Back for another week, no preamble today, let’s just get straight into it.
I liked these episodes. I mentioned last week that it seemed like they were taking this series in more of an original Dragon Ball direction and this is even more evident here. We do get the pay off of the fight with Ledgic, which is short but a decent fight, with some cool animation. I really liked that at one point in the fight you see Goku’s reflection in his adversary’s sword, those little details show that while Toriyama is not involved in this series, for the most part, the new creators are doing this as a labour of love, not just for a quick buck (although I’m sure that easy Dragon Ball money helps). After this fight the dramatic tension is dropped for the next 3 episodes, bringing a more light-hearted vibe. We visit 2 more planets, Monmaasu and Gelbo, both of which are completely different to Imecka. If all the worlds looked the same, this early planet-hopping would become stale real quick but I’m actually excited to see where they end up week-to-week. Giant planet Monmaasu, one of the few things in this series that was designed by Toriyama, is especially striking. While I mentioned earlier the commendable efforts of the new staff, it’s still clear to see who the master is here, this luscious landscape is breathtaking. Gelbo is a little more generic, but the troubles with local bad guy Zoonama and his arranged marriage to Trunks in drag were some of the better-timed comedy moments of the series so far.
There are of course things that don’t make sense. For example, Zoonama’s “power” is to create earthquakes, but our three friends can fly, so he should really have little-to-no effect on them. Then Trunks finally puts him down with just one blow to the head, why not do this half an hour ago? Also to solve the eruption towards the end of episode 8, Goku just destroys the volcano. Now I’m no geologist, but I’m pretty sure you can’t just blow up a volcano to stop the flow of lava (although I’ll play nice for now and assume that the rubble from said attack plugged the hole in the planet’s crust or something like that). I feel the suspension of disbelief may start to become more important as this series goes on.
Another thing, not story-related, just a general complaint. I don’t need to see Goku’s wang. I get that we’re all human (or Saiyans, or both), all guys have one, and that kind of humour is a quick easy joke, but those shots linger just a little too long and that scene would have been just as funny seeing him just from the waist up and letting the character’s reactions do the heavy lifting.
Mild criticism aside, I have yet to see why people hate GT so much. Yeah, it tries to be funnier than Z, but Toriyama did this (and is still doing this) in Dragon Ball Super and that seems to get a free pass (need I remind you of Vegeta’s dancing during Battle for Gods). Episode 8 closes out with a mystery man stealing one of the Dragon Balls. Where will this guy take us, find out next time on Dragon Ball Geeeee Teeeeee… (yeah, that voiceover geezer is still annoying me greatly)