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duhragonball · 1 year

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Dragon Ball GT 48

✨GT Stands For Guilt Trip✨

Well, we finally made it to the home stretch. This is the Shadow Dragons Saga, the last arc in Dragon Ball GT. And it’s pretty fucking terrible, let’s make that clear up front. I was willing to be diplomatic about GT when I started. I was prepared to wade through the nonsense of the early episodes, and I let my interest in Tuffle lore keep me engaged with the Baby Saga, and I barely remembered the Super 17 Saga, so I powered through that one by sheer curiosity.

But the Shadow Dragons Saga sucks ass. I say this with zero respect to anyone who worked on this anime. This arc is like watching an oil spill happen. This arc is like the time I found a dead bird in the vent duct of my dryer. I’d rather go to the dentist than watch this crap, because at least it wouldn’t take as long.

I’ll be honest with you, dear reader, liveblogging GT has really worn me down. I wanted to cover this one for the sake of completion, and so I could have a handy reference to each episode in the future, and I also thought it could be a lot of fun to critique the show in a playful sort of way. But I didn’t take into account just how awful this show really was, or the mental toll it would take on me to spend so much time on it.

So from here on out, I’m just gonna augur in and get this over with. Strap yourselves in, because we’re about to see quite possibly the worst Dragon Ball saga ever made. I’m not sure if the individual episodes are worse than the ones we’ve seen so far, but the arc as a whole is a master class in how to piss away your audience’s goodwill.

✨"Good" "Ideas", Poorly Executed✨

Oh, where do I even begin? Okay, so when Dr. Gero opened up that portal between Hell and Earth, it caused all these disasters across the Earth, on top of the damage done by Super 17 and Gero’s allies. Dragon Team decided to summon Shenron to wish away all the death and destruction, but the Dragon Balls were cracked, and when they called Shenron, a bunch of smoke billowed out of the Balls, and a new, shady-looking Dragon emerged.

King Kai warned Goku that it wasn’t Shenron, but the dragon itself seemed to identify as the same Shenron that Dragon Team had used in the past. I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy, just changed beyond recognition. Anyway, this is sometimes referred to as “Smoke Shenron”, and he never actually does anything in this form. He just tells the good guys that he’s not going to be their “lapdog” any more, and then he takes the Dragon Balls and splits himself into seven parts, each one taking a Dragon Ball in a different direction.

One annoying part of this is how no one can agree on who’s going to explain this situation. King Kai starts, but then the Elder Supreme Kai cuts him off, but then he’s so furious about it that Kibitoshin has to explain it instead, and then Dende and Mr. Popo show up to add their thoughts. So I’m just going to give you the summary without getting into who says what.

During the Majin Buu Saga, Kibitoshin heard about the Earthling’s plans to use the Dragon Balls, but he seemed to have no idea what they were. Later, the Elder Kai caught wind of it, and expressed disapproval. According to him, the Dragon Balls were a special dispensation to Namekians, and should only be used sparingly. The idea of the Earth having its own set was bothersome to him, and he seemed uncomfortable about using them to undo the damage of the Buu crisis, even when he was one of the people resurrected by the wishes. In Dragon Ball Z, it sounded like he was just objecting to the whole thing on moral grounds.

But in this episode, we learn that his warnings we based on very real, very serious dangers. Each time you use the Dragon Balls, you introduce “minus energy” into them. This arc really lays it on thick with the terms “plus energy” and “minus energy”, so get used to that. I guess the deal is that it takes plus energy to grant a wish, so each time the Dragon Balls get used, they lose plus and gain minus? Fuck it, who cares? The point is that if they get used too often, the minus energy builds up inside the Dragon Balls, until they can’t contain it anymore, and this is what led to the events of this episode. The next time Shenron is summoned, he comes out looking all weird and instead of granting wishes, he buggers off to start destroying the world.

In theory, the Dragon Balls can safely release this pent-up minus energy after each wish, but it takes about a hundred years for that to happen. This is why the Dragon Balls scatter after each use. By the time anyone can find all seven of them again, centuries would have passed, and the minus energy from the previous wish would be gone.

However, that natural cooldown period got hijacked when Bulma invented the Dragon Radar. Thanks to her, the Dragon Balls could be gathered much more easily. Hell, just look at the last episode. Goku, Trunks, and Pan went to gather the Balls at the tail end of Episode 47 and it didn’t take any time at all. So over the past forty years, they’ve been making tons and tons of wishes, and that’s overloaded the Dragon Balls.

The danger now is that Shenron will destroy the Earth. I think there was a line about how it’s been cut off from the rest of the universe, but I’m not sure if I interpreted it correctly. There’s also some concern that Shenron might continue his rampage and destroy the rest of the universe as well. So Goku resolves to hunt down Shenron and kick his ass, which will presumably restore things to normal.

Okay, so that’s the premise. Here’s why it sucks.

1) This is just a retread of the Black Star Dragon Balls. I’ve already explained my gripes about the BS Dragon Balls, but the short version is that there was a prototype set of Dragon Balls hidden away for centuries, and using them can destroy the whole world, and Mr. Popo knew about them the whole time and never said anything. The BS Dragon Balls were written out of the story in Episode 40, so now we’ve returned to the classic Red Star Dragon Balls we’ve always known, and suddenly they turn out to have the same problem, where they’re too dangerous to use. So it’s not even original.

2) Why didn’t anyone say anything about this until now? This is the worst kind of retcon, the kind where new lore is introduced that doesn’t even remotely fit into the established history. As this episode states, the gang have been using the Dragon Balls for decades. During that time, they met Kami, who created the Dragon Balls, and other characters like Mr. Popo, Guru, Moori, and Dende, who know a great deal about creating and maintaining Dragon Balls. Throughout Dragon Ball and DBZ, characters will pose questions about the kinds of wishes they can make, and what rules apply, and the experts will mull it over and give clear, concise answers. On occasion, Shenron himself will counsel the characters who summon him, explaining the limitations of his powers and making helpful suggestions for how to word their wishes.

The point I’m making here is that the Dragon Balls are extremely user-friendly. The hard part is gathering them all together, but once you’ve done that, there’s plenty of guidance on how to use them and what not to do. And at no point did anyone ever bring up the dangers of overuse. And yet, when Episode 48 comes along, you have King Kai, Kibitoshin, the Elder Kai, and Mr. Popo all going “Yeah, you assholes blew it. You shouldn’t have used them so much.”

3) If the Dragon Balls need 100 years to reset, then why do they work the way they do? From the start, the Dragon Balls turn into stone for a year, after which they change back into orange crystal orbs and they can be used again. This was written into the story to explain why the characters can’t just constantly re-gather the Dragon Balls for continuous wishing. But it’s implied that this is a cooldown period to reset them for the next use. This is further clarified when Dende reactivates the Dragon Balls in the Cell Saga. They ask him to upgrade the Dragon Balls to grant three wishes instead of just one, and he can do it, but it means adjusting the “wishing power”. Shenron can’t be made to grant 800 wishes in one go, because there’s a limit to what he can do in one summoning. Porunga seems to have far greater capacity than Shenron, which is why he can resurrect people multiple times, restore whole planets, and always grant three wishes every 130 days. But I assume this is because he’s built different.

So there’s already a lot of logistical considerations built into the Dragon Ball concept. And yet this episode suggests that the 1-year cooldown is only one percent of the time the Dragon Balls actually need to reset. If that were true, then why didn’t Kami or Dende fix it so they turn to stone for 100 years instead of just one?

Also, this episode mentions how Dende upgraded the Dragon Balls to grant more wishes, which only compounded the problem. Well if Dende knew that was an issue, why the hell did he do it? And if he didn’t know, then how is he qualified to make and maintain Dragon Balls in the first place? Dende doesn’t have much to say in this episode, which doesn’t make any fucking sense, because he should know more about Dragon Balls than anyone else in the show. He’s a Dragon Type Namekian! He literally studied the art of making Dragon Balls! That’s why they recruited him to become the new Kami of Earth! Moori said all of this when he recommended Dende to Goku!

It really, really annoys me how this series keeps deferring to Mr. Popo for all of the Dragon Ball lore. Popo is an attendant to the reigning Kami of Earth. He’s not a Namekian, and everything he knows about Namekian culture and Dragon Balls, he learned from Kami, a Namekian. Dende is a Namekian. Everything he learned about Namekian culture and Dragong Balls, he learned on Namek. He knew all about this stuff before he came to Earth, and then he kept studying it afterward. And unlike Kami, Dende didn’t lose his memories of his people.

If this Shadow Dragon nonsense made any sense at all, then Dende should be the one explaining it to the others. Instead, they’re all explaining it to him, like he’s some idiot who never knew how any of this worked.

Seriously, how the fuck would Mr. Popo know about an evil dragon destroying another planet? He’s never left Earth. What would he know about any of this? I could see Dende reading about something like this in some book of Namekian legends, but not Popo. Hey, speaking of Dende...

4) Why don’t they just kill Dende? Everyone talks about this Shenron problem like it’s irreversible, but Shenron’s not invincible. King Piccolo killed him with a ki blast, and he’s a weakling compared to most of the characters in this show. But even if Shenron got stronger from all this minus energy, and killing Shenron isn’t an option, then why don’t they just kill Dende?

This has always been the way it works. When Nappa killed Piccolo, Kami died too, and the Dragon Balls were deactivated. When Guru died, the Namekian Dragon Balls were deactivated. When Kami and Piccolo fused into one, the Earth’s Dragon Balls were deactivated. According to GT, their fusion somehow reactivated the Black Star Dragon Balls, which is why Piccolo allowed himself to die in Episode 40, so they would never endanger anyone again. So it’s clear that the people making GT understood this concept.

Well then, the Earth’s Dragon Balls are under the stewardship of Dende now, so if he dies, they should stop working. This was a major plot point in the Buu Saga, where they needed to keep Dende alive in order to wish everyone back to life after Buu was defeated. Kill Dende, kill Shenron.

I’m not saying they should have actually gone through with this, but why doesn’t anyone bring it up? Or, a more humane option would be to break that sculpture of Shenron that Mr. Popo made. I’m pretty sure Kami and Dende always had the power to turn Shenron off when it suited their purposes. We never saw that put into practice, but the pecking order was always very clear. Shenron is not a “god” or a “mysterious legend”. He’s a magic familiar under the control of Dende. Shenron can’t do shit without Dende to allow it.

5) What about the Namekian Dragon Balls? If this is a problem on Earth, then why has it never been an issue on Namek, where the Dragon Balls can be used much more frequently? Do they just know how to avoid the problem, or do they wait 100 years between wishes? I ask this because we’ve seen Porunga grant a dozen wishes in about as many years. Oh, and in GT, they used Porunga again to restore the Earth after it exploded in Episode 40. So the Namekian Dragon Balls have been overused at least as badly as the Earth’s Dragon Balls. So where’s their Shadow Dragon problem?

But maybe I’m being too hard on this story. Yeah, there’s a lot of plot holes to this, but ultimately it comes down to a pretty cool angle. The final boss of Dragon Ball is the Dragon himself. Goku has to fight the Dragon to save the universe, and the Dragon has split into seven, which means Goku has to throw down with seven badass monsters, like some kind of awesome fantasy martial arts gauntlet. Right?

Right?

You’re shaking your head, are you saying that the Shadow Dragons are not badass monsters? Well that can’t be right, I’m sure that.... Oh. Oh.

6) The Shadow Dragons suck ass. Goku tracks down the first one and he looks like a joke. Then a rock falls on his toe and he cries out in pain, revealing that he doesn’t just look like a joke, he is a joke.

This is played off like some sort of “appearances can be deceiving” trope, where the moral is not to underestimate your foe. But that’s really not what this series needed at this stage. You kind of knew that the Shadow Dragons would get increasingly difficult with each one, so the very first one would be the weakest, but this is ridiculous. By the end, the last three give Super Saiyan 4 Goku a hard time, but the first four Shadow Dragons are total chumps. They play their tricks and give Goku some trouble, but not because of any physical strength they possess. And then you finally get to the “serious” Dragons at the end, and the fights suck, because GT is terrible at presenting fight scenes.

And this is what makes the arc so damned infuriating. The Saiyans Saga from Z worked because it opened with a devastating conflict--Goku dies, for goodness’ sake!-- and then it promises an even more terrible enemy will appear in one year. So the heroes train and the story winds on and the arc relies on this suspense. What are the two Saiyans going to do when they get here? How strong could they be? Can anything stop them? Then they finally arrive and the first thing they do is destroy a whole city. The second thing they do is kill several major characters. After it’s over, Goku spends the next several episodes in the hospital, because Vegeta broke every bone in his body! The Saiyans Saga did not fuck around, and the reason it’s such a classic is that it delivered on the hype.

The Shadow Dragons Saga is the polar opposite to this. This arc opens with dire warnings about seven monsters who will surely destroy the whole world, and it blunders the execution in every possible way. The last Shadow Dragon is the only one that really matters, and he throws a clock at Goku, just to give you an idea of how “intense” that battle is. You watch this garbage hoping that each new Shadow Dragon will redeem the disappointments that came before, and then you finally look up and notice that there are no more. All of the Shadow Dragons came and went, and they all sucked.

✨Positivity Page✨

There was a montage of all the wishes made over the years, so I guess that was pretty nice. I’ll be honest, it’s gonna be really hard to find anything nice to say about these next few episodes.

✨Is This Episode Worse than "The Roaming Lake"?✨

Yes. It is worse. The Roaming Lake is pretty much guaranteed to make a clean sweep of this thing. All hope is lost.

One major problem with this episode is that very little actually gets done. Most of the runtime is spent infodumping the Shadow Dragon concept, and I think I’ve already made my opinion on that very clear. They spent a lot of time explaining the thing, but they managed to avoid every question that I had about it.

The rest of the episode shows lots of pointless scenes of Shadow Dragons flying around the world, choosing their bases of operations and selecting their powers. One of them flies into a volcano and he’s going to be their fire guy. That sort of thing. Then Goku remembers he forgot the Dragon Radar, so Pan offers to let him have Giru, but only if she can tag along. Then they find Haze Shenron, who looks like the love child of a frog and a moldy potato.

✨The Blade Braxton Memorial Haiku*✨

Yeah, this show gets worse.

Don’t worry, though. We still have

Plenty of Giru.

#dragon ball #dragon ball gt #really sucks #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #*haiku does not come with crown as illustrated #goku #pan #trunks #giru #dende #mr popo #chi chi #videl #haze shenron

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