Honest thoughts on the Majin Buu Saga, the final canon saga to Dragon Ball? >Manga Publication Dates: 09 November 1993 — 23 May 1995 (81 weeks)>Anime Air Dates: 09 March 1994 — 31 January 1996 (100 weeks)
As a kid reading it all in one go from the collected Swedish edition, I thought it was on par with the rest of the manga with cool characters and moments and finding the ending to be pretty nice, especially for ending the series.Having reread it as an adult I have to say it's quite all over the place and has the most sense of writing without a plan or changing on a whim compared to previous arcs.There's a clear move from science fiction to fantasy/magic. Ever since Raditz appeared the series had leaned into sci fi, going even further with Cell saga including time travel and cyborgs and other things like that, so it was clear that Toriyama wanted to move away from that with focus on magicians and demons.The issue is that there isn't a clear escalation of threat level along with many characters just being dropped as if Toriyama didn't know what to do with them. Dabura comes across as a really cool and threatening villain that opens up further world building with the demon world, and Bibidi is nice to have as a non physical threat to distinguish him from other recent villains. But both are killed by Majin Buu and then forgotten. Most of the story becomes just a "and then" plot with everything just being fights without much emotional meaning to it.All in all I'd say it's a sloppy end to a seminal series, but it doesn't diminish the highs the series had accomplished.
The best arc, Toriyama at his peak. Stakes are high, shit is serious, there are plenty of twists and turns, his creativity is at its peak, and despite being arguably the darkest, he manages to expertly bring back the humor that he left behind several sagas before better than ever with Satan, Boo, Old Kai, several characters really. Characters get serious development and resolution, and we get new creative attacks again, in I think Gotenks attacks are the first new ones since I think Krillins Kienzan. Really a special mention to Boo, (Gohan and Piccolo absorbed Boo notwithstanding) who manages to be a huge breath of fresh air after all the villains prior since King Piccolo where about the same kind of evil calculating sadistic bad guy.
Honestly it could have been so much worse. Arcs end, (most) fights happen on screen, Goku finishes it with a Spirit Bomb powered by the world, Satan makes for levity and heart. Personally if they had Gohan fight Kid Buu in place of SSJ3 Goku while he's gathering energy, people would have had a better impression of him overall.
The weakest
