Dragon Ball GT Episodes 16-22 Review: Generals and Robots [Rilldo Arc]

Dragon Ball GT, Episodes 16-22 [General Rilldo Arc]

So yeah, we continue with a somewhat better quality into a series of seven episodes that at least is closer tied-together compared to the horrid banality that is the Luud arc. That's not to say that the Rilldo arc is particularly good -- it's still got a plot that's as flimsily tied together as any non-serial movie plot has, but the central conflict of Giru's apparent betrayal is actually something that makes me somewhat care about what's going on -- in the Luud arc, there's no such emotional center or any sort of tension beyond "there's a bad guy, beat him".

Episode 16 starts off with a rather slow start, with Giru convincing the GT team to land on Cybertron Planet M2, his home planet, which is populated with a large amount of purple robots similar to Giru... but apparently Giru is all evil and everything, and his missing memory has apparently returned... and it seems that he's betrayed our heroes out to Rilldo and his legion of robot minions. We get to see Rilldo's group of fancy goons, the Sigma Force, a bunch of Mazinger knockoffs that actually have some legitimately neatly-animated moments with slide-out missiles and one of them transforming into ball bearings to lock Goku and Trunks into place, capturing them and knocking them out with sleeping gas.

Now it's clear at this point that there's some amnesia or split personality or secret agenda deal with Giru, with Dragon Ball GT pulling every single anime cliche of a not-betrayal, but it's, again, somewhat competently done. Episode 17 starts with Pan, whose whole tsundere relationship with Giru ends up causing her a fair amount of grief as she's conflicted as to why Giru  has betrayed them. All the setup is neat, even if both episodes 16 and 17 spends way too much time on bland filler like Goku eating metal apples or Pan hiding in a bush getting trampled on by passing robots.

And then Giru shows data of the recording he's made while observing the Saiyans throughout the past 15 episodes to Rilldo and the Sigma Force, and gets a medal for his services... which, considering the big twist to be revealed at the end of the arc, makes absolutely no sense.

But Pan's one-woman charge into Rilldo's castle, and Goku's pissed-off argument about how Giru's betrayed them, are legitimately well-done scenes. Pan actually does something, unleashing a gigantic two-handed explosive blast to counter Natt of the Sigma Forcce during her assault, despite Natt previously being able to trounce Pan with the data he's acquired. It's a legitimately neat moment, and a far cry from the previous arc that quite literally reduced Pan to nothing but a prop.

Mind you, episode 17 does revolve almost entirely around Pan's sneaking around through the fortress disguised as a robot, and it's way too repetitive. It does allow some random helpful rebel to tell us what a 'Machine Mutant' actually is. Apparently Rilldo and Myu came to this planet, and turned everyone from organics into robots, Borg-style, and that... okay, that actually makes a neat little backstory.

Of course, episode 18 turns it back into the Goku show, who takes on the remaining three members of the Sigma Force (the wiki tells me their names are Nezi, Ribet and Bizu, but I don't think they were actually named in the episode itself). The animation quality is a bit suspect, and Goku running around with his butt on fire took too long, but we do get some legitimately neat gimmicks and the visual imagery of the M2 robots being able to 'swim' through walls is weird but gives them something unique beyond just shooting missiles.

And then the three Sigma Force members fuse together into a giant fake-Voltron fake-Mazinger thing, the Mega Cannon Sigma. Yeah, between Maji-kayo, Katopesla, Koichiarator and Anilaza, Drgaon Ball Super actually has a fair amount of references to these chunk of episodes from GT, huh? But as neat as the Mega Cannon Sigma is, and its continuous transformation into flying and drill forms, Goku just ends up blowing the Mega Cannon Sigma up with a Kamehameha. It's still pretty neat, though, and far, far more interesting than every single fight in the Luud arc put together.

General Rilldo (or Rild) gets off his chair, and finally challenges Goku. And... Rilldo doesn't really have a personality beyond being a confident warlord, but again, the way he's presented is so much more interesting than anything in the Luud arc, although that's not a very high bar to clear. Pan gets a badass moment of punching Rilldo in the face, but it turns out that Rilldo is just faking it. Goku claims Rilldo might be 'stronger than Buu' which I call bullshit on. Like, it's such a silly trick that makes me inherently dislike the whole concept of power levels in the first place, something that the DBZ movies use unnecessarily, and here I don't really think that Rilldo felt that strong. I mean, Super Saiyan 1 kid Goku manages to fight toe-to-toe with Rilldo, after all.

Rilldo's big trick is a mouth beam that causes anything it to be consumed by carbonite, Star Wars style, and Trunks gets hit by this. Oh, so it's Trunks' turn to be turned into a literal prop, then? Carbonite Trunks gets teleported away to Dr. Myu, while Goku continues to fight Rilldo. We've got some neat bits in the action scene like a rocket punch, and after a Kamehameha, Rilldo fuses with the apparently-still-alive remains of the Sigma Force, forming Hyper Rilldo, which just looks like a cheap Voltron knockoff. Episode 20 continues this fight, and then Rilldo transforms into a new form, which is just a big, entirely-silver muscular naked man, and apparently Rilldo is able to turn the entire planet into part of his liquid metal body. It's neat, although it does run way, way too long for my liking, with way too many repetition of Rilldo manifesting things from the ground only for Goku to fly faster than the liquid metal.

Meanwhile, Pan spends way, way too long just charging into Rilldo's castle to confront Giru, only to be rejected by the walls that is... liquid and has... space-time changing properties or some shit? Basically a fancy sci-fi trapdoor. Pan meets up with the old-helpful-machine-mutant, asking him how to shut off the space-time-rejector machine, but after a way-too-long sequence where Helpful Robot turns out to not know how to do it, Pan... punches the poor sod through the ceiling, and says "that's why you're a reject." Yeeaaaaah. Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen. Punches poor, abused old robots that's just trying to help.

Mr. Reject actually still helps Pan in his final charge, but ends up getting electrocuted for his troubles. Giru spits Pan out with the tower's trap systems, but also gives her the dragon balls, and it's at this point that it's clear that Giru's actually still on the side of the angels, and that we're going through a very tired "he must fool his friends to fool his enemies" routine, and in this case it's Pan that's the chump.

Goku and Rilldo's fight continues through episode 21 which is so goddamn repetitive, although we do get a neat sequence where they fight in an abandoned cinema. It would be poignant, Rilldo fighting in the remnants of the civilization he destroyed, but it turns out that the whole point is so that Goku can make bad jokes about the juice machines. Pan arrives shouting her head off like a jackass about how she has all the dragon balls, causing Rilldo to do what he should've done three episodes ago and engulf both Goku and Pan with metal.

Then both get sent off to Dr. Myu, and Rilldo ceases to be relevant. Giru shows up screaming his head off "NO WHERE IS THE OFF BUTTON", revives Goku and Pan, and reveals that, hey, he's not evil after all! Are you shocked now? Well, now let's throw Trunks' carbonite around and then it smashes into a million pieces! Are you shocked now? Oh, no, wait, Trunks is alive, and apparently he and Giru planned this entire thing! Are you shocked NOW?

Yeah, never mind that there's no real point in time where Trunks and Giru could really have thought this plan up (Giru seems surprised by Rilldo's existence on the planet at all), but it also means that Giru is acting like he's conflicted about his loyalties in locations where no one can see him for no real reason. Also, their entire plan hinges on Rilldo not just killing the Saiyans, but using the non-lethal carbonite deal to send them off to Myu... which, again, also means Trunks and Giru banked on Goku and Pan being defeated? Yeah, it doesn't make much sense.

Trunks also reveals that he has found out Dr. Myu's big secret, which is revealed in episode 22 to be a super-secret chamber containing the NEO Machine Mutant called Baby (a.k.a. Space Cell). Baby's test tube is in this long walkway above a space lake, with little mini-comets that impact all over the area for cheap dramatic atmosphere, and instead of, y'know, blowing up the evil murder machine, Trunks just 'shuts it down' with a virus.

And they just stand there while Dr. Myu runs towards Baby's tank and just hysterically types and tries to revert Baby's shutdown. They quite literally stand still there and crack jokes and talk about Giru's recent betrayal while Myu is completely in distress. Also, apparently that horrible, horrible Luud arc is all in the name of gathering enough energy to power Baby? ...but didn't they use the energy to power the Luud robot itself? Yeah, Myu just doesn't make sense.

Of course, while Goku is dicking around, Baby's eyes open, there's a big explosion and we get a legitimately cool bit where Baby grows from a robot fetus to the size of a real baby, screams out loud and just crawls like a weird robot-fetus with sunglasses and a penis-head-horn, screeching and screaming. It's actually a sense of unearthly threat that the likes of Luud, Myu or Rilldo fail to really give, and it's cool. And then Goku, Pan and Trunks just kamehameha him together and blow him up! That's... that's actually cool.

And then the GT squad just stands still while Myu makes his getaway. They quite literally just stand still. The fuck, man. Of course, a small blip of Baby sticks on Myu, so while Goku, Pan, Trunks and Giru spend the end of episode 22 laughing and joking like jackasses, it's all Alien in Myu's ship as Baby reforms himself and bursts out of Myu's back, revealing that... um... he's the one that apparently programmed Myu to gather energy to revive him? And Myu just happened to be defective and began to think for himself? Um... okay, then. I don't care all that much. It's a very, very rocky arc, still plagued with flat villains (not as flat as the Luud arc, again, but still flat) and questionable plot twists, but overall this Rilldo arc is somewhat decent, and reasonably builds up what passes for a main plot here. It does really show that GT has a fair amount of problems in trying to make its villains (and heroes, really) interesting, but at least it's somewhat enjoyable to watch instead of a big eyeroll of "am I wasting my time" like the previous arcs were.