GT had a lot of great ideas, it just fell apart in its execution. For as many plot holes as it had, it also had a strong head for continuity that Toriyama left behind a long time ago. SSJ 4 brought back the Oozaru and made it relevant long after Toriyama had stopped caring that it was a thing that exists, and provided a better concept for "ultimate Saiyan transformation" than Toriyama's SSJ 3, which more or less consists of "train really hard until you master a level beyond SSJ 2, just like you did to reach SSJ 2". SSJ 3 was only the definitive Saiyan final form because Toriyama said so, while SSJ 4 actually felt like it combined all aspects of a Saiyan's power into one ultimate level.
Android 17 was another sore point that the series proper had randomly forgotten about, and the Shadow Dragons were an excellent concept because it seems appropriate for the series to end by punishing the main characters for their complete and absolute abuse of the Dragon Balls as the series went on. The Dragon Balls became a crutch in Z, and by the end of the series, they were actually building plans around the idea that Death Is Cheap, with Piccolo's "Stall for time by telling Buu to go kill everyone else on Earth and then come back, which is okay that I'm telling him to do that because everyone will pop back to life at the end of the arc anyway."
There were a lot of great concepts in GT. There just also happened to be a lot of poor concepts mixed in with a dash of poor execution on some elements.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Eh...
There were some things in GT that weren't terrible, but I really wouldn't care if all of it was scrapped.
SSJIV, I felt, was just another pointless power-up. I know the movies aren't canon either, but I always saw Broly's legendary super saiyan thing as the logical conclusion to the whole super saiyan thing.
I liked the ideas behind Baby. A parasite that steals fighters' bodies? Cool. A victim of the saiyans' destroy everything policy? Makes sense. The execution left a lot to be desired though.
I liked the idea behind the dark dragons. However, they ended up being SO POWERFUL that they had to pull out pointless shonen power ups like they were friggen party favors.
Majuub. MAJUUB. I dislike Majuub.
Super 17 was actually kinda OK to me even though 17 wasn't really all that evil in the first place.
Also the ending was bullshit.
Yeah, Super 17 was made against 17's wishes. He even resists his reprogramming enough at the end to help Goku and 18 kill him.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!They should have just ripped off his pants and called him Super NC-17.
edited 13th Feb '13 9:19:19 PM by Scardoll
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.Eh. Super Saiyan 4 really contradicts the message that stacking transformation upon transformation is the wrong way to do things, and presents a much better "final form" in Gohan's "Ultimate" stage. Hey, speaking of which, GT totally abandoned that with no explanation. STRONG SENSE OF CONTINUITY!
And yeah I have no idea how SS4 combines the traits of all the Super Saiyan levels when it doesn't have any of those traits present at all.
And I don't see why 17 needed to be brought up again. He was revived at the end of the Cell Arc, and chose to pursue a new life, getting a cameo in the Boo Arc.
The Shadow Dragons arc is actually one of GT's worst ideas. It's punishing the characters, yes... for doing the right thing. If they hadn't used the Dragon Balls to bring people back, they'd be complete scumbags. Especially for such bullshit reasons like "it's just not right to do so". Piccolo's case is the only time they're really abusing the safety net of the Dragon Balls, and I think seeing all of humanity senselessly murdered in front of him is punishment enough.
Oh and the Shadows Dragon arc turns the entire Namekian race (and Old Kaioshin) into irresponsible assholes who knew what would happen and chose to give no warning whatsoever.
The Shadow Dragon thing made no flipping sense. If the Namekians are supposed to be a generally upstanding, kind, loving, etc... race. Why would they regularly create a magical item that requires them to make wishes that run counter to their own nature or else risk spawning unstoppable monstrosities...
Why are the Shadow Dragons so powerful? Shenron could never do a wish that required more power than his creator. That's his limit. And Shenron's not that powerful (King Piccolo could kill him). Yet the Shadow Dragons are so powerful they eclipsed everyone... Where does that power come from?
edited 14th Feb '13 5:32:10 AM by CobraPrime
You know, I've never played any of those games. Could someone, really quickly, explain the title of each of them, for those that actually have a meaning for their title besides just the desire to be flowery?
That is Krillin on the 3 star, right? Nice to have Goku on the 4-star, but I'd have liked to see Gohan somewhere. Goku looks hilarious holding that fried chicken. DBZ for your lipstick. That Carnivale image looks The Onion levels of fakeness.
edited 14th Feb '13 7:35:44 AM by wanderlustwarrior
I think you guys need some marketing to calm down. They're really going all out with promotion for the new movie. Like these super saiyan water bottles
◊ (also includes Goku advertising KFC), and these capsules
◊.
Also, carnival in Brazil.
◊ I know the series is really popular there but I did not expect that much.
I think the idea of the shadow dragons is that it was something even the Namekians couldn't have seen coming, because they didn't have a radar that let them use the balls literally every year. No way they were able to use the randomly-hidden and protected relics with the kind of frequency needed for that buildup to happen in anyone's lifetime.
Even on Earth, Bulma's radar was a game changer of the likes nobody had ever seen.
I have a message from another time...Which ignores the fact that the Namekian balls are kept in every village in a dedicated shrine, and all Namekians can sense Ki, meaning finding the balls isn't particularly hard.
And that's not even counting how Namekian balls have a shorter cooldown to facilitate faster usage.
Plus even without a Radar, Popo could find all the balls in like a few minutes, meaning their creators can most likely find them without help. (Assuming here Kami told Popo where they were).
edited 14th Feb '13 7:50:54 AM by CobraPrime
My theory is that while the Namekian Dragon Balls were easy to find they weren't exactly used. The Namekians had them in seperate shrines and basically just kept them sitting there until there was an absolute need for them (at least until Frieza and Vegeta barreled their way through). Meanwhile, us pesky humans kept calling Shenron up every chance we got, accelerating the growth of the Shadow Dragons.
EDIT: damn ninjas.
Anyway, thinking back to the fusion topic a few pages ago, I just realized that 1)Gotenks and Piccolo basically form a comedy duo half way through, 2)Nail's most like gonna still be around, considering how good he is as a Deadpan Snarker, and 3)Piccolo being shit at Namekian fusion could justify Kami sticking around. In other words, this is going to be hilarious.
edited 14th Feb '13 7:58:32 AM by Watchtower
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Other wishes besides the resurrections one are cited as having caused the Shadow Dragons (Oolong wishing for panties to interrupt Pilaf, King Piccolo wishing for youth). And some of earth's wishes also involved only one resurrection. (Upa Wishing for Bora to return to life). Hell, it's not till the King Piccolo saga that we get a multiple resurrection. And Porunga can resurrect 3 people at a time, and be summoned 4 times more often than Shenron, so the difference only matters for huge resurrections like "Everyone on Namek" and "Everyone on Earth"
And Porunga can still create a whole planet with a habitable ecosystem. That's a ton of life right there.
So in the end, it still raises a ton of questions.
edited 14th Feb '13 8:01:08 AM by CobraPrime
The Dragon Balls(at least Earth's balls) were only to be used once every hundred years. Is why they flew all over the p,ace to be hidden. It allowed the Balls to safely dissipate the negative energy built up with the wish. Use them every year to fix a problem was the reason the Balls got so overloaded with negative energy that they went evil. Except for Four Star. He somehow on,y had the Good energy from King Piccolos evil wish. Honestly, the idea that any one dragon ball reflected the wish was the silliest part of the whole thing. Four Star being the ony somewhat Good evil dragon. That one dragon being a girl because Porkins wished for panties. I'm not remembering the others.

That whole "Toriyama didn't know how to design them" thing is just a rumour, by the way.