Gotenks vs Majin Buu
Running time: just under 2 hours
Best place to stream: Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll’s Season and Episode: Season 1, Episodes 258-262
Between confronting Frieza and Cell, Goku and the company have had their hands full with a lot of seriously bad people. But when a wizard from outer space shows up almost randomly, the tone drops to the crazier days of Goku’s adventures. In the beginning, the show was as much a comedy as it was an action series. This horrific Majin Buu entity was the first antagonist in a long time not only determined to destroy the world. With a childish disposition, Buu would turn people into candy to eat them. Worse, he seemed completely immune to damage and significantly stronger than the best on Earth.
So it’s a funny detour when Hercule accidentally becomes Buu’s friend and easily persuades him to give up his bad manners. Unfortunately for the world, Buu physically splits into a good and bad version and the bad one wins. It’s this maniacal Super Buu that Trunks and Goten are up against as the last defenders of the world. Buu is so bad he doesn’t even wait to win the last fight to kill everyone on the planet, he just does it on a whim. Even with this extremely evil character twist, his battle against the two youngest fighters in the role is a lighthearted delight full of jokes and silly jokes. The two children are Earth’s last hope, but they are extremely stupid. It’s the perfect synthesis of the powerful, high-stakes combat of DBZ and the goofy go-anywhere style of Goku’s childhood adventures in Dragon Ball†
Goku and Vegeta against Kid Buu
Running time: just under 3 hours
Best place to stream: Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll’s Season and Episode: Season 1, Episodes 279-286
In Dragon Ball ZNo matter how bad things looked, good always defeated evil. But it’s not just one fight that resulted in the happy ending of the series, it really is the fight to end all the fights. Goku manages to defeat Buu, the worst entity in the entire universe. With Frieza defeated, the androids at home knew the arrival of Buu’s ancient evil was the last real threat to a peace that was happily ever after.
Besides the sentimentality, it’s an exciting fight to watch. It has all the hallmarks of a classic DBZ fighting, but ramped up to 11. Goku makes his millionth return from retirement to defeat the big bad guy, but this time Buu is the literal incarnation of evil, not just a seriously bad guy. Vegeta has a huge character moment when he finally admits that Goku is the stronger of the two, not because of his strength, but because of his pure heart, his kindness. The Dragon Balls provide a docking aid to mount and unleash the fan-favorite attack throughout the series, the Spirit Bomb.
