The Baby Saga is the heart of Dragon Ball GT: twenty-four episodes broadcast on Fuji TV between June 26, 1996 and March 5, 1997. It starts as the last leg of the space journey and turns into the darkest story in the series: a parasite bent on avenging his people takes over the Saiyans, then Vegeta, then the whole Earth. To stop him, Goku has to get his tail back and reach a level nobody had seen before, Super Saiyan 4.
How the saga is split
We follow the American split, which starts the saga at episode 17, with Goku and Trunks held prisoner on M2. Funimation's first US broadcast, in November 2003, also started here. Toei's episode list starts the Baby arc at episode 23 instead, after Baby is born, giving it eighteen episodes, while the Spanish Wikipedia picks a third option and begins at 22.
M2 and the birth of Baby
The first six episodes settle the scores left open by the previous saga. While Pan sneaks into the base disguised as a robot, Goku tears through the Sigma Force and takes on General Rilldo, who can turn opponents into slabs of metal and merge with the planet itself. Giru's apparent betrayal turns out to be a plan hatched with Trunks, and it leads everyone to the heart of Dr. Myuu's lab. There, inside a capsule, Baby is growing.
Episode 22 flips the story around: Myuu did not create Baby, Baby used Myuu. The mutant is the last heir of the Tuffles, the people who lived on the Saiyans' home planet before the Saiyans wiped them out, and he is a parasite who can slip inside other bodies and control them. He kills his creator and sets out after the Saiyans.
Earth falls
From there the saga keeps escalating. Baby jumps from host to host, reaches Earth before the heroes and takes over Goten, then Gohan, and uses them to strike down Piccolo. His real target is Vegeta, the strongest Saiyan left on the planet, who falls in episode 27. From then on Baby infects nearly everyone on Earth, Bulma included; only Mr. Satan, Majin Buu and a handful of others stay free.
When Goku comes home with all seven Black Star Dragon Balls, he finds his own family turned against him. His child body cannot sustain Super Saiyan 3, and Baby flattens him with a gigantic energy sphere. Kibito Kai rescues him at the last second but drops him in a dimension where he has to play a rigged board game against Sugoro (30-31). Meanwhile Baby uses the Dragon Balls to rebuild Plant, the Tuffle homeworld, and moves Earth's population there. Uub, reunited with Majin Buu, takes him on but cannot finish the job.
Super Saiyan 4
The turning point is an idea from GT's producers that became part of franchise history. Elder Kai regrows Goku's tail; at the sight of the Earth's light Goku becomes a rampaging Golden Great Ape, and only Pan's voice brings him back, in a brand-new form: long black hair, red fur, an adult body. This is the Super Saiyan 4 of episode 35. Baby answers with a Blutz Wave generator built by Bulma, which turns him into a Golden Great Ape without costing him his mind. Defeating him takes the energy of Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Pan, help from Uub inside Baby's own body and a Kamehameha that drives Baby's escape ship into the sun.
But the Black Star countdown never stopped: instead of going back where they belonged, the Dragon Balls were used again, and the Earth explodes. Goku moves its people to Plant, Piccolo stays behind to die along with the Black Star Dragon Balls, and the Namekian Dragon Balls put the Earth back where it was.
Main characters in this saga
Episodes
| No. | Funimation title | First aired (Japan) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Pan's Gambit | June 26, 1996 | |
| 18 | Unexpected Power | July 10, 1996 | |
| 19 | A General Uprising | July 17, 1996 | |
| 20 | The Source of Rilldo's Power | July 31, 1996 | |
| 21 | A Secret Revealed | August 14, 1996 | |
| 22 | The Baby Secret | August 21, 1996 | Baby is born |
| 23 | Hidden Danger | August 28, 1996 | |
| 24 | Discovering the Truth | September 4, 1996 | |
| 25 | Baby's Arrival | October 16, 1996 | |
| 26 | Saiyan Hunting | October 30, 1996 | Goten and Gohan possessed |
| 27 | The Attack on Vegeta | November 6, 1996 | Baby takes Vegeta |
| 28 | A Worldwide Problem | November 13, 1996 | |
| 29 | The Fall of the Saiyans | November 27, 1996 | |
| 30 | The Game After Life | December 4, 1996 | Plant is restored |
| 31 | Collapse from Within | December 11, 1996 | |
| 32 | The Return of Uub | January 8, 1997 | Uub and Buu become one |
| 33 | The Tail's Tale | January 15, 1997 | |
| 34 | Back in the Game | January 22, 1997 | the Golden Great Ape |
| 35 | Goku's Ascension | January 29, 1997 | Super Saiyan 4 |
| 36 | The Tuffle Gorilla Attacks | February 5, 1997 | |
| 37 | Old Kai's Last Stand | February 12, 1997 | |
| 38 | Family Bonds | February 19, 1997 | |
| 39 | Baby Put to Rest | February 26, 1997 | the end of Baby |
| 40 | Piccolo's Decision | March 5, 1997 | the Earth explodes |
Titles are from Funimation's dub. Each episode page also gives the literal translation of the Japanese title.
Characters
- Goku, beaten, lost and put back together, who closes the saga with his most iconic transformation since Super Saiyan.
- Baby, an unusual villain: he does not want power for its own sake but revenge for an entire people, and he gets it by wearing his enemies' bodies.
- Vegeta, Baby's host for most of the saga, a prisoner of his own pride even when he is not in control of his body.
- Pan, one of the few left free alongside Mr. Satan and Buu, who plays a decisive part in the birth of Super Saiyan 4.
- Uub, who reunites with Majin Buu and returns as a credible fighter.
- Piccolo, who chooses to vanish along with the Black Star Dragon Balls.
Our take
This is the saga that saves GT, and not only because of Super Saiyan 4. Baby is the first villain in the series with a motive you can almost understand: the extermination of the Tuffles at the hands of the Saiyans, the story King Kai told Goku back in episode 20 of Z, becomes the engine of everything here. The parasite idea also brings something close to horror into Dragon Ball, with friends and family staring at Goku with empty eyes and turning on him.
The flaws are real. The M2 stretch drags, the board game with Sugoro is a break that arrives at the worst possible moment, and Gohan, Goten and Trunks spend too long as mind-controlled extras. But the second half has a pace GT never had before, and the ending, with Piccolo saying goodbye to Gohan from a burning planet, is one of the most moving farewells in the series. This is where GT stops being a space adventure and finds its own voice: sadder, more grown-up, and aware that wishes come at a price.
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