Critical Anime Overview #1: Dragonball franchise (The Buu Saga)

Buu Saga

In the last arc of Z, Toriyama was given more creative liberty. Things had more consistency instead of constantly replacing one thing with another because of pressure from the editors. At the same time Toriyama had lost interest in the franchise, since he was rehashing old ideas, like Buu being a repeat of the Piccolo set-up and the plot mimicking the one of the Android Saga. He didn’t even bother to flesh out the new ideas he introduced. Setting and lore were enriched, something which was absent in the Android Saga, but the new concepts were left undeveloped.
-We have no idea how Goku learned the fusion dance
-We have no idea what the demon realm is
-We have no idea how Buu and Dibidi were stopped in the past

The older characters were also a shadow of their former glory. The new ones had nothing to offer.
-Kaioshin was foddered in a few episodes, despite being the strongest god as of yet
-Piccolo became a mentor of a technique he couldn’t use himself in the same way
-Gotten and Kid Trunks were quickly turned from the last hope against Buu, to useless comic reliefs
-Videl was supposed to be another dynamic fighter, but in the typical Toriyama fashion, she was quickly mocked in battle and became a submissive housewife

Gohan in particular was a huge middle finger, since he supposed to be the new protagonist. But Toriyama had no idea how to write a smart hero and Japan seemed to love Goku a lot more. Thus the finale of the Android Saga was contradicted, by mutating Gohan into a loser doing super sentai nonsense, and bringing back Goku to the role of the protagonist despite claiming he didn’t want to return anymore.

Vegeta was sort of cool for awhile, as he got possessed and killed a lot of innocents, before sacrificing himself to protect the planet he came to love. Unfortunately, it was hollow and cheap in the longrun. He had killed billions of people in the past and instead of getting punished in the afterlife, he was allowed to return for the fusion dance. Also, the deaths he caused were taken away when everyone was wished back to life, and his sacrifice was pointless since it failed to defeat Buu.

Also, his much anticipated rematch with Goku was the most pointless event in the arc, since it didn’t have the tension of the Saiyan arc. As if by magic, Vegeta was now as tall as Goku and was using the exact same techniques as him, effectively losing everything that was making him stand out. The rematch also got interrupted before there was a definitive winner, so there was no pay-off. Also, Goku would have won anyways, since he could go SSJ3 anytime he felt like it and kick the crap out of Vegeta. Effectively, the rematch was a troll and eventually a waste of time.

Speaking of waste of time, Toriyama was procrastinating at this point by making Goku act like a retard. By not defeating Vegeta right away, he allowed Buu to gather enough energy to be freed, and then changed his mind about personally defeating Buu with SSJ3, causing everyone on Earth and countless other planets to die. It’s the result of Goku no longer having a vendetta with his enemies after Namek, and playing around with them even if it endangers the entire universe. But, hey, it’s all done for the joy of the battle, right? No reason to blame him for having fun instead of protecting the innocent, as he seemed to be doing in the previous arcs. Turns out he was never the hero most of us thought he was. He was just a battle frenzy asshole.

As before, the plot was just the characters constantly one-uping each other with power-ups that were cheaply acquired, were not used properly, and were losing their importance in a manner of minutes. And this time it was worse than in the Android Saga because defeat meant getting absorbed by Buu, thus making him stronger the more they were trying to become stronger. By the time they managed to defeat Buu through a convoluted combo of wishes, I just wanted the damn thing to end.
-SSJ was a joke by now, as even little kids could unlock it with no effort
-SSJ3 was completely worthless and never defeated a single opponent
-Gotenks was too stupid to bother defeating Buu
-Mystic Gohan was too careless to bother defeating Buu
-Vegeto was too prideful to bother defeating Buu

Speaking of Buu, he was suffering from the same issues as Cell; not having any personal connection with the heroes, as Vegeta and Frieza had. Because there was no vendetta, Buu had a mentality of a baby, Goku was just fooling around, and death had lost its meaning, the story had become a playground for manchildren instead of a sinister plot full of tension and suspense.

Unlike Cell, Buu had a personality, although it was closer to multiple personalities coexisting in the same body. It was a good idea at first, showing how his emotions can make him flip from one persona to another, based on how he was treated by others. But, just like every good idea after Namek, it was ruined because Toriyama stopped giving a shit. The hints of complexity Buu’s personality was showing were taken away when he divided into good and evil bodies. It became a clear case of help the good side and beat the evil side. And even the evil side reincarnated into a good guy later on, thus making good and evil to lose their meaning if they can flip-flop so easily.

The only good part of this entire mess was mister Satan and his interactions with Buu. They were funny, tactical, and far more meaningful than the father and son interactions of the previous arc. Yes, Satan was introduced during the Cell Games, but he was just comic relief and filler material. It was in this arc where he became a part of the plot and manipulated everyone for his personal gain. And he did it without ever becoming a villain or needing a useless power-up for beating the bad guys with brainless force. He was essentially more heroic, than the main heroes, who at this point were procrastinating and looking for excuses to fight, instead of using their brains to stop the bad guys with something other than useless power-ups.

As a whole, I consider the Buu Saga to be slightly better than the completely throwaway time travel BS / no personality Cell. But not by much, since it’s still a complete mess with very few good parts to make it worthwhile. I give it a 3/10 and wish these two arcs would fusion dance into one. Their plots were pretty much the same (Cell = Buu, Gero = Babidi, Trunks = Kaioshin), most of the character had pretty much the same role (or none), and doing so would improve characterization and minimize the time wasted on useless power-ups.