The Black Star Dragon Ball Saga is the opening arc of Dragon Ball GT: sixteen episodes broadcast on Fuji TV between February 7 and June 19, 1996. A careless wish turns Goku back into a child and sends him on a planet-hopping hunt for seven Dragon Balls scattered across the galaxy, with his granddaughter Pan and Trunks along for the ride. It is the stretch of GT that feels most like the original Dragon Ball: adventure, slapstick and a villain who only steps out of the shadows at the very end.
How the saga is split
We follow the American split, which ends the saga at episode 16, when the crew lands on M2 and Giru appears to turn on them. Toei's own episode list stretches the arc to episode 22, where Baby is born, and also calls it the "space exploration" arc. The difference has a history behind it. For the show's first US broadcast in November 2003, Funimation skipped these sixteen episodes entirely, replaced them with a recap called A Grand Problem, and only aired them in 2005 as The Lost Episodes. That is why many English-speaking fans met GT in the middle of the M2 storyline.
One wish too many
Five years after the last World Martial Arts Tournament of Z, Goku wraps up Uub's training at Kami's Lookout. At the same moment an elderly Emperor Pilaf, still flanked by Mai and Shu, sneaks into the Lookout's hidden chambers and finds a set of Dragon Balls marked with black stars, dating back to the days before Kami split from King Piccolo. A red dragon, Ultimate Shenron, appears. Goku walks in on the summoning, and a frustrated Pilaf blurts out that he wishes Goku were a kid again. The dragon takes him at his word.
The real trouble comes next. The Black Star Dragon Balls have scattered across the galaxy, and unless they are brought back to Earth within a year, the planet they were used on will explode. Bulma builds a spaceship. Vegeta suggests sending Trunks and Goten instead of Gohan, but at launch Goten is outside chatting with his girlfriend, while Pan, hidden on board, hits the ignition. The team is set.
One planet at a time
The structure is that of a classic adventure serial: every two or three episodes a new world, with its own community and its own petty tyrant. On Imecka, the planet of merchants, where everything comes with a price tag, Goku, Pan and Trunks take on Don Kee and his bodyguard Ledgic, and above all they meet Giru, the little robot who swallows the Dragon Radar and becomes the team's radar himself. Next come a planet of giants, where a Dragon Ball ends up wedged in a colossus's tooth, and a village terrorized by Zoonama, with Trunks dressed up as a bride.
The longest block is the Luud arc, episodes 9 to 14: the Para Para Brothers steal a Dragon Ball for a cult that turns its followers into dolls and uses their energy to awaken its god. Pan ends up in Dolltaki's doll collection, while Goku and Trunks deal with Cardinal Mutchy Mutchy and then with Lord Luud himself, who turns out to be a machine. Episode 13 introduces the man pulling the strings, Dr. Myuu. After Pan runs off into the desert (15), Giru guides everyone to his home planet, M2, where the Sigma Force captures Goku and Trunks and the robot seems to switch sides.
Main characters in this saga
Episodes
| No. | Funimation title | First aired (Japan) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Devastating Wish | February 7, 1996 | Goku becomes a kid |
| 2 | Pan Blasts Off | February 14, 1996 | the launch |
| 3 | Terror on Imecka | February 21, 1996 | enter Giru |
| 4 | The Most Wanted List | February 28, 1996 | |
| 5 | Goku vs. Ledgic | March 6, 1996 | |
| 6 | Like Pulling Teeth | March 13, 1996 | the first Dragon Ball |
| 7 | Trunks, the Bride | March 20, 1996 | |
| 8 | Whisker Power | April 17, 1996 | |
| 9 | Lord Luud | April 24, 1996 | the Para Para Brothers |
| 10 | Dance and Attack | May 1, 1996 | |
| 11 | Lord Luud's Curse | May 8, 1996 | |
| 12 | The Last Oracle of Luud | May 15, 1996 | |
| 13 | The Man Behind the Curtain | May 22, 1996 | Dr. Myuu appears |
| 14 | The Battle Within | June 5, 1996 | the end of Luud |
| 15 | Beginning of the End | June 12, 1996 | |
| 16 | Giru's Checkered Past | June 19, 1996 | arrival on M2 |
Titles are from Funimation's dub. Each episode page also gives the literal translation of the Japanese title.
Characters
- Goku, a kid again in body but not in mind: he can still go Super Saiyan, though Instant Transmission gives him trouble at first.
- Pan, Gohan and Videl's daughter, impulsive and fearless, the cause of half the team's problems and the answer to the other half.
- Trunks, now president of Capsule Corporation, the most grown-up member of the crew and its pilot.
- Giru, a robot who runs on radar and nerves, and who reveals an unexpected past on M2.
- Emperor Pilaf, Mai and Shu, the old foes from the first Dragon Ball, who set everything in motion by accident.
- Dr. Myuu, the scientist behind the Machine Mutants, who stays in the shadows until the Baby Saga.
Our take
The Black Star Dragon Ball Saga is the most debated part of GT, and not always unfairly. Toei's intention was clear and even brave: after years of ever-bigger battles, go back to the spirit of the first Dragon Ball, with a child Goku, a journey, strange planets and villains who are more silly than dangerous. In the early episodes it works. The dynamic between the kid grandpa and the granddaughter who wants to be the star has real charm, and Trunks plays the responsible adult with just the right amount of dry humor.
The problem is pacing. The planet-of-the-week formula repeats without building, the stakes feel distant (the one-year deadline almost never weighs on anyone), and Pan too often ends up as the girl who needs rescuing, a choice producer Kōzō Morishita made on purpose. Japanese audiences noticed: according to the ratings collected by Kanzenshuu, the share fell from 19.7% for episode 2, the best of the entire series, to 12.6% for episode 16.
Still, the saga is not wasted. It lays the groundwork for everything that follows: Giru, Dr. Myuu, planet M2 and the Black Star countdown, which comes back with a vengeance at the end of the Baby arc. And GT's melancholy tone starts here too, with a small Goku roaming the universe just like he did at the very beginning.
Continue with: the Baby Saga, episodes 17-40 →
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