Dragon Ball GT
Dragon Ball GT is a Japanese anime series based on Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga. Produced by Toei Animation, the series premiered in Japan on Fuji TV on February 7, 1996, spanning 64 episodes until its end on November 19, 1997.
Unlike the previous two anime in the Dragon Ball franchise, Dragon Ball GT does not adapt the manga by Toriyama, but is a sequel show to the Dragon Ball Z anime with an original story using the same characters and universe.
Plot
Five years after the 28th Tenkaichi Budōkai, Goku is accidentally turned back into a child by the Black Star Dragon Balls used by his old enemy Emperor Pilaf and is forced to travel across the universe to retrieve them, accompanied by his granddaughter Pan and Trunks. The trio go through various adventures in their journey to find the Black Star Dragon Balls, until they encounter the artificial Tuffle parasite, Baby, who intends to destroy the Saiyan race as his revenge for their extermination of the Tuffles many years ago.Baby has the ability to invade other people's bodies and turn them into Tuffles, as well as mutating a host's body and combining its power with his own to become an incredibly powerful warrior. After turning practically all of the Earth's population, including the Saiyans, into Tuffles, Baby decides to convert Vegeta's body into his own and use it to kill Goku. Goku fights him and is quickly defeated, but, after having his tail regenerated by Kibito Kai and Old Kai, transforms and achieves the power of Super Saiyan 4. In this new form, Goku easily overpowers Baby before destroying the evil Tuffle by propelling him into the sun with a 10x Kamehameha. Piccolo then sacrifices himself to permanently destroy the Black Star Dragon Balls when the Earth explodes after Goku and the others help the people of Earth evacuate to Planet Plant, which Baby had wished back into existence using the Black Star Dragon Balls.
A year after Baby's defeat, Dr. Myuu and Dr. Gero create an evil replica of Android 17 and have it fuse with the original Android 17, creating Super Android 17. Super 17 seems impervious to Goku's attacks, but when Android 18 attacks him for murdering her husband, Krillin, Goku takes advantage of the distraction to penetrate through Super 17 with his Super Dragon Fist technique, then unleashes a Rapid-Fire Kamehameha that completely eradicates him.
Due to the constant misuse of the Dragon Balls, seven Shadow Dragons are then summoned to destroy the Earth. All but the most powerful, Syn Shenron, are defeated by Goku and Pan. Syn Shenron appears to be losing until he absorbs the Dragon Balls and gains tremendous power, transforming into Omega Shenron and surpassing even Super Saiyan 4 Goku's power. Goku is about to sacrifice himself to destroy the evil dragon, but Vegeta intervenes and gains the Super Saiyan 4 transformation with help from Bulma's newest invention, the Blutz Wave Generator. Goku and Vegeta merge using the Fusion Dance technique to create Gogeta, who uses his immense power to beat Omega Shenron to a pulp. However, after being too confident in his ability to defeat Omega Shenron, he uses up too much time in an attempt to embarrass him. Gogeta then defuses and Goku and Vegeta revert to their base forms. Eventually, using the energy of every living being in the universe, Goku creates the incredibly powerful Universal Spirit Bomb and uses it to destroy Omega Shenron once and for all.
The real Shenron appears to grant Goku and his friends one last wish, and then proceeds to disappear - along with Goku and the Dragon Balls. Several decades later, Goku's great-great-grandson, Goku Jr., competes in the 64th Tenkaichi Budōkai against Vegeta's descendant, Vegeta Jr., as the now-elderly Pan cheers him on. Pan then sees a rejuvenated Goku and tries to approach him, but he quickly disappears into the crowd. Goku then leaves the Tenkaichi Budōkai with a flashback covering all the events of his timeline. After the flashback ends, Goku then catches his Power Pole and rides off on his Flying Nimbus cloud.
Production
Unlike the previous anime series in the Dragon Ball franchise, Dragon Ball GT does not adapt the manga series written by Akira Toriyama, but tells an original story conceived by the staff of Toei Animation using the same characters and universe from the original Dragon Ball manga and it continues the story where Dragon Ball Z had left off. Toriyama did, however, come up with the Dragon Ball GT name, which stands for "Grand Tour", in reference to the series having the characters travel through the universe, and designed the appearances of the main cast. Toriyama himself referred to GT as a "side story of the original Dragon Ball".Chief character designer Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru said he agonized over designing Super Saiyan 4 Goku, which was the idea of the show's producers, questioning whether it was necessary to go further with the transformations. Because Super Saiyan 4 is brought about while in a Saiyan's Great Ape form, he made the hair more "wild" and covered Goku's body in red fur. There was only a single final draft of the character; although Nakatsuru did consider making the hair blond, he ended up choosing black as it provides more contrast with the red fur.
Music
The music of Dragon Ball GT was composed by Akihito Tokunaga, although the series uses five pieces of theme music by popular recording artists. Field of View performs the series opening theme, "Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku", which is used for all 64 episodes. "Hitori Janai", performed by Deen, is used for the ending theme for the first 26 episodes. Starting at episode 27, the series begins using Zard's "Don't You See!" for the ending theme. Episode 42 marks the next ending theme change, with "Blue Velvet" by Shizuka Kudō being used. "Sabitsuita Machine Gun de Ima o Uchinukō", performed by Wands, is introduced as an ending theme in episode 51. It was used as the ending theme for the remainder of the series, except for the final episode which reuses the opening theme.Localization
licensed the series for an English language broadcast in the United States. Their English dub of the series utilized their own musical score composed by Mark Menza and aired on Cartoon Network from November 7, 2003 to April 16, 2005. The company's home video release and original television broadcast both skipped the first 16 episodes of the series. Instead, Funimation created a composition episode entitled "A Grand Problem" which used scenes from the skipped episodes to summarize the story. The skipped episodes were later shown on Cartoon Network as "The Lost Episodes" after the original broadcast concluded. Funimation's English dub began re-airing in the US on Nicktoons from January 16 to December 13, 2012, and rerun until January 2, 2015 due to Adult Swim having rights to air Dragon Ball Z Kai through their Toonami programming block.AB Groupe produced an alternate dub for Europe and Canada and was aired on YTV and Toonami UK, which divided the episodes into two seasons while the original Japanese music composed by Akihito Tokunaga is retained in the Blue Water dub. The AB Groupe Dub first ran in the UK from March 3, 2003 on CNX until August 17, 2003.
Related media
Home media
In Japan, Dragon Ball GT did not receive a home video release until June 15, 2005, eight years after its broadcast. This was a remastering of the series in a single 12-disc DVD box set, that was made-to-order only, referred to as a "Dragon Box". The content of this set began being released on mass-produced individual 6-episode DVDs on August 6, 2009 and finished with the eleventh volume released on June 4, 2010.In North America, Funimation began releasing Dragon Ball GT on both VHS and DVD in edited and uncut formats in April and September 2006, starting with episode 17, after they made their own clip show episode titled 'A Grand Problem' to bring the audience up to speed with the story. After the final fifteenth volume, they released the first 16 episodes in five "Lost Episode" volumes between September 2006 and February 2007. They then released the series in DVD box sets; the first in October 2006 and finished in November 2008 with the first 16 episodes as a box set. Two years later, they began releasing the series again in DVD "remastered season" sets that finally put the episodes in proper chronological order; the first on December 9, 2010 and the second on February 10, 2011. A Game Boy Advance Video cartridge containing the episodes "A Grand Problem" and "Pan's Gambit" was released on September 7, 2004 by Majesco Entertainment. A complete series DVD box set including was later released on September 21, 2010. Manga Entertainment began distributing Dragon Ball GT on DVD in the UK on January 20, 2014, which are re-releases of Funimation's 2008 and 2009 sets. The first season set of Dragon Ball GT contains the first 34 episodes of the series on five discs, and was released alongside MVM Films' release of Is This a Zombie? of the Dead.
DVD releases
;Region 1| Name | Disc # | Release Date | Episodes | Saga |
| Reaction | 1 | September 13, 2006 | 1-3 | Black Star Dragon Ball Saga |
| Rejection | 2 | September 27, 2006 | 4-6 | Black Star Dragon Ball Saga |
| Ruination | 3 | November 23, 2006 | 7-9 | Black Star Dragon Ball Saga |
| Conviction | 4 | December 14, 2006 | 10-12 | Black Star Dragon Ball Saga |
| Activation | 5 | February 8, 2007 | 13-16 | Black Star Dragon Ball Saga |
| Affliction | 6 | April 15, 2007 | 17-19 | Baby Saga |
| Incubation | 7 | April 15, 2007 | 20-22 | Baby Saga |
| Creation | 8 | June 3, 2007 | 23-25 | Baby Saga |
| Proliferation | 9 | June 3, 2007 | 26-28 | Baby Saga |
| Ramifications | 10 | July 15, 2007 | 29-31 | Baby Saga |
| Preparation | 11 | July 15, 2007 | 32-34 | Baby Saga |
| Annihilation | 12 | October 14, 2007 | 35-37 | Baby Saga |
| Salvation | 13 | October 14, 2007 | 38-40 | Baby Saga |
| Calculations | 14 | December 30, 2007 | 41-44 | Super 17 Saga |
| Revelations | 15 | December 30, 2007 | 45-47 | Super 17 Saga |
| Evolution | 16 | February 3, 2008 | 48-51 | Shadow Dragon Saga |
| Revolution | 17 | February 3, 2008 | 52-54 | Shadow Dragon Saga |
| Realization | 18 | March 30, 2008 | 55-57 | Shadow Dragon Saga |
| Conversion | 19 | 58-60 | Shadow Dragon Saga | |
| Generations | 20 | May 11, 2008 | 61-64 | Shadow Dragon Saga |
| Name | Release Date |
| A Hero's Legacy | November 16, 2008 |
| Name | Date | Discs | Episodes | Sagas |
| Season One | December 9, 2010 | 5 | 1-34 | Black Star Dragon Ball/Baby Saga |
| Season Two | February 10, 2011 | 5 | 35-64 + TV Special | Baby Saga/Super 17/Shadow Dragon Saga/A Hero's Legacy |
| The Complete Series | September 21, 2011 | 10 | 1-64 + TV Special | Black Star Dragon Ball/Baby/Super 17/Shadow Dragon Saga/A Hero's Legacy |
;Region 2
| Name | Date | Discs | Episodes |
| Dragon Box GT: Dragon Ball GT DVD-BOX | February 28, 2005 | 12 | 1-64 + TV Special |
| Name | Date | Discs | Episodes |
| Dragon Ball GT Season 1 | January 20, 2014 | 5 | 1-34 |
| Dragon Ball GT Season 2 | March 17, 2014 | 5 | 35-64 + TV Special |
| The Complete Series | December 3, 2018 | 10 | 1-64 + TV Special |
Art books and manga
There are two companion books to the series, called the Dragon Ball GT Perfect Files, released in May 1997 and December 1997 by Shueisha's Jump Comics Selection imprint. They include series information, illustration galleries, behind-the-scenes information, and more. They were out of print for many years, but were re-released in April 2006 and this edition is still in print.In 2013, an anime comic version of Dragon Ball GT, starting from the final arc, began running in Shueisha's Saikyō Jump magazine. It began serialization in the January 2014 issue, which was released on December 4, 2013. Upon completing the arc, the comic resumed by starting from the beginning of GT in June 2019.
Video games
There have been two video games produced based on Dragon Ball GT, the first being ' in 1997 for the PlayStation, which received international releases that same year, making it the first Dragon Ball game to be released in North America. The 2005 Game Boy Advance game ' was released exclusively in North America.Two "GT Packs" were released for the game Dragon Ball Xenoverse on March 10, 2015, and April 14, 2015, respectively. Both Packs can also be obtained through the game's season pass.
Goku as he appears in Dragon Ball GT is a playable character in Dragon Ball FighterZ. The character was released as paid downloadable content on May 9, 2019.
Reception
In 2010, producer Ryo Mito stated that "GT is popular with fans overseas. In Japan, it's not as popular."The English dub of Dragon Ball GT, produced by Funimation, received mixed-to-negative reviews. IGN called it "downright repellent," mentioning that the material and characters had lost their novelty and fun. They also criticized the GT character designs of Vegeta and Trunks as being "goofy." Anime News Network also gave negative comments about the anime, mentioning that the fights from the series were "a very simple childish exercise" and that older fans will want to stick with other anime. The series's plot was also criticized for giving a formula that was already used in its predecessors. Although, it did call it "a fun ride when not taken very seriously."