I’m at the buu vs gotenks fight now in my rewatch. This whole saga starting with the martial arts tournament has so much filler. Even more than the android and cell saga and it’s the worst filler too. It felt like they were making it up as they went along. It didn’t need to be anywhere near this long. They clearly didn’t know how they wanted this saga to end or where they wanted characters to go. Buu as a villain suffers the most here, arguably worse than Gohan even. His motivation and reason for existing are nonexistent.
Toriyama made up EVERYTHING as he went along going from the very beginning of Dragon Ball, although he also said the Buu saga was the one he did with the least amount of editorial influence and he was also burnt the fukk out, as he'd been going 10 years straight at that point. But yeah, narratively it's all over the place.
The theme for the first half of the arc is that Goku's not even part of this world anymore, and it's time for Gohan to be the guy, But then Toriyama decided he didn't like Gohan as the hero so he completely abandoned the whole setup.
Even cell suffered from the same problem honestly. What’s his motivation for anything? Why design him to not be complete until he eats 17 & 18 instead of just design him to be complete? Why does he want to destroy the planet? What does that accomplish?
Cell's character is basically a Kung-Fu villain personified. He doesn't want to take over the world, he just wants to prove that he's the toughest nikka breathing and nobody can fukk with him. Basically an inverse Goku
He even says to Trunks, "I was created to Kill Goku, but I don't care about all of that anymore. I just want to have fun.
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As far as decision making goes, the difference between the Cell saga and the Buu saga is that all of the mistakes nikkas made in the Cell saga were expected and in-character. Vegeta being full of himself, Krillin being a simp, Goku being nonchalant and caring about fighting too much, Gohan being soft, etc,
The Buu saga on the other hand, everybody develops brain injuries at the most convenient times. Like Goku outchea throwing earrings with Brock Osweiller accuracy now?