Film Review: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero [2022]

I didn't realize this movie was out until... well, until it was out in the streaming services. And this is kind of a follow-up to Dragon Ball Super: Broly, as the next big entry in the Dragon Ball franchise. I'm not really sure what's going on with Dragon Ball... I suppose Super really didn't do that well? I know there's a manga that's a bit rocky, and I don't know if the anime intends to adapt that, but eh. I have enough to talk about Super Hero, I guess.

I must say that I wasn't actually particularly interested in this movie from the trailers. The villains in the trailer -- Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 -- didn't look particularly appealing, looking more like a 'knockoff Hit' according to many people online, and I tend to agree. They also didn't draw this one, rather relying on 3D-animated software similar to what they did for a lot of the cel-shaded games recently like Xenoverse, FighterZ and Kakarot. 

I don't really have the energy to really break down every fight scene, but I will say that I was absolutely proven mistaken. Sure, the animation was a bit rough in some of the earlier non-action scenes -- there's a particularly long car ride between the human villains -- but the action scenes are where this new animation style shines particularly well, and I absolutely love the rain fight between Gohan and Gamma #1, which shows just how gat just showing them zipping around and slowing down and whatnot end up being. The Piccolo and Gamma #2 fight, particularly before Piccolo goes full orange, is also particularly smooth, particularly when telekinesis is involved. 

And so, yeah, I wasn't particularly impressed and it took me even longer to actually finish watching it. The movie, however, is... surprisingly good! And one of my biggest praises for this movie is that it acknowledges the increasingly-large cast that Dragon Ball has... but gives us a nice way to sideline them that doesn't seem bullshit. And I think my favourite part of this movie is that... this movie is Gohan and Piccolo's movie. Goku and Vegeta's roles are reduced to an extended cameo, and I actually do think the movie is much, much stronger because of it. 

Because, really... Goku's fun, and I'm as much a Vegeta fanboy as the next DBZ fan, but they've had a lot of their stories told. Sometimes at the expense of characters who are basically cannibalized for screentime -- and the biggest person that people point this out to is Gohan, who was really built up to be the next generation hero after the Cell Saga, and... just... peters out in favour for "Goku must be the one to gain the strongest-est power-up and deliver the final punch". 

In addition, there's always hints at Super doing something interseting with Gohan, particularly at the beginning of the universal survival arc, where it seems like Gohan's going to need to find a balance between being a career professor and being the protector of the universe. I do like that the movie does find a middle-ground that's not just 'Gohan needs to FIGHT because that's what sells tickets', where the thing that Piccolo tries to get Gohan to focus is not him becoming a warrior full-time, but rather to keep a balance on his training and stuff. 

The movie also brings up a lot of nice, forgotten continuity from the original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, and does so in a way that isn't eyerolling as 'this is suddenly super-duper relevant' like the Mafuuba in the Zamasu arc. The villains of this piece are the remnants of the Red Ribbon Army that young Goku demolished, with some of them being out for revenge and some being bamboozled. There's a nice little motivation arc of them using the cover story of 'Capsule Corps is working with super-powerful aliens'. Piccolo's role as a designated punching bag is even explored a bit, with his more diverse powers that the franchise forgot about (like gigantification) being brought up. Pan, Goten and Trunks growing up is explored a little bit. 

And yeah. I am not really the most impressed by the human villains, I have to admit, but I do like their backstory. Magenta is the son of Commander Red, and he recruits the oddball Dr. Hedo, grandson of Dr. Gero. Hedo's not the most ethical guy out there, but he's got some interesting ideas of superheroes, and Magenta and his head flunky Carmine does deliver a rather convincing way to get Hedo to work with them to purge evil alien invaders from Earth.

We then cut to basically the main character of this movie, Piccolo, and this movie kind of takes the meme of 'Piccolo's a good dad' and runs with it full-force. The thing is, that meme is honestly very applicable to his role in DBZ, and seeing him being supportive to Pan and being a good uncle/grand-uncle to her. It's nice to see that they'er acknowledging Pan again, too, who is the cutest little child in this movie. I like that Pan's never really in danger because she's a Saiyan kid, and she's already going around breaking handcuffs and headbutting evil Red Ribbon kindappers and stuff. We don't really know if GT is still considered canon or not (and at this point, even 'End of Z' is kind of handwave-y) but it's nice that this Pan is much less irritating than her GT counterpart. 

Piccolo gets a bit pissed off at Gohan being so obsessed about his scientific works, and while Gohan's not completely out of practice, and his defense that 'Goku and Vegeta will always be around' isn't completely invalid, this movie, of course, goes to deconstruct that. Of course part of it is also Piccolo trying to get Gohan off his ass and be a dad. 

Goku and Vegeta, of course, are just hanging out in Beerus's world with Beerus, Whis, Broly and his two hanger-ons. It's a nice way to subvert the reason that Resurrection F was so derided -- that Beerus is there to solve everything. Here, with everyone focused on training, it gives a nice little explanation as to why none of the super-god-tier characters are involved while we're dealing with Gohan and Piccolo's story. There's a brief bit of comedy as Beerus gets a generic anime crush on Cheelai, and some callbacks to the fight against Jiren as the state of power control that Vegeta tries to get him and Goku to learn, but ultimately I do like that this is kind of a way to sideline our big two heroes. 

And then the action scenes happen! Gamma #2 is the more eneretic, goofy one, and he's basically a 'perfected' version of the Androids from the Cell Saga. Gamma #2 attacks Piccolo and I absolutely love that Piccolo actually sees the giant comic-book sound effects behind him. It's apparently holograms that Dr. Hedo adds in just to make things look cooler since Hedo thinks he's designing peacekeepers. 

And then this leads to a part of the movie that I feel is simultaneously dragged out but raelly fun, which is Piccolo infiltrating the Red Ribbon Army, by stealing someone's full-body uniform and pretending to be a dork to get into the inner workings. I love that we get a bit of smarts involved in this movie, and while the dynamic of Hedo and the Gammas being duped by Magenta is a bit simple, it does add just a bit of 'these guys aren't completely flat' to the villains. We get to meet Gamma #1, who's basically the serious guy to Gamma #2's goofiness, and we also get hints that Hedo is working on Cell Max. There's a typical cartoon villain stupidity going on here where Hedo keeps insisting that Cell Max isn't able to be controlled while Carmine is like "but he'll let us control the world!"

And admittedly, the way Piccolo gets his superpowers is a bit too rapid for my tastes, but at the same time the movie isn't about that, necessarily. Still a better origin for the powers than Super Saiyan Blue, in any case. We get some comedy with Bulma, Dende and the Dragon Balls, but Piccolo then asks Shenron to unlock his latent potential the same way that Guru did for Gohan and Krillin all the way back in the original Namek arc. 

And then we get the final act of the movie, which is kind of a big, extended action scene. Magenta sends out his troops to kidnap Pan to target Gohan, and Piccolo, disguised as a Red Ribbon soldier, decides that this is a good way to get Gohan to get a power-up while also guaranteeing Pan's safety. I love that Pan isn't fooled for one second about Piccolo's disguise, and the next sequence as the Red Ribbon soldiers confront Gohan is probably one of the coolest shots in the movie. 

Gohan just doesn't really give a shit when all the goons are doing is pulling guns at him, but the moment they threaten Pan, Gohan just goes all superhero mode, speed-blitzes in front of the soldier, and the sheer crater from his power-up causes the ground under his house to collapse. And then when the jet finally enters Red Ribbon airspace and Gohan sees Pan, he just doesn't give a shit and powers-up so hard that the plane explodes and Gohan flies down. 

And then we get an extended fight scene, which is probably the best part of the movie. As mentioned above, the animation is fluid, the effects are cool, and while I don't really think the Gammas really do develop between 'serious' and 'more lively', they make for decent enough humanoid enemies for our heroes. Piccolo and Pan do some 'bad acting' to get Gohan to get super pissed-off and go into his... 'Ultimate Gohan' form? Potential Unleashed form? My Dragon Ball terminology is rusty. I also like that the Gammas are actually disturbed by seeing what they think is a Red Ribbon soldier harming the little child hostage, showing that they're still programmed as superhefoes at heart. 

Piccolo eventually fights Gamma #2, and it's a bit hard to tell, but he's actually fighting in a powered-up form where his green skin is a bit lighter. We get some really cool shots (particularly that square segment of the battlefield collapsing) before Piccolo realizes that Shenron gave him an additional power-up... and this is Orange Piccolo, where he grows a bit more demonic (reminiscent of his original Demon King Piccolo form) and his skin goes orange. Honestly, about damn time Piccolo gets something, and in this form Piccolo manages to one-shot Gamma #2. 

So yeah, we've got a fun victory for Piccolo. At this point, Piccolo manages to get Gamma #2 to listen, and the sight of Carmine holding a gun at Pan (who casually conks him to submission) causes the Gammas to realize that the Z-Fighters aren't villains after all. Bulma arrives, bringing the backup army of Trunks, Goten, Krillin and 18. They regroup for a bit and chat.

Meanwhile, Hedo and Magenta confront each other in the Cell Max chamber, and there's a moment when it actually does look like Magenta pulls a gun on poor Dr. Hedo and shoots him dead. This is where the foreshadowing of 'shock-absorbant' skin pays off, but then Magenta puts on a Robocop cyborg suit, and... okay, I must say that after the sleek Gamma fight before, this sequence is honestly kind of bland. It doesn't take too long, but Magenta unleashes Cell Max. 

Cell Max is basically a red, gigantic kaiju version of Semi-Perfect Cell, but with none of Cell's mind or charm. Oh, he's also got a club for his tail. Cell Max rampages, and all the heroes there fight him and... I can enjoy a superhero-versus-giant-monster movie! I don't necessarily think that the Cell Max fight is more impressive than the Gamma fight, animation-wise, but there are certainly a lot of shots here that make it look pretty cool. 

And since they have to build up Cell Max as a credible threat while also simultaneously finish him off in under 30 minutes, the Gammas reveal that Dr. Hedo built a weak point on top of Cell Max's head. Gotenks' fusion ends up fucking up and he spends the rest of the movie as fat Gotenks, durable but ultimately not particularly useful. Everyone's attacks fail to really damage Cell Max's head but then we get an epic sacrifice from Gamma #2 as the rest of the cast hold Cell Max in position. However, Gamma #2 isn't strong enough, and even with his self-destruct all he manages is to tear off one of Cell Max's arms.

...and I sound flippant, because I am. We barely spent any time with Gamma #2, and as I mentioned before he does come off as a bit of a caricature more than a character. Hedo's death would make me feel something, I guess, but he survives. At least they killed off #2, the more interesting one, so I felt a little something? I wouldn't care any less if the boring #1 was killed. 

Anyway, Piccolo goes Orange Piccolo, and we get a fun return of an old technique -- Krillin reminds Piccolo of Gigantification, which allows him to grow to Cell Max's size and match him physically -- even if giant Piccolo doesn't actually get a power boost. We also get the return of the fun giant Sun Wukong pole, which I appreciate. The rest of the cast (mostly Piccolo, tbh) hold Cell Max together, while Gohan is given a Senzu Beam to charge up his attack. In a sequence that's framed similarly to when Gohan originally unlocked Super Saiyan 2 upon Android 16's death, Gohan gets a badass power-up into Super Saiyan Beast, I think? He sure gets red eyes, super-spiky white hair and a whole lot of aura. 

Again, some really great visuals, like Gohan standing still as Cell Max punches him with enough force to obliterate the terrain behind him. Cell Max summoning a gigantic ball of black-purple energy that he condenses into a small bomb. And, of course, Gohan unleashing the move he's been powering up all this while... the Makankosappo, which, of course, is Piccolo's signature move! Again, a very great tribute to Gohan's other (and to some fans, better) mentor and father-figure, and Gohan blows the shit up of Cell Max. 

There's a bit of a wrap-up after that, where our heroes pick themselves up from the gigantic explosion of Cell Max's selfdestruction. Pan also learns to fly somewhere in all of this, which helps to tie up a little character arc she had. Piccolo is impressed with Gohan's new form, and has a bit of a moment with Gamma #1 as they see #2's body disintegrate. Bulma gives Hedo and Gamma #2 jobs in the cosmetics division of her company.

And... yeah! Very self-contained, and there's a lot of moments that are devoted into characterization more than anything. There's a bit of a 'fanservice' vibe from this, sure, where Piccolo and Gohan are immensely popular in a lot of parts of the world but they've been sidelined into doing 'Makankosappo' and 'Kamehameha' once an arc throughout all of Super. I do really like that we're moving away from forcing every arc to be about Goku and Vegeta to the exclusion of everyone else, and I think after the Broly movie managed to make it more of a movie about Broly and Vegeta instead of Goku, the writers have finally realized that they could move the show out of the comfort zone of always relying on Goku. 

Anyway, I'm very happy that Piccolo and Gohan actually get the movie for themselves. The power-ups are fun, the animation is gorgeous and the action scenes are thrilling. Highly recommended!

Random Notes:

• Dr. Gero's family -- Android 21's base from the FighterZ games, as well as Android 16's human counterpart (which to my knowledge has only been acknowledged in supplementary material), makes their proper 'canon' cameos in Gero's family tree.
• Shout-out to Carmine, who has powerpoint presentations set up like Youtube channels, as well as creating a custom little dome for his gigantic pompadour while he's driving his boss around. 
• Also love the little gag of Piccolo constantly getting mascot dolls and even phone casings from Gohan and Videl. 
• The cast lampshades that Saiyans (even half-ones) go from 'chibi' to 'full-built adult' after a growth spurt, which is basically what Goku goes through. As per this movie, Goten and Trunks have finished their growth spurt. 
• Man, Goten is just irrelevant, huh?
• Also love the gag of Gohan being actually unable to see and needing glasses in his 'base' form, which Piccolo lampshades. "Does going Super Saiyan cure your eyesight?" It apparently does, since Gohan does a badass flick of his glasses when he transforms to fight the Gammas. 
• It's a huge, missed opportunity that Hedo or the Gammas never interacted with Android 18, and honestly beyond a close-up to her horrified reaction at the sight of Cell Max, 18 really feels criminally underused in a movie about Androids.
• Piccolo, Vegeta, Buu and Android 18 actually being villains .efore the Z-fighters reformed them is probably really helping out Magenta's arguments, huh? They could probably find a fair bit of recordings of these guys specifically causing havoc.
• Mr. Satan doesn't make an appearance, but I do like that he's still acknowledged mistakenly by the Red Ribbon Army as a particularly huge threat. 
• I love that after Piccolo reveals that the jig is up, Pan just very casually demolishes the Red Ribbon troops with the same ease that her grandpa Goku did when he was her age.
• Gohan's Makankosappo is cool as hell, but the animation on Piccolo's regular Makankosappo is also not bad!
• Gohan claims that Goku and Vegeta might not have been able to beat Cell Max on their own... which you could take as another example of Dragon Ball's ever-increasing power-up scaling, or just Gohan riding the high of his new form. 
• I do love that Hedo was willing to give himself up to the police. Krillin, who is a policeman, panics at the idea of holding someone as powerful as Gamma #1. And in the background while Piccolo and Bulma are talking to the reformed villains, we get Android 18 being kind of pissed off about that and arguing with Krillin. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Super Broly

Dragon Ball Super: Broly [2018]

It is honestly impressive how well Dragon Ball Super: Broly did as an anime movie, but I really think I have to state just how impressive it is not just as a money-making movie, but also as a part in an ongoing franchise. It not only acts as a canonical continuation of the Dragon Ball Super anime, it also is faced with the somewhat daunting task of adapting not one, but two of Dragon Ball's more controversial plot points that have remained ambiguously canon. The first is the titular Broly, who is... a controversial character that has only appeared in movies but has been one of the most popular characters in the franchise. The second is the adaptation of Dragon Ball Minus, an alternate backstory for the Saiyans that is in stark contrast to the very much beloved Bardock special. If this sounds like Greek to you... yeah, Dragon Ball canon is kinda in flux and there are a lot of stuff that exist outside of the main anime/manga canon that is sorta-kinda canon but might be contradicted at any time. 

And it does so... beautifully. I have been pretty vocal in that I have never been a big fan of Broly. Having experienced a majority of the Dragon Ball franchise as an adult without the benefit of nostalgia, I saw Broly for what he honestly is -- a fun, throwaway movie-exclusive villain that was decent for the one movie he's in, but ended up getting two particularly shit sequels made. Broly was a decent rampaging monster villain, but he was a far cry from being an actual interesting character -- and that is using the standards of Dragon Ball villains, where villains are honestly more of a huge, extended boss fight than actual fully-fledged characters. 

Thankfully, Dragon Ball Super: Broly delivers not only in integrating Broly into a modern-day era of Dragon Ball, but also in actually making him a proper character. This movie basically jettisons every single one of the previous movies, but updates some key aspects of Broly's origin story into this movie. And it's done amazingly well.

My big complaint with Dragon Ball Super: Broly when I went to watch it in the cinema is that it feels... truncated. Particularly in the first half. It's essentially two movies, with the first thirty or so minutes acting as a huge prequel, but it's from this prequel that I do feel that there are things that genuinely felt rushed. We get some genuinely fun bits of backstory that both adapts and alters parts of the Bardock: Father of Goku prequel OVA, showing in a pretty badass moment how Freeza first came to power after King Cold's retirement in a quick display of power. 

We also get a surprisingly amazing combination of various plot threads -- Freeza's tyrannical rule and eventual genocide of the Saiyan race; Bardock deciding to send his son to space and lead one last desperate stand against Freeza; and Broly's backstory. Without going into too much details, we do get a genuinely fun integration of multiple plotlines, and working it all into a cohesive backstory by using the Saiyan's disdain of Freeza as a backdrop is pretty well done. Hell, even Freeza showing up and introducing Scouters for the first time even works into the power level comparison that King Vegeta did with the babies. Sure, there seemed to be some truncated scenes between Bardock sending Goku to space and Bardock seemingly leading a futile resistance against Freeza's Death Ball attack, but you get the gist of what's happening. 

We get to see how three Saiyan fathers -- King Vegeta, Bardock and Paragus -- react to the Freeza rule. King Vegeta, despite all his talk about pride and strength, is far too willing to bow the knee to overwhelming force, and ends up launching baby Broly essentially to his death for the crime of having a higher power level than his own son. Paragus ends up going off to rescue his son, but ends up being driven more out of spite and anger at King Vegeta's betrayal, and all his talk about Borly being the salvation of the Saiyan race gets symbolically thrown out the window when he shoots the other Saiyan that went with him. Bardock, meanwhile, a lowly grunt, ends up putting the pieces together and figure out that something's amiss, and ends up sending his son to space. Honestly, Bardock gets more depth to him in the brief ten or so minutes we see him in this movie than two entire specials did for him, which is nice. 

I'm not convinced that the parallels are truly there, but the little opening sequence of three Saiyan children -- Goku, (Prince) Vegeta and Broly -- as they grow up is an amazingly pretty sequence. And while Goku and Vegeta ended up growing and maturing in their own different ways, poor Broly ends up basically stranded on an island but still continues to train in the pursuit of strength, something that all Saiyans are shown to do. 

And then we get to the real meat of the episode, which takes place in the present day. Freeza was last seen in Dragon Ball Super brought back to life and re-gathering his army, the Freeza Force, and it seems to be building up to something big. He ends up being more of a catalyst for that goes on in this movie more than the actual Big Bad, though, because... well, this movie wants to tell a story about Broly and how he comes into conflict with our heroes, and less about 'Defeat The Big Bad Of The Movie', which is definitely well-done. 

And Broly's easily the star of this movie. We spend a not-insignificant amount of time with Broly in this movie, and comparisons between Broly and Tarzan is... apt. The relationship between Broly and Paragus is also pretty interesting. Sure, Paragus is only a man, and they have been trapped on a feral island for upwards of 40 years. Throw in Broly's uniquely high power levels and how Paragus has barely been able to control Broly, and it's... it's not right, and pretty damn evil what Paragus did, but you can sort of understand the cold logic reasoning of what Paragus did. 

When two of Freeza's goons (which are more irate part-timers than actual soldiers), Cheelai and Lemo, basically rescue Paragus and Broly from the hellhole planet they are stranded in. And we actually end up following Cheelai and Lemo as they go around basically discovering Broly for the first time. Paragus is grizzled and tired, but is still pretty obsessed about getting his vengeance against Vegeta -- the son, this time, now that King Vegeta's dead. But the way that Paragus demonstrates his control over Broly, and just how poor, poor Broly freaks out at the sight of the remote for the shock collar around his neck... man, it makes you really feel for Broly. He might be a rampaging monster, but throw in the genuinely heartbreaking performance that the voice actor did for him when the shock collar gets triggered, little bits of dialogue and animation of Paragus basically telling Broly to not talk to anyone else... and the later story about how Paragus shot off the ear of the only animal he ever befriended just because it distracted Broly from training... yeah, poor Broly's backstory is delved in a far, far better way than the movie trilogy ever did. Also, Cheelai and Limo quickly take to befriending Broly, and one of the acts that Cheelai ended up doing -- which would influence the eventual final act of the movie -- is to steal Paragus's control remote. That's cute. 

And while Freeza's excuse to go to Earth is honestly quite petty, the fact that he's just willing to sic Broly onto Vegeta just for shits and giggles is honestly quite in-character for him, especially after the development he's gotten in the later arcs of Super. The little juxtaposition between Bulma's desire of wishing that she grow younger by five years and Freeza's desire of wishing that he gets taller by 5 cm (it makes sense in context) is also hilariously petty and I honestly love it.

And then we get fight scenes as both parties arrive on the Ice Continent in search for the final Dragon Ball! Paragus ends up mostly just being utterly confused at Freeza's expectations of all these 'Super Saiyan' forms, and while Broly ends up being pretty much a match for Vegeta, he ends up breaking out the Super Saiyan, and then the Super Saiyan God form. The animation for the Vegeta-vs-Broly fight is absolutely majestic, particularly Vegeta's God transformation, which is the first time we ever see it animated. And... and I am just going to note that even if you don't really give a shit about the story, the animation for this entire movie is just... it's just BEAUTIFUL. Everything moves smoothly, and the big budget that went into this movie is pretty damn great. The fight between Vegeta and Broly isn't just repeated punchy-punch animation followed by a Final Flash, but an actual, visceral and simply amazing fight to watch. 

It's then followed by Broly being enraged and entering a bulked-up Hulk-like state, leading into a fight between Broly and Goku and it's... it's not as spectacular as the preceding Vegeta fight, or the final climax of the movie, but I really do like how Goku quickly realizes that Broly is not like any of his previous (canon) enemies, in that... Broly is being forced to fight. He's neither evil nor willing, and it's a nice little touch from Goku that kinda addresses many of the complaints thrown his way during Super's multiverse tournament arc. Broly isn't being receptive, though, just reduced to roaring in anger. Paragus actually compares this to the Great Ape/Ozaru transformation, and it honestly is a pretty great little nod to earlier Dragon Ball stories while also providing an explanation to Broly's animalistic rage. At one point during this fight we get a genuinely neat bit of Broly just wailing on poor Goku, grabbing him by the leg and just smashing him to the ground repeatedly.

Oh, and Freeza, again, seemingly just for shits and giggles, ends up wanting to experiment. Remembering what triggered Goku's transformation into Super Saiyan on Namek, Freeza shoots Paragus to death and fake-acts about "oh no, how terrible, your father was killed by a stray blast!" Paragus was an asshat who deserves to die, but this does still trigger the Super Saiyan evolution in Broly, which... which is way too much for anyone there to handle. 

We get Goku going into Super Saiyan Blue, which is a pretty badass sequence, but it goes by quickly as he and Vegeta figure out that it's not enough to stop Broly, and basically lead Broly's rampage towards Freeza before Goku teleports the two of them away, leaving Broly to basically wail on poor, poor Freeza. Who, again, also deserves it. I thought that the sequence with Vegeta and Goku learning the Fusion Dance honestly went on for way too long, and if nothing else, was probably something that should've been left for the Director's Cut. 

Regardless, though, we get the birth of Gogeta, the always not-quite-as-canonical alternate fusion. And it's... it's pretty cool. I've never been a huge, huge fan of either Gogeta or Vegito, since it's honestly just another power-up with a slightly more intricate way of reaching it, but the way this movie portrays it? It's pretty cool. The subsequent fight is... it's basically a huge curb-stomp in Gogeta's favour, where Broly is just barely keeping up with Gogeta as they fight through the lava-encased hellscape and eventually briefly through some psychedelic landscape. It's pretty and exciting, in any case, and while some 3D animation 'cheats' are used, it's nowhere as obvious as this movie's predecessor, Resurrection F. Some particular standout bits of animation is Gogeta's... "Stardust Breaker", I think it's called? As well as that rain of laser beams. 

Anyway, I do love that unlike most one-shot movie villain outings, this fight isn't just about "okay, how do the good guys beat up the bad guy?" It's not like Old!Broly or Janemba or Cooler or whatever, or even Freeza from Resurrection F. As the audience, the intended reaction is to cheer for when Gogeta is beating the bad guy and stopping him from killing everyone, but at the same time, we are privy to something that neither Goku nor Vegeta really knows -- that Broly is a victim of circumstance, and while he is rampaging like a wild dog, he doesn't really mean what he's doing. 

Which is honestly what leads to the real climax of the movie. Gogeta and Broly fight on seemingly equal terms, and then Gogeta gains the undisputable upper hand when he activates Super Saiyan Blue... and then Broly is straight-up about to get vaporized by Gogeta's blast. But Cheelai and Limo have been running around in the background stealing the Dragon Balls from Freeza's other lieutenants, and use the dragon ball wish to basically send Broly back to the planet where he was, putting the poor, tortured soul back where he belongs. Hopefully he meets with his Baah-baah friend again! Goku, eventually, ends up finding Broly on that planet and basically giving him and his buddies living essentials, understanding and comprehending Broly's real nature and being glad that there's another Saiyan out there. After years of denying his Saiyan heritage, it is also interesting that apparently this encounter had made Gokue embrace the name 'Kakarot', which... I dunno. Something I'm somewhat ambivalent about -- I feel like we're lacking a scene where Goku uses Broly as his own stepping stone to embrace his past. 

Ultimately, it's a pretty great ending in that it made me really care for Broly as a character. He's a villain, yes, but he's a misunderstood beast and one that genuinely doesn't want to harm anyone but ends up doing so due to the uncontrolled temper issues. The movie ends with Broly alive, basically buddies with Goku, and me walking out of the theater actually liking him and wishing that he'll be a recurring character in whatever comes next. 

The movie is, perhaps, a little over-hyped by fan response. But it is definitely a very solid movie, and I genuinely like it. It fixes a lot of my complaints with the previous movie outing (although since this review's gone on for some time, I'll probably talk about Rez F versus Broly as movies in another article), and even fixes a lot of my problems with Dragon Ball villains in general. Sure, Broly is basically just kind of a fusion of Tarzan and Hulk, but that honestly ended up with a character that I genuinely care about. I do have some gripes with the movie, but ultimately? It was such an exciting, fun romp and such a fun little standalone story that I don't actually have the heart to do so. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Bio-Broly

Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly

So I decided to watch this because we're getting that new Broly movie at the end of this year. Everyone's warned me about this movie and... Wow, yeah, this is pretty bad. The eleventh movie for Dragon Ball Z, and a direct sequel to Broly: Second Coming, this particular mess of a movie somehow manages to be worse. Well, I dunno... they're kind of on different planes of stupidity, really. Second Coming is just half-obnoxious and half-boring. This one is actually really dumb, and while the surprisingly decent amount of focus given to Android 18 and Mr Satan, the main plot ends up feeling dumber and so, so much less interesting. 

The opening of Bio-Broly is at least somewhat fun, with #18 trying to get that money back from Mr. Satan from that tournament at the beginning of the Buu Saga (so this takes place... during the Buu saga? Slightly after?), but is interrupted by Lord Jaguar, his old rival, who has built an army of mutant bio-warriors, which are just humanoids covered in goop, far, far less interesting than any of the many previous evil minion seen in DBZ movies. Because Satan is the champion of the world, Jaguar sends for Satan to fight the Biowarriors, but they get thrashed by 18, Goten and Trunks, who tagged along. 

And that's honestly the interactions of 18 trying to hustle money from Mr. Satan, and Satan's general pontificating, are the only real good parts of this movie. I guess Krillin gets to do a cool thing in swooping in and rescuing 18? And Goten and Trunks are less annoying than they were in Second Coming? 

The rest of the plot is dumb, though. Jaguar and his cronies are very flat characters, and the random jackass faux witch doctor from Second Coming shows up and provided Jaguar with a vial of Broly blood, leading to them cloning Broly. Who proceeds to break out of his test tube, get covered in goop and ends up looking like Swamp Thing waded through a septic tank. It's a very unimpressive villain, and most criminal of all -- it's a pretty horrid assassination of Broly. While I'm not the biggest fan of Broly, at least the character was kept somewhat consistent in Second Coming, as shoehorned as it is. This one? You could call the resulting Bio-Broly "Bob" and it wouldn't have changed a thing. Bio-Broly looks silly, and the main threat comes from the actual purple goop that dissolves a lot of Jaguar's minions (including fortuneteller man), while Bio-Broly once more fails to really do any damage to any of our main characters... and honestly fails to do anything but look dumb. It's the best example of a 'villain decay' in the most literal sense. Bio-Broly has nothing in common with the unstoppable legendary Saiyan juggernaut everyone is familiar with,  and the justification for his return and what they do with him are all pretty fucking dumb.

And then they beat him with sea-water, which is a plot point that comes out of nowhere and makes no real sense. Poor Broly. I'm not his biggest fan, but he deserved better than this. Overall, a horrifyingly messy and stupid film -- and since I've watched all of them -- definitely ranks lowest amongst the DBZ movies. Ugh. This entire movie is just so dumb.

Anime OVA Review: Dragon Ball - Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!

Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return! [2008]

That poster is pretty awesome, actually. Unfortunately, that and the rather crisp (if somewhat washed-out) quality of the animation are really the only good things I can say about this OVA. I tracked down this little OVA in the internet out of curiousity, since it's not actually dubbed into English. 

Oh, and I guess the remade version of the opening sequence of Cha-La-Head-Cha-La with some really gorgeous animated sequences of the old-school DBZ intro, replacing some characters with newer ones, is pretty. Otherwise... yeah, there's probably a good reason that this never got a localized version. Mostly because it's irrelevant. 

On the plus side, there's really not much for me to hate about this OVA. It's real big appeal is that it's the reunion of the Dragon Ball Z cast during the huge drought where there isn't any new Dragon Ball material being produced, and the manga just seemed to be completely and utterly over. The final material of Dragon Ball Z came to a close in 1995, and Dragon Ball GT, the short-lived sequel came out in 2005, and there doesn't seem to be much to continue on the franchise other than the occasional fighting game... and this OVA, which came out in 2008. This isn't the case any more, though, since after the Battle of Gods movie premiered in 2013 (and another anime special, Episode of Bardock in 2011), Dragon Ball has received a gigantic resurgence thanks to several new movies and a new anime, and is still going strong, meaning this little nostalgia trip doesn't really do anything for me. 

The plot hook is interesting. Apparently Vegeta's little brother Tarble (vegetable... get it?) shows up being pursued by two evil survivors of the Frieza Force, Avo and Cado, while the main DBZ cast shows up to much food at Mr. Satan's new hotel. The cast never treats Avo and Cado seriously, which is completely fine considering that this is meant to be a more fun, lighthearted slice-of-life episode... except that it fails at even that. A good chunk of the OVA is just drawing out Trunks and Goten as they muck around and prolong the fight needlessly, 

and it's not even funny. Gotenks shows off some of Yamcha and Tien's moves (Tien doesn't even show up, actually!) and continues to do his irritating showboating.

There's some token efforts to give Krillin and Yamcha some badass moves, but it honestly falls flat when all they did is to cut some rubble. Goku ends it all with a simple Kamehameha after a way-too-long fight sequence, although he hilariously gets his hair turned blue in that sequence... maybe somebody had the right idea for Super Saiyan Blue this early on? Also, for all the hubbub about being Vegeta's brother, Tarble had absolutely no personality at all beyond being nebbish... and doesn't he look like a prototype version of Cabba, except, y'know, with a flatter personality? What is it with brothers in this franchse? Tarble's got less of a personality than Raditz did!

Overall, the OVA was... just fine. There's really not much to talk about, though. Some enemies that aren't really a threat shows up to get trounced, Goten and Trunks act like assholes (god these two are insufferable) and the runtime ends up being around 10 or 15 minutes longer than it deserved to. And worst of all, Mr. Satan gets his huge, expensive hotel destroyed out of "karma" for showboating a little... even though he graciously gives everyone an expensive banquet and even told the reporters to fuck off. Hell, Videl even tells Satan off for even considering to use the dragon balls to fix the ruined hotel! What the hell, man? Poor Satan!

So yeah, honestly quite disappointing, and other than a brief mention of Tarble as "he's away" in the Battle of Gods movie -- and the fact that this line's completely removed from the Super version, it really seems that this OVA is meant to be a one-off easily-handwaved-away special to be like an anniversary thing... but really, it's so boring and devoid of life, the scripting is dull and the action sequences are bland, that honestly watching this 30-minute special felt more of a chore.

Anime OVA Review: Dragon Ball - Episode of Bardock

Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock [2011]

Oh god, this. Episode of Bardock is actually released very recently, to tie in with one of the many Dragon Ball Z video games. It's thankfully since been apparently confirmed to be a 'what-if' scenario, and in my own personal headspace more than anything else, this is going to be shelved in the 'non-canon' section. It's just so bizarre and makes my head hurt so much.

Because, you see, "Bardock: Father of Goku", released all the way back in 1990, is an actually great story about Bardock's ultimately futile attempt to defy Emperor Freeza and save his people from annihilation, while at the same time finding solace in the fact that he's seeing strange flashes into the future. 

But somehow, in this OVA, Bardock finds himself inexplicably transported into the past by Freeza's Death Ball. Which has never been shown to be able to transport people into the past. And only Bardock -- not the many Freeza soldiers, not the planet, not the Saiyans, and no other victims of the Death Ball. It's so absolutely stupid that the game Xenoverse 2 actually had to retcon in a "oooh a time-space opened due to the actions of the time-travelling villains!" cutscene to try and even make sense of the sheer stupidity of the premise.

Somehow, Bardock immediately realizes that he's in the past within two or three lines, even though the people talking to him are these weird eyestalked, purple-skinned blob people that claim that the planet is "Planet Plant". Bardock ends up befriending the alien kid in the most dry and perfunctory protagonist-befriends-random-villager scene that honestly has no chemistry at all behind it, and really makes relatively little sense considering that we last saw Bardock as... still an ass, just an ass fighting for his people. I do promote character development, but Bardock's huge 180 feels unearned and completely out of nowhere. 

He fights a bunch of aliens with laser guns terrorizing the Plant-ians, who have some sort of goop that the Freeza Force would later use in their healing chamber. And then the boss of these aliens, a space pirate called "Chilled", apparently an ancestor of Freeza, shows up. It would be easier to take Chilled seriously if he wasn't wearing that shitty-looking weird orange leotard with a neckline as low as Chilled's crotch. God, what a stupid design. Oh, and of course he's just a more banal ripoff of Freeza than Cooler.

Chilled fails to kill anyone, despite the Plant-ians being actually disposable, but just whacking one away causes Bardock to get so angry that he becomes the almighty Super Saiyan, which... is really weird, honestly. I'm not completely opposed against it, but it is so unnecessary to the story, comes out of nowhere, and feels unearned. Bardock beats Chilled, apparently inspires the myth of the Legendary Super Saiyan, and then walks off into the sunset, all victorious...

Honestly, I don't mind it if the OVA actually makes Bardock's character transformation from a rough-and-tough space-pirate-turned-freedom-fighter far more organic, but here he's in flat out designated-hero mode, and not having the benefit of having literal decades between watching Father of Goku and Episode of Bardock, the character disconnect and the lack of development between one to the other really took me out of it, leaving me slogging through the generic plotline of the movie (which had time travel thrown in JUST BECAUSE) feeling more confused than pumped.

And I'm just genuinely baffled that this script is something that they actually put into production and not just fanwank. Because by god, it really feels like fanwank. The premise is dumb, Bardock's character is inconsistent, Chilled is a flat villain in addition to looking stupid, and the whole time-travel and Planet Plant thing honestly just feels jumbled. Not to mention that the Plant people are so damn flat and boring that I was actually hoping that they die. I am not opposed to another Bardock story, because "Father of Goku" made him so cool, but really? Is this the best that they could do? The animation's somewhat pretty, but it's such a piss-poor mix of ideas that don't mesh or work well together, and that makes it just worse than all the other bad movies, whose crime is merely being boring, or merely being bad. "Episode of Bardock" manages to be bad and boring at the same time. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - The World's Strongest

Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest [1990]

The second movie for Dragon Ball Z, "The World's Strongest" still feels like a fun little transitional phase between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, which is a neat bit. It doesn't try to use the super-duper-serious-business tone that the Frieza arc has (and many of the subsequent movies try to ape with varying degrees of success) but it's definitely a fair bit more serious than the idyllic fun that is the original Dragon Ball. Honestly, for a movie that I didn't look forward to watch at all, with a villain that never gets mentioned by anyone... this is perhaps one of the more enjoyable ones. 

The opening is perhaps somewhat iffy, with Oolong (what is it with Oolong getting relatively big roles in these movies?) bringing Gohan to the Antarctic to hunt down the dragon balls for panty wishes, only to witness a crotchety old man, Dr. Kochin, summoning Shenron to blast apart a bunch of 'unmeltable' ice, revealing a laboratory. They are attacked by Discount Saibamen an army of Biomen, and because this is Gohan at his absolute weakest, he fails to amount to jack shit. Piccolo comes to save them, but a trio of more powerful  minions pop up (the Bio-warriors Kishime, Misokatsun and Ebifurya) and beat up Piccolo, Gohan is sworn to secrecy by Oolong. 

Which is a pretty neat cold open, although it does lead to the rather bland sequence of Gohan just listlessly looking into the distance, guilt-wracked with leaving the still-nominally-villainous Piccolo behind. While I could've done without the silly musical-hallucination sequence, it is actually a neat,  subtle character arc for the little crybaby Gohan to actually make a decision to go and save Piccolo on his own.

While all this is going on, the Biomen show up at Kame House, battle Roshi (in a very rare case of Roshi badassery in DBZ material!) and kidnap Bulma and Roshi. The title of 'the World's Strongest' is appropriate because Dr. Kochin and his master, Dr. Wheelo (sometimes romanized as 'Willow') decides that Roshi is the World's Strongest Man, and we get the revelation that Wheelo is the brain of a psychotic scientist, trapped in a jar, and wants the world's strongest body to put himself in. Wheelo's big game plan is to make an army of Biowarriors with the captured Piccolo and other warriors, while putting himself into Roshi's body, out of revenge for the scientific community rejecting his ideas.

While you can definitely draw similarities between Wheelo and Dr. Gero from the Android arcs, there are enough differences and uniqueness to Wheelo (and besides, this movie debuted years before the Android Saga) that honestly the movie feels pretty fresh. The body-snatching plotline is also neat, and I am honestly a big fan of Goku's run through Wheelo's lair of traps. It's done with a neat balance of epic animation and comedy, making it neither feel like filler nor nonsense. Sure, the Biowarriors look like rejects from the Freeza Force army, but they have enough wacky powers between them -- elasticity, electric whips, freeze breaths -- to make the fights entertaining. 

Wheelo decides to use Goku for his body, while relegating Roshi to become another Biowarrior subject... and he sics a brain-controlled Piccolo on Gohan and Goku. Krillin shows up too, only to get whacked around. He actually get to do something this time around, though, being in charge of rescuing people. Dr. Kochin actually gets to fight, too, with a very smooth animation of his arm transforming into a gatling gun. 

Wheelo then reveals that he actually has a body of sorts -- a gigantic robotic body to house his brain, and as he breaks out of the wall, he actually crushes the facility and accidentally kills Kochin in an insanely metal and brutal disintegration. We get some really cool scenes with Goku's power pole, we get some neat Kaioken blasts, Gohan's rage angriness and the triple kamehameha from Roshi and his students are pretty cool. Sure, the ending is a pretty basic Spirit Bomb and a quick "yay we saved the day", but it's still honestly pretty entertaining for such a basic premise of beating a villain of the week. Wheelo is threatening enough with a combination of his army and brainwashing Piccolo, but not too overhyped that the third-act Spirit Bomb victory doesn't feel shoehorned in (looking at you, Broly and Cooler). Add some really neat subtle character moments for Roshi, Gohan and Piccolo, which deals with little character problems, and it's honestly far more entertaining than I thought it would be for a "fight a mad scientist brain" movie. 

Overall, while somewhat impossible to fit into canon (both Goku and Piccolo are alive, but Gohan clearly remembers the Saiyan saga when Piccolo took an attack meant from him) it's still a nice enough romp. And I believe that's all but one of the Dragon Ball Z movies other than Bio-Broly, which is apparently the absolute worst of the bunch, if the internet is accurate? Maybe I'll do a ranking of them all somewhere down the line. Regardless, while perhaps not the best movie out there, it's still a nicely neat little game. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Broly: Second Coming

Dragon Ball Z: Broly: Second Coming [1994]

Yeeeesh, what a bad movie. Ostensibly the sequel to the earlier Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan, this tenth movie of DBZ is the first to take part in the Buu saga, featuring the cast of that era. And hoooooo boy. 

Broly's first cinematic outing wasn't the best movie out there, but it's good enough and Broly was menacing enough that I understand why he was so beloved by the fanbase. This one? Not so. And honestly, it's not just the titular legendary super saiyan himself that gets mis-handled in this movie, it's... it's honestly the entire movie, really. 

So the movie runs at around 50 minutes, but the first 20 minutes of this movie is wasted on an honestly pointless subplot of Videl, Goten and Trunks just dicking around, searching for dragon balls while helping a village that was menaced by a dinosaur and some hick tried to sacrifice virgin maidens to the dinosaur... or some shit? I dunno, I kind of zoned out on that part of the movie, and it ends up being completely irrelevant to the Broly plot -- what little it is, that is, beyond having Goten cry (because Videl doesn't want to give him an apple) and wake Broly up from his hibernation. And, well, remember how stupid Broly's motivations being disturbed by baby Goku's crying? Yeah, it's infinitely more stupid here.

Goten and Trunks' antics here are absolutely shit and annoying, and I'm not sure if it's the dub's fault because while I've never liked the kid versions of these two, my experiences with them in Fusion Reborn and Wrath of the Dragon was a lot more positive. Here, I'm rooting for Broly to squish their tiny, annoying, obnoxious heads in. Videl's not that well-written either, mind you, being pretty flat throughout the movie. I did say in my previous movies that I appreciate movies that focus on other characters, and I liked how Bojack Unbound focused on Gohan, while Wrath of the Dragon focused on Kid Trunks... but here it's just mindless, dumb antic that doesn't have any charm at all. 

And then Broly wakes up and the whole village subplot becomes entirely irrelevant, but where Broly is a slowly built-up threat in the first movie, here he... fails to hurt or damage non-Super-Saiyan Goten and Trunks (this was before they got super-powerful either). Hell, even Videl didn't come out of the battle with any more injuries than a bit of scratches. Throw in some silliness with Trunks pissing on Broly's head (no, really) and the fight with Broly ends up going from "most powerful and unstoppable demon of a Saiyan" to honestly being pretty unimpressive.

Broly himself still just grunts and shouts Kakarot a lot, which makes even less sense when it's established that Goku's dead in this time period. And how did he survive anyway? Or even get into a space pod? It makes even less sense than Cooler's brain traveling to the Big Gete Star. Having the 'lol find a missing dragon ball' bullshit subplot (which also involves Goten pissing on the ground) is also likewise unimpressively long and drearily annoying. SSJ2 Gohan then shows up and fights Broly, and... okay, that scene with the lava was at least somewhat cool. Gohan gets rescued from exhaustion and being consumed by lava by not-Piccolo-it's-actually-Krillin. Was... was there any real reason for Piccolo not to show up at this point in time? I don't really think so.

And then Broly pops back up, whacks Krillin aside, and shoots blasts that still fail to hurt anyone in a meaningful way, before getting beaten by Goten accidentally wishing Goku to be 'there' for a while (i.e. the duration of a Kamehameha) and... why didn't the balls work earlier in the fountains? And Broly gets shot straight into the sun and gets burned up. The imagery of the family Kamehameha is pretty neat, but it definitely does nothing to really fix any of the drivel that this movie delivers. It goes from a very irritating and pointless and joyless subplot with three of the franchise's more annoying characters at their worst, and Broly is reduced to an even more boring version of his already not-particularly-spectacular personality. I can easily say with utter conviction that this is my most hated DBZ movie, and by a long, long shot. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Dead Zone

Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone [1989]

The very first Dragon Ball Z feature is actually perhaps one of my favourite ones so far. Perhaps it feels more like a Dragon Ball movie as opposed to a DBZ movie (which tend to just focus on action and power levels to the exclusion of nothing else) and perhaps I'm just really a sucker for this style of animation, Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone (or "Dragon Ball Z: Return My Gohan!" in Japanese) is honestly a really neat story that would really work very well as an in-between mini-chapter that takes place a couple of months before Dragon Ball Z begun. 

The plotline of the movie is simple -- Gohan gets kidnapped by bad guys, and Goku's attempt to rescue his son leads to fights against powerful beings trying to fuck up the world. And, of course, once you get past the fact that the main villain's name is (hee hee) Garlic Junior, the backstory they gave him is actually fascinating, being a neat blend of the original Piccolo and the second Piccolo without actually feeling too much like ripping the entire plotline wholesale like Lord Slug or Cooler felt like. 

So you see, Garlic Junior is the son of Garlic, a Namekian (or kami-in-training, because I don't think they actually use the term 'Namekian' in this movie at all) who was disgraced and banished because he doesn't have the right moral backbone to become a kami the way that our Kami does. He then gathers the dragon balls (his henchmen bring Gohan along instead of just stealing his hat because reasons) and wishes for eternal life... and I think is the only character other than the very recent Zamasu to wish for immortality instead of the "restore my youth" deal that most Dragon Ball villains tend to do.

Garlic Junior has a trio of minions -- Ginger, Nicky and Sansho -- and while design wise they're pretty generic Dragon Ball style "demon" minions, they do give us some really neat fighting scenes. Between Piccolo (who is still in full "former villain!" mode here) brutally taking down Sansho and leaving him bleeding, hanging from a ceiling, to the pretty sweet sword-vs-nyoibo battle that took place around 25 minutes into the movie... yeah, the goons do give us some neat little fighting scenes. Add that to the very scenic and fantastical images of Garlic Junior's demonic fortress rising up from the clouds and you get a pretty stylish, fantastical and gorgeous aesthetic overall compared to that of the more sci-fi oriented one we have nowadays. 

One of the biggest visual treats is how gloriously massive Shenron is thanks to the locale, undulating in and out of the sea of clouds, and leading to a very stylish watercolour-deal animation of Garlic Junior describing how under his immortality all the 'demons' will rise up and wreak havoc. 

We also have a neat buildup to the latent power within Gohan, which was the focus of both the Freea and Cell arcs (and sadly fucked over by the Buu saga and early parts of Super). While Gohan's kidnapping was a happy accident, Garlic Jr sees the potential within the kid, which is why they left him alive, since Garlic wants to keep him as an attendant. Gohan's Hulk-rage at the climax of the movie is also pretty important, and Piccolo being around to witness sort of gives him a neat hook to later kidnap-train Gohan at the beginning of the Saiyan arc, doesn't it? And Goku keeping the plotline of the movie secret because Gohan doesn't remember anything is a neat little touch.

Not Pilaf

The best part of this movie is, of course, Kami's involvement. The side-cast that show up are Piccolo and Krillin (who, sadly, doesn't do anything but get bullied around). Back then, of course, Kami was still a pretty big deal. He was, after all, God. And seeing him appear in a flash of golden light and blast Garlic Junior around is actually pretty dang badass in a way that I've never pictured Kami to be. And while, yeah, Goku and Piccolo end up fighting Garlic Junior all by themselves, it's an actual neat bit to show that Kami isn't just going to stay on the lookout when faced with a villain whose origin story is tied closely to Kami's own, with Garlic Senior being Kami's old rival.

There are several weaker parts, of course -- the 'Dead Zone' isn't particularly explained, only that Garlic Junior seals himself with his own technique in an act of hubris of trying to suck everyone else into that. We also have the absolutely unnecessary role of Krillin, who only exists only to be pissed on and to have rocks fall on his head... and Gohan is straight-up drunk for the second and third acts, thanks to eating a magic apple... and... yeah, I'm not sure what they were going with that. Between the Disney-esque acid trip sequence and pissing on Krillin and just drunk-walking around, I'm genuinely not sure what they were trying to go with. 

But still, Garlic Junior is an interesting enough movie villain -- perhaps even being my favourite -- that it's a shame that the movie ended with a far more generic bulked-up form and being sucked into a deus ex machina... and Garlic Junior's reputation ended up being tainted because he actually comes back in the anime for a filler arc that was infamously remembered for being bad. Never actually having seen those parts of the anime, I enjoyed Dead Zone without much prior judgement, even if I did chuckle any time the character shout "GARLIC JUNIOR!" out loud. In a franchise with the silliest English words being used for character names, Garlic Junior takes the cake. His movie's actually pretty decent, though. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Wrath of the Dragon

Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon [1995]

The final Dragon Ball Z movie to be released before GT, and eventually 2013's Battle of Gods, I'm actually pleasantly surprised by Wrath of the Dragon, by how... oddly different it is. As the 13th DBZ movie, I'm just fallen into a rut with these movies introducing a random new villain without much personality like Cooler and Broly and Bojack and Turles and Slug and Janemba and Hatchiyack, and then just using the excuse plot to fill 40-50 minutes of screentime without actually developing any of these characters. 

Wrath of the Dragon... actually doesn't do that. The introduction of the villain, the ancient skull-smoke-cockroach demon Hirudegarn, is done relatively slowly, with a buildup of the relatively unique (if hackneyed) imprisoned-in-a-magical-music-box story behind it, and how our heroes are just manipulated by Discount Babidi Hoi to releasing one of these seals. Oh, and unlike most movies, which are tenuously slotted into the compact timelines of the manga (sometime in the future I'll probably do a 'movies and their place in the timeline' feature), Wrath of the Dragon has the advantage of taking place after the Buu Saga, allowing the writers to kind of do whatever they want without the audience going "hmmm it doesn't really make sense for two apocalypses to fuck up the Earth in-between the Saiyan and Freeza sagas, wouldn't it?"

I'm not the biggest fan of the huge opening scenes with the Great Saiyaman and... "Great Saiyawoman"? Which is apparently something that's exclusive to the anime? It certainly took me by surprise as neither Fusion Reborn or Dragon Ball Super ever indicated that Videl moonlights as a superhero that fangirls over Gohan at the same time. It's weird. 

Still, the Son/Briefs family end up using the dragon balls to wish for the breaking of the music seal, releasing this edgy-cool alien dude with a mohawk and an ocarina, Tapion. And I mean that as a compliment -- Tapion has that shoehorned "cool dude" deal going on, and actually manages to do it relatively well. He's actually important to the plot, but he doesn't act like he's better than anyone else. In fact, cursed to release the half of Hirudegarn sealed within him if he ever dozes off, all Tapion wants to do is to be secluded and be left alone, and the poor dude's just grief-stricken by the knowledge that he's found himself a couple hundred years from when he was first sealed, and his younger brother is most likely dead.

He ends up bonding with Kid Trunks (fitting, since Future Trunks is another example of a shoehorned "cool dude" anime character), who sees Tapion as a cool big brother, and it's honestly the biggest amount of personality I've seen Kid Trunks receive. It's such a shame that so much of the movies are just "Goku and Friends Save the Day" generic action movies, and the attempt at trying to integrate Tapion with his interactions with Trunks and Bulma is actually pretty neat. 

Hoi continues to menace our heroes, trying to break Tapion's mental fortitude, while Gohan and Videl fight the bottom half of Hirudegarn... which is literally just the bottom half of a demon, from the waist down, and it's just so absolutely dumb-looking... but I actually sort of like that it's actually just the disembodied top and bottom halves wreaking havoc until they get combined. And in practice Hirudegarn is literally just a rampaging kaiju monster that turns into smoke and shit, but honestly unlike most other DBZ movies, this is more of a Tapion movie with Hirudegarn being a literal plot device, so I don't particularly mind the villain being brutish and dumb because... well, we have Hoi to do that for us. Hoi's essentially Babidi, but it's a neat little trope -- a psychotic cultist trying to bring a powerful evil, only to be killed by said powerful evil. Hirudegarn actually feels like just a giant rampaging beast out of control, as opposed to the weird "am I mindless, or am I sentient" deal we had with Janemba. 

Sadly, at 50 minutes it does run a bit too long, and while it does feature some neat battle scenes, it does get repetitive at times with Hirudegarn repeating the same 'disappear into smoke and reappear' deal when fighting every Saiyan (and Videl). We did get a cool scene with Vegeta saving an office building, and Gotenks unleashing a pretty cool barrage attack... but sadly this movie just absolutely fails to stick the landing. While it has been building Trunks up throughout the movie (and if there was a secondary lead, it would've been Gohan), as Trunks tries to use Tapion's sword -- the same make as the one that Future Trunks uses -- to do something, Goku just tells Trunk to STFU, goes Super Saiyan 3, and uses the brand-new move DRAGON FIST to punch through Hirudegarn's stomach. A random time machine is pulled out for Tapion to time-travel with (what the fuck?) and Tapion gives Kid Trunks the sword... which... is a bit weird since this Trunks won't actually grow into Future Trunks.

So yeah. It's a pretty good movie up until the last 10 minutes or so which just insists on forcing the win on Goku despite Goku quite literally not doing anything for the majority of the movie. It's such a shame because between the unique backstory for Tapion and Hirudegarn, plus the large focus on Kid Trunks, this could've been a far better storyline... but instead it just really fails to stick the landing. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Bardock, Father of Goku

Dragon Ball Z: Bardock, Father of Goku [1990]

(Or, alternatively, its hilariously long Japanese name -- "Dragon Ball Z: A Lonesome, Final Battle: The Father of the Z-Warrior Son Goku, The One Who Challenged Freeza")

Everyone and their mother told me to look up the "TV specials" for Dragon Ball Z, which aren't full-length theater movies per se, unlike the others that I've reviewed in the past, but rather like long TV movies aired only on television. The thing is that the TV specials don't take the form of "fight a random filler villain" like the movies, but rather tell stories that could snugly fit into canon -- even manga canon. In fact, 1990's "Bardock, Father of Goku" was apparently so well received that it inspired DBZ mangaka Akira Toriyama to put Bardock as a brief cameo a flashback in the actual Dragon Ball Z manga. Neat! 

(The other TV Special, History of Trunks, is actually based on a chapter from the manga, essentially expanding on a brief scene shown there)

I've only known Bardock from my playthrough of the Xenoverse 2 game, and he's... he's pretty generic, I'll be honest. Can this 48-minute mini-movie change my mind about that, while still tell its own story? As it turns out... yes, yes it can. You see, Bardock: Father of Goku really acts like a 'chapter zero' not just for the Freeza arc, but also for the previous Saiyan saga and Goku's origin as well. Sure, the special actually just reverting to Bardock "seeing the future" and seeing a montage of scenes from the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime is a bit of a cheap way to shave off some animation time, but it actually works well in giving Bardock's story to end in a somewhat optimistic way even with the downer ending.

Because, well, this is the story of Bardock, Father of Goku, and a member of the Saiyan race... which didn't really make it to the present day. And I really loved the haunting scene of Bardock and his team transforming into Oozaru forms and just hyper-beaming the shit out of the random aliens of planet Kanassa. They really are working as footsoldiers for Freeza's army, the way that Raditz, Vegeta and Nappa were in the first arc of Dragon Ball Z, and this is how we first meet Bardock. A footsoldier who, while not taking any particular sadistic glee in killing people en masse, doesn't shy away from it either. In this regard, Bardock's no different from the likes of Dodoria or Zarbon or Ginyu, with his only real redeeming factor being his camaraderie with his gang of Saiyan warriors -- none of which get much personality. Bardock does get a personality, though, and it's essentially a more subdued version of a pre-character-development Vegeta. He's all about strength and power, and he doesn't give a shit about his newborn son Kakarot due to his shit power level. 

We get the rather weak plot device of Bardock being granted the "gift" of seeing the future by one random dude, which knocks Bardock out, ironically sparing him from being massacred alongside his team. We get to see Dodoria -- nominally the weakest of Freeza's lieutenants on Namek and the first to be killed, and a reminder at how quickly the power levels scaled up during the Namek saga, and how weak 'regular' Saiyans are before they get shit like zenkai boosts and super saiyan forms.  

Dodoria's massacre of Bardock's forces is brutal, and the betrayal as Dodoria laughs that Freeza's just anxious of the otherwise-loyal Saiyan soldiers is pretty heart-wrenching. Bardock shows up and manages to fight off some of Dodoria's nameless minions, but is no match for the pink fat bastard himself, who beats the fuck out of Bardock. Bardock manages to outrun Freeza's ship and return back to Planet Vegeta (just in time to see Kakarot's ship launched towards Earth). However, no one believes Bardock's warnings, causing him to fly into space and engage Freeza's forces himself. It's a bit of a stretch that Bardock, so wounded, is able to fuck up so many of Freeza's minions, but it is a Last Stand (tm) scene and he is desperate. 

And the special really does work Zarbon and Dodoria as being scared shitless at Freeza very well, like the simple act of Freeza's silence causing Dodoria to realize that something's wrong and he fucked up, or the simple act of Freeza unfolding his arms when Zarbon questions his orders causes Zarbon to panic the fuck out and open the door. 

Freeza is also absolutely untouchable here, which, of course is a given due to his role in DBZ canon, but it doesn't devalue Bardock's sacrifice or last stand at all. In fact, the futility of it all as he gives this grand speech about "fate" and "destiny" and launches a fistful of Ki blast... only for Freeza to grin and have the glowing orange ball on his fingertip expand into a gigantic size, and then lobbing it down onto Planet Vegeta, consuming his soldiers, Bardock and the planet? It's a hauntingly awesome scene, showing off Bardock's anger-driven last stand. It's depressing, but at the same time Bardock's knowledge that his son Kakarot will somehow rise up and challenge Freeza in the future is one small solace of comfort for the warrior as he is consumed by Freeza's blast alongside his planet.

And Bardock's pretty cool. He's not a hero in the traditional sense, but he's not outright evil in the way that some Dragon Ball protagonists start off as. His motivations to protect his own people from extinction, and his righteous anger towards the betrayal and attempted genocide by Freeza are both something we can sympathize with, but on the other hand, the movie highlights how he kills people as part of Freeza's army, how he is near-dismissive of his son (the only emotion he has was the surprise when he sees Kakarot in the visions) and he is shown snapping necks and being far more brutal than the likes of Goku (which, of course, makes him like shonen!Wolverine of sorts). Bardock's storyline is amazingly told, and in the short while of 40-ish minutes we get to see this man, completely outclassed by Freeza's weakest lieutenant, let alone the Emperor himself... but still muster a pretty damn good fight.

Oh, and earlier we also get a pretty cliched but still pretty damn badass moment of Bardock using a cloth stained in the blood of his allies as a red bandana. Badass. 

We also get a brief subplot with Vegeta throughout the movie, and it's fun to see young prince Vegeta and his bodyguard, Nappa (with hair!) beat up Saibamen as part of training, interact with Freeza and act with complete indifference when he's told that his planet is destroyed by a meteor. It's neat to see these, and while we could've used a couple extra continuity nods (no mention of Raditz? No mention of the King?) I do appreciate the decision to keep it just mostly between Bardock, Freeza and Dodoria, with everyone else being glorified cameos.

And I do definitely like how Bardock's story has a downer ending, but the movie itself actually ends with showing Goku's pod crashing on Earth and he's adopted by Grandpa Gohan, as the credits roll over a montage of scenes from Dragon Ball and DBZ. Overall, it's perhaps one of the best side-stories I've ever seen to come out of Dragon Ball Z, and a pretty damn good one. I can totally see why Bardock is super-popular. 

Dragon Ball GT Episodes 59-64 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.

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Dragon Ball GT, Episode 64: Until We Meet Again

So here we are. The final episode of Dragon Ball GT, and, up until the release of the Battle of Gods movie in 2013, more than a decade later, the final piece of proper serialized Dragon Ball animation after running non-stop since its inception. And thus, the final episode of GT is... is more of a closure of Goku's story than really trying to resolve much plot holes. Because after all... there's really not that much to go on after Omega Shenron is defeated. 

The real Shenron talks to Goku and the others, telling them that humanity's been relying way too heavily on the dragon balls, and that Shenron is taking them away. It's a theme that I wish was actually properly explored. If GT didn't have such a troubled production, maybe it could've had a running theme of facing the sins of the past and responsibility throughout the Baby, Super 17 and Shadow Dragon arcs. Unfortunately, the message isn't quite as poignant as it is, but it is delivered in a pretty somber tone as Shenron makes it unambiguously clear that it's the end of an era. Goku asks Shenron to repair the Earth after the devastation caused by the Super 17 and Shadow Dragon sagas, and then when Shenron tells Goku to go, Goku replies with a cryptic "is it time already?" 

Goku then rides on Shenron's head as they fly up into the sky with the dragon balls going along with them. And while Chichi panics a bit, they end up just kind of brushing it off as Goku going off on another adventure -- maybe like when he flew off with Uub at the end of Z. Only Pan and Vegeta seem to know what's going on, as Pan finds Goku's ripped-up blue gi on the ground, and while it's ambiguous, it's clear that Goku has either died or ascended or... something. Vegeta tells Pan to "treasure it"  before flying off... and Goku's most likely died, I suppose. It does explain why Goku isn't affected at all by Omega Shenron's attacks last episode when he's charging the spirit bomb, anyway. 

We get a brief montage of Shenron and Goku flying through the clouds, including a neat callback to the opening of Dragon Ball Z, and we briefly see Yamcha and Pu'ar in the desert, as well as Tien and Chiaotsu training under a waterfall... but Goku stops at Kame House to meet with Roshi, Old Man Krillin (yay!) and Umigame. They have a bit of a fun reminiscing of the old days, and Krillin notes how neither Goku nor Roshi have changed, while he got old. Goku spars with Krillin for old times' sake, giving Krillin a victory, and then Goku seems to have disappeared. 

Goku also shows up in hell, where apparently Piccolo's became Hell Batman, beating up escaped demons and everything, and Piccolo's reaction to Goku's arrival is "YOU MORON DID YOU GET TRAPPED AGAIN". Oh, Piccolo. Goku and Piccolo have a handshake, and then after an apology for giving him so much trouble, Goku disappears again. And then as everyone else goes home, Goku lies down to sleep as the dragon balls enter Goku, and Shenron roars... and he and Goku just disappear. 

It's a weird, weird ending, and we cut to a Tenkaichi Budokai in the far future where Pan is now the grandmother of a little boy called Goku, fighting while wearing Goku's blue Gi, facing off against a descendant of Vegeta, also called Vegeta. It's a bit of a too on-the-nose of the 'their legacy continues' as Grandma Pan sees Goku among the crowd briefly, but fails to catch up to him. And as Goku leaves the tournament grounds, we get a montage of multiple important moments of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and... well, just the scene of Baby's death from Dragon Ball GT. But it's a very nice montage with an instrumental sound, before the narrator notes that this is the end of the story of Son Goku and the Dragon Balls, as Goku salutes the audience and flies away on the nimbus, before the final THE END.

Except it isn't, of course, as I'm writing this review a full 21 years after the final episode of Dragon Ball GT is broadcasted in Japan, and despite the hiatus, Dragon Ball has returned in full force in the form of a new series of movies, a whole load of video games and an anime sequel. The franchise proved to have enough staying power in everyone's hearts, and it's definitely heartwarming that, yes, "until we meet again" actually did happen. But the staff writing this episode of GT didn't know it. As far as they knew, this was the final entry in the story of Dragon Ball, and while there's a couple of extra TV specials down the line... this is it. As far as the staff writing Dragon Ball was concerned, this was the end of Dragon Ball.

And the ending episode itself was a melancholic, well-done piece that truly sets the tone of reminiscing of all the adventures that our good buddy Goku has gone through. And that's a very nice ending.

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So now, how do I feel about GT as a whole? I feel that my opinions about the respective arcs themselves are made abundantly clear in their respective reviews, since all the three major arcs -- Baby, Super 17 and Shadow Dragon -- did a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. Some of the biggest problems that GT has is lack of a consistent tone, sometimes waffling between forced comedy and seriousness way too quickly (the Sugoro Space during the Baby saga; the whiplash from the Freeza and Cell fight with Krillin's deaeth in the Super 17 arc), and sometimes just going on and on with dreary seriousness without a break (the Omega Shenron fight in particular). There's also the problem of Goku being the only one that is allowed to do anything, with parts of the Baby and Shadow Dragon Sagas feeling really forced when Goku essentially demands that every other Saiyan give him their powers, and for those other characters to just shrug it off and go "eh, what can we do". That's pretty bad. Only Uub and Vegeta really get any chance to shine among the secondary cast, but even then Uub's big badass scenes all end up basically replacing Piccolo in Z (not a bad thing, mind you) and Vegeta's character arc is insanely inconsistent, as I have covered in the Omega Shenron arc. There's also, of course, the fact that the first fourteen or fifteen episodes are straight-up bad filler, and everything revolving the Black Star Ball arc feels really, really poorly done in both scripting, action and drama.

But I think the biggest problem that GT has is the fact that neither of the supposed four main characters end up being really stale. Goku spends most of his scenes either being the hero, or making jokes about wanting to fight or being hungry, and while he's never been a character that is really deep, it is particularly bad here. There are several great moments for Goku, like this melancholic Goku at the end of GT, or the bit where he remembers the family time when he achieves SS4, but ultimately, Goku's a flat protagonist, and that makes the moments when he acts a bit dickish since he's the only one allowed to be a fighter feel really bad. A lot of people snidely joke that "GT" refers to "Goku Time"... and honestly, considering how Goku essentially takes over every fight he's in? They're not wrong.

Pan, unquestionably the character with the most screentime after Goku... ends up really being inconsistently written. See, the writers really can't decide if they want Pan to be a badass, scrappy tomboy warrior, or an inexperienced kid that ends up being a damsel in distress... and as a result, Pan ends up really waffling between "I can totally beat up bad guys" to "waaaah I'm thirsty" all the time. The show's staunch refusal to really give Pan any sort of power-up or a chance to shine, be it achieving Super Saiyan or defeating an enemy, makes it really extra-hurtful to the character too. The only character Pan defeats all by herself was one of General Rilldo's robot minions, I think, and every other time she's allowed to fight, it's Goku that ends up dealing the killing blow. Which makes the decision to focus on Pan so much end up really frustrating if she's never allowed to grow and be badass.

Giru, the robot sidekick... is okay. His big role is clearly during the Rilldo arc, where he has to fight between helping his newfound friends or execute the commands given to him by his creators, and his relationship with Pan is nice enough, but ultimately he's meant to be a sidekick, and ends up getting taken out before each big conflict. Trunks, the other member of the big team... ends up having no character whatsoever to talk about beyond being generically heroic and the straight man of the group. And therein lies the problem. The fact that none of the characters are particularly well-written or well-defined, which I think is a very valid criticism of GT. Dragon Ball's other incarnations have never been particularly that deep at exploring characters, but there tended to be a couple of characters whose story arc is particularly compelling in any given arc, and in GT there's a definite dearth of that. There's an attempt at giving Piccolo, Uub, Vegeta, Majin Buu and Android 18 big character moments, but other than Buu (who recurs throughout the Baby saga) none of them work particularly well due to lack of buildup or straight-up inconsistent writing in Vegeta's case.

The best part of GT, though, is definitely the concepts behind all the arcs and the villains. None of them are particularly bad, and with a non-rushed production and a better writer, and perhaps better utilization of character arcs, the concepts that underlie the main GT arcs are definitely well-done. And at least in the execution of the character of Baby in particular, GT ends up delivering what ended up being probably one of my favourite Dragon Ball villains. Ultimately, though, the problems that riddle GT end up outweighing the good parts, and while the same problem riddle Z and Super (albeit to an agruably lesser degree) the fact that GT's start was absolutely rocky and genuinely painful to sit through gives the series an over-inflated reputation for being nothing but shit. And it's honestly really unfair. I've gone through GT from start to finish, and it's... not bad. There are some moments that are genuinely good, but for the most part, GT's...  watchable. Except for the Luud arc. So yeah. It's definitely been a fun trip, and while we're not going to see Dragon Ball for a while as Super goes on hiatus, it's definitely been a fun ride through the Grand Tour.