Dragon Ball is one of my all time favorite media franchises period. It even rivals the likes of all of the Nintendo IPs (don’t kill me Smashboards). I’ve seen every episode of Dragon Ball Z, Super, and GT (although I don’t like to talk about that one).
Y'know, now that Super's concluded, I think GT gets **** on too much.
Both GT and Super start off slow with half a year's worth of episodes no one wants (Black Star Saga/rehashing the movies we already watched). Both make new
more powerful dragonballs to artificially up the stakes even though the wishes they grant aren't any different from normal dragonballs. Both have an interesting villain who relies on stealing a saiyan's body to be relevant. Both have filler episodes despite not having a manga to follow. And both see Goku (and to some degree Vegeta) get way too powerful for any of the other characters to matter while also screwing up the power scaling already present in Z because **** continuity.
Where Super is better than GT, IMO, is its better humor that's as entertaining for adults as it is kids and its meaningful character additions-- namely Beerus, Whis, Vados, Champa and Cabba. Where GT is better than Super-- something I see rarely discussed-- is its more focused narratives, the SS4 design and the general animation (outside of the end of the ToP arc, that stuff was top tier). GT is still arguably the worst series of the four, due in large part to its complete 180 in tone after the part Toiyama planned wasn't getting ratings, but I think it gets the short end of the stick just because it's easy to hate on (and because of its terrible American soundtrack).
I still love it though.
Feel free to give some of them a listen. There's also a 100% chance I forgot some.
