Title : Top Review: Black Star Dragon Balls Saga (DBGT episodes 1 - 22) by Top Blogger
link : Top Review: Black Star Dragon Balls Saga (DBGT episodes 1 - 22) by Top Blogger
Top Review: Black Star Dragon Balls Saga (DBGT episodes 1 - 22) by Top Blogger
Dragon Ball Z ended its weekly run on Fuji TV on January 31st 1996. Dragon Ball GT began its run on the same channel, in the same time slot, with largely the same staff, on February 7th 1996. There was no break between the last episode of Z and the first episode of GT. And unlike DB and Z's long weekly runs on TV, there was no original manga from which to adapt story. Dragon Ball's staff was doing something they'd never been asked to do before... Sure, they'd come up with filler content, but even some of that (probably more than we'll ever know officially) had input from the original author. GT was a different beast. Toriyama gave them some concept sketches and then he was done. Dragon Ball's future was now in the hands of its anime staff, and with only a week between Z's end and GT's premiere.
It's something pretty important to keep in mind when you watch GT.
As usual, you can find all my other reviews here: http://thedragonballblog.blogspot.com/search/label/review
My rating system works 1 through 3, with 1 being "Poor", 2 being "Good", and 3 being "Great". Keep in mind I'm grading the story against itself, not other things; Dragon Ball is still my favorite, even when I'm critical of it.
Black Star Dragon Balls Saga
Rating: Poor (1 out of 3)
Story
Its been five years since Goku and Oob left the 28th Tenka-ichi Budokai for training. The story begins with the two of them concluding their training at Kami's Temple, where the Pilaf Gang have come in search of Dragon Balls created by Piccolo Daimao and Kami from before they split apart. Goku walks in as Pilaf summons the Ultimate Shen Long, which causes Pilaf to accidentally wish Goku was a kid again so he could catch him. Now a child, Goku must team up with his granddaughter Pan and Bulma's son Trunks to travel the universe collecting the seven Black Star Dragon Balls before a year passes, or else the Earth will explode.
Along their quest, they make friends with a Machine Mutant they call Giru, and slowly learn the truth about the Machine Mutants and their creator, Dr. Myuu.
The story is... a mess. It tries very hard to recapture the whimsy of the original Dragon Ball, and occasionally it does, but it mostly ends up having many head scratching moments where the higher stakes of Z can't help but make the heroes look like idiots in GT. To put another way, they're trying to give us villains like the Red Ribbon Army, but after we've already seen Goku duke it out with Freeza, Cell, and Boo, those kind of stakes just aren't as believable - especially with the almost no explanation we're given as to why Goku Co. would be fighting as such a low level. On one hand, Goku is a kid again and supposedly lost many of his abilities. On the other hand, General Rild is supposedly stronger than Majin Boo, but Goku fights him evenly without going Super Saiyan.
In the end, the story gives up on trying to be Dragon Ball and accepts that if it's going to work, it needs to do it as Dragon Ball Z. The story begins to feel a bit less clunky, but it never stops feeling like the anime staff were writing this show week-to-week, with little regard to where the show was going.
Interestingly, Funimation originally released GT in the United States and Australia (through Madman entertainment) by cutting out the first 16 episodes, creating an all-new clip show episode covering the material from them as narrated by Pan, and then moved forward with episode 17 and on. 1-16 were later released as the "Lost Episodes" and pardon the easy joke, but it might have been better had they stayed lost.
Fights
Admittedly, most of the fights in this block of episodes are rather lame. Goku vs Ledgic is fun but short. Pan wantoning kicking things to death is always amusing. And Goku vs Rild is a pretty rad fight, all said. But on the other hand, Goku vs Oob and Goku vs the Mega Cannon Sigma are such awful fights that I almost want to do a bottom 7 list. But I won't. Instead, I'll rank my favorite faces Trunks makes.
Honorable Mentions:
Animation
First, let's get it out of the way: The animation is good, on a technical level. With Ebisawa gone from the series since DBZ 290, we only really need to watch out for Uchiyama episodes. Otherwise all the other animators are perfectly up to snuff. Yamamuro is still leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, but that's fine. Episodes are rarely poorly animated. (The Opening and Ending animations are some of the most beautiful drawings in the franchise.) That said, the color palette looks so much more 90s than Z ever did, or DB ever looked 80s. It's neon as fuck and makes the show look more aged than its older predecessors. But the most distressing part is how the animators treat Pan.
This is a real frame of animation where an actual adult in 1996 drew Pan jutting suggestively as she clings to Trunks. Pan is a 9 year old girl.
The opening animation dedicates a few of its precious 60 seconds to showcasing Pan's rear as she leaps onto a ostrich. One episode dedicates several seconds to an extreme close up of Pan brushing off her butt. Another episode has Pan drop a key down her shirt and then give Trunks bedroom eyes as she taunts him like it's a modern day harem anime. And they aren't the only times. To me, it seems like the animators who worked on DBGT were purposefully sexualizing Pan's body despite the fact that she's a kid. Even her design - the exposed mid drift to make her appear more hourglass than she actually is, as a kid - feels pretty scummy to me. Of course, the design of Pan (and Bra, which is by all accounts much, much more sexualizing and she's a year younger than Pan) was provided by Toriyama... but the animators definitely sexualize her more than he did in the few bits of official artwork he provided. (Not that is weird mid drift choices on two young girls should be excused.)
Pan is a fun character otherwise, so it's a shame to see early days Lolicon anime culture seep its way into Dragon Ball. Or maybe it's entirely innocent, and I'm viewing it with the eyes of someone who has seen what anime would become. But... I don't think so. Shame on you, Toei.
Music
After Dragon Ball Z wrapped, Shunsuke Kikuchi retired from his long career composing music. To replace him for Dragon Ball GT, Toei tapped Akihito Tokunaga... a guy who never did music for anime before, or after, GT. And you can tell. How does one best describe Tokunaga's music? Childish, clumsy, out-of-place, bad. Even though I never recommend the American dub over the original Japanese with American subtitles, I totally get how someone cannot stand to watch this show with Tokunaga to the point where they switch it to English just to hear Mark Menza play a note that's relevant to the fucking scene. The BGM is just not good.
The Opening and Ending songs are really great, though, even if they're just random J-Pop which have nothing to do with Dragon Ball otherwise. "Hitori Janai" performed by DEEN is one of my favorite songs completely apart from DB... so, getting to listen to it at the end of every GT episode eases the suffering of having to sit through 20+ minutes of Tokunaga struggling to figure out how a synthesizer works. Ugh.
Conclusion
DBGT is narrative whiplash, with highs immediately diverting right into staggering lows. The music is bad, the animation would be good if it wasn't neon colored pedo fodder, and DEEN's Hitori Janai is a great song. I can't recommend these episodes unless you've absolutely watched every other bit of DB/Z media available... and even then, lower your expectations.
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I take issue with criticism of Pan "jutting suggestively" as she clings to Trunks. The line of her body, with her back arched like that, illustrates how hard she is pressing into Trunks and gives the scene dynamic visual power. Tells the story in pictures; not words. Exemplary demonstration of the cartoonist's craft. Excellent work!
ReplyDeleteP.S. It's called a "midriff."