Better Series: Dragon Ball Super or Dragon Ball GT

[powerjake]

Which anime was the better continuation for Dragon Ball Z, What anime had the more interesting stories and characters. Was Dragon Ball Super an improvement as it had the return of the creator Akira Toriyama or is Dragon Ball GT a more entertaining series for being very different as a sequel.

 

[Freddy]

Super and for me personally, it's not even a contest.

Sure, Super has its flaws. The "recap arcs" had terrible pacing and animation, and Goku Black arc was probably the only arc of the series with actually interesting story, but Super wins by pure charm and entertainment factor. It is often joked about that Super was the first Dragon Ball anime with good filler and it's easy to see why, since they were always fun slice-of-life episodes that gave us good times with the characters we like. Plus, in terms of new character introduced, Beerus and Whis alone are better than any of the GT characters, with Hit being not far behind.

GT is honestly painful to watch. It tried to recapture the tone and spirit of the early dragon ball, but failed miserably and had tons of plot contrivances in order to do so. It had some interesting ideas, but didn't do anything interesting with them, like the Shadow Dragons. And while Super was guilty of mainly focusing on Goku and Vegeta, it gave the other cast of characters plenty of spotlight moments, while GT was mostly the Goku show.

 

[ShadowBeast]

Like Freddy had pointed out, this isn't even a contest. DragonBall Super beats GT by miles. GT isn't even in the same universe(get it?) of being good enough for the DragonBall franchise. I was especially annoyed by Pan.

DBS on the other hand, has awesome and fun characters like Beerus,Whis,Caulifla, and the young Pilaf gang.

 

[Space Cadet]

For me, it's Super. The interesting thing is that I didn't really get into Super until the Goku Black arc. Before then, I liked the show, but it wasn't grabbing me, especially when the first two arcs were just retreads of their movie versions. I thought it was going to be similar with the Goku Black arc(Future Trunks coming back again?) but it had enough elements to hook me in.

As for GT, I don't think it's a bad series if you look at it in an alternative universe sense. The first 20 episodes where they emulate the Dragon Ball-style adventures were kinda painful but once Baby shows up, I think the show gets better.

If the anime series continue, it'll be interesting to see if they ever reach the point where GT was at.

 

[Yojimbo]

Super all the way. GT killed my interest in Dragon Ball. Super resurrected my interest in Dragon Ball. The Broly movie was jaw dropping. And what I'm hearing about the Moro saga in the manga, can't wait to see it animated!

 

[DBTrilogy100]

Like the others that have shared their thoughts so far, I would consider DBS to be the stronger series between it and DBGT but I also feel both shows have their pros & cons and will go into greater detail about that in this post.

I think it is nice to see how DBS seems to have a warm reception on this website as I feel that some fans (especially certain big name fans) elsewhere were overly harsh about the show thinking back on what I heard before I watched the show. Some of the complaints I have heard were flaws that have existed in previous shows of the franchise such as poor animation and weird power scaling. Granted, DBS did have some rough animation at times due to being rushed out but I would say the Universe Survival Saga did show some significant improvement. With regards to the power scaling, I have come to accept long ago that the franchise has had its moments of following the "don't think about it and just watch the flashy fights" approach and I would argue that DBGT had even weirder power scaling in comparison; I feel I should also clarify that while I do think some fans might get too fixated on power scaling to the point that they may forget (if not, outright ignore) that "being stronger" doesn't always matter when it comes to winning a fight or dealing with non-straightforward concepts, I still disagree with the fans that try to insist that power scaling debates are "the worst thing to happen to the fandom".

Having said that, I should also clarify that I do feel that the series did have its flaws. The flaw I would consider to be the biggest one would be how it felt like the show had a habit of exaggerating Goku's vices in a misguided effort to counter how the DBZ anime (both the dub & the sub, to varying degrees) had a habit of exaggerating Goku's virtues/heroic qualities; although I will say that there were still moments that seemed to get the idea behind Goku (he's not a super hero and he may let the thrill of a good fight get the better of him at times but he still cares about his family, his friends and innocent lives) and I can appreciate those moments. Other aspects about the show I wasn't too big on were the retcon involving the Potara Earring Fusion, Buu not participating in both tournaments and some missed opportunities (such as Universe 10's Destroyer & Universe 10's Angel Assistant not showing up during the Zamasu Saga and Kelfa not fighting another Fusion character).

On the other hand, I do feel that DBS did have its strong points and feel it did certain things better than other shows in the franchise. I would consider the show's strongest point to be the way it added to the lore and the "multiverse building" it did for the franchise, especially with regards to the divine hierarchy. I also appreciated how the show was willing to try its hand at a complex villain in the form of Zamasu and I would say Zamasu has become my favorite villain in the franchise and his saga has become one of my favorite sagas in the franchise. The Universe 6 Saiyans were a great way to explore the Saiyan culture with regards to how the Saiyans of the twin universes are similar and different to each other; it's also awesome how the show introduced the first "canon" female Super Saiyans and the first "canon" fusion between female fuses. The Universe Survival Saga, in particular, gave some of the non-Saiyan characters a chance in the spotlight and that was especially nice in light of how some feel the Saiyans became a "spotlight stealing squad". I also found a fair number of the "breather episodes" to be a fun watch with the baseball episode being up there with DBZ's driving episode.

While I'm thinking about them, I suppose I should mention that I didn't have much of a problem with the re-tellings of the "canon" movies that started DBS (the Beerus Saga and the Golden Frieza Saga) and can understand the logic of having them so new viewers would know what's going on without needing to see the movies. I do feel that there were certain aspects that were done better in the movies but there were other aspects that I felt were done better in the re-tellings and I am even willing to say that I prefer the re-tellings over the movie versions even with their flaws. I would even be fine if a re-telling of the Broly movie were to happen if the series were to receive a continuation of some kind.

As I had mentioned earlier, I consider DBGT to be the weakest series of the franchise and it's not hard to see why many fans make jokes about "GT" standing for "Goku Time"; I agree with the sentiments that DBS seemed to give other characters more chances in the spotlight even if Goku & Vegeta were still the ones getting most of the attention throughout the series. I wasn't a fan of Goku being changed back into a kid in DBGT and it bothered me that it was never undone throughout the series' run/just temporarily lifted through the Super Saiyan 4 transformation. I also feel that DBGT wasn't able to strike a balance between the tones of DB and DBZ while I feel DBS did a better job at striking such a balance.

Although I consider DBGT to be the weakest series of the franchise, I still think it does have its good points. Throughout the years, a common sentiment I have heard from other fans of the franchise is the sentiment that DBGT had great ideas/concepts/characters but they weren't executed as well as they could have been and I agree with that sentiment. After the positive reception of the Broly movie, I can see the appeal of seeing non-canon characters & non-canon concepts with a new perspective/being revised under Akira Toriyama's control which could tap into some hidden potential for these characters & concepts (especially taking into account how Broly was a notable "base breaking" character before he became a "canon immigrant"). With regards to a concept from DBGT, I consider the Super Saiyan 4 transformation to be a cool transformation with a unique design and would be on board with seeing it under Akira Toriyama's control (especially taking a certain detail from the Broly movie into account); I imagine that the transformation might receive a different name under those circumstances (similar to what happened with Broly's signature transformation). With regards to characters from DBGT, I consider Baby, General Rildo & the Shadow Dragons to be the highlights of the series and would be on board with the idea of them becoming"canon immigrants".

Of course, I can understand the concerns about potentially new characters and new concepts not being created if the franchise decides to just rely on making non-canon characters & non-canon concepts into "canon immigrants" but I think there's room for non-canon characters & non-canon concepts to become "canon immigrants" and for new characters & new concepts to be created; I don't think it has to be an "either or" situation. I do look forward to seeing what new characters & concepts will come from the franchise's future but I also see potential in the non-canon characters & non-canon concepts taking some of the concepts introduced in DBS into account and if they had more screen-time.

 

[ZHDBZ1994]

I personally much prefer Dragon Ball GT as I think it is still very underrated by a lot of people and I still believe way more heart was put into the making of GT than Super.

Mod Note: A thread already existed. New thread merged with old thread.

 

[powerjake]

It's rather odd how Dragon Ball GT only got 64 episodes, just sad how it never reached 100 episodes but maybe the fans never cared for GT that much.

 

[jaylop97]

I think I'll side with GT in this one.

I know for the franchise GT doesn't really fit in it all the way, given different the narrative was mostly around the first season, I really liked the different approaches GT had, I don't know how shocking this will be to a lot of people I actually did find most of the silly moments funny, which does work in GT's favor. I also really liked how the characterization for Goku was handled, I think it went more serious a different take for the hero, and I genuinely was pleased with that especially considering how he killed Baby and Super 17. That said I do think every other character in the series minus Pan was underdeveloped and lacked as much screentime, I was genuinely more invested with more along the way, than I was with Super.

Unfortunately even with how Super tried to step up later on, I was never really impressed with any of the arcs, everything felt more uninteresting and mostly expanded on DBZ cons worse. As much as I wanted to feel invested on the series it really didn't so much better for me than what GT offered, just having the patience of sitting through most episodes with pacing that feels slow, just made me not go far into Super, I was ultimately not a fan of how Super was handled.

 

[powerjake]

Once Dragon Ball Super was made, alot of people did not like the retcons it made like with the potara earrings revealed as a temporary fusion similar to the Fusion Dance method, with permanent fusion only being a result if a Supreme Kai is involved.