Dragon Ball GT Episode 15 Review: Someone Dies!

Dragon Ball GT, Episode 15: Beginning of the End

The Luud arc is pretty shit, but can it get any worse? Well, this weirdly inconsequential episode is definitely better. We actually find a dragon ball here, which I thought was hilarious. Are the dragon balls only allowed to be found in random backwater planets like the everything-is-giant planet or the catfish monster planet? So what's the point of having the big multiple-episode reaching arc like the inanely long Luud saga or the Ledgic deal if you're not going to tie it into the main plot?

The whole theme of this giant desert planet populated exclusively by giant sandworm monsters is that "Pan needs to gain self-confidence". Trunks talks about returning back to Earth to refuel and maybe pick up Goten, so when they are stuck temporarily on a planet due to an encounter with a giant sandworm, Trunks and Goku tell Pan to stop getting in the way when she tries to prove that she's not a child. So Pan proves that she's not a child... by acting like a child, throwing a hissy fit, going into the desert, falling down because of exhaustion and nearly getting killed by a giant sandworm.

A giant sandworm, which, by the way, was beaten up by Giru, who flies in to rescue Pan. I'm not sure if Giru's meant to actually be secretly a badass, or if the writers have such a low opinion of Pan that they let her be beaten up by a giant beast and be rescued by a babbling mascot... but considering the treatment poor Pan went through in the series, and how she's portrayed as either a nuisance or a braggart all the time, I really just think that the show writers just don't really know what to do with Pan. 

Anyway, we get the dragon ball, Trunks and Goku thinks Pan is actually badass and confident because she found a dragon ball (no, it's all Giru's doing) and Dolltaki gets killed by one of Myu's actual competent minions, a buff elf dude called General Rilldo. Yes, Dolltaki actually gets shot in the head with a laser beam and dies. Thank you. There's something genuinely good that happened in this episode, at least. So yeah, presumably we'll be kicking things to high gear? Maybe?