Dragonball Z/GT is Overrated

Thank you for taking me up on my debate. I wish you good luck Biggtime. I would like to start by launching into seven key points regarding the many weaknesses of this anime.1. TOO MUCH EXPOSITION! The biggest problem with Dragonball Z that even hardcore fans complain about is exposition,. Characters love to stop fighting and boast about how strong they are. Frieza tells us that Namek will explode in five minutes, which is later changed to seven. However, over the span of countless episodes, the fight stretches to the three hour mark (http://tvtropes.org...). This is a typical problem with anime as a whole, like Naruto. Dragonball Z is one of the worst offenders because very little in terms in character. All of the boasts from the villians and heroes do nothing to establish the these character's personalities.2. Nearly Every Character Is Useless Except Goku.Goku ultimately defeats every major villian. All of the other characters barely do anything to help Goku to ultimately use his spirit bomb and win the fight. Tien dies to slow down cell only for only a minute, Vegeta's arrogance allows Cell to reach perfection, Gohan fails to fully finish off Cell and needs his dad's help. And before someone says "But Krillin died to make Goku a super saiyan!" Krillin didn't know that was going to happen. For all he knew, Goku could have had a breakdown and lost all focus, resulting in Goku's death. Vegeta is used twice by villians in order to further their plans (baby and babidi). All the supporting cast does is give Goku sensu beans and then die in order for Goku to win. It becomes harder and harder to like characters when they are all completely disposable and idiotic to the point of detriment. 3. Powers include Beams, Balls, Transformations, and...nothing else.Let's take a quick look at Bleach and Naruto. Naruto had to use his clones in order to make openings, Soi Fon had to strike her oppenent twice in the same place, Shikamaru could only control shadows, and Ichigo had a hollow mask that gave him strong powers, but only if the mask was still intact. In Dragonball Z, every power is a beam, ball, or transformation that has no real weaknesses. All of the beams and balls were either different colored, different named, or just a different user. The transformations were a little bit better because they had time limits, but in a show where time limits are not clearly respected, they can be bent in order to make a fight a little more interesting. Tension happens in fights when a side has a clear disadvantage, and we root for the side who can turn their disadvantage into a win.4. Goku turning into a kid at the beginning of GT undermined everything.GT was a great opportunity to make Goku grab some bench and allow Vegeta and Gohan to get some time in the spotlight. Uub could have been the new star of Dragonball GT. But what was GT about? Goku. Again. Let's think about how this hurts the strength all the cast. We establish Vegeta, Gohan, Goten, etc. are not as strong as Goku. As a kid. If kid Goku is stronger than the entire cast, then why care about everyone else? Also, when Goku went ss4 (which was obviously an adult), they should have kept him as an adult. Many can agree that GT was not nearly as interesting as Z because it didn't try anything new. Goku was still the front runner, Goku was still saving the day, Goku keeps making the rest of the cast boring.5. Nobody has Clear Weaknesses or StengthsTo really understand this point, we need to understand how American comics operate. Take Spiderman for example. Spiderman has a set of powers that he uses in order to fight crime. Interesting fights occur when these powers aren't enough to naturally defeat his enemies. For instance, the spider sense does not work on Venom or Carnage. The Green Goblin can fly while Spiderman can only swing, giving Goblin an advantage in mobility. Most of all, superheros in american comics do not want to kill the super villians, while the villians don't mind getting their hands dirty. In Dragonball Z, what weaknesses do Vegeta and Goku have? Any shortcomings in stength are cancelled out by either training, transforming, or fusion. Vegeta, Goku, Gohan, etc. do not have any direct problems with their powers. The only thing that they have to contend with sometimes are time limits to these ultimate forms, but theses aren't the same as Spiderman struggling against Venom or Superman struggling against kryptonite and magic (a lesser known weakness of his).6. Deaths Mean Absolutely Nothing.Krillen dies four times, Goku three times, Vegeta twice. Many characters die in Dragonball Z only to come back with the dragonballs or some other power. The problem with all of these resurrections is that there is no tension in these deaths if everyone can come back to life and continue to fight even when dead. Keep in mind that during the final fight with Kid Buu Vegeta was already dead. Imagine if when a character dies, they stay dead. Imagine how much more of an impact Vegeta's death to Buu would have been if it was permanent. His final goodbye could have been tear jerking. However, since Vegeta came back, it completely undermined his entire sacrifice, thus making life and death in this anime/manga a complete sham.7. Gohan is the chosen one? Is he?From the very start of the show, Goku keeps telling his son that he has the potential to be the next great warrior. This is especially true in the Cell Saga, where Cell is defeated by Gohan in his ss2 form (however, the "Chosen One" still needed his dad to teleport Cell's self destructing body away from the planet). Then from the Majin Buu Saga, everything that Gohan does is a failure. He becomes a superhero (which is almost instantly figured out by Videl), learns a new form "beyond" super saiyan (which fails horribly against Buu), then does nothing of real importance in GT. He does also defeat Bojack. Was the chosen one to defeat Cell and Bojack, but then isn't so chosen anymore? To conclude my points, Dragonball Z is a sloppy mess. It ignores the rules that it sets for itself and draws out so many conflicts in order to continue to get young children to keep watching. There are much more interesting and deep animes that have more complicated dramas and conflicts that beat any of the beam battle operas that Dragonball Z has.