Throughout the Dragon Ball series, the Dragon Balls have been treated as the ultimate safety net. No matter what happens, they are the backup plan. Goku himself revived after the fatal injuries from the Raditz fight.
This shows that the Dragon Balls have been treated like plot armor, letting the Z fighters be reckless in their fights without any regard for their safety. This does not make sense, where does the energy come from? Is there a cost to the wishes, and when will the price be extracted?
It sounds silly, seeing as bringing the seven Dragon Balls together was a herculean task at the beginning. But as the strength of the Z warriors grew, they treated Earth as their playground. Using the Dragon Balls was a matter of course; it took them minutes to locate and collect all of them.
The Price of Power: How the Dragon Balls Became the Enemy
This means they had unlimited wishes in their possession, not lacking anything. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction, even if it is a fantasy world, this law still applies.
This is where the genius in Dragon Ball GT shines. However, the series was looked down upon by the fans due to not being canon (not created by Akira Toriyama), and how it had many flaws and bad pacing.
Atsushi Maekawa, the author of GT, said this in an interview with Kazenshuu-
With the Dragon Balls around, any mistake can be undone. In extreme circumstances, even people who have died can come back to life. Up until this point, it had been repeatedly treated as a given. Unfortunately, however, such a useful tool doesn’t actually exist.
In that case, for the children watching this work in the real world, where the Dragon Balls don’t exist, to express this theme of, “Just how are we supposed to resolve problems in a world without the Dragon Balls?” …It’s something that, because we love the series Dragon Ball so much, we felt we just couldn’t get around.
But as referenced from the success of Dragon Ball DAIMA, it can be seen that Dragon Ball GT did a few things right. One of them is having the Z fighters face the consequences of the meaningless wishes they kept making.
The Z fighters used the Dragon Balls many times, be it to undo death, reverse destruction of places, or even correct some huge mistakes. This overreliance built up across sagas and arcs, with the Z-Fighters using Shenron to remedy the aftereffects of any catastrophe and danger, making the fights seem like they had no real consequences.
Why the Shadow Dragons Deserve More Recognition
Dragon Ball GT, however, flipped this on its head by introducing the concept of the Shadow Dragons. These are evil entities that were the manifestations of the negative energy created by years of careless wish-making. Each time someone makes a wish, to realize it, there is energy utilized and negative energy released.
Unlike previous villains, this time, the enemies were not invaders or cruel destroyers but a reminder of the greed and dependence of the Z fighters themselves. This was similar to how humans over-exploited the resources on Earth and started to face various challenges and consequences.
So, based on the concept that “the Evil Dragons were corruptions born as the price of the wishes granted up till now”, we’d have the people who gave rise to those corruptions take responsibility for them one by one, not by relying on the Dragon Balls, but by their own strength. That’s the kind of story we went with.
The Shadow Dragons may not be as iconic as other Dragon Ball villains, they are not Cell or Frieza, but their role in the series was crucial. They weren’t just about another high-powered fight but a lesson for the main characters to learn. It was much needed in a series that has Dragon Balls in its name.
By turning the Dragon Balls into a curse, GT forces the characters to take responsibility for their wanton behavior and understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world.
The Dragon Ball series is available to watch on Crunchyroll.
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