Corrupting the Dragon Balls - Dragon Ball Dissection: The Evil Dragon Arc Part 1 

TO BE FAIR, when Goku said [he's] "fighting dirty," that's not really an exaggeration given the use of pollution and dirty lake. Literally, fighting dirty.

3:53 Somewhere in the city, there's a school principal using that conveniently placed, but oddly timed aurora borealis to distract a superintendent from the fact his kitchen is on fire during an unforgettable luncheon.

This is the wish that brought Bora's Father back to life. Wouldn't have been kind of fun if they went full nostalgia and actually had Bora show up here? Have it be his village? Let us see the positive consequences of the wishes and measure them against the negative consequences? Or, just generally, have the locations where we fight these dragons be recognizeable areas and feature recognizeable characters in peril from the long history of the series that has been built up.

When he said the thing about bringing back grandma but nuking iowa I immediately went "Oh no, we're halfway through the video already aren't we"

When TFS reached this arc last weekend, Lanipator made a good point of asking why the Dragon Balls were cracking now despite having not been used for over a decade. (And no, Super doesn’t count here.) The Earth Dragon Balls weren’t used in GT until now, so why is it happening with them and right now?

0:11 correct me if I’m wrong but what makes the existence of this game even more bizarre is that this hit the U.S. when the Frieza Saga was still airing. Just imagine picking this game up around that time and seeing stuff like Kid Buu and Super Saiyan 4.

I’m glad you showed the page at 7:57 where Kami mentions the danger of the Dragon Ball’s too and how he originally planned to discard them entirely until Goku gave him faith enough to bring them back. Goku just accepting responsibility out of a selfish desire to fight but a selfless desire to fix what he broke is so perfect. I do hate that what immediately follows that scene is Goku telling everyone he’ll handle it alone. Things to point out for nerds like myself that pay attention. Elder Kaioshin also explicitly states in the Boo arc that using the DB’s for affairs outside of the planet they originally were created on is an even greater risk to the cosmic order than just abusing them in general. Out of all the 7 wishes, the strongest Dragon, Yi Xing Long, is the only one that involves another Planet which fits a lot. Peak continuity if you ask me. Edit: Good luck plays a pretty big factor in the early parts of this arc, and I have to wonder if that’s intentional cause there’s a bunch of moments towards the end where they are just hit with bad luck after bad luck

GT in a nutshell: great concepts with so-so execution

The Shadow Dragons are somehow both the best and worst villains in the entirety of Dragon Ball

16:33 this also happened in PokemonEarly on Ash calls out Team Rocket for using a sludge attack that blinds Pikachu as fighting dirty. In only a few more episodes he'd fight a Cubone and find that electricity is ineffective, then tells Pikachu to bite, claw, and blind the Cubone to win and it's treated as thinking on his feet. And Xiaolin Showdown, when Wuya uses a Wu that she didn't wager, the monks and the narrative treat her as a cheater, yet, previously, when Omi challenged Dojo to a Showdown, he used two Wu's that he didn't wager, and the narrative treated him like he did something acceptable

i've always loved the design of the cigar-smoking shenron. I was always disappointed he just disappeared after this episode, had the potential to be the final villain of the arc even if you ask me.

If you're gonna potentially end the franchise once and for all, destroying the macguffins the series is named after and saying "Don't try to rebuild them or bad things will happen" is probably the best way to do it.

7:05 "Her radar turned a once in a life-time miracle into a constant crutch" Oh man, Imagine if super era took that idea and ran with it to the point that Bulma was collecting them just to avoid ageing. 🙃

Final Bouts opening video “Biggest Fight” was pretty legendary, about the only good thing of the game, but hey we didn’t have many choices back then. I love that whole sequence with the black smoke dragon, the cigar, how dark and atmospheric it is, and the animation for when the dragon balls are scattered around.

MistareFusion starts the Evil Dragon arc at the same time as Team Four Star, coincidence? I think not!

16:44 To be fair, I'd say the times when the dragons use Pan as a human shield is pretty dirty, especially in the case of the Three-Star Dragon, where Pan isn't even a participant in the fight.

I perhaps should save this comment until you are further along the arc and these points become more relevant, but for me The Evil Dragons arc has two fatal flaws, which completely kill the execution of otherwise amazing concept from the outset. 1. Too many of the dragons are played as comedic, not actually threatning villains. Sure, since there are seven of them, all of them can't be "the biggest big bad our heroes have ever faced", since that would get boring and repetive too quickly for different reasons, but having so many of them be non-menacing in a row really kills the gravitas the premise of the conflict was going for. Some of the early dragons should have been more serious and some of the silly ones needed better balance between gags and "scares" (kinda like Buu did, when he was written well). 2. "GT stands for Goku Time" criticism is at its most accurate state in this arc. Seven dragons are causing havoc at seven different locations, while the planet is still messed up from the events of the previous arc, yet all the other heroes just sit by, while Goku and Pan go through each dragon one-by-one? This isn't a video game, where the next boss won't active until you have beaten the current one, every second should count. There's no reason for the whole cast not to spread out and deal with a different dragon. Could finally give spotlight episodes for some of the ignored characters.

I too, store my negative energy in my Dragon Balls.

This was probably my favorite concept in all of Dragon Ball

As someone who speaks (some) Chinese. It's my understanding that, for the most part, "liang" 两 is the most common way to count two things in Chinese. While "er" 二 is closer to the number two. Think of the difference between "room no. 2" (er) and "two cups of coffee" (liang). Under this context, I think liang xing was the more natural form all along, and when Toriyama initially wrote it as er xing qiu it was more or less a very Japanese way of counting in Chinese. If that makes any sense. My Chinese isn't perfect, so if any native could chime in, that would be awesome.

Can I just say your voice sounds more energetic and youthful than ever

As a writer myself I think it would have added the details about “be careful of what you wish for” it is implied that Shelong grants their wishes the exact way that they wanted. Like none of the people brought back to life returned as zombies, and when Piccolo wishes for his youth, Shelong returned him to his prime and not a child. They imply that monkey’s paw energy of Shenlong’s magic was stored inside the dragon balls.

I’m surprised you didn’t talk about the fact Vegeta, 18, Goten, and Gohan don’t get involved in the dragon ball hunt at all despite being all strong themselves (at least far stronger then Pan). But instead they basically do nothing despite there being seven balls they could help look for them and defeat the dragons.

Said it before: The concept of the evil dragons are how Dragon Ball should always have ended.

And we've officially hit the TFS DBD intersection

If Bardock can fight and breathe in space, and if Vegeta can blow up a filler planet in space, then Goku and Pan can survive for a few min underwater.

I'm so glad we're finally here! Looking forward to this arc's reviews!

I never get why some people hate the early Shadow Dragons, they were interesting encounters on their own way especially Liang Xing Long who was solid introduction Interested on the next one as I found Wu Xing Long to be the least memorable of the dragons and I can barely remember anything of what happened in his episode

Don't the Dragon Balls not just fly away but also turn to stone and become dormant for a year? You'd think that if buildup of negative energy is an issue and they already have a built in dormancy period, that it would make sense for that dormancy to be used for purging that and thus last as long as the balls need to regenerate. It's a bit silly to apply a consequence to using something too frequently that already has a built in rate limiter.

It is fun and convenient that there were exactly seven wishes made with the Earth Dragon Balls in the series to facilitate this plot point.

15:12 To be fair, I'd say the 5-Star Dragon has a fairly legitimate claim to being the strongest. He's the one dragon Goku wasn't able to defeat on his own. It's only due to an extremely convenient rainstorm that he was weakened enough that Goku could defeat him.

I was hoping you'd drop the Earthbound reference. Thank you for indulging me.

Huge win for the monster of the week fans.

0:15 It Is but the opening animation and especially the accompanying theme song are kamidamn masterpieces

Dropping a comment for the algorithm, great vid!

Bulma shifting the blame on Goku will never not be hilarious to me thanks to Super Bulma abusing their power. Even Kakarot lampshades it in a DLC side quest where Goku points it out and she counters with “I use the other wishes for charity”.

Another great episode!

I like how DBD and GTFS have completely synchronized here. The same 2 GT episodes, reaction from TFS yesterday, and a Dissection today! Though, sadly, it's not for long, since GTFS is weekly but DBD is monthly...

Final Bout was amazing when it came out. Yes, lots of weird choices, but just existing was amazing for us back in the day.

Think of Final Bout as a prototype for what would come later (the Dragon Ball Z series of games for the PS2 aka the Budokai games). Some of the elements were there but they're not yet refined especially the controls. I'm not saying that it is a great game, it's a bad game but it's getting there.

It's funny seen TFS and Fusion reaching the same parts this week. To this day I still find it extremely weird that Goku and Pan were the only people finding the dragons especially since it was establish these dragons were considered a big threat by Elder Kai. It would've be nice seen the Dragon Team breaking up into different groups taking on a different dragon.

In regards to Elder Kai’s argument that finding all 7 balls should be impossible, there is also the fact that the RRA arc proved to methods of making it impossible to find them: either be swallowed inside a creature or be contained in material that bypasses a radar. So even if Pilaf and the RRA were the only ones looking for the Dragon Balls, it’d probably still be a difficult task even for them. Then again, if either were to learn about Baba, they’d probably be rich enough to make her seek out balls for them. Unless she has the conscience to not grant fortunetelling to such evil people.

2:16 what a spot-on depiction of what heartburn feels like.

6:30 why is Kibitoshin so HUGE in this shot?

After watching TFS latest GT episode review, I notice a couple of plot holes in this arc: 1. Why didn't Kami, Dende or Popo told Goku and the others that relying too much on the dragon balls would eventually create the Shadow Dragons; 2. Supreme Kai explains that it takes 100 years or more to clear the negative energy inside the dragon balls, but then what's the point of activating them 1 year after the wish is made, it feels a bad design flaw; 3. Couldn't Dende or Popo put the balls inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and wait 100 days or so to reset them; 4. Each dragon was born from a specific wish, but we know that there were more than 7 wishes especially since Dende upgrades Shenron to grant 2/3 wishes; 5. Elder Kai explains that Omega Shenron's negative energy not only would destroy Earth, but the entire universe, but by killing Dende, wouldn't that also kill Omega? I'm going to assume that the negative energy would still destroy the universe even without Omega, but still pretty weird; 6. Shenron brings back Krillin (and presumably 17), but they were brought back by the dragon once, unless Dende upgraded Shenron again, like in Super Hero.

Here's another thing the story should have brought up... the fact that some of bad things that happened were their fault. Like letting the evil mad scientist have his way for extremely dubious reasons. All of the people brought back to life that arc wouldn't have needed to be brought back to life if not for their stupidity. Or how the Earth's first destruction could have been avoided if Vegeta didn't Vegeta or if the ones tasked with defeating Boo didn't screw up so badly. So in those instances it was totally their fault. Also why didn't they ever consider Nameks dragon balls to revert Goku back to his adult body as one of the wishes next to reviving Krillin as it should be the only way to do that.

Not gonna lie, this whole thing feels very underwhelming. It's a great character beat that Goku's gonna fix this because he feels responsible, but that's the thing, there's this huge world ending threat, and Goku and Pan are the only people who are going to fix it, doesn't that feel weird? Like the rest of the cast isn't taking this as seriously as they should? Now this arc is just go here, beat dragon, repeat. It's like the plot to a video game! Matter of fact, are we sure this Shadow Dragon nonsense isn't secretly another Plan To Eradicate The Super Saiyan 4s?

9:24 This just makes me want to learn who Popo truly is. How and when did he hear this? How much does he truly know?

I like how this came out the same day that Team Four Star covered this in the GT recap. Fun how things line up like that.

Great video!

In one of my favorite DBZ fanfictions, Dende had enough of the abuse of the dragon balls 7 years after Cell and put on some restrictions to prevent it from going further. I don't think there was any mention of corruption, but he hated how the balls were used to make life feel meaningless due to constant resurrection.

You know theres a way they could avoid all this and continue to use the dragon balls on a regular basis. Just put the dragon balls in the hyperbolic time chamber for a few hundred days.

6:05 This just made me question why they even care to warn them at all. Hell, why did they even help in the Baby arc? The only reason they helped out in Z was because Majin Boo was an unstoppable force of destruction that threatened the whole universe... Why the hell did they care that Baby wanted to create some planet and take control of a population? Freeza was way more destructive than that. Certainly there are more shit for them to do than to help out Goku, right? Do they just think they owe him one or smth? I'm not nitpicking i haven't watched it in a long time I'm curious to know if there is a reason I'm forgetting.

Bulla/Bra disappeared without explanation following the end of the Super 17 Saga; last seen gazing up in horror at Black Smoke Shenron. Also #18 and Marron make a quick and silent cameo in the episode with Rage Shenron, waiting with the rest of the ladies, and are subsequently never shown again even after Krillin comes back in the finale. Way to continue shafting the lady android Toei…

It's a small thing, but I'd like to know your rationale for not making the arc name plural. I've always called it "Evil Dragons" because even if it devolves into just a fight with Yi Xing Long, a good part of the arc is still dedicated to the one off fights of the other dragons, and One Star's final boss form is representative of the Evil Dragons as a collective. I guess for the people who back the existence of an "Artifical Human" arc, it's more so about representing the "species" (if you can call it that) of the villains rather then the quantity which makes sense. Either way, I just wanted to get insight on your reasoning.

Final bout may be a bad game, but the theme song and opening is the best in the franchise

Finally we are at the point where both TFS Bento and Mistare fusion are both covering the final arc of Dragon Ball GT.

Odd how the wish made after the Cell Games doesn't get a dragon to itself.

Part of me wishes Elder Kai warned the Dragon Team about the minus energy in the balls thing before hand so they could stick the balls in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. About three years time and all that minues energy would be gone.

I really wish they got the whole cast involved here. Why couldn't Trunks, Goten, or Uub have gone to defeat a Dragon? But, at least from memory, this is the strongest part of GT. If you're positive on this arc, then it seems you mostly enjoyed GT overall.

I watched through this arc for the first time last year and was genuinely shocked that I actually had a pretty good time with all villain of the week shenanigans and THEN it deteriorated into crap by the end. I think this one is more consistently good, but Baby is a much cooler villain than most of the mid-tier DQ bosses in this arc

Final but was fun as a little kid and it was my first exposure to the Japanese voices

Super has the chance of reworking this concept with the basically forgotten Zarama and the endless streams of Bulma's frivolous wishes. Zarama would actually have a very solid point and would probably be a reasonable antagonist instead of a mustache twirling one hellbent on the destruction of the universe. Maybe this is asking too much from Super, but it would be a cool way to revisit an old concept.

10:14 Ever seen the movie Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox? That's precisely the moral dilemma that movie tackles!

For all the crap the Funimation dub gets, at least they gave the Shadow Dragons names of their own.

Remember: GT is official fanfiction

!!!! Iowa mentioned !!!!

15:21 Oh, a MOTHER reference? In my Dragon Ball Dissection? Hell yeah, the hyperfixations/special interests come together! ...very briefly, but still! ...now this makes me want to see your thoughts on the MOTHER series, Lance, but I don't wanna be a pushy fella, so yeah.

While I like the concept of the dragon balls becoming the enemy due to making too many wishes I've noticed a plot hole here, if it takes a hundred years for the minus energy to disappear then why did the dragon balls only remain stone for just one year?

With future knowledge, it would be an interesting retcon to have the Dragons have God Ki, and that's why they can't be sensed. In Super, there's the dubious claim that the regular Dragon Balls are just made out of cuts from the Super Dragon Balls, so having them powered by the immense God Ki of Zarama... So the Shadow Dragons are basically just sentient ki.

15:22 That was exactly the first thing that came into my mind when you were talking about the running gag xD I think it works perfectly well because they don't think they're the best, so it's less tiring.

Another great dissection!

I do enjoyed watching Dragon Ball GT

It's funny that you're covering the same material that Lani and Kaiser just covered on their channel.

I watched this arc on tv and thought the concept was pretty interesting but I only got like 3 dragons in

The premise of this arc was okay, but the fact that it was GT opportunity to bring all the others characters to make them fights the dragons and instead they went to the old boring Goku solo fest is really disapointing. I'm glad the USS and Moro arc of Super at least gave us that.

The Shadow Dragon 🐉 saga was awesome 😎

Am I the only one who thinks Liang Shenlong resembles Terror Toad/ Dora Boogaranan from Power Rangers/ Zyuuranger?

I swear I had a dream about DBD last night lol

You can't talk about gt without the phrase "good concept bad execution" coming up

So if it takes 100 years to get rid of all negative energy build-up, why do the balls only turn to stone for 1 year? Why didn't Kami make the balls stay stone for 100 years?

9:18 Goku does attract bad guys. Raditz didn’t come to earth because goku did something to him? He came to earth for goku. Nappa and veegta only came to earth because they learned of its dragon balls, which they only found out about because of raditz’s scouter. Raditz, who only came to earth in search and recruitment of goku. Yes Freiza came looking for revenge but I think that’s the point. It was Goku’s fault for not finishing him off, and Freiza wasn’t interested in earth until they all went to namek, which they only did because of vegeta and nappa, who only came to earth because of raditz.

History as proven it; Minus ruins everything in Dragon Ball.

The Evil Dragons Arc was an amazing idea executed terribly as usual. We had seven villains for the Z Fighters to fight against. This was literally the perfect occasion to allow Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Uub and Pan to do something, hell even let Bra do something. Nope, let's make every dragon other than the Fire one, Ice one and Omega one into a useless jobber that is defeated in a gag by Goku and Pan in another tired and boring "monster of the week" formula... This makes the entire arc feel like a waste of time, at least until the actual strong dragons show up.

The Dragon Balls are turnin', burnin' to end the world and everything within ♫ The ultimate battle between good and evil, who’s gonna win? ♫

I liked Final Bout when I was 4, I haven’t played it since, but I remember liking it.

Never thought I would have the idea of Goku being a conservative crossing my mind until this video. 😅

The intro reminded me, I still have a copy of final bout and I was playing it with my little brother not too long ago. It is really bad but it’s fun. Honestly if anyone can someone how get a copy (that’s not expensive) and play it with friends id recommend it lol

3:07 This is TFS Shenron he’s is sick of z cast if finding him

17:30 I think Goku would say he is being unfair to Raditz and Vegeta and the like, but he simply does not care. As he notes with Super Saiyan God is a more modern example, he dislikes fighting with power that is not his, or with a numbers advantage, but ultimately the ends justify the means against villains (despite what Toriyma would say about his purity in that regard). I think against evildoers, though, them both cheating and being evil tips it even further for him to comment on it. At least he cheats for the greater good.

17:04 Is Goku a Star Wars fan angry about how the Force is depicted in certain stories?

1. Anyone else notice how Bulla was with the group when they summoned Dark Shenron, but the following episode she just vanished? 2. Darn shame that Goku shot Gohan down for saying he wanted to go with his pops to help fight these dragons. Geez, it was so annoying that he'd let Pan stay BUT wouldn't let a more seasoned warrior come along... This arc would've worked so much better if we had multiple squads of Z-Fighters fighting the dragons. Even though most of them might've been too weak to win. Well, the 2/5/7/6 star dragons I could've seen going down to the likes of Majuub, Gohan, Trunks, Goten...but the 3/4/1 star dragon at least needed Super Saiyan 4. 3. @16:07 I remember watching this episode on VHS and thinking this was the moment Pan would go Super Saiyan!

6:24- Elder Kai: due to the recent activities with the Dragon Balls, you’re all screwed. Goku: to be fair, it’s the Black Star Dragon Balls…I mean Piccolo took ‘em when he died- Elder Kai: it’s all the same Gohan: wait, are the Namekian, Super, and two Dragon Balls gonna go demon dragons as well. Elder Kai: no, it’s just these things because we haven’t thought of the others yet until decades later and two- earth’s all matters. Goten: I feel like all of this is not very thought out

If Piccolo wanted youth.... did Kamisama ever considered do that for himself or that was selfish?

Well the begining of the last arc of Dragon Ball GT is here. How long is it going to be? Who knows...

I really liked your point about Goku and fighting dirty. I'd not really thought about that before

It seems like all the strongest guys who like fighting are hypocrites. Goku begs Vegeta to fuse against Super Buu, only for him to immediately discard the Potara the moment he's up against a more manageable threat. Vegeta plays all sneaky on Namek, but the moment he's strong enough, he immediately gets aggressive. Cell hides from the Z Fighters until he absorbs enough people, then starts overpowering the good guys the old-fashioned way... then goes back to being cunning when "Super" Vegeta outdoes him...then gets cocky and honorable when he becomes Perfect... then immediately tries to finish off Gohan once he comes back from defeat. Super Buu begs the Z Fighters for a good fight, then rages and plots as soon as he's met his match.

Minus enery is stored in the balls

Serious question; why does #18 not join goku and Pan? Krillin doesn't get revived til after all the fighting so she has the perfect motivation to kick some dragon ass

I find it difficult to justify the existence of both the minus energy and each dragon being born from a specific wish. The point of one seems to negate the other. Minus energy as a concept is introduced seemingly to eschew having to give each dragon a motivation: they’re evil because they were spawned from evil energy. Simple. However, the fact that they sprouted from an actual wish made on the balls as well sets up the expectation for each dragon to have a motivation or power set tied to said wishes that never manifests, making it superfluous. I get the want to give the og dragon balls a role in the final arc, and not that this set up isn’t still functional, but the way it’s done feels contrived. Perhaps they should’ve had the evil dragons be a result of the black star balls. They’re already malevolent, and you can just have it so the consequence for using them is different each time. After Baby makes his wish show the balls scattering and embedding themselves as statues on earth as per this arc, but, before they could give birth to each respective dragon, we cut to the regular dragon balls, which start to glow and send out a pulse of suppression energy which wraps around the dragon statues. We then see the ominous image of a dragon ball start to crack before cutting back to the main story. Afterwards the events play out as normal except when they use the ball, the leeway given is enough for the dragons to be born and start to wreak havoc. Elder kai explains what’s up and how the cracks were a result of the tremendous strain the balls were under keeping the evil dragons restrained. There. You’ve tied in the old dragon balls, given the series’ unique set one more go round and freed up space to make the antagonists as simple or complex as you’d like.