Dragon Ball GT

Dragon Ball GT combines the wacky adventure aspects that drew people to classic Dragon Ball with the crazy fight scenes characteristic to Dragon Ball Z, making it my personal favorite entry in the series. I realize this opinion is not a popular one. Many people felt that GT just didn't live up to the standards of the first two series, and that it got downright stupid at times... however, I've known the entire series has been pretty stupid from day one (rabbits on the moon!), so GT has never stood out in that regard.

Writing: GT's canonicity is a hot topic of debate for many fans of the franchise. Canon or not, however, the series follows a pretty similar formula to the first two: Three arcs, three big bads. I would argue that the plot itself is actually closer to that of the original Dragon Ball, as it begins with a search for the titular magic balls (albeit this time on a galactic scale)... only this time, the cute female lead remains relevant throughout the series. The adventures are crazier, the bad guys are stronger, and the production values are higher--what more could you want from Dragon Ball?

Art: The art is a very noticeable cut above previous entries in the series. Everything is much more sharply defined, more visual effects are employed, and everything looks like it came from the digital era as opposed to the previous two series' rather 90's animation style. When I had heard that they were re-drawing the frames of animation for Kai, I was so sure they were going to bring this shiny new art style to Z. Imagine my disappointment.

Sound: As with Z, there are two soundtracks to this series--the original Japanese, which employs the same goofy Dragon Ball style of music across all three series, and the American soundtrack, which most Toonami viewers are probably familiar with. The latter does tend to suit the action scenes better whereas the former is better suited to the intermediary scenes. Easily the most infamous piece of audio from GT is the English opening sequence, which I do hate with a passion, but has thankfully been replaced on commercial releases. The original opening and closing are pretty darn catchy, and the voice-over work holds up to the same standards as Dragon Ball Z did. Not spectacular in either language, but certainly not bad. And it finally suits Goku to sound like a 10-year-old in Japanese.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed GT, at least relative to the other entries in the series. Most are inclined to disagree. It can be hard to determine whether an existing fan of the franchise will enjoy this series or not without watching it, so dive in with an open mind and see what happens.