think is why more people think of that as the point where Toriyama gave up on Gohan being the main character.
OK, I need to put this in a separate comment. I have to slightly disagree with the point of Gohan being discarded as the protagonist in this point of the story in favor of Goku. I honestly don't think Toriyama made that decision at this point, only two months into the arc. I think that decision came later on. I think Toriyama was still trying to make Gohan the protagonist of this arc, and he just intended to use Goku in a guest star role, maybe to ease in the transition. And that's because Goku isn't really used as the protagonist at all up until the Elder Kai brought him back to life. That I think was the moment when Toriyama gave up on Gohan as the protagonist. And that's because Goku is not even built up as the guy who will save the day as he was in previous arcs. Heck, he even has a (eventually aborted) "passing the torch" arc so is the next generation the one that takes care of things. As a matter of fact... Gohan was used in the EXACT SAME WAY Goku was in the aforementioned arcs. No, really. Think about it. Once the "first act" is finished with Vegeta's sacrifice, the narrative focuses on Goten and Trunks learning the Fusion dance on one side... and on the other, you have Gohan training in the Kaioshin planet with the Z Sword, and then with the Elder Kai awakening his dormant power. Then Goten and Trunks' Fusion fails... and Gohan arrives to save the day. Now, of course, Toriyama didn't reach to that point nearly as well as he did with Goku in previous arcs, and probably that's part of the reason why he decided to suddenly change gears and put Goku again in the protagonist spot. And I think you can tell that because Gohan has a HUGE character change when he becomes "Ultimate Gohan". Probably because that's where Toriyama truly started to think that Gohan's personality wasn't well fit to be the sole protagonist from that point on, so he modified his personality, making him more arrogant. But then he saw it didn't work at all, and that's when he dropped the idea altogether. Or at least, that's what seems more plausible to me.
They're different types. Dende is from the Dragon Clan, which are the ones who can spit out eggs, create Dragon Balls, heal people, etc. Piccolo is a Warrior type Namekian, which are stronger and more suited for combat, but lack the aforementioned abilities. It's never directly stated, but it sounds reasonable enough that Warrior-type Namekians would mature faster.
@@theking8347 I think a more likely explanation is because Piccolo is the reincarnation of King Piccolo. His father basically put everything about himself into King Piccolo. And because of that, Piccolo Junior didn’t really have to “grow.” He is the new life of King Piccolo.
Even if you and the other characters thought Gohan's Great Sayiaman outfit was stupid ( you for the second designed ) To me they were a lot, not so much nice but easier to relate too ( even Vegeta ) unlike with the Loud sisters making fun of Lincoln's Ace Savvy costume in the much hated Sleuth or Consequences where they deserved a slap to the face , here I can live with it. Similar the US Acres animals from Garfield and Friends were also more relatable with them laughing at Orson's Power Pig outfit plus they used laughing at it to their advantage to distract a fox that kidnapped the chick in an egg Sheldon , he laughs which allowed them to save Sheldon.
You know, the Tournament always taking place on May 12 makes me wonder: When does term begin for Japanese kids? Because if Gohan spent only two days before being blackmailed into the tournament, AND that tournament is just around the corner to the point that Videl's blackmail wouldn't have taken months and months to fulfill, then that would suggest that Gohan enrolled in high school in mid-April at the earliest. But if the school year schedule is anything like it is in the USA or the UK, then that would mean the school year was quintessentially over, and it would make more sense for Chi-Chi to simply wait out the summer before sending Gohan to high school in August.
I really wish that the Great Saiyaman Story arc(I call it a story arc. Meanwhile, most would just say Buu story arc. But just because it's really short doesn't mean it's not a story arc) was really longer, even in the animation. They made it a little bit longer by actually devoting two more episodes, and considering the latest story arc in the book when it's taken over by a new writer, is currently doing the Galactic prisons arc(i.e. a whole bunch of prisoners from outer space) a good example! I really hate that you balance the old formula, and trying to even do the old formula Gohan! In a strange way after switching to the outfit that his father wears, given the bad case of getting his ass kicked like Yamcha. Honestly if I was given the shots, one I would fix up a little pothole with the red ribbon army (actually make some references) and have it where a bunch of escaped criminals, break into one of the lost military bases of the red ribbon army, maybe even the ruins of where the death of red, and find the laboratory that was once run by Dr. Gero,Maybe a collection of steroids and super abilities, maybe giving one of the criminals a reference to blues ability, not completely saying it's not psychic powers but maybe something that would boost up Ki. Maybe an artificial version of Senzu Beans. Explain how the evil doctor discovered infinite energy. I don't know if I would be good for writing the story, but I still think it would've been better to have a break between the world annihilation again! I know he has a bad habit of skipping the boring parts but you need the boring parts, the world is constantly being destroyed. No wonder Goku was thinking it's his fault. I know I'm doing this before you cover(TVD of) the cell!
From the best evidence I can see, AT dropped Gohan because he didn't sell as well as Goku. Gt Saiyaman arc isn't selling good? Editors make AT bring Goku back. Gohan vs Buu isn't selling well? Editors make AT bring Goku and Vegeta back. Follow the money.
"In dragon ball, iconography is not sacred"
Cut to Dragon Ball Super where Vegeta is back in his most well recognized Sayian armor, and Krillin has less hair and somehow gained the six dots back.
Oh, you'd better believe that was a very pointed statement.
This is what I immediately said to the person I was watching this with. It's so sad to see, but this is where the series is now.
Super's idea of shaking things up is giving characters optional color schemes.
Yeah, comparing Super with GT, this has always struck me
and Frieza being regenerated in his first form with his Frieza Saga armor and Ultimate Gohan is a transformation
Vegeta immediately backtracked on that whole "I'll never fight again" thing, huh? I know you have a problem with Majin Vegeta, based on your comments during Vegeta's stunt with Cell in the previous arc, but I always thought that was kind of a sensible mid-life crisis for a guy who was going from genocidal warlord to domesticated father (even if he didn't seem to have any issues with being a father prior to the transformation). But here, he goes back on his promise to never fight again because... Saiyans, I guess!
I'm kind of jumping the gun with this comment, so I might just mention it on the relevant video later when it's uploaded, but I think it would've made more sense if Gohan stayed at Cell Arc level strength and *Vegeta* was the one to have gotten weaker. He hasn't fought again since Cell. He's goaded into going along to the tournament by Goku or Gohan, and wants prove to himself that he still has it. But the more he sees how Gohan and Goku have improved, the more insecure he feels about the whole thing, resenting his family and life choices for making him weaker until Babidi takes advantage of those feelings. I think that'd have been a better Super Saiyan 2 transformation set-up for Vegeta than "And then he got it off-screen somehow. Don't worry about it."
This entire arc doesn't handle Vegeta great. His rematch with Goku and Vegeta's sacrifice are entirely pointless.
Buu saga is a mess and doesn't feel it has a direction.
That is again why the anime is better. You can always act like Dragon Ball Z Movie 9 Super Saiyan Gohan is part of the main story since it doesn't contradict anything major.
Honestly I always hated the idea that Super Sayian 2 is some new upgrade state that Vegeta and Goku just suddenly were able to "unlock". It was SUPPOSED to be Gohan just finally awakening to his hidden potential that allowed him to headbutt Raditz into submission as a toddler, but remain fully in control and aware during it, WHILE ALSO being in Super Sayian mode
Saying its just a generic power up after all that every sayian theoretically has access to takes away what made it important and special for Gohans big moment.
@@randomfox12245 Yeah, SSJ2 kinda felt more like a "true" Super Saiyan for Gohan before it was given an official name. I like to think that's why his appearance actually changes significantly when he goes SSJ2 during that arc in contrast to his initial SSJ transformation.
@@randomfox12245 I have to agree on that, especially since the Cell Arc was largely about refining the already existing Super Saiyan form into a more usable state, not just outright replacing it with a 2.0.
I really wish Toriyama had committed to the Great Saiyaman persona instead of dropping it so quickly. There was so much potential there to take Dragon Ball into a widely new direction.
Really glad that the anime had the Great Saiyaman persona going a lot longer.
@@gavinlucas9761 Agreed, I know part of it was so Toriyama could write more of the manga, but watching the Great Saiyaman in the anime makes you feel like they actually liked the character and was gonna milk it as long as they could.
@@DJmouchi777 Or it's likely the anime staff used the Saibaman part as filler to gain a bit more manga material
Me 2 I rather see that then what super did
To be fair, we did get a Saiyaman filler arc in Super.
Oh yeah, It's pretty obvious that Toriyama started this arc with an idea in mind, but quickly changed his mind and went back to his old tricks afterwards. As you've mentioned, he goes to the effort of establishing a new setting and a new support cast for Gohan, and then quickly abandons it. I have to wonder if Shonen Jump and his editor didn't play a role in that particular decision.
8:30
His editor didn’t really seem to care, he was the most lenient Toriyama ever had so he didn’t seem like the one to force changes unlike his predecessors that kept making Toriyama change the villains and there designs in the Cell arc.
I think it was outside pressure. Fans didn’t like the abrupt change. Personally I don’t like it either, but I am curious what he had in mind. Maybe someone can do a spin-off series exploring the idea further… call it my saiyan academia.
Part of me thinks he quickly realized that gohan didn’t have any real challenges as a superhero. Watch him easily stop muggers and bank robbers week after week while he righteously encourages kids to drink their milk, and don’t bleach your hair.
@@chrisblanc663 "Remember kids, do lots of push-ups, sit-ups and drink plenty of juice!"
@@chrisblanc663 I hear in Dragon Ball Online Gohan was like a ki scholar or something. I guess he could introduce ki, aliens and all that shit to the world.
The 'next generation feel' is something WE GOTTA POWER tried to use... and it succeeded. That shot of Gohan on his (extremely underrated) battle gi, flanked by Piccolo and Vegeta with Trunks and Goten preparing a kamehameha before they all explode into a burst of energy... it was a pretty strong image. It really made me wonder of how they were going to interact in the future.
And this timeskip? Hell, it felt *right* in the anime because outside of japan there was a big gap between the end of the cell arc and the start of the majin buu arc.
I remember watching it for the first time and really getting into it. Really, the first third of the majin buu arc was extremely enjoyable to me as a kid, and it still is. It's a shame it all melted so quickly and so messily.
What are you talking about? The rest of the Buu Saga is pretty good. It's only bad for Gohan fans, sure, but aside from that the comedy and the fights are on point. Plus really good character development for Satan and Vegeta. Oh and Buu is the only villain in Z that actually has layers to his character.
Same. Alongside the Saiyan Saga, this was the most enjoyable part of DBZ as a kid and even now, just seeing the characters being like a big chaotic family that have been through a fuck ton of crazy shit over the years, and are now reminicing while the new generation is discovering it all over again, sad that most of the early Buu stuff is of no consequence, especially Videl :( i really liked her.
@@JackOfen good character development for vegeta isn’t this the arc where he off screen becomes domesticated only to snap and murder people just so he can fight goku?
@@feelgoodfandom5353 Was he ever domestic tho? Or did he just become docile because Goku was gone? what I mean is, by the end Vegeta finally accepts Goku as the better one and you could even call them friends. Well, at least until GT's Shadow Dragon Saga and DB Super reversed his character.
@@JackOfen end of Z is AFTER SUPER
This is groundbreaking, he actually praised Resurrection F!
On another note, this is very obvious and you already know this, but i like how the anime staff decided to give the Great Saiyaman a more lenghty portion of the story spending more time with Gohan as a superhero, when i first watched it, i felt how much time it passed in a more genuine manner than when i read the manga years later, they extended that time period of the story in a way that when Goku talks to Gohan and Vegeta again, it feels like an old friend is finally coming back (though, yeah, as a whole, the Buu arc is just as messy in anime form, if not worse, with all that nonstop fighting that doesn't matter, but this early parts of this story are very enjoyable for me).
And besides that, the moment where Videl discovers Gohan is way more dramatic in the anime and has more going for it, but still i like the joke in the manga where he gets discovered in seconds.
I know that they did this because they wanted to keep the manga ahead, instead of serious concern for the storytelling, but the end result i find it to be more enjoyable...until the fight with Evil Buu starts, then it gets stupid.
I mean goku is still only absent for 5 episodes in the anime just saying
@@shenanigans8353 Yeah, it's just five episodes, but they expanded the story in a way that it didin't feel like it was a waste of potential, at least for me, they worked very well with what they had.
@@prometheusmodelow8322 Personally I enjoyed it as a popcorn arc where you can enjoy the fights and enjoy as villain be in canon form again (until the ruined that by having him come back again and again afterwards.). The only part I thought was really stupid was reintroducing Captain Ginyu again, like not only did that ruined any build up to the other guy (I forgot his name), but it becomes extra pointless as he doesn’t do much else but beat Gohan and crew up in the new body and then just dies from Vegeta in one shot. All it did was just make a pointless cameo and just seemed to pad out that short arc.
@@brandonlyon730 Well, i had fun with the movie itself, even if it did backtrack Vegeta's character development in regards to his relationship with Goku, but the arc itself was utter trash for me, not only did we get the same story twice, but with Ginyu's filler appereance and much worse animation and pacing, it just didin't translate well at all into an actual story arc.
If nothing else I enjoy Resurrection F's soundtrack, you cannot take that away from this film.
I've recently been rereading Dragon Ball and I'm stunned to see how much of it was improved by anime filler. Specifically the Piccolo Daimao and 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai Arcs. I don't think this is really a case of it being outright improved, but I do really like what the anime does here with making more episodic Great Saiyaman episodes. Comparatively it's a massive shame how quickly that's dropped here.
Yeah, it's not much but I honestly really like Darkness. It's interesting that Goku has to go on an emotional journey inside of one of Korin's jars. It really reinforces the magical element of the series that Korin just shoves Goku in a jar and he's teleported into a cave. I love it because it also gives Yajirobe more screentime and lets their dynamic play out. It's way better and really rounds out the story. I've somehow missed this dissection series and only discovered it like 3 days ago and have been binging.
I was a bit taken aback by the low score of The Daimo arc but I can see why it received such a low rating. That absolute same plot element in Korin's tower offered with no changes other than real sacred water this time drags the story down a lot because it doesn't feel in line with the story.
One thing that I realised in my most recent watchthrough of the anime is that it's not really training that powers the characters up in the story but adventure, and it feels a lot better as the audience member to have Goku go on one last little journey before he confronts Piccolo.
I really wish Toriyama explained what he meant when he said it didn't work out. What about it was the problem? The school setting? The superhero stuff? The new supporting cast?
I think it's because Goku's more static nature as a character makes him easier to write. He fights, he eats, he likes his friends, he dislikes bullies. For most characters in fiction that would be the first draft of character traits, but for Goku that's mostly it. That's not a bad thing, mind you; some characters simply don't change and have the world and people around them change and evolve. Gohan, on the other hand, is more dynamic. His relationships with the new and old cast, his desire to have a normal life contrasting his strong sense of justice, his lack of desire to fight (or the way I see it, his lack of desire to fight in life or death situations) all require a lot of care to not screw up. I think Toriyama felt like even he could pull a decently written story about Gohan's school day out of his ass, so he went back to Goku and the old cast while updating them(well, some of them) to the new setting.
Could the new status quo have worked? Who knows? I enjoyed the small bits of it we got, and I think Toriyama could have gave Gohan a bit more time before giving Goku his protagonist status back.
he probably couldn't think of anything because Gohan wasn't Goku, so he couldn't fall back on what he normally does.
"I think it's because Goku's more static nature as a character makes him easier to write. He fights, he eats, he likes his friends, he dislikes bullies. For most characters in fiction that would be the first draft of character traits, but for Goku that's mostly it. That's not a bad thing, mind you; some characters simply don't change and have the world and people around them change and evolve."
could you be any more wrong? there was more to goku than that and DID change over the course of the story, dragon ball its a martial arts shonen battle manga, gohan doesn't work because he doesn't care about martial arts.
@@slifer875 No, I'd say they're right. TotallyNotMark has a whole slew of videos on this (not that people need to agree with him on everything 100%, but I feel he put the work in to justify his position), how Goku is a "flat character"; that's not an insult or saying he's a badly written character, it just means that he's consistent in who he is and how he reacts to things; when you meet him in the original DB, he's close to being the character he'll be for the rest of the journey already, and the characters around him change based on his presence rather than the other way around.
Gohan isn't like that, nor are Piccolo, Vegeta, or anyone else who had to undergo a significant character arc or development of some kind. Toriyama always had a bad habit of taking his "dynamic" characters and putting them through their arcs, only to drop them and not really have much in mind for them once it was time to figure out a new story for them to play a role in, and that may well have been what bit him here while he tried to make Gohan the lead.
@@slifer875 Gohan has literally been a martial artists his entire life. It doesn't matter if he doesn't "care about martial arts." He's a martial artist and a story based around him is possible.
@@jmn327 i couldn't care less about "TotallyNotMark" videos, he is not the absolute law on dragon ball just because he is famous (same goes with TFS) i don't repeat what youtubers say, i try to form my own opinion on the matter.
"when you meet him in the original DB, he's close to being the character he'll be for the rest of the journey already, and the characters around him change based on his presence rather than the other way around"
couldn't be more wrong, the goku from the first chapters isn't even close to the more mature goku that came back from kami's training or the one who loses his head against frezzer, or the one who gives a speech to vegeta, his training change him, his fights change him, his teachers changed his view and his enemies give us new sides to goku that the child version would never gave us before.
Saying he is pretty much the exact same character from chapter 1 is downright moronic, he is not the most develop character but to say he didn't change is ignorant.
I am too much of a fan of Videl to dismiss this part of the story as less interesting. I really really wish she would've become a bit more of a focus in the Buu arc, but of course her lack of Saiyan level strength really did her in :(((
No toriyamas lack of forethought and planning did her in. You can make a character as strong as you want insert any plot device.... he chose not to pay off on videl wanting to be stronger, blaming It on her lack of strength misses the point of shonen battle manga that anyone can get good, shit dude sakura surpasses a fucking kage in three years and she was just as normal to her world as videl is to hers. Actually no videl is more gifted then sakura was stated to be. This isn’t a lack of strength this is a lack of care
Feel good Fandom but you can’t think he becoming as powerful as Majin Buu would be any kind of good writing either in the context of Dragon Ball, her getting that strong for no reason would be retarded and would be the worst blight on the franchise.
Strength??? Satan is even weaker and has more spotlight than Videl, this a matter of lack of care as someone already said.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 Dude who fucking cares, we're talking about the franchise that pioneered the concept of power-ups and transformations through character arcs. You people need to stop getting so pissy at the mere thought of a human character managing to become as powerful as a super saiyan or a main villain.
Bulma is even weaker yet she got much more attention.
Nobody talking about how legendary the opening is
Joseph Prata that’s for DBD TV
I thought you were referencing Mistare Fusion's opening for this arc, and oh boy I'm amazed how they get better every time.
R0-83-RT oh was he?
I am referring to his opening for DBD it’s really well made
Joseph Prata ah, nvm then
It is said that if you whisper the word "Fighting" three times in front of a mirror during anywhere between Easter to 9th of May while holding a turkey leg in your left hand, Goku will Instant Transmission behind you and challenge you to a fight which you can't back out of. Of just say "Fighting" several times in general, I don't know...
I loved the Gohan part of the story of the Buu saga and wish Toriyama stuck to his guns! But, it does seem he tried to have Gohan and Goku share the MC role for a bit, before defaulting to Goku.
I personally liked how all over the place these early parts of the saga. Just feels so fresh compared to basically 3 sagas of "this threat is coming that's bigger than anything you've faced before! Better train for it!"
"Oh no, no amount of training could have prepared us for this!"
What you said about Dragonball characters changing hits me where I live. If there's one thing I hate most about Super is how much of a glorified toy commercial it is. "Here's bald krillin like you like. Here's Vegeta using the Gallick Gun, you know that attack he used maybe once in the saiyan saga" The fact that the characters were allowed to grow and change over time is one of the BEST aspects of Dragon ball. Bulma changes her hair and outfit nearly constantly, even Yamcha pretty regularly changed his hairstyle. Characters go on to have parents and raising families. Dragonball just doesn't feel like Dragonball without that sense of growth and change.
Having only watched the anime as a kid. I never knew Gohan's "high school superman super duper adventures super" were given up by Toriyama that quickly. I held on to the idea of Gohan being the new main character for a long time. Up until that part we all know that he fucked up that may be a repeat from the last arc except worse... avoiding spoilers here.
Tomberry avoiding spoilers? Who watching this series hadn’t watched either DBZ or Kai? Lol
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 There's always gonna be people discovering Dragon Ball for the first time. For all I know someone's reading the manga alongside watching DBD. I'd rather be safe and not talk too much about things that haven't been mentioned in the videos yet.
Tomberry I just think it would be weird to watch a video discussing something that is complete without completing it. Like I watch videos of ongoing series and get stuff spoiled but that’s just because the manga hasn’t been adapted yet. But DB has been compete forever, so it would be weird to watch a video like this without first finishing it.
@@TomberryPlays That's fair. I mean we have people who play a game for the first time alongside a Let's Play. So, why wouldn't someone be reading the manga for the first time while watching DBD? It would actually be a super fun way of experiencing the manga for the first time! :)
9:46- The Buu arc starts with Gohan then ends with Goku taking on an apprentice who reincarnated from the monster that wiped out his entire friends and family as well as the planet he grew up on for starters- sure the Cell arc begins with radically jarring start/end points- Future Trunks is set up as the foil to stop the messes that Goku left behind to Goku- still the main lead into Gohan being able to take the win, but at least it felt it like sorta made sense from a story telling perspective.
Not to mention the fact that the sons of goku and vegeta take on the mantle. Quite poetic and fitting end. As popular as ssj3 and fusion are since those two were considered the best new things about the buu arc, everyone can clearly see how useless those two things were now thanks to super.
@Eclipse
I honestly wouldn't call fusion useless. It still sees use in Super, especially by antagonists. And let's not forget the Broly movie.
But there is much more good stuff about the Buu Saga that I remember. All the fights were interesting. There was a lot more focus on techniques rather than just mindless ki blast spamming. Buu has a unique body which leads to unique animations and attacks from him. Buu himself is the only villain in Z with multiple layers to his character. And let's not forget the the awesome way they defeated Kid Buu, with true teamwork and help from everyone Goku has ever met. Perfect way to end the last battle.
I think Videl and Satan were two of Toriyama's best characters he has written in a very long time.
Hail Satan!
To bad that toriyama just tosses videl to the side shortly after having her face kicked in my spopovich then
Shame about what happens to Videl, though.
Shenanigans8 I can’t wait to hear Lance’s opinion on that fight. I’m mixed, because it is very violent and very uncomfortable to watch Videl getting beat, but it has a lot of good narratives.
@@shenanigans8353 let's be honest, even if Videl still played a role in the story after the tournament it would still would have amounted to nothing and provide another willing womb for a saiyan.
Always hurts to see good concepts being squandered out of fear of change.
I would've LOVED to see Gohan face Vegeta at the Tournament if Goku didn't return. I always wondered would've happened if Vegeta saw Gohan as a rival.
I mean, atleast the Saiyaman outfit gives him a unique attire instead of Piccolos garbs or Gokus Gi. I think the black + green looks really cool and fits Gohan.
The purple gi he's wearing in the few training chapters is also pretty dope
I do prefer Gohan to have the piccolo Gi because having Goku's Gi sort of makes him too similar to Goku. While Piccolo and Gohan look different enough where the wardrobe brings something different to Gohan. I do like the new outfit minus the mask and cape though.
I think the only time I liked Gohan in Goku's outfit was after Gohan achieved Ultimate, because that was more evocative of Gohan's bond with his father. A very visual passing the torch moment. Obviously it's short lived but in that moment, I like him in that gi. After that though? I prefer Gohan to either have his own gi or just a plain purple one.
Basically Toriyama decided to go back on writing about Gohan's superhero days and went back to to the whole "Tournament Arc" story he was telling with, and then he backtracks on that to introduce Buu and make it the "Save the World" story again. I get him being a Discovery Writer but not to this extent.
Also I actually like bandana w/ sunglasses Great Sayianman more than the helmet one.
Do you like it white or orange?
@@BagOfMagicFood White
Thinking about it, if Dragon Ball committed to a Great Saiyaman Arc (as short as it could be), we could have ended up with a very interesting arc. A superhero arc where there’s no villain that can possibly confront the hero... It could have been One Punch Man years before there was a One Punch Man!
I used to think the Great Saiyaman stuff was a waste of time as a kid. Now, I wish the entire Buu arc was just that. All that lead up was disappointing once Buu hatched, but I see what you mean by the cracks in the narrative showing as early as Goku making his appearance.
Not that I dislike Goku, but his character would start a trend that is still going even in Super.....
The Buu Saga got really good once Buu appeared.
I never thought Saiyaman was a permanent fixture. I was always under the assumption of this is a transitional adaption of how Gohan would view his strength and identity. His father fought for sport and the challenge. While Gohan always thought of it as life or death with any implication of wanting to fight; being for the sake of others. I think it was Toriyama's intention to set up the plot this way to re-introduce what lessons and morals Gohan has growing up and how this could transition him into fighting whatever threat it may be. Saiyaman definitely feels like the stark re-introduction to Gohan, to set him up as the main character with obvious morals that he wears it on his skin to compare to Goku and the ways it effects others around him.
But yeah. They immediately re-introduced Goku, so what could've been a neat way of throwing Gohan into the spotlight; falls hard on its ass.
Much like how Toriyama realized Gohan isn’t fit to play the lead I wish people would realize Vegeta isn’t either.
Maybe it's the Bulma/Yamcha lover in me but it really bugs me how much Vegeta just forces his way deeper and deeper into the main cast.
Yo Tomoe it isn’t him, it’s Toei and Toyotaro trying to appease his fans, I never disliked Vegeta till I saw what his fan base was like and now I just have a hard time enjoying anything he does. I still like some of his Namek stuff, him during the Saiyan Saga and some of his Android shit, but honestly beyond that I just don’t care. I used to like Majin Vegeta, but I think I’ve been overexposed to that bit of him and now I don’t like it anymore.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 I like Vegeta ALL through Saiyan and Freeza arcs. It's moreso in the Cell arcs where he's sorta just shoved in the main cast that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "oh he's a super saiyan now. Oh he's with Bulma now."
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 the vegeta fan base is sadly a mirror of the character: "oh whats that now? goku got super saiyan? then they better give super saiyan to vegeta" "goku got super saiyan god? they better give SSG to vegeta or we will riot!" "they better give vegeta SSB too!" "whats that? goku got a new power call ultra instinc that makes sence with his journey and view? they better give it to vegeta too! even though it wouldn't make any sense".
Yo Tomoe yeah, I forgive all that though for Final Flash because that’s one of my favorite scenes also it’s fun to watch him fuck up 19, but him fighting semi perfect Cell is just dumb and awful.
I honestly love how messy and all over the place this arc is. It used to be my least favorite arc in the series, but it's grown on me so much over time. There's a unique charm to this arc that nothing else in the series has.
The idea that there was a huge fanbacklash seems weird to me. Gohan is the lead for all of one and a half months before Goku's return is announced. In the pre internet world that's not enough time for a backlash. Especially one likely to move a writer as contrarian as Toriyama. Hell, if there had been a letter writing camapign, I imagine he'd have doubled down on Gohan just to wag his tongue at people.
I'm guessing there would a lot of angry phone calls because that what toriyama's editor was expecting to happen we he decided to make goku a adult. So I say a month in a half would of been enough time for a lot backslash if there was one.
Honestly, I think the view of Toriyama going back quickly to Goku is a bit off. It sounds to me like there's a bit of too much hindsight in this analysis in that regard. While it's true that Toriyama gave up on the idea of Gohan being the hero, I don't think that decision was made here, but later on. Goku doesn't feel like the protagonist of the arc until the Elder Kai brings him back to life. Up to that point, Goku is more a guest star than anything else.
@@XanderVJ well goku feels like that in the previous arcs as well with the characters moving the story along while goku is separate until the end of the arc. For example Goku not belonging on the frieza arc.
@@Pooh396 Most Weekly Jump chapters are usually finished a few weeks before publication so given the turnaround time, Toriyama probably wouldn't have even gotten negative feedback until he'd already abandoned the idea!
Yeah, Toriyama stated himself that there was no fan backlash. It was his decision to not make Gohan a main character. But of course, the Gohan fandom had to come up with stupid rumors.
Your message at the end is so wholesome, it definitely helps, thank you for this video and making the quarantine a bit easier.
death-kuja but if someone finds this video in a few years it dates the video and is kinda jarring. Most of these videos just serve as a way to expand ones appreciation for DB, so if someone is binging the series it would kinda come out of nowhere and someone would be like “quarantine what”?
AgentPaint bro, if people were following the numbers of diseases every year we would always have a pandemic.
When you finally get to DBD TV, for this arc, how much will you address the expansion of the Great Saiyaman stuff? We see a lot more of Gohan in school and it takes Videl longer to find out Gohan's identity. The longer version of the arc is the longest time we've ever seen the world at peace with no threat or looming threat (I mean in terms of screen time, not actual time that's passed in universe) since the King Piccolo Saga. From the time Goku goes to meet the masters of the Next World to the point where Kaioshin first appears, there is no threat, the universe is at peace.
13:43
Alright, MistareFusion is referencing yet another 70's/80's tv series. Just one more series and I get a cookie
Only a cookie? Why not a cake?
_"Next time I get a free sundae!"_
The biggest problem with Adult Gohan is that Toriyama tried to make him a fool.
Gohan is a studious kid, thanks to Chi-Chi's strict parenting and refusal to let him fight, so naturally he should be the opposite of Goku - someone who tries to solve problems without fighting, trying to connect with his enemies instead, but having learned from the fiasco that was his power up during the Cell Games, he should be doing that *as he shows his opponents he can crush them with relative ease.*
He also should be applying strategy to his combat, now that he spent 7 years without Goku and Piccolo sparring with him in the same way they've ever done, thus leaving him to discover new methods of using the terrain to his advantage. If Goku's enemies agreed to change locations, so they could fight in empty landscapes, Gohan's enemies should ignore that rule and make use of the human lives Gohan wants to protect and fight in the most populated areas.
But alas, Toriyama only knows how to write Goku, and the Buu saga shows it. Adult Gohan is completely different from Teen Gohan, in that Teen Gohan was reactive to the characters around him, so the idea that he would take Goku's place when he did came off as a surprise. Adult Gohan is an active character, AT FIRST, but then falls back into being reactive the moment he decides to dress up as Saiyaman, this time putting him in a worse place than he was before because now his agency was stripped.
the boy with perfect scores, met a girl, and 2 days latter became a dropout
8:09 "It's been two months..." 8:13 "It's been five weeks since..." And one week since you looked at me. Cocked your head to the side and said "Im angry!"
I always figured he put gohan as a secondary protagonist around the point kid buu comes around. They even had the "gohan swoops in at the last moment" thing when he went mystic.
But, then he got clobbered byy buutenks, so maybe it was a bit before that.
13:23 The way you say that sounds like you are going to take a shower for even making that statement.
He has wash the stench of Super off.
You know, I've always had this problem with not finding Tien or whatever...You guys can sense ki and have super speed + flight. If you miss him so badly, then fly around the world for a bit, look for Tien's ki, and then find him. It's not that hard.
I love the joke that Bulma says that she'll use all her engineering genius to make gohan a new disguise just to give him a turban and a pair of sunglasses to wear lol.
My theory is that as he was drawing it Toriyama realized that he didn't want to regularly draw that many desks and buildings, so, like the night sky, it had to go. Back to the domes and feature light wastelands.
It's a shame because I really liked the high school segments in the anime. Gohan has never been around normal Earthlings. He's spent more time with aliens so seeing him as the fish out of water in such an ordinary world was interesting.
Sudden thought. Given the high chance Toriyama was suffering from burnout and just wanted his manga done with, is it perhaps possible when he began Gohan’s high school stories, he realized how tired he was but didn’t want his fighting focused manga to abruptly end at high school antics and so came up with the tournament and either also or after that Buu to give Dragon Ball a final arc that for the most part tonally matched what had come before?
Couldn't Gohan just sense Tien and fly over? Minor thing but always wondered why "idk where he is" works when you can sense people's location through their ki
I thought that was not possible when they are suppresed with their Ki.
@@Mike-xh2vm they gotta actively suppress it though, with the Z fighters their's is naturally high
@@Godzilla00X I thought being suppresed was their natural state
Tien is constantly training his ki should be going up all time and remember they could sense vegeta and nappa across the planet
I love (he says sarcasticly) how Toriyama sticks Gohan in this Slice of Life Superhero parody style storyline, says its not gonna workout and then brings Goku back so that the story can go back to a typical Battle Shonen storyline. That's fine, but he didnt have to wash Gohan for the sake of giving Goku the spotlight again. Gohan, Goten and Trunks get hyped up so much in this saga just to ultimately be thrown to the side line for Goku. He could of made Gohan stand side by side with Goku, especially when he "becomes Ultimate Gohan".
It’s a real shame the Gohan concept is abandoned, because the satan family is an amazing start to building a supporting cast. Mr Satan is such a good fit with the main cast that he ends up sticking around and having equal prominence as Gohan himself. I’m in a tiny minority here, but the climax of this arc is the high point of dragonball to me - the moment where Satan rescues Vegeta. I’ll gush about it when we get there, but for now I’ll just say that every character in that scene is at their absolute best.
Oh snap another part!
Hell yea, best birthday gift i could've asked for
Happy birthday
BRUH you watch this guy too?
Niceu
Happy birthday dood!
Happy birthday!
I found quite fascinating that Gohan as a Super hero have something from three other heroes Which are Spider-Man, Super Man and Batman/Iron Man.
The Great Sayaman have the super strength, super speed, super durability, he can fly and have its own beam attacks. Just like Super Man.
In the case of Spider-Man, in terms of characters Peter Parker and Gohan have a lot of similarities. They both at schools, they both are passive characters (in some ways) that reacts to the world, i believe they both got exposed by their future girlfriend (don't @ me) and both of their screw ups lead to the death of their father figure. In the case of Peter Parker its his Uncle Ben. In the case of Gohan its his father Goku.
And what similarities does Sayaman have with Batman and Iron Man? They all just a normal guys. In DC, anybody can be Batman if they have his gadgets and moral code of no guns and no killing. In Marvel, anybody can be Iron Man if they have the armor and are pretty smart. So in Dragon Ball, anyone can be the Great Sayaman if they train enough to have super strength, super speed and super durability as well as to learn to fly and learn ki blast. And i am pretty sure anybody can learn all of that.
Toriyama was definitely was onto something and i am sure that Sayaman against Babidi and Dabura would have worked out. But in the end it was all discarded. And i feel like there is 3 reasons why.
1. Toriyama probably found out that writing Gohan at this point is probably more difficult than Goku given how he used to write Goku. Toriyama also came in terms that Gohan is a scholar and a family guy, not a martial arts master and hero like Goku.
2. I imagine that Toriyama probably have missed and probably got too attached to Goku. It din't feel right to keep Goku dead forever and never include Goku in story again. I mean Goku was the main character in the entire series.
and 3. (and probably a major one) Its not a bad thing that Dragon Ball does change. But man! It changed so much to the point its just unrecognizable! I mean if we look at the first few arcs of the original manga run or even from Saiyan arc to this arc. (the Sayaman part) It feels like the two separate series. It doesn't feel like the Dragon Ball anymore. Toriyama probably have noticed that too while writing this part and he probably felt really uncomfortable about it.
Wow! I wrote quite a long comment here!
I absolutely LOVE the Buu arc. It is totally bonkers, off the wall crazy.
It also has some of the best humor, especially in the anime where they even added that visualisation of how according to Satan, the Cell fight actually went... :-P
I have this weird love hate relationship with the Buu arc. Like, structurally it's all over the damn place, and a lot of ideas and plot points either pan out poorly or are wasted entirely. But it's so goddamn FUN that I still love reading and watching it.
While I have some issues with this arc, I ultimately prefer it to the Cell arc which was essentially one big idiot pilot with everyone acting like an idiot.
This comment and its replies.
I like it.
@@brandonlyon730 no it wasn't. You just dislike their actions.
No one was out of character in cell arc
The Majin Buu arc really is a series of dropped ideas, even more than the cell arc. Gohan as Great Saiyaman, the tournament itself, Gohan vs the devil guy, SSJ3, Goten and Trunks fusing, "mystic" Gohan, Vegeto...
Toriyama lacked direction and never truly fond it because he kept changing his mind. I said last part each shift this arc has is worse than the last.
@Spartan Q77
Is it though? Because the final Spirit Bomb against Kid Buu was an amazing moment.
@@JackOfen We had to get through a lot of crap to get to that point. It isn't as good as you're claiming it is anyway. Also [pushes up glasses] it's called Genki Dama.
@@spartanq7781
I liked a lot of the inbetween stuff too. Buu is the only villain with layers to his character. Mr. Satan is great. Gotenks vs. Buu had some of the most creative techniques in a looooooong time. Vegito was amazing. And then we are already at Kid Buu.
JackOfen me too a lot of the dropped ideas are fun & I wish we had more like more of gohans school live but what we got, even as a jumbled mess of ideas, was & is to me still super fun to read. While I like the Android arc, I’ve always found buu to be a lot more fun, maybe bc of the sillier tone that reminds me of early dragon ball
I don’t disagree with the fact that this whole plot line was abandoned but honestly as fun as I find it, I enjoy what comes next a lot more. For people that don’t like the Boo arc though I understand the frustration
I'm sure by bringing back Uranai Baba, Toriyama made a lot of fans realize "Why didn't she bring back Goku to fight the androids in Trunks' future?"
What a wonderful way to start a day! You’re the best, man!
Gohan being a reactionary character as opposed to to active one like goku probably helped influence toriyama's decision to go back to goku
I discovered this channel about 2 weeks ago and have binged all of the videos until this point, and I'm happy that I caught up to you dissecting one of my favorite sagas. Despite all of it's flaws I love the Buu saga, especially everything up until Gohan vs Super Buu, and your dissection so far has been spot on.
Oh yeah, don't ever be to scared to mull about and go too in depth about certain aspects of the series, especially at the start of an arc. That's my favorite part of these videos!
Lance, fine video as usual! But I feel I need some clarification in your analysis.
From what I gather, you're interpreting Goku's reintroduction to the plot to Toriyama's dissatisfaction with the prospects of his experiment to change DragonBall. So bringing Goku back, even for a short while, would be Toriyama setting up the dominoes to overthrow Gohan from his newly-acquired main protagonist status (I'm amusing myself with a Cromwell analogy).
But can we really say it so decisely? I'm not going to pretend to have a third of your knowledge on anything DragonBall related, so you could be thinking of some interview or circumstantial evidence that Toriyama's change of course happened around there. Still, I can't say I'm really that sure of it. From what I have, we know Goku would be an active character sometime after telling Gohan he'd take part in the tournament and we know Toriyama decided it'd be better to have Goku as DragonBall's main protagonist, but I can't say the two relate to each other. On the contrary, it seems that, with the other dominoes being placed - Videl's introduction, Krillin's new role -, Toriyama still intended for Gohan to be the main protagonist at the point of these chapters. He'd later take advantage of Goku's involvement to restore his status, alright, but I'm not sure this is what is being set up here.
If he was thinking that far ahead, Toriyama might have had set up another "passing of torch" moment for Gohan, by subverting the expectation of Goku appearing late in the plot to manhandle the bad guys the other protagonists were struggling with, instead placing Goku in a fight early in the development so that Goku could fail and Gohan would step up to save the day. I mean, it's only one possibility, it might be impossible to know exactly what was going through Toriyama's mind, but I have an easier time seeing this than Toriyama giving up on Gohan this early and immediately recalling to have Goku back.
It'd mean a lot to hear your thoughts on this. Cheers, and stay safe.
the high school part of this arc makes me want to watch Smallville or Ben 10 Alien Force seasons 1 and 2
This arc in a nutshell: Set up with no payoff.
It’s actually more of, don’t set anything up and skip to the next plot point
By this point, Toriyama was way too set in his ways. The only reason it didn't work out to have Gohan as the main character is because Gohan is not Goku and that would require drastically changing the status quo to accommodate him. But that wouldn't be the first time Dragon Ball took a drastic shift. Remember, Goku was a very passive character in the first arc, but by the next one, he became active and the story's focus shifted from a whacky adventure to be more fighting centric. Then the status quo shifted again when we learned of Goku's alien origins and the power escalated. The Freeza Arc really set the current status quo. But now, Toriyama is either too scared or too disinterested to commit to something new. He's so accustomed to the status quo that he plays it safe and lost his creativity. Even though we don't know where this superhero plot would have gone, I bet it would have been better than what the Majin Buu Arc winds up being.
It's just as the old saying goes. "The more the things change the more they remain the same."
@@gavinlucas9761
I know, right?
This is also a perfect way to sum up Super and everything wrong with it.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022
Yep, even though Super is even worse about it.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 IKR.
Gohan becoming super hero becoming a school student Is some of my favorite moments in the series. It’s cool to see Gohan had become his own person, making his own decisions (finally) & how that looks. He had his own fun personality, makes it that much more disappointing when the concept gets abandoned for goku again, so quickly :(
I’m evidently in the minority with this but I really like bandana Saiyaman. Just looks so cool seeing it flutter in the wind alongside his cape. Although with the sunglasses either off or pushed up to his forehead, it does clash a little with the colorful uniform. Apparently the full color manga colors it orange which makes sense as that is the helmet’s color and it does lessen the color clash slightly. In the black and white manga, it’s no problem at all.
This is actually one of the rare cases where the anime does a much better job with a part of the story than the manga. The other example being the time between Raditz dying and Vegeta and Nappa showing up on Earth. In the anime they actually took the time to develop the story around Gohan and put more thought and time between him becoming Great Saiyaman and Videl figuring it out. It's also nice because we get more time with Videl interacting with Saiyaman which makes her romance with Gohan, later on, make more sense. They've had the time to bicker and banter, while also developing trust between the two.
If I were Toriyama's editor I would have probably had him have Gohan be Saiyaman before the storey picks back up. Then, when he is introduced to Orange High and Videl is not initially suspicious until Gohan starts showing superhuman feats then she can more easily put two-and-two together. Then she can just confront him in the school as they did in the anime. It would've allowed the story to be quick-paced and also have a new status quo be established without needing two whole chapters establishing Saiyaman, to just toss it aside.
The Time skip allows Bulma/Vegeta and Krillin/18's wedding to not be shown as you got to wonder on what that was like as it's hard to see Vegeta being in a groom outfit
Secret history: Kondo e-mailed Toriyama stating "What is this, Spiderman? Where's Goku?"
Wouldn't be suprising
Makes the "Bully Maguire" edits even funnier
@@BagOfMagicFood if it weren't so hard I'd love to see Bully McGuire take out all the Cell jr.s hehe
17:47 - Tenshinhan and Yamcha outfits are gorgeous!!!
The buu saga is my second fav saga the first is the red ribbon
So your favourite arcs are mistare fusion's favourite and least favourite arcs, how novel
@@shenanigans8353 hahaha wow i never noticed, i mostly love both of those arcs because of nostalgia. The RR arc was because i bought 3 volumes of the manga when i was 8 and they were all from the RR arc, and the buu saga was always the saga i had the most fun watching whenever i turned on the tv. I've now read and seen all the sagas but those two always have a special place in my heart. It's cool how almost all db fans have diferent favourite arcs!
Nuno TORRES same here they’re my top 2 as well
@@spinceiling7442 nice that's awesome!
Lol, Great Saiyaman is done. No wonder the transition was Terrible. just a few chapters in and we already saw things back to normal. This should have either been a Side Story (In Weekly Shonen Jump's Sister Magazines V-Jump and Monthly Shonen Jump). Either that or just return the guys who were in High School back to the Martial Arts Tournament part with the Drama that ensues. Maybe Gohan is under investigation (as in "Who the hell is this delinquent dude?" and trying to find the Great Saiyaman and his own shit that ensues). Bringing in the police could introduce decent story opportunities for future plot points. Not to mention Curfews, Studying, and balancing School life, and fighting life. Then again, this is Toriyama. A dude who can't stick to one thing and tries to reset things back to zero with every little arc. This arc is gonna continue with this mess as we build upon this story. Though the Cell Arc was a mess, it kinda had an escalation factor and stuck to it. This is gonna get more confusing as it continues. Credit where it's due, at least Toriyama stepped out of his comfort zone for a bit with Gohan in an All-new world and more duties as the lead protagonist after beating Cell, and a try slice of life/superhero-delinquent story. I Can't imagine those reader polls at that point in the story.
I remember as a kid I was so embarrassed by great saiyaman & hated him. Now as an adult, I love saiyaman so much & wish we had more time with him. Gohan is such a huge dork & I love that about him
I know you don't like it, but I would love to see some of your ideas as to how this arc could've gone. Gohan as Saiyaman being the main character is such a great idea, and the few instances where you gave ideas onto how some stuff could've gone were great, so I would love to see how you would handle it
Are you going to be doing Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans?
Might just rewatch your whole series during quarantine!
TNG's Sonya Gomez in a DBZ review. Well done, Lance.
Lately, I've often wondered where the story would have gone if Goku would have just stayed dead... I honestly wonder if Mr.Toriyama just got bored drawing the Great Saiyaman, and didn't have an idea for a Big Bad Guy. If you think about it, a "main bad guy" in this stage has the marvel problem... the other characters would just come in and destroy said bad guy themselves (a.k.a Vegeta, who is already stated to be stronger than Gohan).
Personally, I think part of the problem became that the way to defeat each new big bad guy was just "get stronger"; I get that DB has always been built on the idea of working hard to become strong enough to overcome any obstacle, but at a certain point it becomes too much of an arms race to see who has the most transformations or hidden power-ups to beat the big bad. More interesting, I think, would be having villains based around other factors, as well, like intelligence or stranger powers that "get stronger and use a big attack" alone can't quite overcome; that'd allow for more chances for other characters to get big moments to shine in the series.
@@jmn327 I totally agree. But and that would work so well for this hypothetical great Saiyaman story.
@Joe N
Well, that's exactly what Buu is, isn't he? Strange powers and can't be defeated by raw strength alone. In the end they needed teamwork and a plan to defeat him. Literally everyone contributed to defeating Buu.
@@JackOfen but they had to use the big flashy attack, and hit really hard to beat the bad guy...
Plus Goku came back as main character, not Gohan.
yes, Every one contributed energy... But Not much else.
@@AxleMyths
The Spirit Bomb hasn't been used in a long time and it never actually defeated anyone up to that point in the manga. Vegeta came up with the idea thanks to his smarts. Mr. Satan used his charisma. Majin Buu his durability. King Kai helped with communications. The Namekians helped with the dragon balls. They did a lot.
It was also really cool to see characters from way back appearing again, even more in the anime.
Also, who cares about Gohan? Seriously? This whole time in Z he was just a power fantasy for little kids to attach unto.
I feel like the only reason you guys don't like the Buu Saga, is because you are so salty about Gohan that you disregard everything else and really reach for reasons to hate it.
There’s so many pointless things in this arc given how it all plays out. Great Saiyaman, Gohan in high school, SSJ3 Goku, Fusion Dance, Potara Earrings, Mystic Gohan, etc. All for Goku to use the spirit bomb and finally kill the character that can regenerate from nothing.
That made the ending more earned and unpredictable, also Genki Dama had everyone's but Goku's power
Not gonna lie, would've preferred the Gohan, orange star school premise rather than more Goku lol. I like the dude but... Ah well, far too late now
Imagine how fun the tournament section of this arc would be if Goku had not told anyone he'd come back for it.
9:09 Seeing what the filler High School/Saiyaman episodes showed us in the anime, I think it's safe to say that the longer that part of the story went on the more mundane it would have become. Just the same scenarios over and over.
The problem isn’t so much the plot but the discarded setting.
They could’ve grafted the Buu Saga elements onto the Great Saiyaman ones and it would’ve worked fine.
The difference would be that it focuses on Gohan and his cast of characters rather than Goku’s.
Have you explored the possible influences over Toriyama, guiding him to go back to the "old ways"? Was it just him or editors (similar as in Cell Arc's villain changing) or fans pressure (as popular rumour) had something to do here?
Hey MistareFusion, worry not!
modern db too has one istance of elements that are overblown for their importance... more precisely, the whole Minus part of the Broly movie!
NOTHING of the first part of that movie has ultimely any importance for the plot, and it does detract from neo Broly's screentime and possible characterization... but you know... fanservice rules modern db, so of course it had to be thrown in to wet fans even though nothing was truly new.
Fortunately... you wil really work around majin boo ark. My sadness for tfs being cancelled has not yet healed. TY Fusion
Watching the Buu arc was both jarring and refreshing cause it was the first time in a while we saw the outside world again and normal characters that weren’t fighters it’s clear that the status quo going forward and Toriyama did not want to write a story without Vegeta or Goku. It would of been kinda nice if we got a story tho with Gohan teaming up with Krillian and the others to be the new heroes tho with Vegeta and Goku taking a back seat.
I love these, always a good moment when they pop up in my notifications
I beat Super Mario Galaxy 100%. I guess this video must be some secret unlockable after getting 121 stars twice.
Jeez man, I really love the new drawn-on-paper introduction. Good work. I can't wait to see how do you make the case for this arc to being the N°1 but I sure as hell will wait for it.
At 7:42 on Kai's planet, we can see a weird jellyfish creature in the background that looks like he/she is the same species as Super's Galactic King. Never noticed that before.
18:36- A plain noseless face that ironically made him stand out from the nosed characters, especially when they became indistinguishable from Goku/Vegeta facial wise other than hair or lack of with the exception of Chiaotzu who has a perpetually wide-eyed, red cheek mark and Piccolo whose defining traits is that he's a green with pink/red parts slug alien former demon reincarnation.
This episode came out really fast, normally episodes take a bit unless it's DBcember. Must e the Quarantine giving you all that extra time. Still enjoy your work, and I can't wait to see the next episode!
This is what the Cell saga did better. That is, in terms of shifting gears with the story. Android #20 and #19 aren't very good villains? Well, have #20 turn out to be Gero and have him scurry to his laboratory for better Androids? #17 and #18 aren't that much? Slowly set up Cell as a new villain who needs the duo to complete his transformation.
Here, there's a sort of connective tissue between each elements. Some parts may be more obvious when looking at the bigger picture but watching the Anime episode by episode won't give you the idea that Cell was just thought of on the spot. Especially with how the new big bad is slowly introduced from the mysterious time machine to cities becoming barren.
The Androids are only moved into a third party villain role as #17 faces Piccolo who's trying to get at least one of them so Cell can be handled better. However, when Cell enters the fray, the Androids aren't so easily dispatched as they fight back before gradually being picked off.
Compare that to the Buu Saga where you can painfully feel Toriyama going, "Yeah, this ain't working for me," too transparently. It's a case of the hand of the author showing itself and disturbing one's immersion beyond a mere plot hole or two.
Damn, i wish Gohan got to stay as lead character for longer, it might have such a better arc and DB might not be in the awful place it is right now or ever since.
I wouldn't have any problem with Goku still being around in the story despite being dead. He could've transitioned into a more mentor-like role that can't actually interact with the problem, similar to Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars trilogy, plus considering their world it'd be nice to see him try and still connect with his family despite death being an issue (a lot of people still talk about how Goku should bring back or at least visit Grandpa Gohan since death isn't that much of a barrier). The bigger issue I'd say is around the time Old Kai just revives him, removing the only restriction that was keeping Goku from taking the main character spot back from Gohan, which I think is why more people think of that as the point where Toriyama gave up on Gohan being the main character.
hard for Gohan to have his own gang if he hangs out with those people his entire life saving the planets for a living.
Thank you for the message at the end. Your content is helping a lot during this time. You rule!
OK, I need to put this in a separate comment. I have to slightly disagree with the point of Gohan being discarded as the protagonist in this point of the story in favor of Goku. I honestly don't think Toriyama made that decision at this point, only two months into the arc. I think that decision came later on. I think Toriyama was still trying to make Gohan the protagonist of this arc, and he just intended to use Goku in a guest star role, maybe to ease in the transition.
And that's because Goku isn't really used as the protagonist at all up until the Elder Kai brought him back to life. That I think was the moment when Toriyama gave up on Gohan as the protagonist. And that's because Goku is not even built up as the guy who will save the day as he was in previous arcs. Heck, he even has a (eventually aborted) "passing the torch" arc so is the next generation the one that takes care of things.
As a matter of fact... Gohan was used in the EXACT SAME WAY Goku was in the aforementioned arcs.
No, really. Think about it.
Once the "first act" is finished with Vegeta's sacrifice, the narrative focuses on Goten and Trunks learning the Fusion dance on one side... and on the other, you have Gohan training in the Kaioshin planet with the Z Sword, and then with the Elder Kai awakening his dormant power. Then Goten and Trunks' Fusion fails... and Gohan arrives to save the day.
Now, of course, Toriyama didn't reach to that point nearly as well as he did with Goku in previous arcs, and probably that's part of the reason why he decided to suddenly change gears and put Goku again in the protagonist spot. And I think you can tell that because Gohan has a HUGE character change when he becomes "Ultimate Gohan". Probably because that's where Toriyama truly started to think that Gohan's personality wasn't well fit to be the sole protagonist from that point on, so he modified his personality, making him more arrogant. But then he saw it didn't work at all, and that's when he dropped the idea altogether.
Or at least, that's what seems more plausible to me.
Did they ever explain why Piccolo grew into a fully adult Namekian in like... 3 years or something while Dende is only a teenager after 7? ._.
They're different types. Dende is from the Dragon Clan, which are the ones who can spit out eggs, create Dragon Balls, heal people, etc.
Piccolo is a Warrior type Namekian, which are stronger and more suited for combat, but lack the aforementioned abilities.
It's never directly stated, but it sounds reasonable enough that Warrior-type Namekians would mature faster.
@@theking8347 I think a more likely explanation is because Piccolo is the reincarnation of King Piccolo. His father basically put everything about himself into King Piccolo. And because of that, Piccolo Junior didn’t really have to “grow.” He is the new life of King Piccolo.
7? They never give him an age.
Even if you and the other characters thought Gohan's Great Sayiaman outfit was stupid ( you for the second designed ) To me they were a lot, not so much nice but easier to relate too ( even Vegeta ) unlike with the Loud sisters making fun of Lincoln's Ace Savvy costume in the much hated Sleuth or Consequences where they deserved a slap to the face , here I can live with it. Similar the US Acres animals from Garfield and Friends were also more relatable with them laughing at Orson's Power Pig outfit plus they used laughing at it to their advantage to distract a fox that kidnapped the chick in an egg Sheldon , he laughs which allowed them to save Sheldon.
I just realised there's a martian behind goku .
7:42 All dogs go to Heaven, and so do jellyfish!
You know, the Tournament always taking place on May 12 makes me wonder: When does term begin for Japanese kids? Because if Gohan spent only two days before being blackmailed into the tournament, AND that tournament is just around the corner to the point that Videl's blackmail wouldn't have taken months and months to fulfill, then that would suggest that Gohan enrolled in high school in mid-April at the earliest. But if the school year schedule is anything like it is in the USA or the UK, then that would mean the school year was quintessentially over, and it would make more sense for Chi-Chi to simply wait out the summer before sending Gohan to high school in August.
Hey mistarefusion will you be covering the dragonball super manga after this? Because i dont want dragon ball dissection to end lol
I really wish that the Great Saiyaman Story arc(I call it a story arc. Meanwhile, most would just say Buu story arc. But just because it's really short doesn't mean it's not a story arc) was really longer, even in the animation. They made it a little bit longer by actually devoting two more episodes, and considering the latest story arc in the book when it's taken over by a new writer, is currently doing the Galactic prisons arc(i.e. a whole bunch of prisoners from outer space) a good example! I really hate that you balance the old formula, and trying to even do the old formula Gohan! In a strange way after switching to the outfit that his father wears, given the bad case of getting his ass kicked like Yamcha. Honestly if I was given the shots, one I would fix up a little pothole with the red ribbon army (actually make some references) and have it where a bunch of escaped criminals, break into one of the lost military bases of the red ribbon army, maybe even the ruins of where the death of red, and find the laboratory that was once run by Dr. Gero,Maybe a collection of steroids and super abilities, maybe giving one of the criminals a reference to blues ability, not completely saying it's not psychic powers but maybe something that would boost up Ki. Maybe an artificial version of Senzu Beans. Explain how the evil doctor discovered infinite energy. I don't know if I would be good for writing the story, but I still think it would've been better to have a break between the world annihilation again! I know he has a bad habit of skipping the boring parts but you need the boring parts, the world is constantly being destroyed. No wonder Goku was thinking it's his fault. I know I'm doing this before you cover(TVD of) the cell!
Thanks for making these lockdown times a bit more bearable :)
From the best evidence I can see, AT dropped Gohan because he didn't sell as well as Goku. Gt Saiyaman arc isn't selling good? Editors make AT bring Goku back. Gohan vs Buu isn't selling well? Editors make AT bring Goku and Vegeta back. Follow the money.