Gohan going SSJ 2 utterly eclipsed his father going SSJ.
Sorry.
Maybe it has something to do with me watching DBZ when I was about Gohan's age so naturally I rooted for him more but...fuck, it's awesome. I still can revisit it to this day and love it.
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Like I said, everything about the Cell Games was bloody awesome, and the Gohan's crowning moment of become a Super Saiyan 2 in his battle against Cell... I always get chills down my spine watching that moment. I wouldn't consider it much better than Goku's first Super Saiyan transformation against Freeza because that was insanely hyped, like that transformation turned you in a God and actually felt like that when it happened. Also the English soundtracks that accompanied those two scene was amazing and he climaxes to both of those battles were also breathtaking.
edited 8th Jun '14 4:45:15 PM by FireShadow
Idle Thought
You know, people always talk about where the manga or anime should have ended. Even I've done it.
But arc-driven series like Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Sailor Moon, etc. etc. don't have an overarching narrative structure. They have continuity, they have plotlines, but they aren't one big, solitary story. They're more like franchises, and each arc is a new installment in that franchise.
Why are we so eager to see them end? If we don't like Buu Saga, why do we say, "It should have ended at Cell," instead of, "There should have been a better arc instead of Buu." Cell wasn't the conclusion of a story that dates back all the way to Bulma finding Goku in his hut. Neither was Frieza, or Vegeta, or the 23rd Budokai. And Buu wasn't either. These stories aren't written with a definitive "end" in mind; they're hero-driven rather than villain-driven. They end when the writer can't think of a new story to write with these characters in this universe.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Jus tkidding there Drake. I like your idea, even though I like something about every arc truthfully.
edited 8th Jun '14 7:14:47 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!The Buu Arc just undermines a lot of the Cell Arc though. If Goku can achieve SSJ 2 through training, then why didn't he and Gohan just go into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber again then instead of making a gamble at the Cell Games?
You answered your own question, it was gamble and a huge one. Remember, when the Cell Games was only a few day away Goku and Gohan had already mastered Super Saiyan 1 and Goku and had already seen the insane amount of Gohan had hidden within in while training in the ROTAS/Hyperbolic Time Chamber and thought, "Oh hell yeah! With the kind strength Gohan has he can kick Cell ass." He was right in the end...
Another key thing to remember is that you can only use the ROTAS/Hyperbolic Time Chamber twice in a lifetime and Goku probably though going inf again would be overkill and someday he would need to use the ROTAS/Hyperbolic Time Chamber in desperate matter. Again he was right, as he needed it to teach Goten and Trunks the Fusion Dance.
edited 9th Jun '14 3:10:46 AM by FireShadow
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According to Mr. Popo, Goku had already used his 1st day in the un-seen training events from the near ending of Dragon Ball.
Actually, I thought Goku himself said he couldn't even stand being in there for a whole day.
But that was the Dub, and they can be quite inaccurate.
One Strip! One Strip!There is such a thing as a series running out of ideas or having reached a point in its metastory- even if it does consist of mostly self-contained arcs- where it makes sense to end it. Sometimes a series has simply reached a point where there is little value in continuing it, and that point will universally be reached before the writer literally can't think of any story whatsoever to throw at the characters.
The Buu saga wasn't just randomly not as good as the Cell or Frieza sagas. It came at a point where most of the series' ideas had been taken as far as they could be. They had reached the point where continuing to scale up the power levels was becoming meaningless. Most of the characters had reached the end of what existed of their character arcs. The show's mythology started requiring asspulls to introduce characters powerful enough to be antagonists. Most of the existing protagonists had fallen to far behind to matter anymore. The passing of the torch had already happened, but the series wouldn't be the same without Goku.
The Buu saga was mostly just redundant, and mostly of the silly cruft that came with it was the inevitable result of trying to go somewhere with a formula that had reached its logical conclusion in the Frieza saga. It's really a testament to Toriyama that he managed to find as much fun as he did in the Buu saga. The show's premise had simply been fully explored at that point.
Some stuff is just better off ending and making room for entirely new stories.
edited 9th Jun '14 1:29:49 PM by Bloodsquirrel
Just about all of this is true of earlier sagas.
The show reached the point where power level scaling became meaningless long before Buu. Vegeta nearly blew up the entire planet Earth, while Frieza destroyed both Planet Vegeta and Planet Namek. Destroying a planet isn't really a feat that can be topped. From Raditz onward, each new villain had to be stated to be more powerful than the one before, because there wasn't any ability to show it beyond them beating up characters we already know are powerful. Power levels ceased to be measurable and just became relative to other characters.
Few of the characters even had character arcs. Toriyama was writing by the seat of his pants, and what passed for character arcs were really just cool ideas that struck him. Tien and Chiaotzu's arc finished before the King Piccolo saga even began. Master Roshi, Yamcha, and Krillin never even had arcs, they were just supporting protagonists. Bulma had an arc when she was first introduced but completed it when she hooked up with Yamcha at the end of Emperor Pilaf's story, and then fell into a supporting protagonist role as well. Goku never had an arc, he's been a wandering do-gooder for pretty much his entire history on the show, falling headfirst into villainous plots and then resolving them for lulz.
The protagonists do things and have things happen to them, but I wouldn't call most of those things an "arc". Their lives develop organically over the course of the series.
And the show's mythology has been relying on asspulls for as long as it's been around, that's not unique to Buu either. Demon King Piccolo showed up out of nowhere with no foreshadowing, a space alien dropped out of the sky and retconned himself into being Goku's brother, Frieza retconned himself into existence despite blatantly contradicting the established mythos, and Cell was a random asspull invention by what was, himself, a brand new character who had only the most superficial connection to the previous villains he claimed to be associated with. Not counting major villains, Future Trunks is the near-future offspring of a Crack Pairing who appears out of nowhere to solve the plot, God is a green alien slug-man, Gohan can summon incredible wells of power whenever the plot requires him to with no rhyme or reason to it, transformations, interdimensional teleportation, fusion, etc.
Again, writing by the seat of his pants. Just about everything that wasn't a parody of Journey to the West was Toriyama coming up with an idea and rolling with it, regardless of how it fit into the greater narrative, because there was no greater narrative.
edited 9th Jun '14 2:11:26 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
Yamcha, Master Roshi, and Kuririn all had character arcs.
Yamcha was so afraid of girls he couldn't be in their presence, had to work with Bulma in order to pursue his goal of getting the D Bs, and thus get over his massive phobia of them.
Master Roshi had the typical "pass the torch" arc. Kind of generic but it is there.
Kuririn hated Goku at first and learned to like him. Although I'd agree that this was a rushed narrative.
edited 9th Jun '14 2:38:01 PM by Jaken
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My point isn't that it's well written, it's that you can't draw a line between Cell and Buu and say, "This. This is the point where a beautifully woven narrative finished wrapping up all of its plot threads that have been running since the beginning of the series. This is the definitive ending point, and everything after this is random bullshit."
The entire show ran on random bullshit. The Buu Saga wasn't any more of a random Ass Pull than anything else that came before it. In fact, nearly everything that people complain about in the Buu Saga has been done before in the series.
edited 9th Jun '14 2:44:40 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Perhaps then it was more of a case of people just saying enough is enough.
It had all happened before but people cut him some slack. Saiyans? Goku is an alien? God knows why people were okay with that but they were. Androids stronger than a Super Saiyan? Sure why not.
But Buu was the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people and there must be a reason for it.
Cell was also the same straw for a lot of people. And for many, Frieza. Or the Ginyus.
Buu isn't the unanimous point the series went south for everyone. There is a wide range of opinions on where the "true endpoint" should be. Some people are discontent with everything after King Piccolo!
Ultimately, people just like to complain. Also, it should be noted that people got older as further and further arcs came out, so "at what age did you grow out of Dragon Ball?" is also a factor. It is, after all, a shonen; while such series have many adult fans, they also have a lot of teenage fans who start looking for deeper and more complex storytelling that shonen doesn't provide, and blaming the shonen for "becoming shitty" rather than accepting that maybe it just isn't your thing anymore is commonplace for a lot of Young Adult storytelling.
edited 9th Jun '14 3:23:25 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Even more than Krillin's head.
It was ashamed of itself and it's hair for so long, but after finally finally love with a blonde, it allowed itself to grow.
The head version of Character Development.
One Strip! One Strip!Look. We already know that the entirety of Dragon Ball is So Bad Its Horrible with its Flat Characters, Deus ex Machina, Artistic License, rampant sexism, Testosterone Poisoning, and a ton of other things that are a mile long, but most of us love it anyway. This whole thing is just starting to stink of Complaining About Shows You Dont Like and frankly I'm starting to get tired of it.
"It's liberating, realizing you never need to be competent." — Ultimatepheer

edited 8th Jun '14 4:31:55 PM by FireShadow