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For everything people love about "Dragon Ball" and its subsequent series "Z," "GT" and even the latest series, "Super," I have to admit, there are days that go by that I can't help but wonder if series creator Akira Toriyama wouldn't have been better served if the series had a finite ending.
Before the return of the anime with 2015's "Dragon Ball Super," following the successful 2013 film "Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods" and the 2015 film "Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F" (All of which was done seemingly out of pure spite by Toriyama after 20th Century Fox completely botched 2009's live film adaptation, "Dragon Ball Evolution"), fans were left on an ending that clearly left the door open for Toriyama to revisit his creation if he ever chose to.
Roughly a decade after the defeat of Majin Buu, Son Goku takes off from the World Martial Arts Tournament with Uub, Buu's reincarnation, to train him to be the next protector of the Earth. Uub eventually returns in "Dragon Ball GT," the anime-only, not Toriyama-influenced step-brother of the franchise that many fans do not consider to be canon. And Super revisits, and retcons, the "Dragon Ball" world well before the timeskip that concludes "Z" -- and just six months after the defeat of Buu, creating an entirely separate multiversal canon. And just to complicate matters further, fans haven't exactly been glowing of "Super," even with the manga continuing on past the end of the anime under the artistic direction of Toyotarou, Toriyama's protege.
All of this is to simply say that this series, and Toriyama, may have been better served if it had a finite ending, and he kind of already had it right in the palm of his hands if not for his public (and likely his editors) demanding the show go on.
The Cell arc is a quintessential arc of the overall "Dragon Ball" experience, and my personal favorite as it was the arc I watched to get into the series. I know, it's weird, purists. I was 8, sue me.
The entire arc takes place after Goku defeats Freeza on Planet Namek, and revolves around Dr. Gero of the old Red Ribbon Army that Goku defeated as a child and the Artificial Humans 16, 17 and 18 (Androids for those of us that watched the English dubs), who were hell bent on murdering Goku for revenge, and Cell, Gero's ultimate creation that traveled from the future to absorb the other Androids in a bid to become "perfect".
We also finally see Son Gohan, Goku's first son, finally be built up as the series lead he had been billed as since the very beginning.
Gohan surpasses everyone in strength, including his father, in ascending to Super Saiyan 2 and finally defeats Cell in an epic beam struggle, but not before Goku sacrifices himself to save everyone from Cell trying to blow up the planet after Gohan turns him into a rag doll for like three episodes. In the end, Goku refusing the option of being wished back to life again, instead choosing to stay dead for the good of the Earth and his loved ones, ultimately shows how Goku has matured from the person who selfishly always did what and fought how he wanted despite the consequences of his actions.
In a future column, we'll delve further still into how this story could have had a better ending. Next time -- fan fiction.
YouTube TV quibble
I've said it many times before and I'll begin today by saying it again -- nothing beats a loaded college football Saturday, and we had that in spades last weekend.
I traveled to visit some friends and spend the afternoon watching some football, and my friend has YouTube TV, so we were able to watch up to four games on a single screen with the multiview feature that was rolled out in full earlier this year.
I was greatly disappointed to learn that, at least as of this time, you can not select your own custom four screens. Currently, users are limited to only pre-selected options, which weren't entirely terrible.
But I certainly wouldn't have kept Grambling State-Texas Southern on for too long with other, bigger matchups in that same window (No offense to the HBCUs, your bands rock). Custom screen selection is a feature Google has said will come in the future, so fingers crossed that it'll get here in time for next college football season.
Dan Isenberg is a copy editor who writes regularly on gaming, tech, fantasy, science fiction, pro wrestling and other nerd culture topics for the Mirror. He can be reached at disenberg@altoonamirror.com or on Twitter @TheseDanTweets.