It kinda worked to show the contrast with his twin. I think it was a bigger problem when after all that build up, they made Omega Shen Long only motivation being..."he is evil and wants to detroy the universe"
That’s what frustrates me so much with Lance, everything he wants dragon ball to have is out there in other series, but he’s too in love with dragon ball to just go cheating on it with other series.😫
Really goes to show how trivial Naturon’s wish was when it isn’t brought up in the video. To those curious, his was the one to revive those killed by Majin Vegeta. And honestly, given Vegeta’s future standalone episode, a seemingly non-confrontational villain made by the wish he made necessary could’ve been a very interesting conflict for him before the finale. As Goku’s fighting Nuova, Naturon shows up in West City and Vegeta and Bulma are the ones that need to save people from his earthquake. Maybe he absorbs Bulma and Vegeta is stuck having to decide between his home and his wife, who along with Trunks had previously been the only thing he cared enough about to cooperate with Goku against Buu.
Yeah, I actually had it in the script at one point, but it was such a pointless diversion for me to start talking about it that I just cut it out. That's how trivial it is.
@@MistareFusion Don’t blame you for it. Like you said at the start regarding Trunks, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to wanna keep the roster small when what’s to come is mostly a boss rush. But I can understand and to a degree agree with the desire for all the other fighters to join in and work together taking down the 7 dragons. While most want it so the supporting cast gets something to do, I think a more impactful reason would be that instead of Goku thinking it’s just his responsibility, they all feel responsible and do an effort to undo what their wishes have caused. Though as I just wrote that, maybe it’s possible GT’s staff did consider that too, but worried if all of them worked together like that, it could end up feeling like what you described regarding action and reaction. “This might seem like the heroes refusing to accept what they do can be bad. Let’s have dim Goku and newcomer Pan be the ones to fight.”
Having each of the Heroes take on a separate dragon instead of it just being Goku Time would actually have been a pretty cool, and logical, way of pacing the arc.
@@JotariIt's like the writers thought we didn't want to see the other characters. It made sense why they were inactive in the first half of the Baby arc but after that there was no excuse.
Goku "waiting for his moment" to pull Pan out kind of reminds me of Vegitto waiting for Buu to absorb him. The key difference, though, was that that actually made sense and wasn't stupid and contrived.
Vegitto waiting to be absorbed by Buu? I don’t feel that made sense either, Vegito had no way of knowing whether his barrier would actually work and given he was the universes last hope, it was a pretty insane gamble to make and that very easily could have backfired. Killing Buu would be the only sensible strategy since the dragon balls still exist
@@halochampion342 Vegetto would never kill his friends. He doesn't even know if that would free them from Boo. As ridiculous as the barrier was, it was probably one of the more logical ways he could have dealt with the problem.
@@InfernoCleric384 Its kind of an ultimatum though, maybe if the barrier strategy was introduced more sensibly in the story i could see it but in the manga he just doesn’t have a single reason to believe that it would work. And he risks making Majin Buu even more powerful if it doesn’t. I can buy that he would be hesitant to kill the others so i don’t consider that part to be out of character, but everything that has to do with the solution is very contrived
@@halochampion342 I guess. Matches up with Goku and Vegeta's intelligence being based on the writers' whims. They probably could have had Gohan strike a weak point on Gotenks Boo, causing the absorption to be destabilized for a moment. Maybe that could have led Vegetto to free his friends by exploiting that weakness. They are physically within Boo, after all.
They could've solved both the "episodes feeling disconnected" and "Deus ex Machina" problems by having the mole be part of Goku's strategy. Have Goku realize that the mole became disconnected from the dragon without the former dying, and recreate that scenario to free Pan.
Naturon could just have the stipulation of "I can only absorb one thing at a time", especially since that's all that's ever shown. So Naturon releases the mole when he absorbs Pan for a boost. Then when he tries to absorb Goku to cement himself as the strongest, Goku takes the opportunity to save Pan and renders him weak again. Easy fix that lets Goku retain his combat intelligence.
Pan being Goku's biggest weakness was the point of the character...granted, reducing Pan to a weakness sucks for her as a character, but there was an intention.
I like that you bring up the moral implications of condemning an antagonist who is merely being antagonistic because that 'is' their very nature and it's questionable how much agency they have to think, act, or consider options outside of that nature. The Shadow Dragons (except for *Nova Shenron* ) seem to be *naturally* evil and *compelled* to be evil. But I would not apply this same standard to *Beerus* because he was not *necessarily* created to become a *God of Destruction,* since we learn that you can be *made* into one if you meet the criteria. See *Toppo.* The reason *I* condemn Beerus is because he is not only *capricious,* but he uses his GoD status to *justify* shaking down planets to get the food he wants. If you displease him, he *blows up* your planet, if you give him food he enjoys..Buuuut make it a bit too greasy..He'll destroy *half* of your planet. This is basically Beerus' M.O: *"Hmmmhh...Nice planet you've got here. Would be a shame if I blew it up unless you give me the food I want to my exact and extremely high standards."* Beerus' job is to *balance* out the creation that the Kais are responisible for, but Beerus uses his power and status to *specifically* target planets with food that he wants. This turns Beerus into an opportunistic *bully* who enjoys the benefits of his job at the *expense* of the mortals beneath him. But he is *never* condemned for this despite him making it very clear he feels *zero* remorse about the untold *trillions* of mortals he has erased because of his selfish greed. That's what *truly* motivates Beerus. Not obligation to his role, but simple, selfish greed and gluttony. He only spares Earth for his own selfish reasons and not because of his duty.
Yeah, a really good indication of Beerus' sketchy morality is that he was going to destroy the entire Earth for Buu eating some pudding he wanted instead of just accepting a different serving of pudding that could've been gotten for him extremely easily by all of these characters who can fly and teleport. Or him bullying King Vegeta for giving him the second most comfortable pillow on the planet.
Yeaaah I was gonna comment something like this tool. Beerus is a “ningen” like everyone else and ToP establishes that anyone could be bestowed the title of “destruction god.” I think he’s entertaining, but at the same time I am pretty peeved about the handling of his character as well as how the Dragon Team handles him too.
@@Bluelaserbeam Yeah, because Beerus is never really humbled and has been confirmed to have erased countless mortals. He jus gets eclipsed by more readily prevalent antagonists coming for Goku & Company, but Beerus still abused his power much as Frieza did for his own selfish gain and mortalkind suffered for it.
I mean, who’s to say that in those instances Beerus wouldn’t’ve done that anyway. God works in mysterious ways and all that. Sure, it wouldn’t make what he does less horrifying or cruel, but I mean, you’ve got to find some enjoyment in your work, and his is sampling cuisine. You could almost say it’s his version of a eulogy.
In hindsight, I really have no idea what Pan added to this arc. She gets in trouble, never really resolves any of the Dragon fights, and gets shunted out of the "Dragon Tennis" portion of the arc in favor of bringing back Vegeta. She probably would've benefitted from just fighting one of the weaker Dragons with her parents instead of being partnered with Goku.
She is there to raise the stakes, we know at this point Goku is unstopable, so she is there just for the dragon to use her against him...and this wasnt the last time it happened.
@@Jose-se9pu The thing is that Goku was weakened by Haze, couldn't damage Rage even with Super Saiyan 4, and is going to struggle against the upcoming three as well. He's not really unstoppable at all.
Man, we're getting so close to the End of DBGT that MistareFusion is already showing panels of the Dragon Ball Super Manga such as that scene with Berrus. Can't wait to see how he'll be covering that series. Edit: (Poor Yamcha)
@@austriacontinente154 Yamcha never cheated that crap was done just so Toriyama could have an excuse to put Vegeta with Bulma... also Bulma was a ho and threw herself at other guys constantly even while being with Yamcha
You didn't mention it in the video, but I always liked the little cutaway from the action in the second episode to Gohan and Videl worrying about Pan's safety, because that's one of the few intimate moments that Gohan and Videl get together.
Still a good two and a half months, but that does make me realize how close this series is to finishing GT. I wonder if that will happen part way through Dissection December or if he'll be able to pace it so he finishes the year with it.
GT fan here. If you had asked me, before DBS existed, what the worst episodes of Dragon Ball were. I would told you it was this two-parter. And out of the originally trilogy, I still feel that way now. Also. GT as a whole, really makes the Earthlings way more likable than the rather cynical take the Boo arc has of them where they actively deride our protagonists as a fraud, and instead only buy into their love of Mr Satan to help stop Majin Boo. GT makes the effort to make the Earthlings actually learn to respect Goku throughout the entire show, whether it be having him teleport them away from a exploding planet, saving people town by town in the Evil Dragons arc. I’ve seen people deride this direction as proof that GT doesn’t get Toriyama’s vision of Dragon Ball. But I’d argue it complements Toriyama’s vision by showing that humans aren’t completely hopeless and if the effort is put in, they can change. And it’s not like they don’t show the humans aren’t gullible in GT themselves. Like in the previous episode where they worship the Six Star Dragon as a princess for providing them fish.
Nah its less about them learning anything and more of Toei wanting Goku to be famous and liked by everyone even in universe, its kinda like the filler of King Piccolo arc having the reporters know Goku defeated being King Piccolo unlike in the manga.
@@Thisdude850 don’t agree. They explicitly parallel the Boo arc Genki Dama where the humans refuse to help Goku, by having the humans donate to the Universal Genki Dama at the end of GT. Clearly they’re trying to make a point there. Especially when you remember that Mr Satan was there and could have assisted Goku the same way he did in the Boo arc but they made a conscious choice to do the exact opposite. Especially when I don’t think it’s a hot take to say that the last two episodes of GT are dripping with interpretation and subtext to be dissected by us, the audience.
Maybe what they could've done is establish that Molar the quakeful can only posess one person at any given time, and the way they get him to release Pan is by tricking him into greedily trying to possess someone stronger, like maybe another z-fighter who could do with some more screen-time. Or you know, just possess Goku, since his "pretending to lose"-strategy would work in that scenario too. Ooohh, or another alternative, since you brought up delving deeper into who the dragons are as people or the idea of a dragon simply defending themselves. Maybe once Molar sees Goku seemingly defeated, he releases Pan and attempts to just go on his merry way. That could cause for a lot of interesting things to reflect on. Not only would this establish that the dragon is somewhat passive after all, chosing to not maintain control of Pan once the need for it has passed. But it would also make Goku taking opportunity of this feel morally dubious since it ends up punishing Molar for an act of (sorta) kindness, or at least mercy.
Him attempting to possess Goku would make perfect sense. Even with Pan he's still weaker than him, and basically had to use her as a shield, so having Goku as his vessel would make him unstoppable
I could be wrong, since I haven’t seen this episode in a LONG time. But I think what Goku was waiting for was for an opening to present itself. He has a lot of experience with enemies screwing up when they underestimate him. I don’t think he knew how the opening would present itself specifically, but that straight up brute forcing a win would end with his granddaughters death.
Bringing up something interesting and then squandering it for the safest and most boring resolution is literally just Dragon Ball's modus operandi after Z ended. This way of doing stories infects everything- the games, some of the movies, GT, Super, Heroes, everything. Obviously the most infamous example is the Tournament of Power and how it ended the most predictable, safe, straight way possible. So straight and safe that a lot of fans theorizing how it could end discarded the "U7 wins, wishes everyone back, the end" resolution as being TOO vanilla and safe to be the one they could possibly do. Personally, I'm more astounded by the lack of creativity and risk taken in the original video game stories. My absolute "favorite" being the Hero Mode of Ultimate Tenkaichi where instead of any sort of twist, any sort of shocking subversion of expectations for a fun story, the Big Bad is just Omega Shenron/Super Yi Xing Long, played absolutely straight. I wasn't expecting much, but it was such a lame reveal that it left an impact on me ever since. Just comes with the territory of being an adult American fan of a series that, by Toriyama's own admission and statements, is meant for 8-year-old Japanese schoolboys...
To an extent I agree with you. Well, I definitely agree with you on the predictable and safe labels. But I agree with you to an extent about the "this is a series for children" thing. I try very hard to keep my criticisms both within the realm of what is appropriate for the target audience as well as what is appropriate for Dragon Ball specifically. But even within those parameters I find this to be a disappointing tease. Even if I just use other things I've covered on this channel they prove this is possible within that framework. Zyuranger, very much a series for 8-year-old boys, has an episode featuring a sympathetic monster who is destructive but not evil, and the heroes have to wrestle with whether or not to kill the monster. And that episodic conflict ties into Geki's fear of his brother dying. I've spent the past six months going into detail as to how the live-action Sailor Moon series intertwines stories of conflicted loyalties, friendship, betrayal, grief, destiny, and free will mixed in with rubber suited monsters and cat plush puppets. And frankly, I wouldn't be into Dragon Ball if it wasn't able to tell a compelling story with characters I care about. I don't think GT has an excuse here, especially given I'm only expecting this stuff because they keep coming up with scenarios that hint towards it happening.
Love all your analysis series! I was wondering if you have anymore Dragon Ball series planned for review and analysis. If not, would you consider reviewing and analyzing any Dragon Ball fanfiction that has caught your interest?
Beerus has never made sense to me. I can't think of why he needs to exist at all. There are too many planets? Who's fault is that? Before creation comes destruction? Says who? There's so much space in... Space, they could add a thousand planets and it wouldn't hurt anything. Why does Beerus need to be there to destroy them on the basis of his attitude?
Heavenly bureaucracy. The Universal Survival arc introducing the idea that each universe is graded on its morality - and thus worthiness - implies there's some weird rubric that they're all marked against. So Beerus deletes the worlds, and thus the mortals residing on them, who don't measure up because they'll drag U7's overall "mortal level" down. Personally, I preferred it in his introduction where he was just a force of nature - like a volcano or tsunami - suffering from ennui.
@@Hydrogue well you'd think he would kill Frieza for his whole "Facilitating a galactic regime of murder and violence" thing, but I've learned not to trust anything to make sense when it comes to DBZ and anything related to it
The "fix" to how to build up to Goku freeing Pan seems, to me, almost PAINFULLY obvious. You remember all those times throughout the fight where Pan is SOMEHOW able to communicate with Goku? Maybe have it be that those are instead instances of Pan emerging from inside Qi Xing Long; depending on how they wanted to play it, it could either be Qi Xing Long taunting Goku with his unwillingness to harm Pan or, if one wants to give Pan a bit more agency here, have it be Pan's strength of will allowing her to peek out, not enough to escape but enough to give her the chance to plead to Goku to Do The Right Thing.
I always thought it was weird that Qi Xing Long looks nothing like Pan when he supposedly "takes over her body". I guess they wanted some excuse to transition him into his true dragon form and couldn't come up with anything that made more sense.
I think the absorption plot would make more sense if this dragon was born from the wish to bring Goku back to life during the Saiya-Jin Arc. Then Qi could have more of a reason to absorb Pan, like Qi wanted to absorb Goku because he feels like Goku is a part of him, but Pan got in the way. Then Goku could have pulled a Vegito and gets absorbed on purpose to save Pan.
Places I didn’t expect to see a Devilman Reference. One of the more iconic monsters absorbs people for there energy and uses their voices and faces to scare people and the people trapped just go “Yeah I’m already dead I guess. Go ahead and do it”
Regarding the issues with Goku's playing possum strategy, rather than randomly showing Pan off to taunt Goku, it seems far more natural that Qi might want to swap Pan out for the much stronger Goku. Goku could even be counting on it, given his experience with other people-absorbing baddies like Boo.
There were simply too many evil dragons to have "monster of the week" style episodes. Either the dragons were confronted as a group or there should have been less. Reminds of how Demon Slayer introduced dwelve evil super demons serving the big bad but the author quickly culled four of them for pacing reasons and that still left several of the remaining ones severely underdeveloped to the point that we got several long, LONG infodumps on them unelegantly thrown at us after they had left the story and ceased to be of relevance. Lesson here, always plan ahead of how many characters you really need to have in your story! Having no characters is better than having throwaway filler characters.
I don't know. Maybe? But also maybe not. Dende and Popo suggest that failing to restore the Dragon Balls could result in whole swaths of planets being destroyed. Can you restore the Dragon Ball without killing the dragon? There's a lot of necessary information in this story that is left annoyingly vague.
@@MistareFusion I mean going of what we latter get from the last of the Evil Dragons does there very existence create made out of Minus Energy slowly dissolves the universe around them. So no they all have to die as there very existence is a threat to all of creation.
They could have done the he can pop Pan out of his body foreshadowing thing by having the dragon use her as a human shield. Goku charges the Kamehameha dragon shifts Pan out of the body in front of the blast, Goku stops trying to Kamehameha. Or something.
GT could be renamed to "amazing concepts ruined in execution" at this point...not only that, at this point, we also lacked stakes because we knew the show was ending. Goku being forced to kill Pan should be a big deal, even bigger considering this is the first time in a loooooooooong time where "doesnt matter, we can wish her back" isnt an option because you are literally fighting Shen Long, but nope, we all knew all of this would be resolved by the end of the episode. Two things I will say on these episodes defense, though; Pan is not a "damsel in distress", she is a child, and she is also the granddaughter of the main character, in concept, she getting in the middle of these fights should be Goku's biggest weakness, but, oh right, is GT; "amazing concepts ruined in execution"! And also, Goku giving Chi an extra punch because of the mole, is the most Goku thing Goku would do.
Do you think the Dragon's personalities should be more represented of their wish? Like what if he was the Wish of Goku getting his power back to defeat Buu? Would have a moment of Goku realising his victories are not his alone like during his fight with Bearus. Even if that was the Namak Dragon that did that.
I think that could have been a direction in which to take them. It might have helped them have bigger personalities. But given that so many of the wishes are "bring x back to life," I think we would have hit a roadblock in how to distinguish them. Frankly, the wishes probably aren't interesting enough to sustain dramatic dragon irony.
@@MistareFusionThere are a few things you could do, one that comes to mind is making Nuova the 4-star being created from the revival of Goku, adding to the connection and rivalry they have. Perhaps giving Eis some memory wiping abilities based on his wish to remove the memories of Buu.
Your analysis makes me realize that I maybe I should give this arc a little more credit because the villain using the hero's ally's body as a shield is actually a pretty cool tool for drama... Too bad it happens with a random forgettable villain of the week who otherwise isn't very interesting, instead of being part of a more compelling story. Hell, I would even say that when JoJo did this with Steely Dan, who WAS a random villain of the week, it was way more memorable because of his personality and how it contrasted with the other episodes.
i hate the stupid "the universe needs planets to be destroyed" crap that comes with beerus as that is a very fucked up way to view things and not accurate at all beerus is just a mass murderer
Dragon Ball is filled with so many potentially morally questionable moments that could be rife for storytelling, and the story always finds a way to sidestep all of that and play everything as safe as possible. It's impressive as much as it's disappointing. I get why it never happens because exploring those implications would change the entire tone of the series, but then maybe stop making scenarios that force the audience to think about this stuff. It would have been extremely simple to just have all of the villains as mustache twirling psychos for the heroes to punch.
@MistareFusion Things like this used to keep me up at night until I realized that Dragon Ball isn't ever going to be that series... and it STILL happens to this day lmao. Vegeta complains about Moro's energy drain abilities being "cheap tricks" and "not honorable" and, like mf, your literal species trait is to get stronger from near-death and get constant transformations and you're complaining about someone's unfair abilities? And the series takes his side too, I can't, lmao. Tvtropes calls that "protagonist-centered morality," and boy, is that an appropriate name.
@@sonic5993 I guess to some extent you get to a point where its becomes harder to make distinctive antagonists because they’re all being written within the confines of having to be pure evil. Like how many variations of Freeza, Piccolo or Vegeta can you have before the writing gets predictable? But then again, if you’re story going to regress into simple good vs evil anyway then its a waste. I really felt that way about Zamasu in particular
I've always wondered why your videos don't get more views and I think I have the answer. You need some light music going in the background for sure it'll breakup the silence in the edits where you cut around lines and most analysis/discussion videos have music in them. I think you should give it a shot. Much love
Getting closer to the end of GT, I'm legit wondering what'll be next. If it's Super, I hope he covers the manga. Though if he's going in chronological order, then actually wouldn't that Yo Goku Returns special be next?
A deep dive into the Evil Dragons' character motivations and a harsh examination of the morality of killing? Pish-posh. We've got plushies to sell. Take that philosophical fol-de-rol to Hunter X Hunter where it belongs.
You know watching yesterday's review of the final season of Jackie Chan Adventures makes the design even worse! I mean compared this to the fusion of Jackie and the Earth Demon in Moon versus Earth this fusion is night and day oh my gosh I even didn't realize that I made the pun one more thing sorry I had to add that now back to the research gotta get my obligatory uncle lines in
Hey I've been a fan for about 4 years now. I think after finishing gt you should forget about super and instead analyze One Piece. It's way more relevant than super and is leagues better than even og dragonball. Not sure if you've read it or not but either way it's a fantastic series
Yeaaaah Let's get this video to a lot of views in the first hour so that it gets love from youtube Algorithm bless this video which i liked even before watching it because it's that good Seriously, sometimes i end up pissed off because i can't like it again after watching it, fix that youtube Lots of words lots of engagement, yadda yadda
You forgot to mention that Qixinglong was born from the wish of Vegeta‘s victims being brought back to life. I hope you will address the wishes that gave birth to Sixinglong and Sanxinglong. Because, despite the fact that Sanxinglong is addressed as the older brother, the birth that gave birth to him happened chronologically after the wish that created Sixinglong.
@@MistareFusion And now you need to react to dozens of comments on youtube of people pointing it out. So, while it didn't add anything to the story, maybe it would have added something to your script. Or at least saved you some time out here in post-post production.
Every time something like this comes up, it makes me think of the first 30 seconds of this video. =P ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C3RUBa_QDMY.html
I commented this on the previous video, but it would’ve made a lot more sense for the three star dragon to have been born from the wish used to revive the people killed by Piccolo Daimao and Tambourine. That would’ve served as a decent explanation for how he and the four star dragon are “brothers”, and how they personalities (and abilities) are in direct contrast to one another.
The heroes in Star Wars are active while the villains are reactive. Same with Hunger Games. Not too get too much into real world politics, but I'm sick of people being blamed for escalating the situation in reaction to prolongued, often systemic abuse, rather than one easily-traceable malicious attack. In a fictional setting, is a woman who kills her abusive husband a bully? Is a kid who punches the guy who's being whispering slurs at him and writing threats on his locker? I'm sick of victims being blamed, when someone brings them to a breaking point. I know this doesn't apply here, but I think it very much applied to the Power Rangers pilot review, when the rangers were being called bullies for escalating the situation. Sometimes you can't be the perfect martyr just taking it until the villain steps on a puppy, because villains in real life are much more human. Much harder to spot. And Ilike stories that reflect that. I like that the Angel Grove friendgroup is more human in the pilot, because that's a better role model than these unattainable saints.
That really depends on which Star Wars and how you choose to view things. In the prequel trilogy the villain is reactive in the sense that the Heroes form the central power of the galaxy, but he's also active in that he's shifting the status quo with his macinations and the Heroes are reactive in trying to stop that. Then in the original trilogy the villains are active in the sense that they are blowing up planets and the heroes are reactive in that they try to stop stuff like that, but at the same time the heroes are the rebel force reacting against the new status quo that the empire has built. So I don't see either side as cleanly active or reactive in that conflict.
The heroes in Star Wars and Hunger Games are indeed reactive, reacting to the atrocities inflicted on them by the Empire and Panem. There would be no Rebellion without something to rebel against. Victim blaming is indeed a real problem that deserves real attention. However, it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about in this video. Nor am I advocating for heroes to be perfect martyrs until the villain steps on a puppy. In fact, what I'm arguing for is more nuance, as well as the show more effectively communicating what its message even is. What I say in the video is that the show is giving itself a perfect opportunity to explore the nuances and ramifications of going after villains who may or may not have done anything and who may or may not be evil. That sounds like an interesting story to me. But GT is only interested in sanding down those edges. We don't need to think about those things because the villains are 100% evil and deserve to die, and the heroes are 100% good and deserve to kill the villains. We don't need to think about it at all beyond that. It's not like Dragon Ball hasn't done this idea before. I love the moment in The Cell Arc when God sucks all the air out of the room by reminding Piccolo that they're the ones who started the fight with #18. In a series like DB, you start to take it for granted that if the heroes are fighting the villains, they're supposed to be doing it. I like the story instead pushing back and giving me something to think about.
@@MistareFusion I too want stories with more nuance. That's why I took umbridge with the implication that the heroes are bullies if they are being active. That felt like a broad statement that is easily proven wrong if applied to situations that aren't this specific one. And like I said, I know this doesn't apply here
