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Post by Jason9000 on Aug 3, 2022 22:13:48 GMT
Okay I will admit it's been a very long time since I made a new thread so please bear with me. With chapter 88 of the main tournament completed and Zen Buu is out of the story (most likely for now or who knows maybe he is gone completely). As we have examined U16 Bra and her characterization. I believe it is time we take a look at Zen Buu. As this will have a lot of pictures from the comic itself. I will put a spoiler tag here and a summary at the bottom. Words of warning, I will not be putting a spoiler tag for every comic page I use and I will not be using the novel. Most people read the comic and not the novel. I am operating under the belief that if you can't express the desired outcome in the comic, show, or movie, and have to use a novel, then you did not tell your story properly. You shouldn't have to rely on the novel to explain things that don't make sense in the main comic. Now this is going to be a long one, so buckle up buckaroos! I will start off briefly with a brief history of Universe 4 Buu. (This will be in page release order and not his chronological history baring the very first chapter of the comic.) His first real speaking appearance is on page 70 where he heals Uub's arm and he gives three different yet plausible reasons of why he helped Uub despite looking annoyed out of his mind.  The next page has him confirming that in his Universe he won against the Z-gang and absorbed many people to increase his powers since then. Following this we don't see much of Zen Buu. He's seen eating a ton of candy during the first lunch break where U16 Piccolo asks U16 Vegito if anyone at the tournament worries him and Vegito claims that U4 Buu doesn't worry him and neither does U20Broly. As we know Broly wakes up, kills a Varga, and the tournament organizers try to send him home, but then we this page.  Completely fine and similar to the end of Z where Goku asked Good Buu to use his magic to let his opponent be Uub at the 28th World Martial Arts Tournament. Zen Buu is then watching the match and after Vegito enters his second transformation and enters the ki beam struggle we got this (although this page is out of order I'm posting here like I mentioned above.)  Here we see Zen Buu a little shocked at what happened. Not scared out of his mind, but genuinely surprised. However on page 218 we get more of his inner thoughts.  Here Buu doesn't seem to concerned with Vegito and believes he will have to step in. Vegito unleashes Super Saiyan 3 to the public for the first time. We see many people cover their eyes, but we never see Zen Buu's reaction to it. Fast forward a bit to page 230 and Buu decides to go after Broly.  A page later Vegito notices that Zen Buu is gone and we get these next couple of pages.   Here we see Vegito showing off that he never lost Broly and could track him easily. While reminding Buu that he killed him in his universe and would do so again if he had to. Buu gloats that he's far superior than what Vegito had faced and was confident in his abilities of besting Vegito. However, even weakened Vegito realized that Buu was moving tiny parts of himself toward Broly, but stopped him immediately with his 'Kill Buu technique". With this begins the habit of Buu underestimating his opponents because he is the supreme god in his Universe. This does become a pattern so I'll do my best to keep count. For the rest of the chapter we get a weakened Vegito, Bra, and Gohan vs Zen Buu. They're barely able to hold him back as he makes multiple copies of himself to try and absorb Broly. Eventually Bra snaps and does this on page 275.  While Buu is caught by surprise again the next page shows he's made too many copies of himself for Bra to kill and she snaps out of it when she realizes that Vegito and Gohan were hurt by her actions. I would call this the second time he's underestimated an opponent, but like I said he's too spread out and is only momentarily caught by surprise. The three Universe 16 group return to the arena since Broly was sent back without them noticing during their fight. Buu follows and looks furious but calms down as seen here.  Vegito is left confused of Buu's true intentions and Buu still remains confident he can beat all three of them at their best with his own power. After this match, for the most part we are lead to believe that with U20 Broly gone and not using his "MAXIMUMMEST POWER HAX". Vegito is still the top dog with it implying Buu isn't far behind. Later in the first round it's U19 Xeniloum vs Buu on page 327.  Here we see Buu has incredible hearing and was listening in on the Universe 18 and 19 conversation about the new Ultra Armors. Buu is actually being courteous and reminding Xeniloum that as both touched the ring, he could have attacked without checking to see if Buu was ready. As a side note, I will admit I do miss this characterization of Buu where he seems to be respectful, not exactly in the mocking way of Frieza. It's seems more genuine, although it probably stems from his own ego and believed superiority over everyone. I do miss this over the troll like qualities he later shows in the comic. The rest of the fight plays out as follows.     Buu takes the Ultra armor at its technology interests him. At this point from what we've seen the Heloits of U19 have incredible technology that according to Piccolo can wipe out anyone below Super Saiyan 2 and can cut people's limbs off with ease. Because of this, we're lead to assume that they don't exist in Universe 4 or Buu just didn't encounter them yet. Later on we see Buu during U3 Bardock's flashing images of the future during his fight with U13 Raditz on page 419 where we see Buu starting his first rampage along with some more future images.  Following this we see Buu on page 485 asking for Gast and the organizers to forgo the disqualification and fight the Cell Junior that attacked him without touching the ring.  After the end of the first day we see Buu chatting with Frieza on page 528.  We see Buu telling Frieza that the Dragon Balls are not here and the organizers were smart to leave them elsewhere. Also that he is aware that Captain Ginyu is still alive as he can sense that someone is not in their correct body. While he does troll Frieza, it's really minor compared to down the road. The next day we get the fight between XXI and Vegito where Buu comments that he hopes the organizers will do the right thing on page 729. A couple of pages later Buu asks one of the organizers to ask XXI for a rematch with Vegito. Vegito then teleports away and then we get the start of Buu's first rampage that Bardock saw in one of his visions.     See page 740 here? Where Zen Buu covers Babidi's mouth, because he knows the sealing spell that Bibidi hardwired into his very structure as a failsafe? This is important and we'll come back to this much later. The next pages show that only Universe 18 combining their strength to make a shield can barely hold back Buu and every other Universe is taken over. Then we get page 744 that rocks Buu's world.   Here Gast is fed up with Buu's shenanigans and uses some type of telekinesis technique to grab up every bit of Buu and confine him to floating ball above his hand. This is Buu's wake up that he might not be as powerful as he thinks. For the second time Buu underestimated someone at the tournament. Gast stopped him completely without using Bibidi's sealing spell. This has never happened before and rightfully confuses the hell out of Buu. We're treated to a flashback chapter where on pages 769 and 770 talking to U16 Bra and Gohan letting them know he sensed a portal opening where Vegito was sucked inside. He realizes that Vegito will break out and assures them when he returns they can ask for a rematch as I stated above. We also see on page 774 that he's amazed at how U2 Arale is distorting reality much better than he can with his magic. He wonders out loud where did Universe 2 come from and why is it so different from the rest. We then flash forward to chapter 36 where he's still being held by Gast. The first five pages are the organizers, Supreme Kais, and Gast are talking about what to do with Buu. Gast believes they should send him back, but Buu broke all of the machines. They ask if he can hold Buu long enough for the new machines to arrive or if he can go with them as they drop Buu off. Buu then begs them to let him remain, claiming the thousands of personalities had him lash out, he'd repair everything, and would go along with being sent back if he does anything bad. Gast and four of the Supreme Kais do not believe him. Some of the Universe 19 are annoyed at Buu trying to manipulate the situation again and the audience is divided. Then we get page 794...  Grand Supreme Kai goes against the very policy he instituted back on chapter 25 on page 552.  Rightly so, the other Supreme Kais are shocked at this action as he was the one that started their mandate of being proactive and stopping evil the moment they find out. Now he's throwing caution to the wind and claiming he can copy Gast's technique and hold him until his next fight. Despite Gast stating he doesn't intend to hold him until the next round. Which is most likely Gast saying he can't hold him for that long without tiring himself out if he has to wait that long. However Grand Supreme Kai assures everyone that he can copy the technique. Even with Goku doubting it, Piccolo assumes that his knowledge of magic is very deep and was able to analyze and copy it.  We don't much of Buu until chapter 39, the second flashback chapter when Vegito went missing for about two hours.  I won't post the entire fight here. But again just like against his fight with Xeniloum. He allows his opponent to do what they can against him. Tien tries the Evil Containment Wave (Yes I am using the English names for everything.) But fails, because Buu placed copies of himself everywhere. Although he does lie by claiming he only has copies of himself on the ring. Tien tries his best, but Buu is just too powerful. We'll jump to chapter 42. Where we get the page that I now believe was the beginning of making Buu into the overpowered troll that he is.  Here we see West Supreme Kai checking with Grand to see if Buu is properly maintained as they are going to use a set of Dragon Balls to resurrect the fighters who have died in the tournament so far. Here Grand makes a comment that Buu is secured and his power is beyond the Dragon's. Now at the time when I read this, I assumed Grand meant warping reality. Not once in anywhere in the comic did it imply Buu could bring people back from the dead like one of the Eternal Dragons. That power was always something special to the Dragons. We've seen Buu change people and objects into food or other such things, but not bringing someone back from the dead. Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm surprised I missed this. Following this we get this page where North and East Supreme Kai speak about Grand acting weird and under the influence of Buu. And boy did we all underestimate how much they were right.  And with that I will end part 1 of this. I've left my laptop open for almost a week without shutting it down and it's causing it too slow down from leaving this open. Unless anyone knows how to save making a thread let me know as I would greatly appreciate it. Mods if you know how to put multiple spoiler tags let me know or edit this as you see fit since I have a lot of images from the comic. I'll have part 2 up in a few days. Summary for Part I: Buu's initial introduction was great. He was a mysterious character where many fans were guessing his strength. Based on his dialogue he claimed to be able to beat Vegito and put up a decent fight against an exhausted Vegito. However the comic showed that he had the habit of underestimating his opponents, which cost him greatly. Like I said in the spoiler, if anyone can direct me to putting in more than one spoiler tag, I will edit this with all the comic pictures in the thread. I'll have part 2 up in a few days as leaving my laptop on so I save this thread slows my computer down and I can only be on for a little bit at a time each day. |
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Post by Jason9000 on Aug 13, 2022 21:29:09 GMT
Now here is my Part II of my Universe 4 Buu and where I think it all started to go downhill for his character. Like I mentioned in my post above. I will have the full thread under a singular spoiler tag and a summary at the bottom of my Part II thread. And again I won't be using the novel for the same reason as I said above. Alright let's begin! So last I left off was the beginning of chapter 44 Buu's Escapades.   The first page of the chapter are North and East Supreme Kai still talking about Grand acting strange. North claiming he's been observing Grand's body, mind, and soul. However, nothing has changed according to him with East saying he spoke to Gast and Gast can't confirm nor deny that Grand was able to successfully copy his "Stop!" technique. With Gast also saying that his technique shouldn't be easy to copy. North postulates that Buu is working with Grand, but they aren't sure and both vow to remain vigilant. On page 985, we see a small particle of Buu come out of the ground.  Boy do I remember the debates when this page dropped and everything else afterwards. The idea of DBM's triumvirate of Vegito, Buu, and Gast was rocked to the core. At this point U20 Broly was gone and XXI was still too much of an enigma. On the one side we had those that claimed Gast never stopped Buu and it was all an act, and the other that Gast did stop Buu. But the moment he gave Buu over to Grand Kai he was able to escape. I admit I was in the later camp. At the time it didn't make sense for Buu to pretend to be captured by Gast just to do this. We only had Elder Kai from Universe 9 act surprised that XXI was there, but it was treated as a gag to the rest of the characters where he claimed it was not the one he was thinking of. The rest of the chapter deals with Buu dishing out 'upgrades' to the participants of the next round to make things 'interesting'.    *As a side note, I did chuckle at the time seeing Buu singing a classic Christmas song. And we get a panel of North and East questioning Grand. Although I feel like it should have been done in the morning. Because either North and East are slow as shit while walking. Or they've been standing there for hours and North just felt like asking this random question.*   So Buu uses his magic to repair Universe 14 Android 18, share his secrets of fusion with Goten and Trunks, talk to Universe 8 Buu about the rules, give Uub a magic lesson in his dreams, give Tapion a better way to control Hirudegarn, recharge Raichi's machine, give Frieza a false memory that expands his physic abilities, and have Cold use his intellect to make a wager with Son Bra. *Another aside, I am kind of bummed that Universe 16 Goten and Trunks didn't also get the secrets of fusion. Had the boys of Universe 16 been training the entire time and be stronger than their counterparts it would have been interesting to see a stronger Gotenks vs one that fuse back faster with no issue. But, that's another thread I don't have time for right now.* Buu's magic here wasn't anything spectacular. He hasn't shown stuff out of the realm of what Super Buu could do if he won and absorbed more people to increase his power. While I was still confused on how he's running around I was fine with little flashes of him having fun and using his powers. However, he completely skipped Cell because he never sleeps, Son Bra or 'furious girl' doesn't need help, Goku and Vegeta wouldn't accept any because of their Saiyan nature, and finally Gast. At the time I found this comment strange, as if Buu was so far above Gast why wouldn't he try to boost him? Gast shouldn't be able to detect him. However, I later chalked it up to him being bitter at being stopped an d not that Gast didn't need a boost. Although that was a little while after reading the chapter again back when the Majin Rebellion began. Finally Buu goes to check up on the XXI and we got this on page 993.  Here Buu is surprised at the apartment being changed and then XXI destroying this piece of himself, commenting that the attack was strong. I remember being surprised as well. I didn't expect anyone below Ultimate Gohan able to destroy pieces of Zen Buu based on the fight in space. This did feed the rumor mill of Buu and Grand working together. But, for a long time we didn't get anything from it. We don't see Zen Buu for a while until chapter 51 where Buu fights against Gotenks.   We start off on page 1147 where we see some of Babidi's pawns captured earlier by Pan and Videl. Foreshadowing what is coming. Grand also 'releases' Zen Buu and the djinn does put on the persona of being contrite for what happened and departs for the ring without issue.  While Gotenks shows off his new way of fusion, we have Uuub putting on his detective cap and noticing that someone or something helped the both of them.   Finally after many years, Buu powers up for the first time. The audience amazed at this power and Goku commenting he hasn't felt anything this strong since Vegito and Broly's fight the previous day. Another point cementing Buu's claim that he could beat Vegito. There is also a panel of Vegito with a drop of sweat. I interpreted it as Vegito annoyed that it's not him up there fighting Buu, but I do remember seeing others say this was Vegito a little nervous about being able to beat Buu. We see Gotenks shocked by Zen Buu's strength, but quickly powers up in response. Also we get a funny scene of Goku pointing out that Gotenks could beat him and Vegeta both quite easily to the annoyance of Vegeta. I won't post the whole fight. Most of it is Gotenks catching Buu off guard for a second, but Buu usually responds before Gotenks lands a surprise attack. While Gotenks seems to be a good sparing partner. His fusion time runs out and Buu mocks Goten and Trunks. But they show a new fusion dance on page 1154. Showing what Buu meant by his knowledge of fusion.  Gotenks showing that he can go back to full power with each dance with no time handicap. On the next page some of the Universe 18 members are surprised by this, but they don't comment on it. Zen Buu also decides to test out the Ultra Armor and it holds up really well against an enhanced Gotenks.     In the pages I've posted the armor's shield is able to tank a powerful Ki attack from Gotenks, it's sword is still a danger to Gotenks implying it could cut him to pieces, and the carbonite is still a danger. This really speaks more to the Universe 19 crew. Honestly give them another two decades and they're obliterating everyone in this tournament. That's even with the gains the various fighters would make if Universe 19's technological progress doesn't stagnate at all from what we've seen from the Universe 19 special to the time of the tournament. We get this next page where Gotenks defuses through his own willpower. Which I don't think has been shown in DBM or in official Dragon Ball material. Although I could be wrong and just missed it.   The fight ends with Zen Buu easily knocking out Goten and Trunks commenting that Gotenks fools around way too much and that individually they're not that strong so there wouldn't be a point to prolonging the fight. We see Grand open his hand with Buu returning to his ball form. However, the dialogue between the two of them shows that Buu was putting on a show of being captured again. This did look like another point for the pro Buu crowd and I did start to waiver in that Gast never actually stopped him and that Bigger Green wasn't as powerful as we initially thought. We then get a lunch break and don't see Buu until the beginning of chapter 55 right at the end of Bra and Cold fight.    Here we see Buu complimenting Son Bra on her various techniques she used against her opponent. I won't dive into the senzu bean debate as this is focusing more on Zen Buu and that has been done to death already. Buu comments that both Bra and Vegito have developed different techniques. Vegito could have ended his fight with Broly early, but he wanted to beat Broly the old fashioned away with punches and powerful Ki blasts. Showing that Buu is very perceptive and putting two and two together while watching fighters. We also see Grand call out Buu for the 'boosts' he gave everyone. However, Buu counters that he didn't increase anyone's power. He just brought the techniques and moves into the forefront of their mind. A sort of 'they had it in them all along' thing, but I don't believe that for Frieza with the false memory thing and seemed to increase his psychic powers. We also saw the Ginyu subplot pay off where it was revealed that 'King Cold' was actually Ginyu. Buu wasn't just messing with Frieza and proved to be correct in his statement that someone in Universe 8 wasn't in their original body. Buu showing the ability to detect souls was interesting, but he never did anything with it. It seems similar to Vegito's claim that he can destroy souls later in this chapter on page 1254. Sounds cool, but we never see it and we never learned how Buu developed this ability.  After this we don't see Buu again until the start of the Majin Rebellion. In chapter 59 we see Buu and the other participants on the gaseous planet that Babidi found in the hopes of killing most of the fighters off.  On page 1351 after Gast makes the dome of breathable air, the others begin discussing what happened where someone from Universe 19, (I can't remember all of their names to be honest. But, that's my fault) accusing Buu of taking them there, but he points out he's a victim of it too.  In the next couple of pages most are discussing what's going. They realize that Babidi has sprung a revolt and is most likely the ringleader. Goku says they have to go back quickly to stop him, but a nonchalant Vegito isn't fazed since there are two Gohans and Bra there. However, no one is listening and rightly still trying to get back asap. Goku does ask Buu for help with the panel, because of his last encounter, but Buu points out it's just a metal plate and they're not on Babidi's ship.   Here we see on page 1354 that Buu has a small part of himself in the arena, knowing where to teleport and refuses to help because he wants to watch this play out. Showing that he's still a trickster and won't immediately help if it ruins what he believes will be fun. The Rebellion plays out for a bit and we don't see the group until chapter 63. We see him on the first two pages.   Here he tags up with Gotenks to 'look' for the arena. I'm assuming he did this, because it's easier to block Gotenks searching for the arena. But this was most likely just for gags. A few pages later on 1437, the two Vegetas are about to duke it out, but stop. We then get a funny gag concerning Buu.  Here Buu made a bench with food for himself, Vegito, and Goku. Honestly between the three of them I can't tell who wants to watch this more. Also Gast in the background sells this for me. Later in chapter 66, we see Grand speaking out to Buu telepathically.  Here we see that Grand and Buu are still communicating with each other. He asks Buu to stop Babidi and the others, but Buu of course being Buu wants to see this play out. Up until this point Buu has shown to be a chaotic, whacky, and powerful character. His various feats have shown him to still be in the upper bracket of the tournament's strongest fighters. His joking personality does make him endearing and funny. HOWEVER! This all changed when this chapter dropped.  Chapter 67, changed everything and in my personal opinion made Buu into an unnecessarily overpowered character that breaks the story more than adding to it. Now I've made this thread long and realize I will need to make a part III. So expect that soon. Summary for Part II: From chapter 44 to chapter 67 Zen Buu started a debate between the three top fighters that went on for many years. Didi Gast stop him or was it all faked? The 'boosts' that he gave the other fighters for the next round were more along the lines of 'mental' boosts to the fighters and not physically augmenting them. We also saw the beginning of the Grand Buu conspiracy with Buu seemingly acting being imprisoned. His power to warp reality was not much different from what we saw in Dragon Ball Z, even with the filler arcs. However, the image of being a chaotic, mischievous character fell away when we got the Universe 4 special in chapter 67-Make A Wish. Which I will dive into in Part III. Hope everyone enjoyed! |
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Post by Dismaned on Aug 14, 2022 2:30:30 GMT
Jason9000 Bro you need to get a grab an editing software and start a YT channel. Reading this felt like reading a script of an Analysis Video by Hitopfilms or Nando V Movies. Like holy moly i can't wait for part 3 of this character analysis. Take you time bud and take care of yourself.
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Post by Jason9000 on Aug 15, 2022 1:33:34 GMT
Jason9000 Bro you need to get a grab an editing software and start a YT channel. Reading this felt like reading a script of an Analysis Video by Hitopfilms or Nando V Movies. Like holy moly i can't wait for part 3 of this character analysis. Take you time bud and take care of yourself. Thank you for your kind words. To be honest I’ve never written a script before and I feel like I could do better. I’m not used to doing long format threads. I also know nothing about editing software for making videos. I wouldn’t even know where to start and what equipment to get. |
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Post by Jason9000 on Aug 17, 2022 1:36:32 GMT
And here is part III. This will most likely be my final thread for the time being. As of this post we just started chapter 89 Uub's Odyssey. I highly doubt this chapter will change my opinion on Buu. So I'm making this now despite more info on Zen Buu will be coming out throughout this chapter. Maybe I'll make a small thread if something changes my opinion on the character, but I honestly doubt it. Well like every other post. They'll be one massive spoiler tag that will hold the images of the DBM comic and at the bottom of this will be a summary. Hope you guys enjoy part III. So before I delve deep into chapter 67. I want to go back to when I said I stated that I misinterpreted Grand's words here. At the time I legitimately thought that he meant warping reality. In Dragon Ball, the Eternal Dragons have always had one thing that separated them from other magic users such as the Dragon Clan members of Namek, Fortuneteller Baba, the wizards Bibidi/Babidi, and even Majin Buu himself. BRINGING PEOPLE BACK FROM THE DEAD! In the entirety of the original Dragon Ball manga, the only way to come back after kicking the bucket in battle was to hope a set of Dragon Balls could bring them back. Shenron originally had the limit of only bringing people back once. The set on Namek with Porunga had no limit. Goku could be killed for an eternity by Frieza, Cell, or Buu. But as long as Planet Namek's set was ready to go after it's four month cooldown, Goku would be back. Now I will grant Fortuneteller Baba, in that she can bring dead souls with a body to interact with the living back. Whether it's to work for her like Spike the Devil Man or Grandpa Gohan in her mini tournaments, or the one day pass that Goku used during the Majin Buu arc with permission from King Yemma. But, even with all of that she cannot bring someone back to life. With all of that said. Buu has been shown to be a chaotic character. His shenanigans were always played for laughs. However this chapter was the beginning of showing what Buu really was. A character that had powers made up on the fly and even more of a Sue than Son Bra is. The literal first page claims that Buu excelled at anything at any time. So nothing is beyond this character? Any branch of science just rolls off him with time? Struggling to find out theoretical physics? Just give him time and he'll discover all of science and won't have issues with it. (More on this at the end). Wants to learn all the languages of the Universe? Oh he'll just send one of his pieces to visit every planet in his Universe. He'll be done with that in a month. Grant people wishes like the ETERNAL DRAGONS? Perfectly fine, just know that it's a 50/50 chance of you dying because he's bored. Also stay in line or else. Anyway we find out that everyone's loveable rascally wizard Bab-I mean Hoi shows up because, he wants to wish for eternal peace! No it's what he does in most of the other universes. Find a way to open the music box to release Hirudegarn and...well we don't know, but let's go through the chapter. We see Hoi get in line and spends hours waiting his turn on page 1540.  On the next page we see what happens if you try to cut in line.  You're killed by a bolt of lightning for disrespecting the rule...very Greek of you Buu. We also get a gag about people needing to use the bathroom. I guess Buu was just to lazy to set up a number system you would see in a deli counter in a supermarket? We then see some of the wish requests by people in front of Hoi. If you're unoriginal Buu kills you, if you wish for more wishes Buu kills you, if you're not pure of heart, Buu kills you. But if you wish for something that's unique Buu will grant it. A couple of pages later after dealing with Videl and sending her back to Earth. Our little wizard gets to the front of the line and we get this page.  I'm assuming panel four is when Buu reads the mind of the person asking their wish. Fair as how else will he know if someone's heart is pure or if their wish is genuine. However, he knows Hoi isn't completely telling the truth, but is interested to see what happens. We get two pages of Tapion being released and then Hoi having him release Hirudegarn. We see Buu's palace start to fall apart because of how massive the demon is and we get these two interesting pages.   On the page above we see the audience rightly panicking and look like they're about to die. And then we get the very next page.  After years of being told that Buu can do great evil or good. After being told way back at the very end of chapter 45.  (Yes I did skip it as only the last page was really necessary. And I know I skipped the concert, but outside of it being another gag to make Buu look funny. I didn't see the point of adding it.) We still haven't seen many acts of good, outside of healing Uub's arm. Once for his introduction and the other as a gag of Uub constantly losing him arm when U19's fighters are having their matches. The other major time was deciding not to blow up Earth and revive it's population, because of the warriors he absorbed affecting his conscious mind. We finally got an example of how Buu has changed and will do good and not just be an evil pink blob of gum on page 1548. He saves the people in line. He knows that he has the power to save everyone and instead of just letting everyone get crushed and laugh about the chaos the wizard and his puppet are causing, he's protecting everyone and is firm about it. You may have a 50/50 shot of surviving once you state your wish. But Zen Buu will make sure you get to see him if you don't cut in line or leave you spot. This right here showed that Buu can do good, but the problem is that the comic presents Zen Buu as being more balanced. Yet we haven't seen that outside of a handful of instances. Everything he's done has only been for his amusement only and that 'amusement' is not different from any typical Dragon Ball villain. Lording their strength over everyone despite the comic, the author, and the character itself claiming he's vastly different from when Super Buu was born. It's really hard to see him having a more benevolent side when most of the time he's still pulling the same crap from the Buu arc. While Tapion is fighting against the monster and Hoi. Buu reads the monster's mind and has some quiet introspection on page 1550 and makes a decision on the page after.   Here we see for the first time that Buu relates to something on a fundamental level. This isn't only from absorbing someone and deciding not to kill the family of the person he absorbed. He's remembering his own creation and how he was used for Bibidi and Babidi's goals. He had no say and was used only as a powerful weapon. His mass absorptions show he can make judgement calls and empathize with others. Despite Hirudegarn walking around destroying everything. The creature wants to return to being a statue. This existence is torture for it. It was an a physical object carved in stone and then brought to life by a bunch of power hungry wizards. Unlike Buu, Hirudegarn can't evolve past this. He doesn't have a defensive mechanism to absorb others and gain their characteristics. This is it for the creature. So Buu grants his wish and returns him back to the idol he once was. I'm not sure if Hirudegarn understood what was going on, but returning back to stone was probably the best gift he ever got and was the happiest he's ever been. At this point I firmly believed that Buu actually did have a dichotomy within him and he could show great acts of goodness. This chapter looked great and maybe the comic was preparing a bait and switch with Buu and maybe he was going to be one of the comic's protagonists with how much screen time he seemed to have. And then...and then we get the two pages that made Buu into a Sue. Page 1553 and page 1554...   Tapion gets in line and many hours later he asks Buu for his brother back. Buu with a snap of his fingers brings him back to life.  Buu not only brought someone back from the dead, but according to chapter 30, on page 655.  Tapion's brother Minoshia died over five hundred years before. Now I maybe misremembering things, but in the original manga only people considered pure of heart and were strong fighters got to keep their bodies. Most people are reincarnated, for villains they're sent through a cleansing machine before reincarnating. (Unless you're Demon King Piccolo who half failed since both he and Piccolo Junior were at the same place at the same time.) Unless DBM follows the anime with the filler of seeing the various villains in Hell. Minoshia should have been reincarnated quite a number of times. For all we know Buu just ripped the soul out of whatever body Minoshia reincarnated this time around and gave him his memories back. But the comic implies that Minoshia has been hanging around in the afterlife and...that's it. So without any explanation in the comic of how Buu discovered this. He can now resurrect the dead. How did he accomplish this? Did he absorb an Eternal Dragon? If so, how does that work since they don't tend to stick around and go away if they don't grant a wish. Did he absorb Planet New Namek's set of Dragon Balls? Did he absorb Moori? Is there a magic user in Universe 4 and in other universes that have a power only the Eternal Dragons can do? Too bad for us. We don't ever find out. Oh wait no we do, but we have to read the novelization of the main story and the U4 novel.  With being able to just snap his fingers and bring anyone back. Zen Buu now is the most powerful character. Oh sure, XXI is still a mystery at this point. Maybe he'll do something like Bibidi's Sealing Spell * cough*, or XXI will rip out the people he's absorbed and turn him back into the mindless Kid Buu, maybe use Gast's technique on him, or maybe use the dimension door again like he did to Vegito? Oh wait it doesn't matter. Zen Buu can just do whatever he wants. His powers are whatever the author them to be. The threat of XXI means nothing since Zen Buu can do whatever he wants. As I mentioned in my first post. If you have to refer to supplemental material to explain a character's motives, powers, or explain away something that was never mentioned in the main storytelling...you have failed the character, the fictional world, and the audience. And this is coming from a raging J.R.R. Tolkien fan with most of the backstory of his stuff coming after he died and edited by his son Christopher. But it's okay. Tapion gets his brother back? You feel that sense of happiness and that smile you on your face from seeing one version of Tapion getting to be with his brother Minoshia? That's just to distract you to stop you from thinking this pertinent question. "Hold on. If Buu can already do this. Why did he bother joining the tournament? Doesn't the winner get a wish from the Namekian Dragon Balls?" Now today we have the answer "Cause boredom! Lol!" But, back then we didn't have anything else. If this supposed omnipotent god with all these hax abilities could do everything the Namekian Dragon Balls can do and seemingly be the best at everything...why bother joining the tournament? He has nothing to prove. He can beat any fighter. Since he can grant wishes to others. There's no reason he can't grant wishes to himself. Before this special I honestly thought Buu was looking for the one thing he didn't have and that was...  If Zen Buu were completely immortal. Then nothing Vegito did in that fight in space would work. Vegito could use his "Kill Buu" technique until he tired himself out. It wouldn't matter. Buu wouldn't need to split himself into pieces to save himself. He could stand there and have everyone in the tournament all launch their most powerful attacks at once and it wouldn't have done anything. Becoming truly immortal would cement his self perceived omnipotence and he would truly be the almighty God he believes himself to be. If he wasn't immortal, you would think after facing Vegito, Bra, and Gohan his focus would be on winning the tournament so he can become immortal. Thus, not have to worry about surprises like Vegito mastering the 'only' technique that can kill him. But then this raises another important question. If Zen Buu can grant wishes to anyone, including himself... WHY DIDN'T HE GIVE HIMSELF IMMORTALITY THE SECOND VEGITO FLED WITH HIS CHILDREN DURING HIS FIGHT IN SPACE?! There is no reason why he shouldn't have once he found out Vegito has that 'one technique' and that his own daughter can do it as well! He's simultaneously this grand 4D chess master that is ten steps ahead of everyone yet at the same damn time he's too incompetent to take measures to protect himself and ensure his victory. Now sure we could chalk it up to 'underestimating his opponents' as I pointed out in his fight with Son Bra in space, but the next second he's completely calm and in control. It shouldn't matter that the three escaped. He knows the potential danger he's in and this is a character that even back in the original manga. When he realized the cards aren't in his favor, he plans around it to make him stronger. Base Super Buu came up with the idea of absorption after realizing he had absolutely no chance against Ultimate Gohan. He needed to tilt the odds in his favor and realized taking on the strength of Gotenks and the intelligence of Piccolo is the best way to defeat Gohan. He has a history of doing everything in his power to win. Why hasn't he snapped his fingers and made himself immortal?!I know I'm ranting for the sake of ranting at this point. But, that's because I liked Zen Buu. I found him funny, intelligent, and a great counter to Vegito and Gast. Vegito with his own superiority of his own power, able to just get under his skin with his abilities and words. And Gast with his stoicism where he just stands around putting on the 'aloof' persona. The three bounced off each other greatly even though they hardly interacted. Hell, page 1437 that I linked the previous post did this spectacularly. Vegito and Zen Buu acting goofy at two versions of Vegeta about to duke it out wanting to watch them fight so much that Buu was willing to create a ring for them, EVEN THOUGH THEIR MAIN FOCUS WAS IN GETTING BACK TO THE MAIN ARENA. Gast stood behind them facepalming because he knows the four of them are being ridiculous and they need to focus.
Honestly it's weird looking back that three of them never interacted together or had a conversation. Usually only two of the three characters address each other and the third if either not there or just in the background not participating in the conversation. DBM's triumvirate did miss out stuff, like Buu trying to get Gast to talk about his "STOP!" technique or discussing magic in general. Have Vegito following Gast around asking him for a match every so often to Gast's annoyance. Have Buu and Vegito confronting Gast ,calling him out on his wish to split himself would bring back the Namekian race, but if he's like Vegito then he's his Universe's only hero. His desire to bring back his race would be seen as selfish by many people in his Universe. He would potentially leaving his Universe undefended if something else pops up and that Gast should really rethink what is best for his Universe.
Okay I've ranted about this chapter enough. I'm going to move on or this will be made into four parts.
In the next chapter we see Buu in the background standing next to a Gotenks 'looking' for the arena on the first page. But, that's it.
Later in chapter 70 after Majin Bra stops U18 Gohan from sneak attacking Babidi. The blowback of her defending the wizard led to an explosion that killed just about everyone in the audience.
Here Buu is still shown to be in contact with Grand. Mocking the leader of the Supreme Kais for not having the strength or power to do anything. Once again this is showing that Buu is not a being that does 'great good or evil based on his mood'. This is just regular Super Buu despite the repeated claim that absorbing so many people altered his personality and he can be good now.
We move forward and the fight with Majin Bra goes on. Once again Zen Buu shows up on the first page of chapter 75. Now I'm seeing a pattern of Buu just showing up for the first couple of pages of the Majin Rebellion and then not being seen again.
Here we see he was able to sneak a piece of himself into the shielded area that Son Bra set up to protect Babidi and teleport him away so she could focus on fighting the others. Once again Zen Buu is trolling Babidi and we are first led to think Zen Buu will kill Babidi himself.
Finally we get to chapter 79.
And man oh man. I remember the fallout from this chapter. As I mentioned before this is focusing on Zen Buu, not Son Bra. So I will not be talking about her for the most part.
On page 1817, we see Buu out in space with Babidi.
So we have the wizard in space being tickle tortured, written on, and gagged by Zen Buu.
Wait gagged? I could have sworn we've seen that in this comic before...where was it again...?
Oh right on page 740 during his first temper tantrum, because XXI didn't want a rematch.
Again if Buu is this all powerful god like he claims to be...why is he gagging Babidi? It can't be, because of his concealment spell. Being able to grant wishes, the djinn should be able to snap his fingers and get rid of his only weaknesses no problem. Or it's not like he can't read Babidi's mind to find out the specifics of the spell since he killed him back when he was Fat Buu and didn't believe he would run into someone that knows his Achilles Heel.
Surely showing this twice would mean he's still weak to it and may be hinting to his eventual showdown with XXI. Right....right?
Anyway, the fight is over and he 'pretends' to find the arena and is willing to take everyone back, they just all have to hold hands, sing kumbaya, and think happy thoughts.
Man Zen Buu sure is a nice guy and not a chaotic evil troll.
We get a couple of pages where the participants see the carnage and are looking around at all the dead.
On page 1870, we got this bull crap.
That damn arrow. That stupid freaking arrow on the last panel...
Zen Buu reading the minds of people alive because they have no physic defenses. Completely reasonable. Even Goku displayed that ability...once...back on Planet Namek...and never explained how he learned or how he did it again. (Although that might have been anime filler, if I'm wrong. Please tell me.)
Buu reading the minds of people dead.
What the actual f*ck?
How many powers is he getting? No seriously this is a problem. If you're constantly making up powers as you go along. Your character is a literal Mary Sue. Hell this character.
Is less of an actual Mary Sue and she's supposed to be the parody of the concept! When the parody you're making fun of is less powerful than the character you claim isn't a Sue...you have an actual problem.
But, it's okay Zen Buu is funny. So he can get away with pulling this crap.
What's next Zen Buu is going to cure all diseases? Is he going to force Vegito to split back into Goku and Vegeta? Can he find the cure to color blindness? Can he survive throwing himself into a blackhole without taking any precautions like U20 Broly? (At least he was in his stupid MAXMIUM state when he got taken to one and had a Ki barrier around his body.)
I just...this character is just too overpowered now. For no freaking reason. All the tension in the story is just about gone. Not quite there. But boy are we close...
After Vegito throwing a temper tantrum and getting lambasted by everyone. (I've already shared my thoughts about it here.) There are two pages of Zen Buu's further bull crap.
So not only can Buu revive people from the dead. He can repair technology back to its previous state and get rid of Babidi's mental control.
Why you ask?
That's why.
Anyway...we get page 1835 which leads to the current DMB Flashback Chapter 89 Uub's Odyssey.
We also get this page where Buu teleports Babidi to him and holds him in his head tentacle. But no one...and I mean no one asks where he found him...
Wasn't Son Bra the ONLY one that knew where he was out in space? Why didn't she ask him where he found him? Why didn't anyone question Buu on how he found him? Why did he know where he was?
Oh right I keep forgetting. Zen Buu is god and we can't question him, because he's funny...
In chapter 82, Quarter Finals on page 1887 we see Grand forgiving everyone under Babidi's control and the next page we see South Supreme Kai suspicious of his behavior here.
We then get these two pages that totally weren't baiting us.
More hints to the Grand Buu conspiracy. Once again showing that Buu has been acting in being held by Grand Supreme Kai. Sure we had another hint during the Majin Rebellion when U18 Gohan asked Grand to imprison U11 Buu in his hand like with his U4 counterpart. But shush! We're just feeding crumbs. I'm sure it will pay off big time. Don't worry about it.
Oh I almost forgot! We need a Buu gag for fixing everything before we start the tournament. How silly of me!
And now we come to the end. Remember how we've had years of buildup to this chapter? Well this chapter certainly showed us one thing. Nothing matters to Buu.
Before the fight begins we have page 1977 where Uub has seemingly forgone lunch and went to the apartment of Universe 4.
Apparently Buu's curiosity is greater than his commitment to everyone's safety. He knows Zen Buu is supposed to be a prisoner in Grand Supreme Kai's hand. But does he run back out in an attempt to warn everyone that the head organizer of this tournament is not telling the truth and that Zen Buu is faking it?
Nope, he just asks for magic lessons and thinks nothing of it. Why? Well I already said why.
We flash forward to pages and the fight begins.
What's this? Zen Buu being cautious about someone? That doesn't seem like him at all. I thought he was assured of his omnipotence?
How very strange...
Finally after all these years. After we've seen twice that Zen Buu purposely covered Babidi's mouth when he saw him. The magic spell is spoken and Buu is terrified.
As I foolishly said at the time.
Boy was I wrong...
Buu had successfully been sealed. He's stuck in his ball and XXI won. Granted his true smokey form was revealed to everyone. But, XXI doesn't seem to care. He just states that others have transformed and he's done the same. He just wants to leave once he's confirmed to have won.
After all these years it was over. XXI vs Buu was about as anticlimactic as the rest of XXI's fights. I was fully expecting this as the only one who broke this pattern of one-shotting their opponent was Goku. However, there was no way Goku would have one shot Uub, unless Uub tripped over his own two feet, dropped his defenses to zero, and let Goku hit him on the way down.
I remember the comments on the thread discussing whether this was a good fit. Many reworked the fight to fit their own version. Either way the debate was settled. XXI used Bibidi's sealing spell on Buu and it still works on him. Those two times Buu covered Babidi's mouth weren't for no reason. It was because Babidi could have stopped him.
Or so we thought following the two pages of XXI revealing himself and talking to Vegito we got this...
The arrow on the cocoon is moving...the freaking arrow from way back in the Buu arc to show how much energy was needed for Buu to return. You would think that this Buu is much more powerful than his previous forms and would need more energy to be released. Only the top fighters in the tournament would be able to move the arrow.
So while that female Varga notices this...and says absolutely nothing, Gast says they need to arrest Grand Supreme Kai.
Here is another thing. After all these years we get these wonderful bunch of pages that shattered what we thought was the Grand Buu conspiracy.
So the whole idea of Grand and Buu working together to expose XXI wasn't true at all. They began a telepathic conversation and Grand realized that Buu was smarter, stronger, and more powerful than he was. Within the span of days they SOMEHOW had millions years worth of conversations? This is worse than anime Frieza's 'five minutes till the planet explodes' promise. Considering that more than ten minutes passed for the entire Majin Rebellion where Grand was focused on what was going on and only spoke to Buu when he wasn't distracted. I refuse to believe they had all that time pass. Grand showed that he couldn't focus on two things at once. There is no way he had this with his other Supreme Kais and the Vargas interrupting his mental conversations. Buu never took him to a dimension where time moved slow like he's done in the current flashback chapter. I call extreme bull on that one.
And then Grand saying that Buu, Vegito, and Gast are anomalies that exist, but that he and the others made a mistake constantly interfering with their Universe. All of their efforts were wrong, because multiverse theory is true.
I'm sure all of the trillions of people in the untold countless universes would love to have a word with you dipshit. You didn't kill the likes of Bibidi, closing off the Demon Realm, stopping Hoi's Hirudegarn cult, ending Bojack's Gang, terminating the first Legendary Super Saiyan, finishing off the Cold Dynasty, because they 'disagreed' with you. You killed them, because they were all genocidal maniacs that either wanted to destroy everything in sight or rule the North Galaxy with an iron fist while massacring everything else. Granted killing an infant Broly was definitely wrong. The last one they faced was an adult. For all we know taking Broly and raising him better may have him control his Legendary state without going on a rampage. Although knowing Salagir he probably thinks if you're a Legendary Super Saiyan you will always be an out of control monster. You just became an edgy teenage nihilist, because pink demon talked to you. Geez if you're this easy to change your mind I'm surprised you haven't caused a civil war among your subordinates for anyone saying they wanted something different for lunch. When you try to explain yourself more, you just spout more of this bull crap nihilism you adopted and that nothing matters, because Buu will fix everything even when the other Supreme Kais call you out on endangering everyone. Yeah Buu could have stopped Broly from attacking the audience and Babidi's Rebellion from the start...BUT HE NEVER DID, BECAUSE BUU IS NOT A GOOD GUY. HE'S A CHAOTIC BEING THAT DOES MORE DAMAGE THAN FIXING THINGS BECAUSE HE THINKS IT'S HILARIOUS!
Finally he finishes with saying that Buu is omnipotent and begins speaking like a priest in the church of Zen Buu and that going against him is pointless as he's the most powerful thing in existence.
Finally Zen Buu pops out of his cocoon still playing coy. That he got over his only weakness...mostly. But notices that he's been found out again. He proposes a second tournament like when he first went on a rampage, but again FORCING people that don't want to participate only, because they are very strong. Like the two Gohans. But it's okay, because he'll dish out actual upgrades that won't just be 'mental ideas'. So Cooler going up against Vegito? Don't worry Buu will just zap him and give him three new augmentation forms to stand a chance. Bra fighting against U16 Gotenks? Don't worry he'll give them the same thing he did to U18 Gotenks, but this time he'll upgrade Goten and Trunks to have access to Super Saiyan 2 before fusing so U16 Gotenks is even stronger. The only rule is no entrapment techniques allowed. Why? Because Buu is a sore loser like Vegito.
And of course the dumbass Vegito is all for it. He's almost as bad as DBS Goku with his obsession with fighting other people. Although DBM Goku is close as he's okay with this secondary tournament as he wants to fight Vegito. But Vegito literally ignores that his own daughter was controlled by Babidi and that she killed one of his sons. It's not until said daughter points out that Buu is a threat to every Universe, including their own that he realizes "Oh yeah...maybe I should stop him..."
South again tries to take command by declaring the tournament cancelled, but Buu appears behind him, reminding him that's not in control and still hasn't learned, feeding into Grand's obsession with Buu. However, after he notices that everyone, but Grand is against him. He decides to take action and fight everyone to show his superiority.
Now before I get to the very last chapter. I will add this. If the current flashback shows Buu showing Uub a way to revive him, because XXI uses Bibidi's spell that only slightly makes him less overpowered.
Finally we get to this last chapter. Chapter 88 Buu vs the Multiverse. And boy oh boy was this a hell of a chapter.
The first page is to remind us that Buu has fourth wall awareness. Why? Because Deadpool is funny and if we make Buu like Deadpool it will excuse everything. Buu launches his pieces to others. We get the first line of defense with Gast and what happens?
For some reason Gast decides to use his "Stop!" technique again. I honestly don't know why he would even bother. It may have worked the first time, but Buu just said moments before that he found a way to stop his one weakness. He knows that Grand conspired with Buu so using it again is risky. Gast had to hold the idiot ball, because otherwise this would have been over immediately.
Somehow Buu prepared a trap for Gast 'hours ago'. How did he do that? When did he do that? When he was Santa Buu? During his fight with Gotenks? During the Majin Rebellion? After he revived and fixed everything? Nothing hinted he prepared anything for Gast. This is just to make Buu look overpowered.
Although to Gast's credit the fact that Buu had to throw every spell he knew of and only two of them worked shows Gast's magic resistance is just about on par with Buu's. Honestly they seem to be tied with the whole magic thing. Buu with his containment spell and the "Stop!" technique and Gast with the two spells used here.
And Buu admitted that Gast is the only one here that worries him. He doesn't know what else the giant Namek has up his sleeve. He wasn't taking any chances with him. On top of that he also promises to not use any magic against anyone else. Further limiting Buu's response to the fighters Which of course enrages Vegito, because he's so caught up in his own ego and power he can't fathom that people would have different abilities that would put them on his level. But Buu doesn't care, because he can revive Gast whenever he wants. However because he bruised Vegito's ego the Saiyan immediately powers up to level two reminding him he still has the 'Kill Buu" technique, but on the next page Buu just...doesn't care....
Most of the comic are the other Universes fighting against him. We see Universe 18 doing their shield bubble. But of course Buu has to troll...because it's funny.,.
Are you laughing yet?
Don't you see how funny he is? You don't? Wait let me try again.
See how he's way better than anyone? How he can whip out any power he wants and get away with it? Remember how much of an author's pet Son Bra is? Of course you do, Buu is better than her because he's funny. Ignore everything else.
See how funny he is mocking Gotenks, because Gotenks has been a joke this entire comic. The same Gotenks that even Vegito acknowledged was the first one to make Ki constructs with his ghost attack technique. Way back when Bra fought Ginyu-Cold? What you thought the serious Gotenks from a couple of chapters ago was here to stay? You're funny. But not as funny as Buu.
We then cut to page 2054 where Vegito goes to level three and unleashes his "Kill Buu" technique. Along with his daughter, Goku, and Vegeta helping him. I would post page 2053 but it won't let me for some reason.
I can't post the other pages...because it won't let me. But anyway, just when we thought Vegito did it. After all that speculation and talk about who was stronger. Vegito at level three but Buu down for good.
Or so we thought. Turns out Buu is just too powerful. Granted if Vegito wanted he could just unleash an explosion similar to what Goku did in Universe 4 in his effort to stop Super Buu. But no one can distract Buu long enough for Vegito to charge it up, Vegito would kill everyone (most likely himself since there won't be breathable air), and Buu could just teleport a piece of himself far away just before the explosion hits and come back to finish off an exhausted Vegito.
But don't despair folks! Our omnipotent god is not done. He still has one final crew to troll.
See once again Buu underestimated his opponent! Just like he did with Vegito, Bra, and Gast. He was bested by people weaker than him. See Buu isn't an overpowered god, because the Vargas planned ahead!
Except we never got a hint of that at all...and thanks to deus ex machina, only U1 Vargas can use the multiverse travel technology. So one of the Piccolos worried about how copied the tech of Universe 19 doesn't matter. Buu can replicate their stuff all he wants, but he can't use it.
Finally we get to page 2063 and 2064 where we seemingly see the last of Zen Buu.
So Buu wasn't able to master their technology. We finally found the one thing he can't do. He can't use the multiverse traveling technology. Even though he has Bulma, serval Vargas from his Universe, and other scientists in his head. After all that this is (for now) the end of Zen Buu.
So after so many years. Buu is gone. We were promised a massive fight of Vegito and Zen Buu. Speculation went on for years between the two. And it was over really quickly. A couple panels of Vegito in level two and then he powers up to level three because he needs it and he still can't beat Zen Buu. This is even with Zen Buu holding back his magic against Vegito. Vegito couldn't keep up. Zen Buu was the winner. Did he deserve the win? I would say no, because he kept pulling powers out of his rear end to one up everyone. His abilities were endless and he just didn't stop.
But, that's okay he was funny right? His trolling hides the fact that he's a Sue character. Who cares about XXI? XXI tried and Buu was only incapacitated for like two minutes. XXI most likely won't be as much of a threat like Zen Buu. The pink djinn was all over the place and beat everyone. Bring him back and he'll surely make XXI being singing showtunes. As long as a character is funny they can have whatever powers they want.
When I first started reading this comic years ago. I honestly don't remember when I started, it's been that long. I enjoyed Zen Buu. His initial abilities made him a credible threat to the seen supremacy of Vegito. He seemed to be in Vegito's league, We were fed hints that Vegito would have a handle on the situation if Zen Buu went nuts. But over the course of the comic he just kept getting more powerful. His character went through two different arcs. First was the more calculating Buu from the first day of the tournament where he was caught by surprise three times. Twice by Vegito and Son Bra and once by Gast. The second arc was the troll he became after the first night to hide how much of a Sue his character is. Son Bra gets a lot of crap and rightly so. But Zen Buu over time became even worse than her.
And with that I shall end my thread. This was the longest yet. I spent two days working on this. I know this a very long read. But I wanted to give my thoughts on the character of Zen Buu. I liked him in the beginning when I first saw him, but over time he became too much of a Sue and my apathy toward him grew and grew to the point that I just didn't care for him and I don't care if he's actually gone or if he does show up in the main story later. Hope you guys enjoyed and see you next time.Summary for Part III: Chapter 67 destroyed Zen Buu as a character. Giving him the powers of the Eternal Dragons made any tension with him moot. He can do anything the Dragons do like bring back from the dead. His powers just kept increasing from then on where he gained whatever ability he wanted. He could master anything he wanted. His nature being presented as 'a chaotic being that did both good and evil' was a farce. His acts of goodness are only presented in his flashback chapters, but most of them have an ulterior motive for himself. Only turning Hirudegarn back into a statue and reviving Minoshia didn't benefit himself in anyway. The Grand Buu conspiracy was just Grand becoming a Zen Buu acolyte that praises everything Zen Buu does and is somehow a teenaged nihilist when it doesn't concern Zen Buu. We finally got the fight against Vegito and nothing really happened besides showing Zen Buu's superiority. The Sue character he became was hidden his comedic dialogue that tried to hide what he was turned into. If he does return to the main story, I won't be excited or happy that he's back. XXI will probably not meet up to what Buu can do and Salagir will be really hard pressed to make him more of a credible threat than Universe 4 Buu. With that I hope you enjoyed. I know this was the longest one, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this character. I may make another one after the current flashback chapter is done, but I don't know. I may edit these threads if I see some mistakes. Mods if you want to condense this like I said go for it. |
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 21, 2022 18:13:47 GMT
I don’t think his character lived up to his full potential to be honest. I felt like later in the story it revolves on things Buu can do vs his actual character. Yes, he is a troll, but we didn’t get a whole lot of interesting character interactions as I expected. Buu and Cell never interacted at all. That is such a shame because they both lived similar lives. We could have gotten a interesting look at Buu’s personality if he talked with Cell and asked him why he still just indulges in random destruction all this time. It could have led to deconstructing Cell’s whole character and given us more insight on Buu’s journey as a character.
I liked the interactions with Uub. It might have been fun to see them interact more in the tournament. Or if f he talked to either Pan. It would give Buu a chance to interact with Satan’s granddaughter, but also present to him the harm he does when he absorbs someone and takes them away from their family. That could have caused some guilt thanks to all the good people he absorbed being part of his personality. There could have been more moments to show Buu’s somber side that I think could have made him a unique character in the setting. I think Zoe of that gets lost when we only focus on Buu working toward his own amusement and on his immense power.
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Post by godjacob on Aug 21, 2022 18:39:29 GMT
Easily the character I've grown to hate the most over my DBM experience (Broly doesn't count much as a character) and the fact this blatant Sue has such a fanbase that at the same breath will be quick to cry anything Bra does is the most blatant double standards in this fandom. Reading those comments on those Mondo recaps of the Universe Buu spanking the DBM cast made me so sad.
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Post by Skarr on Aug 21, 2022 23:06:48 GMT
Easily the character I've grown to hate the most over my DBM experience (Broly doesn't count much as a character) and the fact this blatant Sue has such a fanbase that at the same breath will be quick to cry anything Bra does is the most blatant double standards in this fandom. Reading those comments on those Mondo recaps of the Universe Buu spanking the DBM cast made me so sad. Well did you read those comments hoping they were negative? The comments were more positive during the end of the MR than here but that's how all his videos are. They're the general audience that waits to read fan comics by chapter and have several to choose from on his channel so they only comment if they're interested in that particular story with occasional criticism. Usually the most criticism towards DBM is from the people who only read that one comic. Nothing wrong with that but it's a different audience than what you'll find in most of Mondo's videos. |
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Post by godjacob on Aug 21, 2022 23:42:31 GMT
Easily the character I've grown to hate the most over my DBM experience (Broly doesn't count much as a character) and the fact this blatant Sue has such a fanbase that at the same breath will be quick to cry anything Bra does is the most blatant double standards in this fandom. Reading those comments on those Mondo recaps of the Universe Buu spanking the DBM cast made me so sad. Well did you read those comments hoping they were negative? The comments were more positive during the end of the MR than here but that's how all his videos are. They're the general audience that waits to read fan comics by chapter and have several to choose from on his channel so they only comment if they're interested in that particular story with occasional criticism. Usually the most criticism towards DBM is from the people who only read that one comic. Nothing wrong with that but it's a different audience than what you'll find in most of Mondo's videos. Suppose was just getting a sense of general feel than anything else, not perhaps seeking negativity but always curious what the more casual YouTube demographic things though those cool recaps. |
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Post by Skarr on Aug 22, 2022 0:10:23 GMT
Suppose was just getting a sense of general feel than anything else, not perhaps seeking negativity but always curious what the more casual YouTube demographic things though those cool recaps. It sounded like you were upset by those comments but you'll find the same in almost all his videos. Since they have several to choose from, they probably wouldn't consider it worth their time to finish watching a chapter if they had major criticism towards that particular fan comic especially that late into the series. That's the way I am when I'm more of a casual fan of a story so I can relate to them. |
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 22, 2022 3:57:54 GMT
Easily the character I've grown to hate the most over my DBM experience (Broly doesn't count much as a character) and the fact this blatant Sue has such a fanbase that at the same breath will be quick to cry anything Bra does is the most blatant double standards in this fandom. Reading those comments on those Mondo recaps of the Universe Buu spanking the DBM cast made me so sad. Most people found Buu more likeable than Bra. To me it makes sense more people are fine with Buu getting his praises sung and is treated as nigh invincible. Bra rubbed some people off that when the story sung her praises and downplayed her faults it upset people more and they fought Salagir more whenever he tried to make Bra more likable. I've seen this happen in a lot of fandoms. |
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Post by godjacob on Aug 22, 2022 19:29:28 GMT
Easily the character I've grown to hate the most over my DBM experience (Broly doesn't count much as a character) and the fact this blatant Sue has such a fanbase that at the same breath will be quick to cry anything Bra does is the most blatant double standards in this fandom. Reading those comments on those Mondo recaps of the Universe Buu spanking the DBM cast made me so sad. Most people found Buu more likeable than Bra. To me it makes sense more people are fine with Buu getting his praises sung and is treated as nigh invincible. Bra rubbed some people off that when the story sung her praises and downplayed her faults it upset people more and they fought Salagir more whenever he tried to make Bra more likable. I've seen this happen in a lot of fandoms. Bra least HAS faults and between the two of them is the character with more layers. Both are sues but It just annoys me people will bitch at Bra constantly and in the same breath call Zen Buu their favorite character ignoring the story is even more biased and in his corner. |
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 23, 2022 3:37:02 GMT
Most people found Buu more likeable than Bra. To me it makes sense more people are fine with Buu getting his praises sung and is treated as nigh invincible. Bra rubbed some people off that when the story sung her praises and downplayed her faults it upset people more and they fought Salagir more whenever he tried to make Bra more likable. I've seen this happen in a lot of fandoms. Bra least HAS faults and between the two of them is the character with more layers. Both are sues but It just annoys me people will bitch at Bra constantly and in the same breath call Zen Buu their favorite character ignoring the story is even more biased and in his corner. In my experience with different fandoms a large part of what people get annoyed with or hate largely ends up being based on characters or concepts they like. Dragon Ball fandom is really notorious with this. Krillin and Yamecha got a lot of hate back in the day for being weak. It got to the point of irrationality. Yamecha or Krillin would get shit for getting scared. Even if they did try to do something and overcome their fear people would shit on them for not being useful. Instead of people recognizing DB's power scale is super unbalanced and not faulting the characters for being written as being way weaker than the Saiyans people blamed the characters for not keeping up with Saiyans. When a character like Vegeta, who is considered strong and bad ass, would lose or do something cowardly, the same fans would excuse it because Vegeta is a bad ass. It is just one of those strange things that people do. Characters they like often get a pass for doing things they might hold against other characters. Other times they may just think there is a key difference. For U4 Buu just started off as more likable than U16 Bra for most people. People probably felt his abilities are more justified because of his absorptions and already having magic. Whereas Bra got her ass handed to her because she intentional took a bad bet then suddenly brings out all new techniques after she recovers, instead of using them the first time around like most DB fights. For some people Buu's magic growing way, way stronger makes more sense in their heads than stuff Bra does. For them it makes a key difference. Although, it is hardly a universal thing. I definitely saw people in the comment section of the Buu vs Multiverse comment who were also getting sick of Buu or felt he was too overpowered. It was definitely a sentiment growing within the fandom. Had Buu stayed around or even got his way with the side tournament there is probably a good chance Buu would have become more divisive. Buu being better than everyone at all things would have gotten a bit old, especially if Buu could stop XXI, but chose not to, out of entertainment. If People had to sit through several weeks of reading through a side tournament alongside specials before we got back to the main tournament, they would get sick of it really fast. Most likely the same people who praised and wanted Buu to win would be complaining that he won since it just slowed the story down even more. |
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Post by Jason9000 on Aug 23, 2022 20:41:12 GMT
Bra least HAS faults and between the two of them is the character with more layers. Both are sues but It just annoys me people will bitch at Bra constantly and in the same breath call Zen Buu their favorite character ignoring the story is even more biased and in his corner. In my experience with different fandoms a large part of what people get annoyed with or hate largely ends up being based on characters or concepts they like. Dragon Ball fandom is really notorious with this. Krillin and Yamecha got a lot of hate back in the day for being weak. It got to the point of irrationality. Yamecha or Krillin would get shit for getting scared. Even if they did try to do something and overcome their fear people would shit on them for not being useful. Instead of people recognizing DB's power scale is super unbalanced and not faulting the characters for being written as being way weaker than the Saiyans people blamed the characters for not keeping up with Saiyans. When a character like Vegeta, who is considered strong and bad ass, would lose or do something cowardly, the same fans would excuse it because Vegeta is a bad ass. It is just one of those strange things that people do. Characters they like often get a pass for doing things they might hold against other characters. Other times they may just think there is a key difference. For U4 Buu just started off as more likable than U16 Bra for most people. People probably felt his abilities are more justified because of his absorptions and already having magic. Whereas Bra got her ass handed to her because she intentional took a bad bet then suddenly brings out all new techniques after she recovers, instead of using them the first time around like most DB fights. For some people Buu's magic growing way, way stronger makes more sense in their heads than stuff Bra does. For them it makes a key difference. Although, it is hardly a universal thing. I definitely saw people in the comment section of the Buu vs Multiverse comment who were also getting sick of Buu or felt he was too overpowered. It was definitely a sentiment growing within the fandom. Had Buu stayed around or even got his way with the side tournament there is probably a good chance Buu would have become more divisive. Buu being better than everyone at all things would have gotten a bit old, especially if Buu could stop XXI, but chose not to, out of entertainment. If People had to sit through several weeks of reading through a side tournament alongside specials before we got back to the main tournament, they would get sick of it really fast. Most likely the same people who praised and wanted Buu to win would be complaining that he won since it just slowed the story down even more. Like I said in my three long threads. I liked Zen Buu at first. I did find him funny. But, overtime he just became annoying in how he could do anything with just a snap of his fingers. I had no problem with his increased powers compared to when he was Buuhan, but being able to resurrect everyone just was too far for me. I agree Son Pan with your assessment of how people used to crap all over Yamcha and Krillin. Back when I got into Dragon Ball in the late 2010's, all I saw on YouTube were jokes about Yamcha and Krillin being weak in comments on Dragon Ball videos. Although I think TFS played a role into it as well as they were taking off at the same time as well. Yet at the same like you said Vegeta would fight dirty or lose and just say it's part of his struggle to beat Goku or excuse it because of his upbringing by Frieza. I can't imagine having the secondary tournament at the same time as the main tournament. That would have taken forever to do. Like you said people would have been complaining about detracting from the main tournament again, after the long Majin Rebellion. |
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Post by Skarr on Aug 23, 2022 22:00:57 GMT
Bra least HAS faults and between the two of them is the character with more layers. Both are sues but It just annoys me people will bitch at Bra constantly and in the same breath call Zen Buu their favorite character ignoring the story is even more biased and in his corner. I don't like these kinds of generalizations since it doesn't really tell us anything and groups together different opinions. Some people liked Buu and Bra or disliked both and there could be different reasons liking or disliking either one. Most fans move on from a character when a story does since there isn't much left to say about them. There haven't been many comments about Bra and she was trying to help in her few appearances since the Majin Rebellion. Zen Buu was been sent home so you probably won't see many comments about him unless he's brought up again or it's related to Uub's training. |
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Post by Son Pan on Aug 24, 2022 15:21:41 GMT
In my experience with different fandoms a large part of what people get annoyed with or hate largely ends up being based on characters or concepts they like. Dragon Ball fandom is really notorious with this. Krillin and Yamecha got a lot of hate back in the day for being weak. It got to the point of irrationality. Yamecha or Krillin would get shit for getting scared. Even if they did try to do something and overcome their fear people would shit on them for not being useful. Instead of people recognizing DB's power scale is super unbalanced and not faulting the characters for being written as being way weaker than the Saiyans people blamed the characters for not keeping up with Saiyans. When a character like Vegeta, who is considered strong and bad ass, would lose or do something cowardly, the same fans would excuse it because Vegeta is a bad ass. It is just one of those strange things that people do. Characters they like often get a pass for doing things they might hold against other characters. Other times they may just think there is a key difference. For U4 Buu just started off as more likable than U16 Bra for most people. People probably felt his abilities are more justified because of his absorptions and already having magic. Whereas Bra got her ass handed to her because she intentional took a bad bet then suddenly brings out all new techniques after she recovers, instead of using them the first time around like most DB fights. For some people Buu's magic growing way, way stronger makes more sense in their heads than stuff Bra does. For them it makes a key difference. Although, it is hardly a universal thing. I definitely saw people in the comment section of the Buu vs Multiverse comment who were also getting sick of Buu or felt he was too overpowered. It was definitely a sentiment growing within the fandom. Had Buu stayed around or even got his way with the side tournament there is probably a good chance Buu would have become more divisive. Buu being better than everyone at all things would have gotten a bit old, especially if Buu could stop XXI, but chose not to, out of entertainment. If People had to sit through several weeks of reading through a side tournament alongside specials before we got back to the main tournament, they would get sick of it really fast. Most likely the same people who praised and wanted Buu to win would be complaining that he won since it just slowed the story down even more. Like I said in my three long threads. I liked Zen Buu at first. I did find him funny. But, overtime he just became annoying in how he could do anything with just a snap of his fingers. I had no problem with his increased powers compared to when he was Buuhan, but being able to resurrect everyone just was too far for me. I agree Son Pan with your assessment of how people used to crap all over Yamcha and Krillin. Back when I got into Dragon Ball in the late 2010's, all I saw on YouTube were jokes about Yamcha and Krillin being weak in comments on Dragon Ball videos. Although I think TFS played a role into it as well as they were taking off at the same time as well. Yet at the same like you said Vegeta would fight dirty or lose and just say it's part of his struggle to beat Goku or excuse it because of his upbringing by Frieza. I can't imagine having the secondary tournament at the same time as the main tournament. That would have taken forever to do. Like you said people would have been complaining about detracting from the main tournament again, after the long Majin Rebellion. I have the same experience with Buu. I originally liked him a lot. One of the main reasons I really gotten into DBM on a whole was that it was trying to ground DB a bit more and expand the characters personalities a bit more. For me personally I haven’t seen those two concepts meshed in a post DBZ story. A story where Vegetto’s power remains peak of power and everyone else isn’t just easily catching up or surpassing those levels after Buu saga was something I never saw attempted. I liked DBM for trying to do something a bit different. The concept of Super Buu who won and continued to evolve by absorbing people was a concept I loved. I love DB, I have since I got into it in the early 2000s as a kid. As much as I love it I can recognize the characters weren’t always explored or developed, after I got into other fighting Shonen series. The criticism that sometimes DB get hit with are the villains are all the same but different skin has a grain of truth to it. I applauded Salagir for expanding on Super Buu more. For most of the story I really enjoyed Zen Buu/U4 Buu. It felt a lot of his abilities and his outlook was reasonable extension from what was established. As the fan comic has gone on I do feel like one of the weaknesses of the writing is sometimes it can write itself into a corner or runs cool ideas without fully mapping out how the logically conclude itself. It is like the U20 special. The concept of the heroes having Good Buu absorb everyone is a great one. At the same time this had to be a universe where Broly wins. Buu’s abilities allow him to counter Broly’s beyond just punching him. When Buu just tries to heat Broly in a fist fight first it reeks of forced plot because Broly has to win. That is what I think happens with Buu. When his power is revealed to work on universal scale and he can even revive the dead like the Dragons it unintentionally makes Buu too powerful to logically lose. When even XXI the main villain can only do something that at best is a temporary solution it makes Buu all powerful and all knowing, which makes his defeat less believable. At the same time the character becomes about what he can do and not a character. While this isn’t a stranger to DB proper it does feel a little disappointing seeing it from a fan comic that was exploring and expanding in characters. All the interesting facets to Buu’s personality that could have been explored or expanded on doesn’t and he can become one note as people accused of being in the series proper IMO. |
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Post by Skarr on Aug 24, 2022 22:11:25 GMT
I have the same experience with Buu. I originally liked him a lot. One of the main reasons I really gotten into DBM on a whole was that it was trying to ground DB a bit more and expand the characters personalities a bit more. For me personally I haven’t seen those two concepts meshed in a post DBZ story. A story where Vegetto’s power remains peak of power and everyone else isn’t just easily catching up or surpassing those levels after Buu saga was something I never saw attempted. I liked DBM for trying to do something a bit different. To be honest the majority of fan comics are pretty grounded. I think there's a misconception about fanfiction with all the old recolored forms but almost all of those are individual fanart not for an actual fan comic. It's the only a few well known GT sequels that have SSJ5 while most don't go beyond SSJ3. I think it's a mix of not being able to come up with a transformation that hasn't been done already online and wanting to focus on something else. There are more fan comics that are spinoffs or alternative universes than sequels so less of a need for more transformations. I think you would find a lot to enjoy if you're looking for more grounded fanwork. |
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Post by Jason9000 on Aug 25, 2022 18:21:07 GMT
I have the same experience with Buu. I originally liked him a lot. One of the main reasons I really gotten into DBM on a whole was that it was trying to ground DB a bit more and expand the characters personalities a bit more. For me personally I haven’t seen those two concepts meshed in a post DBZ story. A story where Vegetto’s power remains peak of power and everyone else isn’t just easily catching up or surpassing those levels after Buu saga was something I never saw attempted. I liked DBM for trying to do something a bit different. To be honest the majority of fan comics are pretty grounded. I think there's a misconception about fanfiction with all the old recolored forms but almost all of those are individual fanart not for an actual fan comic. It's the only a few well known GT sequels that have SSJ5 while most don't go beyond SSJ3. I think it's a mix of not being able to come up with a transformation that hasn't been done already online and wanting to focus on something else. There are more fan comics that are spinoffs or alternative universes than sequels so less of a need for more transformations. I think you would find a lot to enjoy if you're looking for more grounded fanwork. I do remember back in the early 2010's before BoG came out with a bunch of recolored hairstyles were on Dragon Ball OC's. Although from my memory most of the new fan Super Saiyan form gave them longer and longer hair. I think there was a joke one called Super Saiyan 100 where the golden hair was both bigger and longer than the Saiyan in the picture. I would be thoroughly surprised if Salagir did make a new Super Saiyan transformation for U18 Vegeta. If anything I would see the design be a mix between level three and four. But with how three has been shown to be the maximum. I don't think there will be much in terms of the design. |
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Post by drewsaga on Sept 1, 2022 6:36:12 GMT
To be honest the majority of fan comics are pretty grounded. I think there's a misconception about fanfiction with all the old recolored forms but almost all of those are individual fanart not for an actual fan comic. It's the only a few well known GT sequels that have SSJ5 while most don't go beyond SSJ3. I think it's a mix of not being able to come up with a transformation that hasn't been done already online and wanting to focus on something else. There are more fan comics that are spinoffs or alternative universes than sequels so less of a need for more transformations. I think you would find a lot to enjoy if you're looking for more grounded fanwork. I do remember back in the early 2010's before BoG came out with a bunch of recolored hairstyles were on Dragon Ball OC's. Although from my memory most of the new fan Super Saiyan form gave them longer and longer hair. I think there was a joke one called Super Saiyan 100 where the golden hair was both bigger and longer than the Saiyan in the picture. I would be thoroughly surprised if Salagir did make a new Super Saiyan transformation for U18 Vegeta. If anything I would see the design be a mix between level three and four. But with how three has been shown to be the maximum. I don't think there will be much in terms of the design. I have a hard time believing that Vegeta doesn't have a new SSJ form though given that Vegeta can apparently do better than SSJ3, as hinted here:
It's also likely Goku has that form as well. Point is how can Vegeta do "Much Better" if SSJ3 is his max? I am certain he went for a heavy hit on Cell to even get to his core.
I do feel like if there is a new SSJ form it would have to look distinct from the first three SSJ forms somehow.
It could be the Mystic powerup itself like Gohan (or what U13 Raditz is getting) but is that actually possible? Can Gohan go SSJ, SSJ2 or SSJ3 in DBM but never does because there is zero point in doing so for him to do that?
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Post by Skarr on Sept 1, 2022 13:46:46 GMT
I do remember back in the early 2010's before BoG came out with a bunch of recolored hairstyles were on Dragon Ball OC's. Although from my memory most of the new fan Super Saiyan form gave them longer and longer hair. I think there was a joke one called Super Saiyan 100 where the golden hair was both bigger and longer than the Saiyan in the picture. Yeah on deviantart and the fanon wiki has countless fanmade transformations that either recolored one of the existing forms or edited the hair to be longer. They were likely inspired by the old SSJ5 design since it recolored SSJ4 and had longer hair. I meant that almost all those were individual fanart and didn't belong to any fan comics. |
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