Dragon Ball GT Episodes 59-63 Review: Be Careful What You Wish For [Shadow Dragons Saga, Pt 3]

Dragon Ball GT, Episodes 59-63: Shadow Dragon Saga, Part 3

Episode 59 starts off with our typical Dragon Ball "my power up is stronger than everyone present!" with Omega Shenron blowing everyone away with his sheer power, and in his clash with Goku shows off a bit of the moves that Nuova, Eis, Oceanus and Rage Shenron's powers. There's a bit where Goku realizes that his sight is returned, but he pretends to be blind to get a cheap Kamehameha-RYUKEN combined shot through Omega's chest.

Didn't... didn't he give Eis Shenron grief for pretending to be weak and then getting a cheap shot in? What the hell, Goku. I mean, it's very cool that he manages to travel through his own Kamehameha wave to dragon fist Omega Shenron in the gut, but still. Eis Shenron was like, five episodes ago!

Of course, Omega Shenron turns out to not be dead, as apparently he has Rage Shenron's goopy jelly reformation technique... but... wasn't Rage Shenron a tiny creature that creates a big suit out of the jelly, instead of being able to recover by turning into jelly? That doesn't make that much sense, really. Omega then unleashes a beatdown on everyone present, even kicking Mr. Satan. (And honestly? It's very impressive that Mr. Satan survives a kick from someone of Omega Shenron's caliber). Goku grabs onto Omega Shenron and he's about to do Vegeta's Final Explosion trick to get rid of Omega once and for all.

And then Vegeta shows up and tells Goku to not do that, because if Goku dies, "the earth will be finished". By... by what, exactly, Vegeta? Omega is literally the only threat left. Bulma arrives in a GODDAMN TANK and she shoots Vegeta with the Blutz Wave... and is there any reason that they couldn't have done this away from where Omega Shenron could've stopped them? I mean, there's no reason for Omega Shenron to not just blast Bulma and her tank, either. Is everyone just dumb in this episode? Vegeta goes Oozaru, and... loses control? Why? He's never had any problem with Oozaru back in Dragon Ball Z. And then Vegeta goes Golden Oozaru, then Super Saiyan Four. It's rushed, honestly, and as badass as it is to see Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta and his skin-tight hot pants... doesn't this spit on everything Vegeta's been through in the Buu Saga? The whole point of the Majin Vegeta arc is that you shouldn't gain power via shortcuts. Is there any real reason that Vegeta couldn't have trained on his own to unlock the Super Saiyan 4 form not with a moon-beam steroid blast, but after his anger at being useless at the end of the Baby arc?

My god, episode 59 has a fuck ton of logic problems, yeah?

At the end of episode 59, Vegeta just tells Goku that their combined strength isn't going to be enough to take on Omega Shenron, so they got to fuse. Episode 60 starts off with Pan, hilariously, asking everyone "what's fusion?" and no one answering her. Bulma in her tank tank, Gohan, Goten and Trunks try to buy time for Vegeta and Goku to do the fusion dance, but Goku just... stands there. Vegeta even lampshades this, asking Goku why the fuck he's just standing there like a moron. Apparently he's proud? That's... that's the reason? Jeez, the writing staff really took a hit in this part of the arc. Anyway, Goku and Vegeta combine into... GOGETA! A form previously only seen in a single movie, Fusion Reborn. Well, that's cool. I wasn't expecting that!

And Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta is absolutely badass, trouncing Omega Shenron, and pulling a Jiren trick and quite literally blasts Omega Shenron away by staring really hard. There's also some cool bit where Gogeta just unleashes his aura, and when Omega Shenron flies close Gogeta's already hit him multiple times, too fast for the eye to see. That's actually badass.


Bulma's poor tank gets blown up (she survives Looney Tunes style) and I guess that's the reason she doesn't go shooting Trunks, Gohan, Pan and Goten with the Blutz Wave even more, huh. Uub actually asks Trunks or Gohan to fuse with him so that they can also become stronger... and then Gohan just laughs it off as "oh, silly Uub, heal your arm first, yeah?" And it's honestly just kinda dumb. We could've had a talk about how you need compatibility for the fusion dance to work, how they're all spent from donating their energy to Goku, or something. But, nope, just "fuck off, minor character", which really isn't particularly endearing of this arc to me, honestly.

And then Gogeta starts dicking around, quite literally, by creating clones and making a fake Kamehameha with party streamers and shit and sticking out his tongue. Yeaaaah, that's more of a Gotenks thing and it does feel out of place. Gogeta laughing and dicking around honestly feels out of character for this fused form, and even if Goku is in the body of a kid, he's fused in the serious SS4 form and this bit is just kind of weird.

Omega Shenron creates this gigantic Minus Energy Power Ball which is oh-so-dangerous. Everyone else flies away... and Gogeta just kicks the ball into space. Gogeta apparently puts in his own plus energy into the minus energy ball which... cancels it out and prevents it from exploding? Okay..? The minus energy stuff has been really weird and is honestly just bad plot device writing, but we ain't got time for that because Gogeta swoops in with a BIG BANG KAMEHAMEHA and god damn despite all the problems I have with this arc, that move looks cool.

The Big Bang Kamehameha fails to kill Omega Shenron, but it does knock out the other dragon balls. Gogeta is about to deliver another Big Bang Kamehameha... and then the fusion ends, because they've been wasting too much time dicking around. Omega then sucks back all the dragon balls and re-powers-up... but Goku catches the four star ball.


And then we have episode 61, where we quite literally spend a good one-third of the episode with Vegeta shouting about how it's all Goku's fault for dicking around, and how he now refuses to strike silly poses. Didn't... what? Vegeta was the one that suggested fusion in the first place! This is just bad writing for no real reason. Also, did we need the gag scenes in the Kai realm? That'''s dumb.

Goku then swallows the four star ball to emulate Omega Shenron and he chokes. (All the while Omega's just standing, by the way) And finally Goku and Vegeta decide to fuse again, and everyone else tries to buy time, and it's actually cool. We spend nearly the entire episode just with our heroes trying to fuse while Omega refusing to let them do the dance, and everyone tries to get in Omega Shenron's way. We get a cool Kamehame-Final Flash combo, we get a cool bit where Vegeta and Goku do a mass Afterimage technique to fool omega Shenron, and it's legitimately cool. But the episode ends with the fusion failing due to energy imbalance since Goku's a lot more tired than Vegeta... and Goku reverts back into his kid form. And the four star ball appears on Goku's forehead for some reason.

The Goku-has-a-ball-on-his-forehead joke runs way, way longer than it should, but it's just a way for Nuova Shenron to finally return. Nuova pretends to be re-corrupted by Omega's minus energy, and we get a brief fight between Nuova and Vegeta while Omega Shenron... sits down? Nuova is about to kill Goku... until the two of them suddenly turn around and unleash their combined attack onto Omega Shenron. Nuova is apparently purified by the 'plus energy' inside Goku and all this plus/minus power malarkey is just stupid, honestly. I just prefer my own explanation, that Nuova's holding a grudge for Omega shooting him in the back and killing him.

Nuova then unleashes his final technique, the Burning Spin, which creates a cage of fire around the two of them, with fire tentacles... and Nuova tells Omega that whoever fires an attack in that state will cause them both to die in an explosion. Nuova has no respect for Omega, including a particularly fun line where he turns around and tells Omega essentially "hey, you're used to shooting people from behind, right?" That's all badass and all, and Nuova fires a shot... and the two of them explode... and Nuova lands on the ground. But then Nuova cracks open and dies, because apparently Omega launches all of his dragon balls into Nuova's body, taking over his body from the inside? That's a pretty brutal death for poor Nuova, being exploded from the inside. And somehow now losing any power, while both Goku and Vegeta are out of Super Saiyan 4 time.

Episode 63 is the climax of this arc, and it's actually a relatively tense one. Omega creates a minus energy death ball thing, and Goku fails to stop it, and the resulting explosion wipes out a city and puts Goku at the center of the crater. Vegeta tells Trunks, Gohan and Goten to "live and avenge us someday!" as he goes off to fight Omega Shenron alone, comparing his last stand here to how he's going to protect his new home in the way that he cannot protect Planet Vegeta. That's actually touching!

There's some minus energy apocalypse shit going on with cataclysms going everywhere, and the dog president dies when a gigantic lightning bolt strikes the castle and completely vaporizes it. And while everyone (except Bra, who the staff has forgotten about) flies away, Trunks ends up staying behind to help Vegeta fight Omega, and both Gohan and Goten fly in as well. It's a valiant last stand, and I honestly won't make the obvious joke about how they lose because they aren't Goku. See, unlike the other examples of the secondary characters getting trounced, this is an actual touching moment, for me, at least, and the scene of Omega stabbing and impaling Vegeta on his horns is unexpectedly brutal.

Of course, Goku, in the crater, gathers Genki for the Spirit Bomb. But the energy on Earth alone isn't enough, and he telepathically contacts King Kai, who's way too jubilant that Goku's using his old technique to save the universe. King Kai contacts the East, West and South Kais, telling them to broadcast Goku's voice to the entire universe, and we get a brief montage of New Namek, plus some of the other characters from earlier in GT -- only the Para Para Brothers get any dialogue, but we get to see Imecka, Don Kee and his goons in jail, toothache giant, Zunama and the villagers, the doctor and the cabbage boy from the Baby arc... yeah, GT really has some disappointing supporting characters, huh, because I genuinely forgot about half of these, and it's nowhere as "hell yeah!" as the Buu Saga Spirit Bomb. Still, it's badass, even if it doesn't really make sense for the de-powered kid Goku to just shrug off every single one of Omega Shenron's panicked attacks onto him. Maybe the Spirit Bomb's powers are protecting him?

Regardless, Goku unleashes this Universal Spirit Bomb, and blows Omega Shenron up! Victory for Goku! And as Goku falls down, the real Shenron, without being summoned, appears from the dragon balls, and the episode ends.

I'll review episode 64, the end of Dragon Ball GT, separately, so that I can talk about the different arcs briefly and list the things GT did right and the things it did wrong. But overall... my feelings about the Shadow Dragons arc is more or less actually similar to how I feel about the Buu Arc from Dragon Ball Z. It's functional, but it's also riddled with a lot of pacing problems, and a final fight that isn't as entertaining as it should. Omega Shenron is also nowhere as interesting as many of the show's other big bads. Oh well -- it's over, and honestly? It's nowhere as bad as people make it out to be. It's far from perfect. Very far from it... but I honestly enjoyed myself through this very flawed story arc.