Okay as much as I loved Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, I was actually so mad when Trunks and Goten screwed up the fusion. Like y’all had the perfect opportunity for some badass older Gotenks moments but nooooo, you decided to waste it

I just realized

Baiya probably hasn’t connected the dots between Vegetto & Gogeta being fusions of Goku and Vegeta.

Sure, maybe she’s listened to Trunks talking about fusion with Goten, but she might just write it off as a technique they came up with for a fancy battle move, whenever they’re off playing vigilantes as Saiyaman-X1 & -X2. Baiya definitely wouldn’t hear about it from Vegeta (as he’d prefer to forget the whole experiences of himself having to share a mind with that blasted fool, Kakarot,) and Goku likely just wouldn’t even think to mention it to her unless Baiya asks outright. Probably doesn’t even cross his mind, as he’s used to everyone just. Knowing the fusions.

I can imagine Baiya’s shock if, one day, (hypothetically) Whis encourages Goku and Vegeta to fuse to train, to “improve their teamwork”. Baiya unwittingly walking into the room right after they fuse like “Wow, that was bright! Anyways, who’s this guy-“

*Cue Baiya choking on her words when this stranger turns around and looks like the spitting image of her adoptive father and his rival, just casually standing there like it’s nothing out of the ordinary*

Baiya later chatting with Shin (just roll w/ it or refer to the Baiya OC Lore Dump post here) like “Yeah! Apparently Gogeta’s a fusion, the same as Gotenks. I never knew”

Shin laughing and going “Yep. It’s a shame Vegeta’s so against using the Potara to fuse, since attaching an earring to become Vegetto is easier than memorizing and perfecting a dance to achieve fusion-“

Baiya: “What”

Shin: “…Baiya.”

Baiya: “HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW”

Shin: “You’ve watched recorded footage of their battles, Baiya, how did you not even notice this before”

Baiya just excitedly vibrating with so many questions for Gogeta, wanting to pick his brain and understand what fusion’s like, but keeping her mouth shut because “oh he’s here to be Serious™️ I can’t distract him”

The rare instance Gogeta actually gets to mess around and not carry the fate of the world on his shoulders, and he’s got an excited onlooker watching his every move… Idk, I definitely think he’d enjoy teasing her a little, like a goofy uncle asdfghjkl

Dragon Ball GT 38

✨GT stands for Gastrointestinal Torture✨

✨Is this episode worse than “The Roaming Lake”?✨

Yes, this episode is automatically worse than “The Roaming Lake”, because this is the one where Goten and Trunks are about to fuse and Goku tells them not to.

  This is the dumbest thing this show has ever done.  Goten and Trunks haven’t done shit-all this entire series.  Everyone just wanted to see Adult Gotenks, and this piece-of-crap anime refused to deliver.  Well, you know what, Dragon Ball GT?  We don’t need your broken promises anymore!   This is the 21st century!  And we have Dragon Ball Heroes. 

Look at this.  Look at this.  GT Gotenks.  You love to see it.

  Am I overreacting?  I don’t think I am.  They put Gotenks in Battle of Gods, Dragon Ball Super and DBS Super Hero.  He didn’t even do that much in any of those shows, but they still put him in there because the people love Gotenks, and they just like to see how he’s doin’. 

But not GT!  Noooooo.  The people making GT heard fans asking “Please sir, might you favor us with a crumb of Gotenks?” and they were like “Bleah, bleah!  No Gotenks for anyone!  Bleah!”

“The Roaming Lake” is a lot of things.  Stupid, yes.  Boring, certainly.  But it’s not a liar.  Nam was trying to get water for his village and dammit, they got some water.

  We all know the REAL Goku wouldn’t turn down some Gotenks action.  He’s the one who taught Goten and Trunks how to do it. He would have been like, “Yeah, boys, do some fusion, this is gonna kick ass!”  And then SSJ3 Gotenks would have busted out Stardust Breaker and one-shotted Baby.  Then Vegeta would have woken up and said “No, I can’t be satisfied with this victory, not until Kakarot and I fuse so we can face our sons in awesome fusion battle, men-to-men.”  And then it would have been Gotenks vs. Gogeta in a heartwarming father-son match on Planet Vegeta. 

✨ “Good” “Ideas”, Poorly Executed✨

All right, let me back up and provide some context for this travesty. 

So Baby and Goku were both knocked out last episode, but Baby got a reviving dose of Blutz waves from Bulma, while Goku is running on fumes.  Kibitoshin is arranging support for him, but they aren’t ready yet.  So Baby starts teeing of on Goku, because, hey, it’s a free shot. It’s like when you have Goten and Trunks in your anime, and you know you could just have them fuse into Gotenks whenever you want.  Why would you hold back?  Sorry, I’m getting off-track.

Anyway, Pan rushes into defend her grandfather, and it’s a pretty heroic scene, but Kozo Morishita said Pan can’t have a hero moment, so Baby just smacks her down again.  You know, they really should have turned Pan Super Saiyan, if only to justify her getting clobbered by Baby without getting seriously hurt.   It’s just such an obvious thing to do, like having Gotenks in your show... Oh, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

So Baby moves into finish off Pan, because apparently he can trade blows with a Super Saiyan 4, but he needs multiple tries to kill a base-form Saiyan child.  Then Goku tries to hold him at bay, but Baby knows he’s helpless, so he just keeps going, until...

Trunks shows up to make the save.  Cool!  I don’t know why his ki blast could stop Baby, but SSJ4 Goku’s couldn’t, but at least he got here in time.   Trunks turns Super Saiyan, and tries to fight Baby by himself, but he gets nowhere.  This uppercut he delivers looks cool, but it doesn’t actually hurt Baby at all.

  Baby then tells Trunks that he’s currently inhabiting Vegeta’s body, which is weird because I thought Trunks already knew this.  I mean, it’s kind of unclear whether people remember what they did while they were under Baby’s control, but Trunks found out about Baby possessing Vegeta before he got Tuffleized.  Where else would Baby have gotten a Super Saiyan Oozaru to ride around in?

Then Goten, Gohan, and Kibitoshin arrive and rescue Trunks, and they all regroup to discuss their strategy.  And this is where Goten and Trunks propose fusion, but Goku insists that it won’t work, even if they all attack at once.  So what should they do, then?

Well, this, basically.  Goku wants the boys to turn Super Saiyan and give him their power.  This will restore him to full strength, and since he’s a Super Saiyan 4, he’ll have what it takes to defeat Baby once and for all. 

All right, so let me deconstruct this idea, because I hate it so, so, much.

  I don’t claim to understand power scaling.  But I’ve never been able to comprehend how characters pooling their power into one teammate is better than just fighting together as a group.  I had the same grip with the Broly movie, which is probably where this episode got the idea from, although we also see a similar trick used in the Lord Slug movie, and Baby used it a few episodes back when he had these same guys working for him.

The idea seems to be that Super Saiyan 4 Goku can somehow use that power more effectively than the others can individually, but I have a hard time buying that.  Maybe there’s some sort of stacking effect, where Goku can get more out of the same amount of ki energy.  Hey, you know what else has a stacking effect?  Fusion.

So even if this is the best play, wouldn’t it make a lot of sense for Goten and Trunks to fuse, and then stand around Goku and give him Super Saiyan power?  At least that way, if Baby tried to stop them, Gotenks would be in a better position to run interference. 

Also, why is Kibitoshin just standing around watching this?  He has healing powers, even if the Elder Kai claimed that they wouldn’t be sufficient to restore Goku’s strength.  So why doesn’t he put that to the test?  Even if he can only get Goku a quarter of the way to where he needs to be, that’s still better than nothing. 

Or even if Kibitoshin knows that wouldn’t work, why didn’t he grab some senzu beans on the way here?  Or he could have brought Dende along and they could have both healed Goku in some sort of kinky three-way healing session. 

I’ll admit that I’m splitting hairs here.  It’s just a cartoon, and it really doesn’t matter how they get Goku across the finish line, but it really makes me nutty how Toei seemed to go out of their way to arrange this bullshit. Like, there’s so many other options on the table, many of them involving Super Saiyan Pan and Adult GT Gotenks, but instead they went with this:

STANDING AROUND.  That’s the big technique we’re going to use to beat the bad guy.  Just standing around in the open, hoping he doesn’t kill us.

And Baby is actually surprisingly accommodating.  Sure, he tries to kill them before they can re-energize Goku, but he was sporting enough to stand perfectly still while they talked about it. Eventually he attacks, but Goku distracts him with a Solar Flare, and then, when Baby tries to attack again, he doubles over in pain.  What happened to him?  Well he came down with a case of...

✨Positivity Page✨

Uub! Yeah, Baby thought he had defeated Uub before, when he turned Uub’s own candy beam back on him, but when he picked up the chocolate Uub and ate it, he made a fatal mistake.  Uub was counting on getting swallowed, and he figured he could do more damage to Baby from the inside.  Pretty clever!

Although, it kind of makes you wonder why he waited so long to make his move.  Uub got swallowed way back in Episode 33.  He can apparently change back into a human at will, but why didn’t he attack earlier?  If he’d done this before, when Baby was taking potshots at the Earth, he and Goku probably could have won this thing already.

Then again, it doesn’t work for very long, and Baby manages to spit Uub out, so maybe it was never good for more than a momentary distraction.  Baby finally manages to attack the Saiyan contingent, and for a moment it looks like he won.  Horrified that Pan has been killed, Mr. Satan dares Baby to kill him too, but then...

Goku reveals that he and Pan are fine.  Everything worked, and he’s back to full strength.  Maybe he’s stronger than he was when he first transformed, actually, since he had taken quite a beating before that.   Anyway, Baby’s back to square one. 

Goku declares that it’s time “we both got serious.”  Past time, if you asked me.  This whole fight has been one big boondoggle.  It’s not even that long, but it sucks so much ass that it feels like it’s taken forever.

✨The Blade Braxton Memorial Haiku*✨

No time for Gotenks?

Bite your tongue, sir. He beat

Hitler, didn’t he?

DBZ, rewritten

while i was brainstorming about my own main au, "From Eden", i was also thinking about a rewritten version of db, another AU i'd like to write someday but for now i just summarized it. you can read it under the divisor!

premise: there aren't ocs or too many headcanons of mine, just some ideas i thought they would've been cool to see instead of the plot we have now. i removed some things but i also inserted some new things i thought they would've been interesting. i didn't add moro or granola's sagas for some reasons i'll explain better later. hope you like it!

Until Frieza Saga, DB-DBZ stays as it is. But, from Chapter 330 of the manga things start changing. Mecha Frieza doesn’t exist, Future Trunks only comes (with a mask on his face) to warn Goku about the heart virus, then goes back to the future.

Although the warning, Goku carelessly dies anyway. Piccolo still trains Gohan and lives with him, the Ox King and ChiChi, who’s pregnant. After the Androids defeat, Piccolo trains Gohan at the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, making him transform into Super Saiyan for the first time. Thus, as in canon, Gohan transforms into Super Saiyan 2 and defeats Cell.

For the 25th World Tournament (and so Majin Buu saga) Goku comes back to Earth for 24 hours and meets Goten for the first time. Goku tries to fight against Majin Buu, but he doesn’t stand a chance against him and is defeated. Goku and Piccolo train Goten and Trunks to make them fuse into Gotenks who, with Vegito’s help, tries to defeat Super Buu, but they get absorbed in the process. All of this happens while Gohan is trained by Shin and Old Kai, who awakens his potential and thus gains a part of Godly Ki. Shin and Kibito use their Potara earring to fuse into Kibitoshin, and helps Gohan to defeat Kid Buu. All the lives get resurrected, Gohan chooses to train with Shin on the Sacred World of Kai, becoming a Supreme Kai apprentice next to Kibito. Yet, still lives on Earth and marries Videl.

At Age 778, Bulma organizes her birthday party. At the same time, Beerus wakes up after his 39 years of slumber to look for the Super Saiyan God. After knowing there is a Saiyan with a glimpse of Godly Ki, he travels to the Sacred World of Kai, looking for Gohan. He isn’t there, so Kibitoshin tells him he shouldn’t disturb his apprentice while he’s on Earth—but Beerus goes there anyway. Vegeta tries to stop him, but he, along with Android 18, Piccolo and Gotenks, is defeated. Beerus only wants to fight Gohan, thus he chooses to try to fight him only with his Unlocked Potential. At a certain point of their fight, Gohan is able to transform into Super Saiyan God, leaving Kibitoshin speechless. After their fight ends in a tie, the birthday party continues and Gohan acknowledges he will be a father.

For formal reasons, Kibitoshin decides to unfuse and Shin continues to work as Supreme Kai, still having Gohan as his student. Since ChiChi has a lot of potential because of her demon origins, Shin chooses to train her, as well as Whis decides to help Gohan with his training too. During Gohan’s training, Vados and Champa pay Beerus a visit. Vados finds out Universe 6’s Earthlings are extinct, thus Champa wants Universe 7’s Earth for himself. They decide to do a Tournament between Universe 6 and Universe 7, where Gohan meets Hit and Cabba for the first time. Gohan doesn’t need to transform into Super Saiyan God, until he fights against Hit and reaches Super Saiyan Blue, leaving Beerus and Shin surprised. Universe 7 wins and, like in canon, Beerus wishes for Universe 6’s Earthlings to be alive. In the same period, Gohan knows Zen’Oh due to one of the gods’ reunions.

At Age 780, Gohan realizes his daughter is starting to mysteriously develop some Ki alone and when he asks Shin to check her, he says she has definitely taken it from him. Gowasu and Zamasu pay Shin a visit and Gohan sees Kibito training with Zamasu for the first time. Zamasu, though, notices Gohan and thinks he’s even more powerful than Kibito--when he sees ChiChi being trained by Shin as well, he starts despising mortals even more and tries to attack ChiChi in front of Gowasu. When Gohan surprisingly blocks him, they start a battle that ends in a tie because both Gowasu and Shin forcibly stop them. When they return to Universe 10, like in canon, Gowasu makes Zamasu see the Babarian population from afar, but Zamasu kills one of them and his master tells him not to do it anymore as they return back home. A new Time Ring is created and when Shin notices it, Gohan starts wondering if it’s because of Zamasu like he previously thought when ChiChi was attacked. Gowasu returns to Universe 7, telling Shin that Zamasu disappeared. In fact, Whis finds out Zamasu has collected all the Super Dragon Balls to wish his body to be immortal. Piccolo and Dende confirm Zamasu is coming back and plans to destroy all humans. Gohan prepares for the fight, as well as Gotenks, while Bulma, Whis and Beerus watch them. During the fight, Gotenks is seriously wounded and Gohan’s Super Saiyan God transformation fades, while Zamasu’s body starts corrupting due to an overcharge of energy. Shin teleports both Gowasu and ChiChi with him, she surprisingly attacks him with the Z-Sword--that only Gohan was able to wield. Zamasu is finally wounded, but with Bulma’s plan, Beerus is able to kill him with his Hakai.

In the meantime, Dende tells Goku about Uub. So Goku teleports to the Sacred World of Kai to tell Shin about him. When Shin acknowledges Uub is actually Kid Buu’s reincarnation, he first thinks he could be a menace--but probably isn’t since he’s good. Gohan brings him to Mr. Satan’s house and meets Majin Buu, who apparently can take the form of the Grand Supreme Kai. Both Shin and the Grand Supreme Kai travel to find Uub, who’s currently training with King Chappa. Shin offers to fight Uub, and surprisingly finds out the child has a great potential. The Grand Supreme Kai is aware of the fact Uub is holding part of his power and suggests him to train with the two deities.

Twelve years later, Pan is thirteen years old and follows the same training as Gohan, who’s now the new Supreme (Demi)Kai. Shin, having now the rank of Grand Supreme Kai, is watching them through the training and Beerus wonders if Pan will ever be as strong as her father, Shin thinks the same about Bra, since she’s trained by Beerus and Whis. Bulma kept the Dragon Balls for another birthday party, but when she and the rest of the group summon Shenlong, a black dragon appears to explain the Dragon Balls have been overused, so they now have a negative energy within them. The Dragon Balls separate into several deities, thus Beerus suggests to send Pan, Bra and Uub to defeat the Shadow Dragons and recover the Dragon Balls in their normal state. Bra is the one who drives the ship, so she decides where to go first. The dragons are all pretty much the same as in canon, but the trio will fight against the last three evil dragons, Uub fights against San Shenlong, Bra against Shu Shenlong, while Pan fights against Omega Shenlong, unlocking her potential as her father did. Once they defeat the dragons, the Dragon Balls return back to normal. Shenlong asks Pan if she wants to train with him, but she refuses and says she soon wants to become Supreme Kai as Gohan did.

Dragon Ball: Each Main Character's Most Iconic Scene

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Dragon Ball: Each Main Character's Most Iconic Scene

The Z Fighters are Earth’s mightiest champions, and each character in the Dragon Ball establishment has their best and most significant second.

The Z Fighters are Earth’s mightiest champions. They have confronted intergalactic dangers, hereditarily designed animals, enchanted creatures, and surprisingly genuine Gods and consistently figure out how to dominate the competition. Their battles consistently accompany a lot of misery and difficulty, and it’s this eagerness to put others’ prosperity before their own that makes them the worthiest of heroes.

Each character in the establishment has their best and most vital second. Most happen in the warmth of a fight, albeit a couple happens in everyday life. These scenes are currently darling among devotees of the establishment, and a couple even positions as a portion of anime’s generally famous and vital crossroads.

10.Yamcha Wins The Baseball Game

Poor Yamcha doesn’t get a lot of regards. He does not have any of the super-strength, sturdiness, or crude force of the Saiyans. Without a doubt, he’s simply an Earthling, a human in the top state of being, yet a human in any case. And keeping in mind that the Z Fighters and fans frequently underestimate him, he was a vital person in the first anime.

Yamcha gets one more opportunity to sparkle in Dragon Ball Super. During the ball game between Universes 6 and 7, Beerus and Champa get into a brutal contention. While every other person rushes to cover up, Yamcha effectively overcomes the ki blast storm falling off of the two Gods of Destruction and dominates the match for Universe 7.

9.Chiaotzu Dies In Vain

Chiaotzu and his dearest companion and dependable friend, Tien Shinhan, are noticeable characters in the first anime. In Dragon Ball Z, their jobs get fundamentally diminished, however, they actually find the opportunity to sparkle. During the Saiyan Saga, and after Nappa cuts off Tien’s left arm, Chiaotzu resorts above and beyond.

Locking himself to Nappa’s back, the white-colored Earthling turns into a living bomb. He imparts a genuine farewell to Tien and explodes, committing suicide. His penance is eventually for nothing, as Nappa rises up out of the destruction determined, further expanding the awfulness of Chiaotzu’s passing.

8.Tien Shinhan Stops Cell

Tien Shinhan starts his bend as the main adversary to Goku and even faces against the Saiyan during the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. He has numerous important minutes during this time, including fighting Goku interestingly and bringing down Mercenary Tao with one hit.

Notwithstanding, his most huge second is likewise quite possibly the most underestimated in the anime. After Imperfect Cell routs Piccolo, he retains Android 17 and becomes Semi-Perfect Cell. Tien then, at that point holds him off by utilizing his Neo Tri-Beam, effectively keeping Cell from seeking after Android 18, for some time.

7.Krillin Marries Android 18

Krillin is the establishment’s most grounded human. He demonstrates fundamental in a large number of the Z Fighter’s fights and demonstrates his value on various occasions, similar to when he battles Nappa and even figures out how to cut him. Krilin is additionally scandalous for continually kicking the bucket. For sure, a portion of his most popular scenes in the anime are his various passings on account of Frieza, Cell, and Android 17.

6.Piccolo Gives His Life For Gohan’s

Piccolo is one of the establishment’s generally captivating and complex characters. In the same way as other of Goku’s partners and companions, he begins as a threatening scalawag prior to vindicating himself. Piccolo then, at that point turns into a tutor figure for some individuals from the Z Fighters, most outstandingly Gohan.

During the Saiyan Saga, Nappa endeavors to kill Gohan with an amazing assault. Notwithstanding, Piccolo hops before the little youngster, ensuring him to the detriment of his own life. As he kicks the bucket, Piccolo says thanks to Gohan for making him gentler and even consider him a genuine companion. Piccolo and Gohan would share another genuine farewell in Dragon Ball GT, yet nothing beats the first.

5.Future Trunks Kills The Androids

Future Trunks comes from an alternate timeline where Androids 17 and 18 killed the Z Fighters and decimated the Earth. Well-mannered, cautious, and somewhat shy, he travels to the past to warn Goku of the impending threat and deliver medication to save the Saiyan’s life.

Trunks eventually return to the past after spending considerable time with the present Z Fighters and helping them battle Cell. Back in his timeline, and more powerful than ever, he successfully kills the Androids, giving his world a much-needed break. He still has to deal with Cell, though, but three years would pass before he faced the green creature.

4.Gotenks Fights Majin Buu

Kid Trunks is fundamentally not quite the same as his other future rendition. Both he and Goten are dear companions who frequently fall into difficulty. They are additionally amazingly incredible, fit for turning out to be Super Saiyan in spite of their young ages. During the Majin Buu adventure, the two effectively ace the combination strategy, turning into the extraordinary champion Gotenks.

Arrogant, pompous, and juvenile, Gotenks has an interesting and extraordinary fight with Super Buu. At a certain point, they even accomplish the Super Saiyan 3 phase. Gotenks additionally perform different strategies, similar to their brand name Super Ghost Kamikaze Attack, making for an immensely engaging battle.

3.Gohan Kills Cell

Briefly, it appeared to be that Gohan would turn into the establishment’s new hero. After his extensive personal advancement all through the early scenes of Dragon Ball Z, Gohan at long last gets his time at the center of attention during the Cell adventure. He has a brutal fight against Perfect Cell, and with some assistance from Goku and Vegeta, Gohan releases an amazing Kamehameha that decimates the green scoundrel.

Gohan’s curve in the Majin Buu adventure is additionally very convincing, and his change into Ultimate Gohan is likewise extremely commendable and notorious. In any case, his loss of Cell stays the second that most fans best recall.

2.Vegeta’s Atonement

Vegeta is the establishment’s definitive screw-up, a person so layered and convoluted that it’s difficult to characterize him as far as “great” and “wickedness.” Indeed, Vegeta submits contemptible activities all through Dragon Ball Z, however his person circular segment turns up at ground zero during the Majin Buu adventure.

After he enthusiastically permits himself to be adulterated by Babidi, Vegeta goes out of control, needing to incite Goku into a battle. The two then, at that point participate in a seething fight that finishes with Vegeta taking Goku out prior to taking off to confront Majin Buu alone. Subsequent to offering a genuine farewell to Trunks, Vegeta utilizes Final Explosion trying to stop the pink threat. His endeavors fall flat, however the location of his penance actually cuts chills down the spine of each Dragon Ball fan.

1.Goku Vs. Frieza

Frieza is, apparently, Goku’s most prominent adversary. Their hotly anticipated and climactic struggle stays the longest fight in anime history, including the conflict between two of the most impressive creatures in the Dragon Ball universe, at that point, at any rate.

The fight has various setbacks, including Vegeta and Krilin. The actual battle is severe and non-halting, pushing the two members as far as possible. The fight arrives at an edge of boiling over when Frieza kills Krilin (once more). Irritated, Goku controls up and changes into the amazing Super Saiyan, at long last satisfying the antiquated prediction. The second is maybe the series’ generally notorious and amazing and probably the best accomplishment.

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What If: Every Character In Dragonball FighterZ Had a Dramatic Finish? (Pt. 3)

And here we are at the third leg of this little brainstorming session. Since yesterday, UI Goku has come out - people are enjoying the apparently pretty insane defensive options he’s got, and the new Kefla Dramatic Finish, but that doesn’t mean our work here is done just yet. If you haven’t seen the first two installments of these, this week in honor of the Ultra Instinct Goku DLC for Dragon Ball FighterZ I’ve been doing a little hypothetical thinking about Dramatic Finishes - those awesome re-animations of classic Dragonball moments that Arcys lovingly put into the game. Specifically, we’ve been approaching the question of “what if there were even more Dramatic Finishes” - since only a select portion of the cast has one. Over the last couple of days, we’ve been going through each of the characters without a Dramatic Finish and trying to find the best choice, the most cinematic moment, coolest and hopefully most epic shots of each character’s history that could work as a Dramatic Finish for them. This is more of a hypothetical: as I said in the previous installments, I’m not seriously saying that every character in the game should have a Dramatic Finish: Arcsys puts a hell of a lot of work into each of them, and the majority of the roster getting such time consuming devotion is just not happening. This is more of a thought experiment - and an excuse to rewatch a ton of clips from all over Dragonball history, of course. And as before, I’m looking for good scenes that would make appearances in Dramatic Finishes, not necessarily wins - so some of the characters on this list are going to lose.

If you want to the whole thing in one shot, you can always just listen to it on Soundcloud: we have a whole cast for it right here. But if not, then buckle up: cause here we got into Part 3. When last we met, we went through the Cell Saga (and Videl), so the next character up without a Dramatic Finish should be...

Majin Buu

Buu has been in the game since the beginning, but never did seem to get much attention - the main villain of his own arc, albeit one in which is many additional forms and personas took center stage after himself, Buu’s got quite a bit of interesting moments under his belt, with his own brand of destruction that’s as terrifying as it is silly.

I do want to preface this by pointing out that in the last video I went over an option for Super Saiyan Vegeta, which involved compositing the Final Explosion moment from his stint as Majin Vegeta into his regular Super Saiyan form and using that as a Finish, and before we go into more options for Buu I’ll say that at the end of the day I still think that’s the best option both for Vegeta and for Buu himself, but too give something extra for this segment...

The tricky thing about Buu is that he does a lot of fighting but not a lot of finishing - in this form, at least, he mostly wreaks havoc on innocent bystanders while the heroes can’t stop him. There are some scenes, like him killing Dabura by turning him into a cookie, that would work - but which would involve characters that aren’t currently in the game.

So I ultimately came up with two options (technically three, but I’ll save that third one for the next section).

The first is a less serious suggestion, since the steps required to make this scene smaller for a Dramatic Finish probably aren’t worth it, but its is a version of this anime-only scene where Gotenks attempts to fight Buu and - predictably - is defeated. This scene works in a general sense due to the good framing: Gotenks is knocked into a wall so hard he gets embedded into it, and then Buu destroys everything around them while he is helpless to stop it, and in transferring the action to the City stage you could make that simple idea work pretty well.

The thing is, what would really make this scene work as a Dramatic Finish is something that would be kind of extra for this game: the army shows up, and they kill massacred while Gotenks fails to get them to run. That would really put the drama in this Dramatic Finish - the hero fails to save the innocent bystanders and all, and without it the scene is just kind of bland, but there’s no way Arcsys is modelling all that just for a reach of a Dramatic Finish, so in the end there are better options for both characters.

So for the other, better option? Give him one of his scenes where he goes up against his later forms. Majin Buu ultimately turns good and fights against his later, eviller transformations, which makes for some good moments. The first of which would simply be a Dramatic Opening which adapts the scene where Kid Buu spits out Majin Buu who (later) gets up to attack him. It’s a two separate scenes, but they’re both quick, and easily condensed condensed into one: just have Kid Buu spit out Majin Buu, who immediately steps up to fight.

But for finally a Dramatic Finish suggestion, we have another one that requires some finagling: take the scene in which Majin Buu attempts (and fails) to turns Evil Buu into chocolate, and give it to Kid Buu instead.

This would be a win for Kid Buu (again, replacing Evil Buu with him in this case), and it would work pretty easily, given that a lot of Dramatic Finishes so far use a formula like this: Kid Buu knocks Majin Buu back, who gets mad and tries to strike back with the Chocolate Beam. Kid Buu blows it back and Majin Buu gets hit instead. A piece of chocolate hits the ground, Kid Buu picks it up and eats it - then end with a shot of Kid Buu laughing maniacally, or perhaps shift one of Evil Buu’s poses over to Kid Buu.

It wouldn’t be the first time something from one of the earlier forms was given to Kid Buu in this game, and it works out fairy well - though I will say again that the Final Explosion moment is still the best option for Majin Buu in my opinion.

Next on the list...

Gotenks

Gotenks is, if anything, even trickier than Buu. The entire concept of Gotenks is a warrior who is extremely powerful and versatile, but also a complete fool and a blowhard. He’s many times more powerful than either Goten or Trunks could ever be alone, but in terms of character and wisdom he’s less than the sum of his parts - and so, he can never win.

This presents an interesting problem for this list: Gotenks has no follow through. Not only does he never really finish off an opponent, he also has a tendency to screw up and get himself taken out in inglorious ways that wouldn’t make great Dramatic Finishes either. The option I gave in the preceding section, losing against Buu, is a good example: it just has too many problems even given that it’s an above average choice in comparison to a lot of his other moments.

But there are a couple options I can think of, still. The first is a good choice for a Dramatic Opening - in fact, the very first thing I thought of for this section: that anime only fight that I brought up with Majin Buu begins in an interesting way: Gotenks blindsides Buu with a cheap shot. Then we get a surprisingly cool entrance for a scene meant mostly to fill time, in which Gotenks - wreathed in shadow against a vibrant blue background - makes a dramatic speech about how he’s going to kill Buu for good.

Really, the visual effect of this is so good that even given that they would have to transpose it to a different stage (the City, again) I wouldn’t mind seeing it as a Dramatic Opening. It’s at least an option for this section, though... let’s face it, it’s not quite there yet. We can at least think of a Finish for here as well, can’t we? Well, the one I figured on is - unfortunately for Gotenks - a loss, and it’s more of a funny moment than a Dramatic moment, but I’d say either of the versions of Beerus’ defeat of him during the Battle of Gods arc (either in the movie, or in Super):

For reference, he’s the Battle of Gods version as well.

The perfection of this scene is that while it may not be a titanic moment that shook the heavens like most of the Dramatic Finishes, it gives us a chance to show off another side of Dragonball that’s always been a strong factor: the humor. The Super version, especially, gives Koichi Yamadera and Jason Douglas a chance to let loose their chops and give us a complete rant that’s as all over the place as it is fun to watch, and ultimately even if it’s not epic, it’s definitely entertaining. To imagine a Dramatic Finish that’s just Beerus stopping the action, taking over the camera and shouting about pudding in as over-dramatic a way as possible for half a minute sounds oddly good to me - kind of meta, and a heck of a non-sequitiur.

Yes, at Gotenks’ expense, but these two options really run the gamut of Gotenks’ scene: either he’s crowing dramatically about how awesome he is, or he’s getting humiliated in a fight. I love the kid, but he could use some character development (Super gave Goten and Trunks a little, but they were out of focus so much you’d never notice).

Either way, we move on to...

Vegeta (Super Saiyan Blue)

When it comes to characters for who felt a bit left out, it was somewhat surprising that neither Super Saiyan Blue Goku nor Vegeta got Dramatic Finishes when the game came out: this was Super was current, and it was assumed the game would try have a bit of synergy with its moments - but then again, it also makes sense. Animation lead time takes forever, and game lead time takes forever, and since it takes over a year to make either of those things waiting to make a moment in retrospect sometimes is just more worthwhile than rushing to do something in the moment.

You can see how doing adapting quickly might not end with the best result in Ranger 17′s FighterZ moveset, which has to fill blanks with Cell saga moves and a couple things adapted from other video games, unable to use a lot of the things that made Ranger 17 so fun to watch because the character was already in production when those happened.

But let’s not get distracted. Vegeta Blue is in an interesting spot, because no matter how powerful he is Vegeta’s role is still the same: do well against the less powerful opponent, then get wrecked by the main antagonists. This ultimately means that a lot of Vegeta’s best moments in Blue are against characters not in the game. A favorite moment, and the one I would absolutely want as a Dramatic Finish, involves a character I’ve personally wanted in the game since launch - but who is almost certainly never going to make the cut (Auta Magetta), a titanic Final Flash + Punch that ended up becoming his LVL 3 in the game itself. Other good options include his hilarious and cathartic defeat of Frost in the Universe 6 vs Universe 7 tournament, and his defeat of Toppo in the Tournament of Power, all of which involve character that are unlikely to be in the game even as DLC (though they’re at least more likely than Spopovich).

But if we only look at characters who are in the game, we’ve mostly got fleeting moments of victory that quickly turn around to defeat. But, if we’re looking that those there is one that stands out as particularly cinematic: the end of his fight with Freeza in Revival F (or Super).

In this clip, Vegeta defeats Freeza, who has a cheap shot attempts to blow up the entire planet. Think the Freeza vs Goku Finishes or the Gohan vs Cell Finishes, except in this case the hero fails. The cheap shot works, and Freeza destroys everything... until time gets rewound and Goku stops this from happening by taking out Freeza before he can.

The irony here is pretty funny. You either get a Dramatic Finish where Blue Vegeta loses, or one where he wins but Blue Goku still steals his thunder. EIther way, though, it’s still one of the most cinematic options. Especially if you add in a little of the Super version of Freeza blowing up the Earth, with bits and pieces of all the characters as they have only a moment to react to their sudden doom. You could even do something akin to how Arcsys did Dizzy’s instant kill in Guilty Gear Xrd, and have your different teammates all react differently depending on who is on your team, though that might be a step too far.

Either way, all you’d need is to win against Blue Vegeta while Blue Goku is on your team. Freeza throws a fit, Vegeta attempts to execute him but is stopped by Freeza blowing up the planet... then rewind. The scene replays, but this time Goku leaps forward and finishes Freeza off. End with a shot of Vegeta yelling at Goku or something for stealing his moment.

It’s a pretty great option, even if it’s not Vegeta’s most glamorous moment - but then, that’s pretty standard for Vegeta. Either way, we can move on. Next up...

Hit

When I was first putting this list together, last week or so, it was before Blue Goku was revealed to be the version of Goku with the Kefla Dramatic Finish. Everyone assumed it was UI Goku, so I had a Goku option lined up - but him now having one (and thus being out of this list) works out fairly well, because originally the choice I made for Blue Goku and the choice I made for Hit ended up as the same thing anyway.

Hit and Blue Goku’s fights feature some of the best scenes either character (which is to say, Hit and that version of Goku) have in Super, and it’s a no brainer that the finish for this section would come from that fight... but, since the first version of that fight ended inconclusively, I would actually suggest compositing scenes from their first fight with the conclusion of their second, anime-only rematch: which ends with a titanic moment - though yes, another Kamehameha - where Goku literally breaks through and shatters Hit’s time stalling technique.

Meanwhile, while the second fight provides the climactic conclusion, the first fight provides the build up and the best visuals: featuring epic scenes where the two rush each other in sprays of blue, red and purple that could really show what Super was capable of when the animation really got going.

So the key here is to make a new Dramatic Finish that combines elements of that first fight and the conclusion of the second: much like the Super Broly Finish, have the first part be moments from the first fight adapted together, to create the flow of a single stretch of combat. A win for Blue Goku, of course, this would start out as a blistering clash between the two.

Then, end it with the conclusion of the second fight, with Goku completely overcoming Hit’s time skip and blowing him away, through collapsing in exhaustion afterwards. Given the differing locations of their two fights, this could either take place in FighterZ’s original stage - Galactic Arena - which is loosely inspired by the Universal Tournament area, or the Archipelago.

Then much like the Jiren Finish, the last part of the scene would be them palling around - or as much as a guy like Hit can pal around - after the fight, promising to come at each other with even more power next time they meet, just like the ending of their rematch. It’s a strong Dramatic Finish that shows off the best of both.

It seems like Blue Goku has been the theme for the last two sections... but we might as well not break the trend now. We move on to the last section of the day, and the last character introduced in Super to not have a Dramatic Finish...

Goku Black

Yes, Zamasu’s insidious disguise himself. While Zamasu got several Dramatic Finishes to his name, Goku Black has since launch had to make due with the semi-special finish you get if you kill him with Beerus’ LVL 3.

As the primary Zamasu faced during his eponymous arc, Black does most of the legwork throughout that saga, but a downside to the way that saga is built is that there isn’t much in the way of “final” moments throughout it all: it’s basically a running fight in which the fighters take break for Round 2, Round 3, etc - most big moments on one side are instantly undone by big moments from the other side, with neither really gaining ground enough that you could build a Dramatic Finish out of it.

There is, however, one pretty decent moment that would make a great moment - featuring a cinematic comeback for Blue Goku followed by a brutal shutdown by Black. We’re talking here about Goku’s fury, the moment where he finds out what Black did to Chi-Chi and Goten in his timeline (note: not pleasant), followed by his enraged - but short lived - revenge.

The flashback is just too long to really work in a Dramatic Finish, unless you did it in snippets like Bardock’s flashback in his, which I would suggest, but given the whole fight scene afterwards might end up a step too far. Either way, it’s a win for Goku Black, in the City stage: he has Goku literally up against a wall, torturing him alongside Zamasu... only for Goku to break free and completely lose it. Following would be another fight scene within a Dramatic Finish, in which Goku goes to town on Black and Zamasu, seemingly winning... until Black turns it around by powering up himself, finishing Goku off with the God Slicer (or Divine Lasso, depending on your preference).

Final shot is easy: a shot of Goku’s broken body on the ground, as in the source, added with a shot of Black standing smugly over him smugly. It’s one of Black’s more epic moments - at least that isn’t inflicted on innocent bystanders - and works very well as one of those few moments where the villain gets one over on the hero.

And that’s it for today! We’re coming up on the end: to be concluded, tomorrow!

As always, if you don’t want to wait just check out the whole thing on Soundcloud, and in the meantime let me know what you think of the choices for each character and whether you have any other ideas! But either way if you’re a FighterZ player I hope you’re enjoying the DLC, and if you’re a Dragonball fan I hope you’re keeping up that endless search for more power. Stay sparking!

This one of THE worst analysis videos I’ve ever seen, for a number of reasons. For one, half the time, the footage or clips they show have literally NOTHING to do with the thing they’re talking about. Just plain sloppy editing. For another, their points are... well, wrong, even counting their title as simple clickbait hyperbole. Let’s have a look at the damage

-Goku is apparently “evil” for liking to fight and... obsessed with winning above all else, even the lives of his friends. Their example? Trying to observe how Beerus fought as opposed to simply rushing in to face him and ensuring an ass kicking. Again. Yes, this somehow proves he’s not obsessed with having a good fight, but with winning it at all costs. ...That’s not Goku, boys. Goku WANTS a fight that pushes himself to his limits. They also accuse him of literally picking fights with alien entities who then “turn their wrath toward earth”... when the sole time that ever happened was with Beerus, who was headed to Earth regardless, and not out of wrath. Most of Goku’s fights were incidental in that regard. -They repeat the “Goku got all these universes genocided” argument that has been debunked countless times and even disproven within the series itself for OVER HALF A YEAR NOW. For comparison, this is the equivalent of making theory videos based on the first episode of Season 1 of a show after the season finale aired... for Season 3. After you’ve already reported on relevant episodes on your own site. -They... literally blame Goku for Resurrection F and what happens. It’s because of Goku’s “arrogant actions” that the Earth is destroyed, because... he didn’t run into the ROSAT before fighting Freeza? He didn’t NEED to. That’s literally got NOTHING to do with what happened. Or because he went to train with Whis INSTEAD of using the ROSAT? Cuz uh... training with Whis is literally what got them the form that gave them even a tiny chance. And Freeza destroying the Earth happened because Vegeta took the time for one last taunt and never dreamed Freeza would risk killing HIMSELF by destroying the planet while he was still on it. Y’all literally rewrote the arc/movie to pull that one out of your asses. -...they literally, LITERALLY try to blame him for Zamasu’s insane actions. Because he wanted to spar with him. Holy hell, way to blame the victim, ScreenRant. Besides, Zamasu already hated Mortals. Seeing Goku’s power simply scared him into acting early, and gave him the idea to steal Goku’s body to do it in. They also claim nothing bad would ever happen if Goku would just give up fighting but... the entire series says you’re an idiot. -Okay, so... I have no idea what the actual hell their next point is. It seems like they’re talking about the Tournament of Power again, but they’re showing footage of the Tournament of Destroyers with Universe 6. Assuming it’s the latter... Goku never cooked that tournament up. The stakes and the rules were agreed upon by Beerus and Champa. If they mean the ToP... still not his idea. Zeno came up with that. As for the consequences, they sound more like the ToP consequences, so idk, but they’re def not the stakes of the ToD. So either this is plain bad research, or laziness. Or both. Probably both. -Goten and Trunks fighting Buu? Really? First, not even his choice. He wanted to fuse with Gohan to fight. Popo was the one who suggested the boys. Second, Goku also explained, in detail, why he felt the need to stay out of this; he was dead. The living needed to be able to handle things without him being there, he wanted them to not be so dependent on him now that he was gone. And using his new Transformation required so much energy, it shortened his time back in the realm of the living to boot. But finally: Gotenks stood more than a chance against Buu in that form. He was evenly matched, in fact. But Goku had no idea Buu would take that form, or even could besides, so... not sure how he’s somehow wrong for that? Besides, isn’t throwing untrained kids into deadly situations something Piccolo gets praised for? Also why was this segment called “Tournament of Power”??? More sloppy editing. -They literally call Goku a “super villain who doesn’t care about Earth” because he conserved his energy and didn’t go all-out against Frost. No. Seriously. They do. -Aaaand now they’re citing anime filler when he was training Gohan in the ROSAT. Even in the context of said filler, their criticism here is ridiculous. Apparently, in trying to push Gohan into going Super Saiyan, he “evilly” fires a Kamehameha at his son who doesn’t have the form yet. Which is evil. Or something. Screw the fact that this was a desperate situation that required Gohan to tap into that latent potential at will to stand a chance vs Cell, he’s evil for doing it. -AND THEN... AND. THEN. They have the absolute nerve to suggest he was evil for having transported Cell off of the Earth. Why? because he went to King Kai’s planet, so he merely “traded one planet for another instead of dropping Cell off in some desolate place like deep space”. Two problems there: 1. King Kai’s planet is the size of a city block rolled into a ball with four inhabitants. Far, FAR cry from comparable to the Earth. Even King Kai was understanding of the decision. 2. Goku’s Instant Transmission requires him to either be able to specifically see where he wants to teleport to, or to have an energy signal to lock on to to get there. It’s why Gohan had to flare his power as high as it could go to get Goku back to Earth when Freeza came. It’s why Kaioshin had to rescue them when Buu destroyed the Earth, as Goku couldn’t find an energy signature to lock onto in time. This is BASIC. STUFF. Holy sweet Jesus, you should be embarrassed by this. It’s ignorant AND poorly-made.

Relationships I Want Explored More in Dragon Ball Super

*and by relationships, I don’t really mean romantic (unless specified) - I more or less mean their dynamic

**there is no particular order, just when I think of them

***many of these assumes that the Universes will not be permanently erased as well as there being the possibility of travel between the Universes without the assistance of the Gods

Caulifla & Hit :: Caulifla is a character who needs to be shown why she should respect someone before she gives them any sort of deference. Yet it seems like she has taken to Hit. We don’t get a chance to see them meeting (like with Cabba and Goku) and I imagine she was just as rude to him, but Hit’s colder demeanor probably made Caulifla know to at least take caution, if not back off. But they don’t have a cold relationship. We see in small bits during the tournament that there is a respect between the two of them and I wonder if it can go past the Tournament of Power/Universal Destruction arc.

The Universe 7 Saiyans & the Universe 6 Saiyans :: so I find it interesting that there is a parallel between the three Saiyans fighting for Universe 6 and the two whole Saiyans/one half Saiyan fighting for Universe 7. Caulifla and Goku are both carefree individuals who love a challenge. While Vegeta started as a villain, he has developed into a character with his own sort of honor code which makes him like the honorable Cabba. Some people have made parallels between Cabba and Gohan, but I see more of Kale as Gohan’s Universe 6 counterpart. She doesn’t seem to enjoy fighting, revering her more aggressive “sister” (kind of like how Gohan has always looked up to Goku (and Piccolo)), but she has a hidden, raw potential that gets drawn out of her by rage. I would love a future arc where they all have to team up (and maybe even include Goten & Trunks) and their similarities and differences are on display.

The Universe 6 Saiyans :: I would love for a filler episode where we see kind of “a day in the life”-style scenario with Cabba, Caulifla, and Kale. Do they go back to their normal lives or do they start training together to get stronger or maybe there is a “villain of the day” thing where they teamup. Maybe it can be a mini-filler arc (like the Jelly-Vegeta episodes earlier in the series).

Universe 6 :: speaking of which, maybe just have a mini-filler arc with Universe 6. I would love for Vados to train Caulifla, Cabba, and Kale like Whis trains Goku and Vegeta. But while Whis took up training them of his own volition, Vados is probably forced to train them by Champa, who sees what Goku and Vegeta can do with god-like training and wants to see if his Saiyans have the same potential. And Hit and Botamo and Magetta and the Namekians we haven’t seen yet and that boar-guy can all be there too. But not Frost. never Frost.

Piccolo & the Universe 6 Namekians :: this is for-sure coming soon... why the hell would we have Universe 6 Namekians in the Universe Survival Arc/Tournament of Power would be to have Piccolo interact with them. My prediction is Piccolo & Gohan tag-team vs the two Namekians. My other prediction is that Piccolo will only be 1-1 against them - he will eliminate one, then get eliminated himself by the other, and be avenged by Gohan.

Piccolo & Pan :: I just need more of this.

Piccolo & Chi Chi :: no I don’t ship it (hardcore Gochi since I first watched original Dragonball here)... but it is interesting that by the Cell Games in Z, she seemed to just accept that Piccolo was a big part of her son’s life and during the Buu arc, she wasn’t mad that Piccolo was training Goten (and Trunks) so much as how hard he was pushing them. And while she gets freaked out by Goku and Satan’s fighting/martial arts love wearing off on Pan, she doesn’t seem to mind that Piccolo is Pan’s guardian when Videl & Gohan are away. I just want to know more about what dynamic the two of them have that makes them tolerate each other.

Piccolo & Goten & Trunks :: if their fathers won’t train them, then Piccolo should get them in on Gohan’s new training. Those poor boys are being left behind when they are shown to have so much potential.

Goten & Trunks :: can we just have more of them in Super please? and I want more them as individual characters (especially Goten), not just Gotenks.

Goten & Trunks & Marron :: if we don’t get a “what happens why 17 is away from his island” episode, I will be so mad. And if Marron doesn’t have a moment to shine, even if it is inadvertently disrupting a poaching, I will be just as mad as if the episode never happened. Also, maybe 18 (and Krillin... and Piccolo, trainer of children [albeit, half Saiyan children]) can start training Marron so she can take on her dad’s mantle as strongest pure human? While the Tournament of Power is introducing many female fighters/humanoid fighters with a feminine appearance, it still doesn’t know quite what to do with the female characters it has (aside from Bulma, I think Bulma has always been utilized well). Marron, Pan, and now Bulla gives them the opportunity to show how women are an integral part of the future generation, but since Pan & Bulla are infants, Marron is the only one who can be immediately fleshed out and making her a third option in the Goten & Trunks dynamic is a good start (kind of like how Piccolo, Krillin, or Bulma is used as a character to balance out the Goku and Vegeta dynamic).

Goku & Goten and Vegeta & Trunks :: they need to train their sons. Goku has actually shown interest in training Goten but Chi Chi has stopped him but has been more open to Goten training in the past. And with Goku and Vegeta possibly exploring different universes in future arcs, Goten and Trunks need to be prepared to hold down the fort with the remaining Z warriors.

Beerus & Shin & Old Man Kai :: I want to see more of the dynamic between the Gods and what kind of relationship makes for a successful universe. While all the other Kaoshin & God of Destruction pairings seem to have some working dynamic, Beerus and Shin are clearly dysfunctional, as they were both quick to blame each other when they found out Universe 7 is the second worst Universe amongst the 12. Also, apparently it was Beerus who sealed away Old Kai after they got into a fight, so Beerus does not play nice with his Kaioshin counterparts. This meant Shin never had a mentor in how-to-be-Supreme-Kai until Gohan unleashed Old Kai and his lack of experience shows. But Beerus does not seem to be well-liked by anyone. The other Gods of Destruction don’t even seem to care for him, including his own brother, Champa. And since Shin was never properly made a Supreme Kai, the other Kaioshin seem to largely ignore his existence. Thus for Universe 7 to be successful moving forward, they need to build a working relationship as they have isolated themselves from being able to have allies across Universes (though Goku’s natural ability to turn enemies/rivals to friends may make this impossibility possible). And I want to know more about Beerus and Old Kai’s past relationship.

Beerus & Bulma :: she just does not back down and neither does he. And while he could just destroy her or the whole planet, he seems to understand Bulma holds status amongst Earthlings, therefore can get him whatever delicacy he desires. I also wonder what Beerus would be like with Bulla. Gohan doesn’t really have a relationship with Beerus to warrant him having to interact with Pan, but considering Beerus visits the Briefs a lot, it provides for the comedic opportunity of Beerus (and Whis) holding a baby.

Android 17 & the Kamikaze Fireballs :: if there is ever an arc where the Universes have to team up, I hope there is a sequence where the Fireballs have to tag team with Android 17

This is it for now. I may think of more later. Overall, I am immensely enjoying Dragon Ball Super. Z was never a great show, but it is the first show I can remember being enthralled by (and great by kid-me standards) and I can still watch any episode with my nostalgia goggles tight. Super is just a reason for me to continue fangirling and find new things to fangirl over. Even when it is less than Super. At least it is not GT (I watched the first three episodes and decided I didn’t need to watch anymore -- I am definitely one of the people praying GT is retconned/proven not to be canon).

Dragon Ball Super 115

Tonight’s Episode: Kefla Whoops Goku’s ass!

Last time, Goku had defeated Caulifla and Kale, but they had a secret weapon up their sleeves!  Well, I think Caulifla was keeping hers in her belt/sash thing, really.  Turns out Champa gave them Potara Earrings before the tournament started, with instructions to put them on late in the tournament.  So now we’ve got Kefla, and if she’s anything like Vegito, then Goku is in deep trouble.

Kefla’s only real weakness seems to be that it takes her a bit to get used to how overwhelmingly powerful she is.  When she leaps at Goku, she overshoots him, for instance.  But it doesn’t take her long to get used to her body.  Come to think of it, Vegito had a similar period of adjustment. 

Although... when Vegito returned in Episode 66, he was ready to rock right out of the gate.  I guess that only makes sense, seeing as it was the second time Goku and Vegeta fused.  Still, it’s kind of weird to think about how Vegito remembers being two different guys, then being Vegito, then separating again, then being Vegito again after a number of years.  I guess it’s no different from all the times Gotenks has shown up, but I’m used to thinking of Gotenks as a temporary thing.  Vegito is too, apparently, but I still think of him as this one-and-for-all deal that just happened to cancel out. 

Anyway, Kefla’s putting the boots to Goku, and she’s only in base form. 

What’s she doing--?  AW SHIT!  IT’S THE GIANT SWING!

Okay, so she does have the hair tie from Kale.  I’ve seen fan artists draw Kefla with her hair “down” and I never understood what they were getting that from.  Anyway, the audience is counting the swings.  Goku’s dizzy as hell right now! 

Arrgh! The centrifugal force!  Chris Jericho tapped out to this once.  But Goku won’t because he’s not fighting Cell this time he knows Universe 7 is counting on him!

She just keeps swinging his ass!   While we’re waiting, here’s KISS with the hit song, “She”. 

Meanwhile, Beerus complains about the use of Potara being illegal.  Champa doesn’t see the problem, and the Grand Zenos think it’s cool, so that makes it legal. 

So Beerus demands to use Potara earrings himself, and mugs Shin. Whis points out that there’s a risk to this.  If Androids 17 and 18 fuse, for example, they might get an incredible warrior out of it (Shin calls this “Android 35″).  However, if that fused fighter makes a mistake and gets eliminated, then they lose two fighters in one stroke. 

Meanwhile, Vegeta is still fighting Top, and he keeps getting distracted by how powerful Kefla is.  Top offers to eliminate him so he can watch the action from the bench, and then he puts the squeeeeeeeeze on Vegeta, which is nice, because it’s always fun to see him get worked over.

Meanwhile... yuck!  Gohan and Piccolo are fighting U6′s Namekians, and Pilina does the long-arm bit, and Gohan just stomps right through it!  That’s messed up!

I mean, he can grow it back, of course.  They’re just like the U7 Namekians.  Really, the only awkward thing is that Pilina wears gloves, which means he has to go find his severed arm and get the glove.  Well, maybe he Clothes Beamed himself a new glove.  All we really see is him putting it on. 

Meanwhile, while Universes 3, 4, 7, and 11 aren’t interested in exploiting fusion, Universe 2 decides to give it a shot, and Helles tosses Potara earrings to Zarbuto and Rabanra.  Things immediately look bad when Zarbuto can’t get his on because he’s too dumb to remove his helmet. 

Then Kefla charges through them while fighting Goku, and the Potara are shattered.  Easy come, easy go, Helles concludes.

Meanwhile, 18 has an owie, and Catopesra shows up to capitalize.

But 17 shows up to bail her out.  Aww...

Meanwhile, Goku finally manages to reach Super Saiyan Blue.  As before, this is probably something he wasn’t quite ready to try yet.  Remember, Jiren kicked Goku’s ass in Episode 110 and he’s been fighting Caulifla and Kale to try to get back in the groove as he recovers. So he’s not just sandbagging in lower forms to drag this fight out.  He probably couldn’t turn Blue until somewhere around this moment. 

But Kefla turns Super Saiyan, so Goku’s probably still at a disadvantage here.  That’s the power of fusion.  Speaking of fusion, the dub keeps referring to it as “merging” in this episode, which seems odd to me, since they called it “fusion” almost exclusively before.  It’s like there was some directive from Toei about it, but I can’t imagine why.  Maybe someone wanted to restrict “fusion” to the Fusion Dance as opposed to the Potara thing.

Not a whole lot for me to say here.  They shoot rapid fire ki blasts and go to town on each other...

Vegeta finally manages to overpower Top, but he doesn’t eliminate him, so either he knows Top’s still got a lot left in him, or he’s too distracted by Super Kefla to think straight.

Eventually, Goku has to use Kaio-ken to keep up, but he still keeps up.  At one point he does an Instant Transmission to fake Kefla out, then reappears in the same spot to land a blow.  Nice twist on the technique after Caulifla had his usual tactics scouted. 

But ultimately, Kefla gets the better of him, and lands a heavy kick to the side of Goku’s head. 

He’s down.  Kefla congratulates him for putting up such a great fight, but it’s over, and all that’s left is to throw him out of the ring.

Or.... not.  Goku rises to his feet and says he won’t give up.  He’s still got some fight left in him.  So Kefla throws some more ki blasts at him and...

Uh-oh!

Uh-ohhhhhh!

Uh-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Dragon Ball Super 032

Spread the word around.  The boys are back in town.

In this episode, Majin Buu shits his pants.

But before that, we find Goku and Vegeta in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, training for three years while they wait for the tournament to start in three days.  Vegeta was reluctant to go in, but he’s seen the improvement, and that’s got him fired up.  Meanwhile, Goku can’t stop thinking about Monaka, the mysterious fifth fighter Beerus has arranged for their team.  Vegeta tells him to grow up and act his age, but Goku says they won’t get older until about age eighty, missing the point completely. 

Speaking of missing the point, remember when the Hyperbolic Time Chamber was first introduced, and there was a rule that prevented anyone from using it for more than two years in a single lifetime?  You can leave and come back in, but once you’ve logged 730 days in there, the entrance vanishes and you can never come back out.  Vegeta’s already used his two years when he trained for the Cell Games, and Goku’s a little less than one year in. 

But hey, no big deal.  Majin Buu and Gotenks were able to bust out of the Tim Chamber even after the entrance was destroyed, and Goku and Vegeta are much stronger than they were back then, so maybe the time limit no longer matters.  Okay, but remember how Goku could have spent more time in the chamber before the Cell Games, and he chose not to?  Because past a point, the harsh environment of the HTC works against your body, and your training sees diminishing returns?   Well, everyone working on Dragon Ball Super seems to have forgotten about that. 

And sure, we could argue that Goku might have found a way around that limitation by now, but that point is that the rules about the Chamber weren’t imposed for the sake of continuity.  I’m not complaining about a plot hole here.  The problem is that the rules were established specifically to prevent scenes like this, where characters just spend years and years inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to simply EXP grind their way past any challenge. 

Anyway, they all meet up at Bulma’s place to ride a big space box to Beerus’ planet.  Jaco also shows up to attend the tournament, and he brings along the Galactic King for some reason.

On Beerus’ world, Goku meets Monaka, and he pesters the guy to find out just how strong he is.  Beerus keeps telling him to cool it, but Goku won’t listen.

Goku literally hits Monaka in the face just because he cannot wait to see what this guy can do.  I don’t understand why Goku is so fascinated with this guy.  I mean, yeah, Goku’s always excited to encounter people with greater powers than himself, but he’s already standing next to Beerus and Whis, who are stronger than Monaka.  Hell, for a while there, Vegeta was stronger than Goku.  And they’re going on a trip to Universe 6 to meet even more strong fighters.  What makes Monaka, in particular, so special?

When they arrive at the Planet With No Name, they meet the Supreme Kais of Universes 6 and 7.  This is the first time we see Kibitoshin un-fused in the anime.  We saw how this came to pass in the manga.  The Kai’s were worried that Champa was planning something involving the Dragon Balls, so Kibitoshin went and got the Namekian Dragon Balls, but when it turned out they were wrong, Kibitoshin put them back, but not before using them to dissolve his fusion. 

To be honest, I never particularly cared about this one way or the other.  Kibitoshin was so similar to the Supreme Kai that I would sometimes forget about the fusion altogether.  And he’s had a pretty long run this way.  The back end of the Majin Buu Saga, all of Dragon Ball GT, and the first thirty episodes of Super.

According to Shin, they just couldn’t stand being fused together any longer, which sounds kind of dark when you think about it.   I mean, it’s not like they were roommates cohabitating Kibitoshin’s body.  They were literally one person, and apparently that one person hated being himself?   For several years?  That doesn’t sound good.

Like I said, I never had an opinion on this, but now that I’m watching the dub, I can see now how different Kent William’s performance is.  Unlike the other fused characters, who have two voice actors reading the lines in unison, Kibitoshin was just played by the Supreme Kai’s VA, who tweaked the performance a little to account for Kibito’s gruff influence.  It’s not much, but I didn’t realize how much I missed the “pure” Supreme Kai voice. 

Wait, so why doesn’t the Elder Kai use the Dragon Balls to undo his fusion?   You know, with that old witch?   Well, I guess he likes it this way.

Anyway, the Supreme Kai of Universe 6 seems more perplexed that the U7 Kais are so chummy with mortals.  They’ll get over it.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time going over all the new characters, since we’ll have time for that later, but one of the U6 team approaches Goku and Vegeta and asks if they’re Saiyans like himself.  This is Cabba, and unlike the Saiyans of U7, he hails from Planet Sadala, and his people only fight for just causes.  Vegeta recognizes Cabba’s clothing as similar to the fashions worn by U7 Saiyans before Frieza enslaved them, and he also explains that the U7 Saiyans used to live on their own version of Sadala before they destroyed it in a war and conquered Planet Vegeta to live on instead.  So there’s a ton of Saiyan lore packed in this one scene.   Pay attention, there’s a test later.

See, I told you there was a test.  Well, not about Saiyans.  This is the test Vegeta requested to ensure all the fighters were genuine competitors and not just brainless monsters.  Although, knowing Vegeta, I could imagine this test being written with Saiyan history in mind. 

Everyone passes, except Buu, who fell asleep during the exam.  I was going to say he probably would have failed the test anyway, given all the doodles he wrote down instead of answers.  But it looks more like he drew that stuff on the desk itself.  What happened to his test sheet?  Wait, dumb question.  He probably ate it. 

Beerus is upset about this, but seriously, what did everyone expect?  This is the second time Buu has slept through a saga on this show, and [spoiler alert] it will happen again. 

Anyway, this Majin-looking guy is handling the announcer/officiating duties.�� Where did they get him?  Did Vados create this guy like the rest of the arena? 

Also, this penguin-looking dude sings the joint anthem of Universes 6 and 7.  It is not “Let ‘em all go to hell, except Cave 76!”  But it’s really short, which means it’s spiritually similar to the Cave 76 anthem.

And the first match is Goku vs. Botamo, this big Winnie-the-Pooh-looking mofo. 

Dragon Ball Z 287

Hey, remember Kid Buu?  Well he’s dead!   And there was much rejoicing.  Not sure Namek is a great place to have a celebration.   They probably just drink water and smile a lot.

King Yemma celebrates by turning over his desk.  That’s like the third TV set he’s had since this whole thing started.  

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Piccolo and.... wait, you guys were on the Lookout in the last episode.   There was a whole scene where Piccolo told the boys to meet him there, and then Videl had this cute reunion with Gohan.   Now they’re back here?  I’m starting to think this cartoon about magic dragons and super karate may not be entirely consistent.

On the Supreme Kai Planet, Goku’s worn out.  He’s had a rough few days.  

Mr. Satan informs the people of Earth that Buu is definitely dead, and the crowd goes wild.

Videl’s a little embrassed by the way everyone gives him the credit for this, but at least she knows he’s okay.

Bulma shouts “Vegeta, I love you!” when she hears the news.   Awwwwwww.

So the Kais and Dende teleport back to the Supreme Kai Planet to clean up.  While the Kais take stock of the damage to their planet, Dende heals Goku and Vegeta.   Goku asks him to help Vegeta first, since he took a worse beating.   It’s always weird for me to see Dende healing Vegeta in this scene, because of how reluctant he was to do it back in the Frieza Saga.

Then Bee runs off and leads Mr. Satan to Majin Buu.   The fat one, I mean.    Turns out he’s hurt, but he’s still alive.

Satan pleads for Dende to heal him, but Vegeta threatens to destroy him instead, and demands that Satan move out of the way.   Satan tries to defend Buu, explaining that this one’s not such a bad guy, and that he’ll see to it that no one pisses him off enough to cause him to spawn another Kid Buu or whatever happened last time. Geets ain’t buying it, though, but Satan won’t stand aside, and Vegeta doesn’t seem to want to shoot them both.

Finally, Goku weighs in and reminds Vegeta of how these two helped them in the previous few episodes.  He figures that’s worth sparing Fat Buu, and if he ever does cause trouble in the future, well, that’s good incentive for them to train.

Kibitoshin isn’t sold on this idea, since everyone on Earth is terrified of Majin Buu.  In particular this fat version, which was the only one most people ever saw.  Goku suggests that Buu just stay indoors for a few months until the Dragon Balls are active again.    Then, he’ll just ask Shenron to erase everyone’s memories of Majin Buu, and that’ll fix everything!  The Elder Kai disapproves of using the Dragon Balls again, and Vegeta washes his hands of the whole mess, but neither of them objects enough to stop it.

So they all go back to Earth.  Kibitoshin drops them all off on the Lookout...

...And everyone gets welcomed home by their families.   Oh, and Videl has a dog now.

Also, a roomate.

I love how Vegeta is just exhausted with this whole thing.    “Yeah, we let him live, because we’re idiots.”

I also like how Trunks is ready to throw down.  

But Goku explains the whole thing to them, and I guess it’s cool.

Then Goku explains how the Elder Kai gave him a new life, so he’s going to live with his family again.   Awwwww...

Later, Goku makes the wish to have everyone forget Majin Buu.    Earlier, it was established that this wish would have to wait until four months had passed, but in this episode it’s six.   I have no idea why.  

I’m also not sure how Goku phrased the wish.   I assume he wanted the main cast to remember Buu, but I don’t know how you summarize that.  Maybe he just wrote down everyone’s names that he thought would want to remember.   On the other hand, it’s not like Chi-Chi desperately wants to remember that it was Buu who turned her into an egg.  If he left her off the list, who would know or care?

So the rest of this episode takes place after that wish is made.   Buu’s just strolling through West City, having a good ol’ time, and then he sees a kid eating an ice cream cone.  She won’t share, but she does point out where he can get his own damn cone.

Buu goes in an orders a scoop of everything.  Maybe I’m a square, but I like the cones.   I wouldn’t say they’re the best part, but I don’t really see the point in getting just one cone for like twenty scoops.   Just get twenty cones.    

Trouble is, Buu’s got no money.  At first he gets pissed, but then he remembers how Mr. Satan told him not to lose his temper.    Was that all he had to do? 

So Buu wanders around trying to find a solution to this problem, until he comes across a street fighter challenging bystanders to fight him for a big cash prize.  It’s basically the same gag as when Goku did it in Episode 43 of Dragon Ball.    Buu is reluctant at first, because Satan told him not to fight, but the guy tells him it’s just a game, and someone else pays his admission, and Buu wins with one hit.  

So Buu goes back to the ice cream parlor and boom, he’s got like twenty cones.   See, he took my advice.

Something I’ve noticed about these last few episodes since they revived the population.    It seems like they’re drawing a lot more sexy ladies in these crowds.  The bar’s kind of low for “sexy ladies” in a Dragon Ball cartoon, but this lady on the right is posing pretty sedctively while she drinks her lemon ice.  Also, they keep using her on this same shot of the parlor.   So she was drink that thing the first time Buu went in, and she’s still drinking it after he left, came back, and left again.  

Anyway, Buu just chillaxes in the park eating ice cream.    My man takes him time on that last one too.  

Also, he shared one with these pigeons.   Or doves.   Whatever.  I know he dropped that one for them to eat because Buu wouldn’t think twice about licking it up off the ground. 

Then Bulma shows up.  I don’t know why she’s buying groceries all by herself, but okay.

I dig this scene a lot, because you’d never expect these two to spend any time together, but here they are.   Apparently Vegeta was supposed to go with her, but he ditched her to train, and then Buu wandered off by himself too. 

Then she goes jewelry shopping, and Buu thinks the jewelry doesn’t look very tasty.  

Then two guys try to hold up the place, and it’s the same guys Buu beat for all their money.   I guess they got desperate pretty fast.

When they realize Buu’s in the store, they panic and shoot him.

But he flicks the bullet back at them, and they decide to surrender. 

Outside, Gohan and Videl show up as Great Saiyaman 1 and 2, but the crooks turn themselves in before they can finish their posing.   So I’m not sure if Toei was planning this bit all along, and that’s why they worked it into Movie 13, or if they came up with it as something for Videl to do in Movie 13, and decided to carry it over into this episode.  Either way, I think these are the only two appearances of Videl as Great Saiyaman Mark 2, or Great Saiyawoman, oe what have you.   I want to say she used the costume again in Dragon Ball GT, but I’m pretty sure the whole point of that was that she dug it out of her closet years after retiring the character.

I gotta say, I wasn’t looking forward to this episode, but now that I’ve watched it again, it’s really great.   

Back at Goku’s house, he’s horsing around with the boys in their tub...

Then they fuse to turn the tables on him....

And he turns Super Saiyan to even the playing field.  Only it blows up the tub. 

Gohan’s like, “No, it’s okay, Videl.   Take a good long look at my dad’s ass.    You’ll be seeing it a lot from here on, so you might as well get used to it.”

I guess everybody came over to have dinner with the Son family, so Chi-Chi’s kind of pissed that Gotenks and Goku are running around nude.

Also, Vegeta’s here.

Dragon Ball Z 278

Hey, remember the Earth?   Well it’s gone now.    

Goku’s worried, because he kind of left his kids there.     Also Vegeta’s kid.    And Piccolo.

I’m glad we have the Elder Supreme Kai, overseer of the entire universe, here to explain to Goku that people die when they’re on a planet and it explodes.

As for Mr. Satan, he doesn’t realize that he’s no longer on Earth, so he thinks it’s just fine.   Of course, this is the Supreme Kai Planet, but how could he possibly know that?  

One question: How does Mr. Satan think he got here?  I mean, he doesn’t know that he was teleported, but he’s surely noticed that they’re in a completely different place where Majin Buu isn’t.

Dende tries to explain DBZ cosmology to Mr. Satan, and he asks why the Supreme Kais didn’t do something to stop Majin Buu.

It’s a fair point.   When the Supreme Kais were first introduced, they were treated like revered figures, too holy to approach, let alone visit on their home planet.   Now, they’ve been thoroughly exposed as jobbers to the stars.  

Then Mr. Satan realizes this is all a dream, which is also a fair point, because look.   I’ve been covering this anime from the first episode up until now.   Let me assure you, none of this makes any friggin’ sense.   And really, it started to make even less sense once Mr. Satan showed up, almost like Akira Toriyama was daring Mr. Satan to realize that this is all a ridiculous fantasy.    Like Dumbledore said, of course it’s a dream, but does that make it any less real?   And guess what, Dumbledore ain’t real either, so my point is that yes, none of this is really happening. 

So Mr. Satan decides to control the dream and fly into space and kick Buu’s ass.    Yeah, none of this may be real, but Buu still killed his daughter, so that has to be answered for.    But then he falls and hurts himself.    

Vegeta’s all sore at Goku for saving that goofball instead of their kids, but he won’t be complaining in a few more episodes when Mr. Satan saves his life.   Oh, uh, spoilers.

What happened to Buu?   Well, blowing up the Earth didn’t hurt him at all, so he’s fine.  More importantly, he can teleport to other planets now, using the teleportation technique Kibitoshin used to save Goku and the others. 

I should note here that this is not the same as Goku’s instant transmission.  I suppose Buu might have learned that power as well, since he fought Goku enough times to have seen it in action.    I’m not sure that Kid Buu remembers anything the previous Buu’s experienced, though.   In any case, Goku has to teleport by sensing ki energy.   Kibito could teleport anywhere in the universe, although we never saw him use this ability except for taking people from Earth to the Supreme Kai Planet and back.    I suspect that he can’t teleport over short distances.    For example, he flew all the way to Babidi’s spaceship, instead of teleporting part of the way to save time.   And he had to search for the Supreme Kai on foot.    Wait, maybe he teleported to Gohan when they rescued him?   I forgot.   

Anyway, what Kid Buu is doing now is using his new ability to hop from planet to planet, destroying each one.   This is what he used to do with Bibidi, only I think they used a spaceship to get from place to place.  Now, Buu can wipe out hundreds of planets in a few minutes.

I always liked the look of this planet.    Funimation’s streaming quality nosedived when I got to this part, but these alien structures look like skyscrapers, and this purple fog could be just about anything.    We know absolutely nothing about this planet except that Buu chose to destroy it next, and they probably had no idea he was coming.

The Elder Kai suspects that Buu is searching for Goku and Vegeta.    He knows those two have strong ki, so he’s searching for strong ki signatures and traveling to them.  So that planet bought the dust because it had some above average life force, but it didn’t have Goku and Vegeta on it.   Tough break.

Things look pretty grim, until Dende remembers that they don’t need the Earth’s Dragon Balls, which were destroyed along with the planet.   They can just go to New Namek and borrow their Dragon Balls, and wish everyone back with those. 

Okay, so what drives me nuts about this is that... Look was there anyone who didn’t see this coming when they watched it for the first time?   The first 107 episodes of DBZ were about how there’s a second set of Dragon Balls on Planet Namek.   When Goku asked to stay dead, he had to do that because the others were all set to go to New Namek and wish Goku back to life to get around Shenron’s no-doubles rule.   

So as soon as things started to get really bad with Majin Buu, the very first thing I thought of was “Well, they’ll probably end up using the Namekian Dragon Balls to fix this.”   Especially during the Gotenks episodes, because they made such a big deal about how Dende or the Dragon Balls might get destroyed during the fighting.    Well who cares, when there’s another set?

But no one ever mentions it, even as a failsafe in case things get really bad.    Not until this episode, when Dende remembers what planet he’s from.   And then everyone is like “Oh wow, that’s right, good thinking, Dende!” while the audience is slapping their collective foreheads.    I mean, Vegeta was the first one to deduce that the Namekians have their own set of Dragon Balls.  Goku’s been to New Namek before.   The Supreme Kais are the Supreme Kais.   How is it that neither one of them was aware of this until now?

So Toriyama covers that one by establishing that Kibitoshin never heard of them before, while the Elder Kai simply objects to their use on general principle.  I guess he was okay with using Earth’s Dragon Balls to solve an Earth problem, but he thinks that the Namekians shouldn’t use Porunga to interfere in other planets’ affairs.   This is the same guy who literally took his own life just so Goku could have another crack at Buu, because he knew the whole universe was at stake.

So Goku tries to persuade him to look the other way on this, because Goku was going to let him kiss Bulma, but they can’t do that while she’s dead, so this is the only way to bring her back.  Also, he promises to throw in lewd photos, which is dumb because the Elder Kai already told Goku that he doesn’t need porn because he can just peep on naked women anywhere in the universe, at any time.  

Anyway, Vegeta overhears this and loses his shit.  

While they argue about this, Kid Buu makes his way to the Grand Kai Planet, where Krillin and Yamcha are training. 

Kibitoshin gives Goku and Vegeta his earrings, thinking they can become Vegito once again and defeat Buu with ease, but we already know Vegeta wants no part of that.   But before he can object, Goku speaks up and says thanks, but no thanks.  

For one thing, Buu is no longer fused or merged with any other being, so it wouldn’t be fair to use fusion against him.   This didn’t seem to bother Goku when he first proposed fusion as a way to stop Buu, before he knew Buu’s situation, but I think you can make the argument that he’s considered what Vegeta’s had to say about fusion, and he’s buying into it. 

What’s always stuck with me about this episode is how amazed and impressed Vegeta is to hear this out of Goku’s mouth.   Goku, the man he accused of sandbagging during their fight in the Babidi Saga.   Goku, the man who convinced him to use the Potara in the first place, because there was too much at stake to be “particular”.   In the dub, Vegeta accused Goku of having no pride.   Now, he’s seeing that Goku has more that he gave him credit for.  

Let’s face it, fusion hasn’t worked out at all.  Goku first suggested it as a lifeline, but it didn’t make Gotenks strong enough to win.   The Potara seemed to make it easier to do, but Gohan still missed his chance.   Vegito seemed like a slam dunk, except he didn’t beat Buu either.    He let himself be absorbed, and then the fusion unexpectedly wore off.  

And Buu’s power to absorb others puts a major crimp in the idea of fusing to make stronger fighters.  If Buu gets backed into a corner, he’ll absorb you, whether your’re fused or not.    At least this way, Goku and Vegeta can fight as themselves, without having to worry about time limits or unexpected malfunctions.    And if they lose, at least they get to keep their self-respect.  

And I think the unspoken respect between these two is based on this: Goku recognizes that Vegeta tried to play things his way.  We did fusion, and now we’re here, so we’re gonna try it Vegeta’s way this time.   Maybe they’re not friends yet, but this is the best they’ve gotten along, ever.  

Back on the Grand Kai Planet, apparently only King Kai, Krillin, and Yamcha seem to have any idea that Majin Buu is in their midst.   Pikkon and the others think Buu is just a new arrival at the training ground, except he doesn’t have a halo.

Fighting Buu is pointless.  He overwhelms everybody, and when Krillin cuts him in half with a Kienzan, Buu just puts himself back together and decks him.

Seeing this in the Elder Kai’s crystal ball, Goku prepares to teleport over there, but Vegeta suggests that they lure Buu to this planet instead.    It’s sturdy and nearly deserted, so they can fight freely.    All they have to do is raise their power level, and Buu will sense it and come running.

Goku loves that plan, because it solves a problem with yelling, and that’s what this show is all about.    Also teamwork and self-improvement, but mostly yelling.

So Buu’s about to destroy the Grand Kai Planet, and there a line somewhere in this episode about how if Krillin and Yamcha get destroyed after having already being killed, then they’ll just cease to exist.    I don’t get that, since Buu can only destroy the bodies they got from King Yemma, right?   Wouldn’t they just be reduced to spirits like Bulma and Chi-Chi?    Or can Buu kill those as well?

Anyway, in this scene, Kid Buu says one of his few lines in the show.   In the dub he says “Buu squash you like bugs!” and then when he senses Goku and Vegeta he laughs and says “Dum-dums!”    I always wondered if he could really talk in the subs, but it looks like he did.

One teleport later, and Buu’s here on the Supreme Kai Planet, ready to rock.   Most of this episode is filler, because in the manga, Buu just follows them directly from Earth, without Goku and Vegeta having time to even consider luring him here. I do kind of like this version, though, if only for giving Kid Buu a chance to show us a little more of what he’s all about.  

Dragon Ball Z 253

Wait, Majin Buu’s gonna stop killing people?    Wow, really?

Let’s get this crap out of the way first.   Gohan’s in like Hour Five of his 25-hour session to get super duper powers.  He’s just got to sit there quietly and let an old man pretend to be important.   You’d think he’d be good at this, since it’s just like being in school, but instead he’s frustrated.    You know, you could have just trained over the past seven years and avoided this entirely, so this is kind of the future you chose, Gohan.

Back on Earth, Goten and Trunks are about to try fusing as Super Saiyans.  

I’m not sure why, but Piccolo seemed uncertain that Gotenks could transform after fusion, so he wanted to try it this way to ensure Gotenks would be at his maximum power against Buu.    But before they commit to the battle, Piccolo wants to get an idea of Gotenks’ abilities.  

But Gotenks is still a little shithead, and he decides to fly around the world several times to show off...

And then he lies down on a rock and waits for Piccolo to catch up with him.

Meanwhile, this old couple is trying to flee to the mountains to escape Majin Buu when...

... the wife gets killed by a sniper.    Damn.

Aw, she even packed a teddy bear, that’s awful.

So yeah, here’s these two assholes.    The shooter on the right is named “Van Zant”, and his butler on the left is “Smitty”.   I think these may be names given to them by the dub, I’m not sure.   Basically, Van Zant has decided that Majin Buu’s rampage basically means it’s the end of the world, so he might as well enjoy himself as much as he can while there’s no consequences, and he’s always wanted to try shooting people for sport.  

Smitty is horrified by this, but Van Zant tells him to shoot the old man, and he doesn’t seem to need much convincing.   Then again, he may not have much of a choice.   If he doesn’t play along, what’s to stop Van Zant from shooting him?   Well, I guess he could shoot Van Zant first, but none of those choices sound very appealing.

Anyway, he seems to enjoy killing now that he’s tried it out, and they plan to continue on this way.    I gotta say that I really dig this part of the story.   It’s easy to think of the masses as “innocent victims”, and that they all must be huddling in fear while they wait for someone to save them from Majin Buu, but there’s plenty of other reactions you can have to a crisis like this, and sometimes there’s people like Van Zant, whose first instinct is to go out and make things just a little bit worse than they already are.

As for Gotenks, once Piccolo finds him, he declares that he’s clearly passed the test, and he’s going to kill Majin Buu right now.   Piccolo warns him to stop, but he just won’t listen.    Which is kind of stupid, because he’s wasted so much time showing off that he only has one minute left before the Fusion wears off.

So he goes to Buu’s house to call him out...

Only to split into Goten and Trunks a second later.    The boys panic and bug out before Buu can find out who’s been talking shit.

Mr. Satan convinces him it was just his imagination, since who would be dumb enough to walk right up to Buu’s house to challenge him?    I mean, besides Mr. Satan, which is how he ended up here.

Last time, Mr. Satan tried to trick Buu with posioned candy and booby-trapped gifts, but none of it worked, and now Buu’s made him his live-in servant.   Here, we see Satan reading A Dog of Flanders to Buu.   I never understood the choice of novel here, but apparently it’s a very popular children’s book in Japan, Korea, and the Phillippines, so I guess it makes sense.    Anyway, the book ends with a boy and his dog freezing to death, and Buu finds this hilarious.

Then Buu flies off to go back to killing people, and Mr. Satan plots to kill Buu once again by planting explosives in his house.   I don’t know why he would expect this to work when that exploding video game didn’t, but I can’t fault him for his persistence.

Meanwhile, Smitty and Van Zant joyride through a nearby town and gun down as many people as they can find.    Smitty’s worried that Majin Buu could attack this place at any moment, since “they” say Buu has a house in the area.    He only built that thing yesterday, so how do so many people know about it?   Anyway, Van Zant isn’t worried because he has a bazooka.   Really?   Buu killed 80% of the population, and you think nobody tried shooting him with a bazooka?

Back at Buu’s house, Satan plants the explosives, but he’s surprised when Buu returns early with a dog.  Buu tried to frighten the dog, but he wouldn’t run away, and Buu can’t understand the dog’s speech, so he doesn’t know why the dog isn’t afraid.  So he brought him home to Mr. Satan so he could translate. 

Satan doesn’t speak Dog, but be does notice that the puppy has an injured leg, so he can’t run away from Buu.   So Buu heals the dog to fix that problem.  

Only the dog won’t run away now because he’s grateful to Buu for healing him.    Basically this is the same deal as that blind kid from a few episodes back, only this time Mr. Satan is here to explain it to Buu.

Buu tries to feed his new dog chocolate, but Mr. Satan explains that dogs can’t eat that, so he offers to go into town and buy some dog food...

But, in fact, this is just a pretense so he can get away from the house and set off his explosives.   He looks through a telescope before he presses the button on the detonator...

... and he sees Buu and the dog licking each other, happy as can be.

And so Mr. Satan decides to hold off on blowing Buu up.   There is the dog there, after all, and he doesn’t have to do this right away.   So that means he really will be going to buy dog food.   This seems like a really awkward conversation though.  

Mr. Satan: One bag of dog food, please.

Cashier: Holy crap, you’re Mr. Satan.

Mr. Satan: Yeeeeeeeaaaaah! 

Cashier: What are you doing here?   Aren’t you supposed to be fighting Majin Buu?

Mr. Satan: Well, you see, he’s weak to dog food, so, uh... hmm.

It’d probably be simpler to just karate chop the guy and steal the dog food.   For that matter, there’s probably a lot of abandoned stores now, so he could go looting.

Later, Satan returns with the dog food, and the puppy loves it.  Buu, not so much.   Well, more for the dog, then.    Mr. Satan was frying you an egg, remember?

At this point, Satan just has to ask: Why does Buu kill people and destroy cities all the time.    In the last few hours, he’s found him to be pretty nice otherwise, so what’s the deal?

Buu explains that Bibidi and Babidi both told him that was what he could do for recreation, and that’s basically it.   

He also explains that they “made” him, so apparently even Buu believes that Bibidi was his creator, although I’m still not clear on that.   Maybe the DB wiki was talking out its ass.

Satan tells him not to listen to those guys.  I mean, even Buu admitted that they were unpleasant, but he’s just been doing what they said anyway.   Buu considers this for a moment, and then he asks if killing is wrong.

When Satan tells him it is, he immediately resolves to never kill or destroy again.   Mr. Satan can hardly believe it.

And he’s thrilled.   As the dub puts it, he got this guy to change his ways, and he didn’t even have to punch him or blow him up.   I love this scene, because it’s not just Majin Buu that’s getting a redemption arc here.   In this episode, Mr. Satan may not realize it, but he’s accomplishing in fact what he only pretended to do against Cell.    He marched right up to Majin Buu and convinced him to stop killing people.  It’s a bit anticlimactic, but no less courageous.

And then the dog gets shot.    Whoops.

Because Van Zant decided to go swing by Buu’s house and check it out, maybe take a shot at Buu while he was in the neighborhood.   I don’t know why he’d start with the dog, but he killed an old lady earlier so I can’t exactly claim to understand this dude.

Mr. Satan is just flabbergasted by this.   I think a sniper was the last thing he expected in this situation.

And here’s Buu, just staring at all of this.    What’s going through his mind right now?   A Dog of Flanders isn’t so funny anymore, I’ll bet.

And that’s the Majin Buu Saga.    Next time, it’s about to go down.

Dragon Ball Z 260

Last time, Gotenks said he was out of ki to continue the fight with Majin Buu, so Piccolo did the only sensible thing and destroyed the door to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.   This had been his backup plan from the beginning.   By leading Buu into the Chamber to fight Gotenks, Piccolo knew he could blow up the door and trap them all inside forever.  

One thing I find odd is that there’s a lot more wreckage left behind in this episode than in the last.     Oh well, with all the artists working on this show, I’m surprised these continuity glitches don’t happen more often.    Anyway, Gotenks is pretty upset about this, because he really did have more power to fight, and only pretended otherwise to make things more dramatic.    He had no idea that Piccolo would be desperate enough to do this.  

Buu, on the other hand, is still trying to sort out the ramifications of this, since he didn’t know the HTC was actually a separate dimension from Earth.   Piccolo has to explain to him that he’s trapped here, and Buu’s first thought is that there’s no candy in this place.

So yeah, we’re only about a minute into this exile, and morale is already low.

Outside, in the temple of Kami’s Lookout, Mr. Popo reports that the door has been “closed off”, but they never actually show what it looks like from this side.   Everyone here just notices a rumble coming from that general direction, and I guess Popo saw for himself, but this is never shown to the audience.

All we really get is this staircase, which I guess must lead to the entrance to the Time Chamber.   That’s kind of a ripoff, if you asked me.    What happened to the door on this side?  I mean, it must be blown to bits, but what’s left where the doorway used to be?   Does the wall just continue across, unbroken?    Did the doorway sort of collapse in on itself, like a black hole?   

While I’m on the subject, it’s weird how the doorway seems to be in a completely different place than it was in the Cell Saga.   Then, the doorway seemed to be pretty close to the outside of the temple, but now, it looks like you gotta work your way pretty far into the building to get to it.   That’s one of those things that’s probably a continuity error, but you can’t entirely rule out the possibility that it’s supposed to be that way.    For all we know, the rooms and passages of the Lookout are constantly shifting and rearranging, like Hogwarts, only Mr. Popo isn’t a shithead, and he actually shows people where everything is instead of leaving them to fend for themselves.

Bulma’s upset to hear that the boys are trapped in the Time Chamber forever.    The Dragon Balls can be used to wish them back out, but that doesn’t change the fact that it came to this.    She blames all the men for standing back and letting children fight the monster for them.    That’s pretty rich coming from Bulma, of all people.   She’s been letting Goku and Gohan fight her battles for her for decades.   And she should, because they were super-duper strong.   She knows how this works.   Ox King, Yamcha, Krillin, and Roshi are four of the strongest humans on the planet, but they can’t even touch Majin Buu, and Bulma knows that.   Chewing them out doesn’t solve anything.

Inside the Chamber, Gotenks admits that he was fibbing when he said he was at his limit, which means Piccolo trapped them all here for nothing.    Piccolo is furious.   Why would Gotenks say something like that if it wasn’t true?!   And Gotenks is angry with him as well.   Why would he take such a drastic measure without warning anyone?    Because you said you were out of power, you little shit!   What’s amazing about Gotenks isn’t that he takes these situations so lightly; it’s that he’s constantly surprised that anyone else would take them seriously. 

While they argue, Buu throws a fit because he can’t have any candy.   

And somehow, his desperate cries open up a portal that leads back to the Lookout.   I never thought about this before, but could this be how the doorway to the HTC was originally created?    Some ancient Kami yelled really loud? 

The whole thing seems a bit convenient to me, but now that I think about it, it’s not like this is any less ridiculous than the notion of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber being here in the first place.   Maybe the boundary between dimensions is unusually permeable here, which made it possible to construct the permanent doorway in the first place.   Buu has just accidentally exploited that.

Anyway, Buu jumps through and makes it to the other side before the hole closes, leaving Piccolo and Gotenks stuck inside. 

The nice thing about all of this is that it does sew up an idea I had always toyed with after the Cell Saga, when the Time Chamber was first introduced.   Instead of using it to train Goku to fight the androids and Cell, why not just lure the androids or Cell inside?   Even if you don’t destroy the entrance, it’s supposed to vanish on its own if anyone spends more than 48 hours inside, so it always seemed more useful as a trap than as a training ground.   Like the Phantom Zone from the Superman mythos.

So it was always satisfying to see that Piccolo had the same idea in this arc, and it’s also satisfying to see why it wouldn’t work.    Given enough time and power, a bad guy could find a way to escape, just like Buu is doing here.   Maybe Cell wasn’t strong enough to pull this trick off, but he’d have unlimited time to train, until eventually he would become strong enough.   Maybe.   The point is that if Buu could do it, it just isn’t worth the risk.   

On the Supreme Kai Planet, Goku senses Buu’s ki immediately, and he wonders what’s going on, so the Elder Kai conjures up a crystal ball and tosses it over to him.   I’m curious if this has some connection to Baba’s crystal ball, but it’s probably just a coincidence.   

So Goku now has a front-row seat to watch Buu eat all of his friends.   

Back inside the Chamber, Gotenks begins to despair, but Piccolo tells him to quit whimpering.   Then he suggests that they yell really loud, just like Buu did.   If it opened a portal for him, then it ought to work for them, too.

Honestly, this just might be one of the most Dragon Ball Z things ever.   Not just the yelling, although that’s a big part of it.    What I mean, though, is that these guys just saw a monster do something impossible, and they’re like “Well, if he can do it, then so can we!”   I mean, that’s nuts.    Buu can liquefy his entire body.    Can Piccolo do that?    Buu regenerated from smoke.   Can Gotenks do that?   But this is no time for such negative thinking.   There’s screaming to be done.

Speaking of desperate measures, Krillin decides to attack Buu in a last-ditch effort to save his family.   He whispers to 18 to hide inside the temple while he keeps Buu busy, but they all know he can’t possibly win.    

In spite of the bad odds, Krillin seems confident that he’ll get wished back to life with the Dragon Balls.    How?   As far as he knows, there’s no one left to beat Buu.    Who’s going to wish everyone back?

So Krillin charges in, and his attack is brilliant, but it’s just not enough.   Buu evades him with ease, and zaps him with his Candy Beam.

And that’s it for Krillin.    For those of you keeping score, this is his third death in Dragon Ball.  If I’m not mistaken, only Chiaotzu manages to tie this record, but that’s still a ways off.    And Krillin dies a fourth time in Dragon Ball GT, if you’re willing to count that.  

The others flee inside the temple, which seems kind of pointless to me.   Buu killed 20% of the population while standing still, so it would be ridiculously easy for him to find them inside the temple.   But where else can they go?   18, Yamcha, Dende, and Videl are the only ones who can fly, and none of them could move fast enough to escape.    The rest of them are trapped on the Lookout.   Krillin probably knew that much when he tried to buy them time.   He knew he would fail and he knew his efforts would be in vain even if he succeeded, but he had to do something.

Even so, the cruelest part of this massacre is that 18 and Marron are literally the very next ones to die after Krillin.  

Somehow, Popo and Dende have already made it up to one of the higher levels of the temple, but they’re only safe for as long as it takes Buu to eat the others.

Then Buu gets sick of deciding which one to zap next so he just fires his Candy Beam in all directions, sort of like the Human Extinction Attack in miniature.   This is one of the most horrific scenes in the series, because the weakest good guys are completely cornered by the main villain, and he has absolutely no mercy.   Unlike Cell or Frieza, there’s no slowing this guy down, no reasoning with him, no chance of bargaining or stalling for time.  

And from the Supreme Kai Planet, Goku can only watch the slaughter unfold.   Gohan isn’t ready yet, Gotenks and Piccolo are apparently lost, and he’s stuck in the afterlife.

For my money, this is the moment when Goku is beginning to regret his plans for safeguarding the Earth.    He bet everything on Gotenks, and now the world population has been reduced to a single-digit number.   Would it have turned out differently if he had been wished back to life after the Cell Games, instead of staying dead for seven years?   Maybe not, but I think he sorely wishes he could go back, moreso than ever before.

Back inside the chamber, screaming hasn’t gotten Gotenks and Piccolo anywhere, so Gotenks decides to use his full power, and Piccolo hits him, because he’s sick of this little turd holding back for no good reason.   

So Gotenks obliges, and...

Hey, what’s good everybody?   GOTENKS CAN TURN SUPER SAIYAN 3.

He doesn’t like the way it looks, though.   Where did he get that mirror?

Piccolo has questions, but Gotenks says he can’t stay in this form for very long, so he finally gets down to business.  He yells really loud...

... and makes an opening they can use to return to Earth.

When Gotenks finally emerges, Goku and the Supreme Kai get their first look at him, and Goku is amazed to see him as a Super Saiyan 3.    Remember, it took him his entire life and seven years of being dead to reach that level.   Gotenks figured it out in under a week.   

But the scene on the Lookout isn’t pleasant.    Piccolo wants to know what happened to everyone else, and Buu explains that he turned them all into chocolate and ate everybody.

Even Bulma?

IT ATE EVERYBODY!

So this sends Gotenks into a rage.   You know, I’d have an easier time believing that if he hadn’t already lost two other parents to Majin Buu before this.   Seriously, Buu killed Chi-Chi less than a week ago from Gotenks’ perspective, and he acted like a total goofball this whole time anyway.   We’re supposed to think killing Bulma is going to light a fire under his ass now?   Pull the other one, it glows in the dark.

Even so, I dig this final still of Gotenks flying towards Buu, looking like he’s Batman or something.    Yeah, he’s a house of fire now, but give it about two minutes, and he’ll go right back to “Butthole Surfer Enziguri” and all that other nonsense he’s been doing.

Dragon Ball Z 255

Hey, you know Majin Buu?   Well now there’s two of him.    I think it’s a little goofy how the grey skinny one is called “Evil Buu”, like the chubby pink on is automatically “Good” somehow.   He killed 80% of the world population, and now he’s a good guy just because he likes dogs all of a sudden?

But Mr. Satan is still rooting for his friend, although it’s difficult to cheer him on when they both have the same name.    Why are the two Buu’s fighting?   Who knows?    The fat one got really upset over Mr. Satan getting shot, and he spewed out the thin one, and they seem to automatically dislike one another.  

Anyway, screw the “Good Buu”.   As far as I’m concerned, this is payback for all the awful stuff he’s done for the last twenty episodes.   He tries throwing a chunk of himself at the “Evil” one, to strangle him like he did to Vegeta and that one civilian motorist.    Only Evil Buu just busts loose, then eats it.

Oh, yeah, that must suck, huh?   When you use one of your trademark moves, and it does absolutely nothing, and the other guy just laughs it off and makes you look like a jerk?    Now you know how everyone else feels, asshole.

Up at the lookout, Piccolo watches the Buu-on-Buu violence and he’s freaking out.    The Evil Buu got most of the power in the schism, and he’s currently winning, so Piccolo wants Goten and Trunks in order to improve their chances of winning as Gotenks.    But they just got back to the Lookout, and they’re worn out from their last fusion session. 

Chi-Chi and Bulma object to any more training, insisting that the boys should take a nap first.    I don’t know what it is, but Bulma looks a little hotter than usual in this episode.   

Piccolo can’t argue with them, so he agrees to let the boys rest.

Meanwhile, both Buus fire Kamehamehas at each other...

And when that doesn’t work, the “Good” Buu resorts to his best move: turning the other guy into candy.

Except Evil Buu has that one scouted, and he just blows the candy beam back.

Oh?   Oh?   You don’t like being turned into candy?   I thought it was funny and cute?   

Come on, Buu, make a funny face for us.    Do a bunch of goofy shit.   It’s charming, isn’t it?

No, I guess it’s not so whimsical when he’s on the receiving end.   Evil Buu picks up the chocolate Buu and eats him.

Then he screams and spews pink smoke out of his vent holes, until he’s covered in a pink cloud.  

And then we end up with this.    Look, none of this stuff makes sense.    Fat Buu spewed out green smoke and it turned into an Evil Buu.   Then he eats Fat Buu, spews out pinks smoke, and you’d think Fat Buu would come out again, but instead Evil Buu transforms into some sort of hybrid of the two.    Only it’s not exactly a hybrid, because the previous two Buus had capes and vests, and this one doesn’t.  

So yeah, this version is known as Super Buu, which I don’t really get since I don’t know that he’s that much stronger than the previous versions.    I’ve noticed that the dub is a lot more liberal about talking up how strong everyone is.   In the dub, Piccolo said Evil Buu was even stronger than the original, and then he says Super Buu is even stronger still.   But in the subs, it seems more like Evil Buu got the larger portion of the original’s power, implying that the fight we just saw was between two characters with weaker powers than the Majin Buu we started with.   So I would think that means Super Buu isn’t actually any stronger now that they’ve recombined.    To me, this is more like a “reorganization” of Majin Buu, rather than a power up.    He was having trouble keeping his priorities straight, and instead of backpacking across Europe to find himself, he split into two people and kicked his own ass.  

He screams so loud that it shakes the Lookout, and it’s way up in the sky.  

Piccolo’s not even sure Gotenks can beat Buu anymore, which may mean that he’s gotten stronger, but I feel like it’s more of a matter of Buu finally taking things more seriously.  

Up on the Supreme Kai Planet, Goku and Gohan can sense Buu’s change, and Gohan pleads for the Elder Kai to speed things up.   But his thing takes 20 hours to work, and 20 hours is 20 hours, no matter how much of a hurry you’re in.

Back on Earth, Smitty goes for his gun and tries to shoot Buu, which is stupid, because he an Van Zant fired rocket launchers at him in the last episode and it didn’t do anything.    Van Zant tried to shoot Evil Buu at pointblank range, and nothing.

In response, Buu just launches his body into Smitty’s open mouth, and forces himself inside.    Super Buu seems to be more fluid than the previous forms, although I assume all forms of Buu can do stuff like this.  

Anyway, Smitty expands until he explodes, and then Buu reassembles himself.

Then Buu turns his attention to Mr. Satan.    He seems eager to kill him as well, but at the last second he hesitates, apparently remembering their friendship.

Mr. Satan wonders how he’s still alive, and he looks up to see Super Buu staring down at him.

And apparently Super Buu still cares enough about Mr. Satan to spare him and his dog, Bee.  

Then Buu takes off, and Piccolo realizes that he’s headed for the Lookout!   Apparently this version of Majin Buu can sense ki, and the Lookout is the strongest ki source on the planet.

And before you know it, Buu’s looming over everyone on the Lookout.    There’s nowhere to run or hide.   He’s right on top of them, and there’s nothing anyone can do.

And the only ones who can stop him just started their nap.   Whoops.  

Dragon Ball Z 265

Last time, Majin Buu got his ass kicked by Gohan, so he blew himself up and came back an hour later.... to challenge Gotenks instead.    No one knows why he would want to do this, but Goten and Trunks insist on taking him on, and Gohan doesn’t seem very firm about stopping them.

Meanwhile, some flesh off of Buu’s back has sloughed off and is slithering around among all the rocks, but that probably doesn’t mean anything...

So there’s a few things at play here.   First of all, no one gives Buu any credit for intelligence.   He’s demonstrated on more than one occasion that he’s smarter than he lets on.   The problem is that the characters who know that aren’t around to warn the boys.   Babidi got killed, and Goku’s stuck in Otherworld.  The Supreme Kai’s been warning anyone who will listen not to underestimate Buu, but no one’s ever listened to him on this point.  

Of course, Goten and Trunks’ immaturity plays into this as well.    They take Buu’s challenge at face value, and wonder why he’d ask for something so stupid.   It never occurs to them that maybe he’s asking to fight Gotenks precisely because it isn’t stupid at all, so maybe they shouldn’t play into his hands like this.  

What’s really dumb about this is that Buu made it pretty clear in the last episode that he was never in any real danger of losing his last battle with Gotenks.    He only kept fighting so he’d have something to do while he waited for Gohan to show up.   Gotenks knows this, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Finally, and most crucially, why is Gohan just standing around letting this unfold.    He knows it’s risky to let Gotenks fight instead, but when they complain, he just yields the floor and lets them fight in his place.   What was the point of getting that power up from the Old Kai if he wasn’t going to deal with Buu himself?   Why isn’t he attacking Buu right now, instead of standing there like a dope waiting for Buu to make his move?

It’s inexperience, pure and simple.   Gohan dominated Buu in their last encounter, and he probably figures that there’s no harm in letting Gotenks go first.    If the kid loses, Gohan can step in to help, right?  

I’d ask why Piccolo doesn’t object to any of this, but he had a nervous breakdown three or four episodes ago, so who can blame the guy?  The only one who does suspect something’s up is Bee.   I guess he can smell deception in the air?   Anyway, no one listens to him because he’s a dog.

So he has to run towards the fight and show them what he’s seen, but by then it’s too late.

Suddenly, the pieces of Buu’s body jump on Piccolo and Gotenks and envelop them...

Then they recombine with Buu, apparently infusing Piccolo and Gotenks into his body somehow.

Look, I don’t want to be too hard on Gohan, but this is EXACTLY HOW CELL TRICKED HIM SEVEN YEARS AGO.   Gohan was stronger than Cell, and he could beat him senseless without even trying, and then Cell revealed that he had a power Gohan couldn’t stop with punching.   Yeah, Gohan had no idea he could do this, but why did he let Buu live long enough to demonstrate this kind of ability.    In theory, he has the power to kill Buu with a single Kamehameha.    If he doesn’t, then there was no point in sending him down here, but if he does, then he should have just done that two episodes back.

Incidentally, why didn’t the Supreme Kai tell anyone about this?   We haven’t gotten to that episode yet, but later, he’ll explain how he’s seen Buu absorb people before, so it seems kind of odd that he didn’t anticipate this, or warn Gohan about it.   

When the process is complete, Buu has Gotenks’s Fusion vest, a longer tentacle, and a nose.    Also, he talks more eloquently.   This form is sometimes referred to as “Super Buu 2″.   I think I’ve seen “Buutenks” used before, but that sounds kind of dumb.  

Buu declares himself to be the “Mightiest Majin”, which is a line I’ve never understood.   Throughout this story, characters have referred to him as a “Majin”, as if he were one of a group of other Majin, and I’m pretty sure it’s just a word Toriyama made up for this story.   It’s supposed to be a portmanteau of “ma”, the Japanese word for “evil” and “djinn”, or “genie”.   Are there other Majins?  Does Buu know of any besides himself?  Wasn’t he already stronger than any of them to begin with?

Anyway, this whole development reveals a crucial flaw in any anti-Buu strategy.   As powerful as Majin Buu is, it’s not enough to just match him in strength.  If he runs into anyone strong enough to defeat him, he’ll just absorb that guy, or however many other guys he need to in order to stay on top.   It almost feels like this is some overriding aspect of Buu’s nature, like Bibidi programmed this into him.  

So why didn’t Buu just absorb Gohan, since he’s the strongest one.   Ah, but Buu wanted to have someone to fight once he increased his power.   There’s an element of risk to this plan, because Buu’s power-up is mostly contributed by Gotenks, and the fusion will expire soon.   That’s why Buu waited an hour before coming back to pull this stunt.   He didn’t want to absorb Gotenks back in Episode 262, because he didn’t know how much longer they would last.   This way, he got them right after they fused, so he has the full time at his disposal, however short it is.   

Even so, he has to beat Gohan before that time runs out.   It probably would have been smarter to just absorb Gohan, but Buu loves a good fight too much to pass this up.    Besides, he can always absorb Gohan later.

Seriously, why did anyone think Toriyama was going to make Gohan the main character?   More to the point, why did anyone want Gohan to become the main character?  

Let me back up and explain that for anyone who didn’t know about the story.   Years ago, there was this legend that Toriyama planned to make Gohan the protagonist of the Buu arc, but fans in Japan sent him death threats or something, demanding that he bring Goku back, so he changed the ending.  Kanzenshuu.com has a pretty thorough article debunking this rumor, but the quick version is that Toriyama did plan on Gohan taking the lead, then changed his mind at some point, because he felt Gohan wasn’t suited for the role.  

I’m pretty sure the rumor only got started because of wishful thinking and changed premises.    There was a time, however brief, where Toriyama made it clear that he was making Gohan inherit the role from Goku.    And then Goku came back anyway.    The simplest explanation is that he changed his mind, but I think fans have trouble accepting the possibility of authors calling an audible in the middle of a story.   They like to imagine that the story exists fully-formed in the creator’s mind, and any inconsistencies or changes are due to outside influences.   When Gohan got sidelined from the Buu Saga, it was easier for fans to believe that there was some sort of conspiracy at work.    Either Toriyama’s editor made him change it, or Toei pressured him to bring the more marketable Goku back, or misguided Japanese fans coerced him into rewriting the story.  

My take on this is that the situation looks pretty obvious when you watch the show.   Maybe I shouldn’t say “obvious”, because when I first watched the Buu Saga, I kept obsessively checking Funimation.com’s episode list to see what would happen in upcoming installments, and I knew that Goku and Vegeta would somehow return, use fusion, and fight Buu themselves.  And that was the main event, as far as I was concerned.   For my money, the whole point of this fusion business was to see Goku and Vegeta use it, so what do we need Gohan for?  

But besides that, what exactly is the alternate scenario here if Gohan remained the protagonist?   Presumably, we’d get this far, I would think.   Gohan is too much for Super Buu, so he absorbs Piccolo and Gotenks to give our hero a greater challenge.   And it’s not an impossible task.    If Gohan can hold out until Gotenks’ fusion expires, he’ll have the advantage again.

But then what?    Do Goku and Vegeta come back to help him anyway?  Does Gohan journey into Buu’s body to rescue his pals, or does he just kill Super Buu and wait four months on an empty planet to wish everyone back to life?   Does Kid Buu ever factor into any of this?  

These aren’t insignificant questions.    I get the impression that anyone who believes that Toriyama changed the story because of fan pressure or editorial pressure or whatever, they believe this because they’re huge Gohan fans who resent him getting a raw deal.    Or they just don’t care for the Buu Saga in general, and they like the idea that there’s a better version floating around in Toriyama’s brain, or maybe even scribbled into a notebook.   Basically, they’re just rejecting this story, the one we got, and they’re clinging to a potentially better story that probably doesn’t exist.   

But I think that’s unfair.   It’s easy to say that an imaginary comic is better than the one that saw print.   It’s completely safe from criticism, because no one can read it, and no one can say for certain what is and isn’t in it.   So my question to the Gohan-truthers is: What was supposed to have happened instead?   How does Gohan being in the lead and beating Buu improve anything?    Because the way I see it, the story we got kicks ass. 

This part of it?   Not so much.   This is just Super Buu dominating Gohan for three episodes.   That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, except that we’ve been getting a steady diet of Majin Buu steamrolling everyone this whole time.    Hell, this isn’t even the first time he’s beaten Gohan.    It’s just taking a little longer tis time, that’s all. 

What does work is that this new development only adds to the burden on Goku’s conscience.    He was the one who insisted on staying dead, that he was the one putting the Earth in harm’s way, and that Gohan could protect the world better than he ever could.    He was the one who taught the boys the fusion technique, and assured his wife that they would be more than powerful enough to stop Buu and save the world.   And none of it is working.  

For me, that’s the most compelling thing about this leg of the story.    There was a period where, yeah, it looked like Goku was going to stay dead, by choice, and for keeps this time.    And everyone was comfortable that he was making the right decision.    But this arc is revealing that Goku was wrong.  He never should have left, and the world now suffers for his mistake.   

That’s a sort of pathos that Gohan just can’t grasp.   He’s a good character and maybe you could make him the protagonist of some other story, but he’ll never be quite as compelling as his father.    These are fictional characters, after all.   Gohan can’t just inherit his father’s qualifications as a heroic archetype.   Goku’s an alien refugee who grew up in the woods.    He’s an outsider to everyone, and somehow he keeps making miracles happen.   He has friends and family, but he never quite feels like he belongs.   He has a restlessness to him, and a profound modesty.   That’s why he was so sure that staying dead and trusting his sons to carry on in his stead was the right call.   He just blithely assumed others could do the things he did.   But he’s lightning in a bottle.   The Legendary Super Saiyan.   Others can learn to imitate his powers, or even surpass him in strength, but that still doesn’t change the fact that there’s something special about him. 

Let me blow your mind with a crackpot theory of my own.   I think Toriyama changed his mind about making Gohan the main character pretty early on.   A lot earlier than people may think.    Goku died in Episode 188, but he continued to appear in the show all the way up to Episode 199.   And then... he returned in Episode 205, to tell Gohan that he would return to Earth for the tournament.     From there on, the whole story revolved around Goku.   Everyone wanted to see Goku again, and even though Gohan was still in the lead role for a few more episodes, all he was interested in was hanging out with his dad. 

To put this in terms of the manga, Gohan’s first chapter as the main character was #421, published on May 11, 1993.    The chapter where Goku announced his return was #426, published on June 15, 1993.   Goku’s actual return to the comics happened in Chapter 430, published July 13, 1993.   From there, he remained a fixture in the manga until it concluded two years later.  

My point here is that Goku never really went away.   He was absent from the Namek Saga longer than he was absent from the post-Cell Games era.  In-universe, yes, he’d been dead for seven years, but for us, the audience, we basically flashed forward right up to the point where he returns.    My suspicion is that Toriyama tried telling new stories with Gohan and Videl in Satan City, got frustrated with it, and decided to bring back Goku after about a month.   But fans who took Gohan-as-protagonist as a guarentee, they assumed that Goku was returning as a supporting character, and he would eventually leave and let Gohan have the reins again.    When that didn’t happen, they assumed foul play.  

Anyway, Super Buu is clobbering Gohan at will.   If Goku doesn’t save him, who will?   Tien?   Pfft, yeah right, like Tien’s gonna... oh, wait.