Dragon Ball

So I just finished watching the last episode of Dragon Ball GT. I'm a little senti now cause of it. Yeah, I know, it's a little wussy to go all senti over a japanese cartoon, but hear me out.

What I like about the whole thing was that we saw the whole life of Goku. The difference between Japanese Anime against western counterparts is that usually, anime creators don't mind letting their characters grow. To put it another way, you'll never see what Ross and Rachel's grandchildren would be like; you'll never see who Maggie Simpson ends up marrying; you'll never see Eric Cartman go to college and you'll never see if Buffy ends up ridding the world of vampires. Dragon Ball is unique here, even to other Anime shows, because we got to see Goku as a kid, to how he met his eventual wife Chichi, to his son Gohan be born, to how he died several times, to how Goten be born, to his growing rivalry with Vegeta and many more storylines as the series progressed. We had a beginning and we had an end.

The finale was especially moving. After they dispatched of the bad guy, Goku ended up saying good-bye to all his friends, so we got to see a big chunk of characters that we saw in all stages of Goku's life. After that, we got a flash-forward to the future where Pan(Goku's grand-daughter)'s grand-son Goku Jr. was facing a kid who also looks like Vegeta (to perhaps show that those two were forever connected to each other). And then finally, we got a musical montage from Goku's birth to all the significant moments of the show and then, the show ended.

The only thing I didn't like about the last few shows was that they pretty much put Gohan in the background. There was a time when the show was built around him when he was the most powerful saiyan. Then, Goku came back again and Gohan lost most of his powers and that was pretty much it. He was pretty much a writer's tool (along with Picollo, Trunks, etc) to magnify how strong the new enemy is. So that sucked.

I hope you'll apologize the geek-rant, but I'm channelling my inner Japanese nerd here, so bear with me. What makes me warm and fuzzy about watching the finale is that I got to see a person's (or character's, whichever you prefer) evolution from his genesis. I find it really sad that one day, I will be that person, a little too old and reflecting on my childhood to where I am at that time. Perhaps I'll be playing with my grandchild as I reflect (shades of Vito Corleone on that one). Nevertheless, endings make me sad, especially a show that I've known when I was a kid. Yeah, I know the show ended quite some time ago, but I never got to see the finale till tonight. And so, goodbye Goku, thanks for the closure.

Alright, I'm done. Let's all forget this happened.