Early Access Dragon Ball Dissection!

On a meta level, I think it makes sense that Buu becomes more like a typical Dragon Ball supervillian when he absorbs Piccolo, seeing as how Piccolo was the original Dragon Ball supervillain and all. Other than that, I think this version has some things going for him: 1. He looks cool, and the way elements of his design go from rounded to more angular kinda calls to mind the way Toriyama's artstyle on Dragon Ball as a whole shifted in a similar way. 2. He still mixes comedy and terror like all the other Buus do, but in a different way: He's more like a typical Dragon Ball villain now and thus carries himself more seriously, so instead of the comedy coming from him being playful and silly, the comedy now comes from making him into an object of ridicule (Jumping ahead a bit to the Vegetto fight). 3. The way he celebrates like a silly child both times he thinks he's beaten Vegetto shows that the goofy playfulness is still there, just hidden underneath all the typical villain bluster he gained, indicating that he's still the silly manchild Buu is at heart. Though this is another improvement the anime adaptation makes, showing more of this Buu being playful and silly; better illustrating that he still has those signature Buu traits than Toriyama did, which was limited to the silly celebrating. 4. This Buu shows that Buu's absorption has a very empathic quality to it, as we see that Buu takes on the physical and personality traits of the people he absorbs, making it more interesting than Cell's more straightforward absorptions.

Onome Egi

Looking forwarding to seeing your thoughts on Vegito. We all know the story about how Toriyama had wanted Goku and Vegeta to fuse, but the movies beat him to the punch with Gogeta, so he made the Supreme Kai's earrings into a fusion item so he could make his own Goku and Vegeta fusion. I also wonder if you'll cover the Potara being retconned from "permanent, but the inside of Buu's body causes Goku and Vegeta to defuse anyway", to "permanent if a Supreme Kai uses them, only an hour for everyone else"

I will say that while I agree with your analysis for the most part, I do think there is a bit more to Majin Buu's "being a blowhard" than it was with Cell. Yes Buu does have a desire to fight someone strong but at the same time he really only got stronger when HE NEEDED to, Gohan would've killed him if he didn't get stronger and even here he wasn't needing to be challenged by Gohan since Gohan provided no challenge for him and Buu never complained. Plus when Gohan was healed back up to full strength Buu immediately tried to destroy the planet (After trying to kill Dende). Yes Buu becomes more serious than his counterparts but that's to be expected when he absorbs Piccolo. Buu does want to be the strongest but only out of self preservation not because he likes pushing himself or because he wants a genuine challenge it's not like he needs a good fight to keep himself occupied, as you said, he can occupy himself by making candy and doing other stuff too but in the short-term he needs to deal with the guy who is kicking his ass. He needs to fight the strongest guy and after his 30 minutes are up (Or however long he has) Gohan will be dead and then he basically goes back to more or less the same power that he had before. Plus when Goku does suggest the Fusion with Gohan Buu doesn't let them fuse. Which is in stark contrast to Cell. The only time he does actually give Goku 5 seconds to choose his next partner is after he absorbed Gohan (Which given how Gohan started acting shows some of his arrogance, but that was when he thought that he only had Dende and Mr. Satan to choose from). Even then he did try to stop Goku once his 5 seconds were up, so while he's not the deepest character I do think he still exhibits a mostly different idea than Cell who just wanted to fight the strongest guy. I mean yes you can argue it's "Short-sighted" but honestly for someone who is just making this up as he goes along like Buu I can expect that where as Cell who has been programed for this and has had literally DECADES to think this through is still more bland than Buu. Anyway not trying to argue but I just wanted to share my thoughts.

Eric M Brown

Also when Tien shows up and saves Dende, I think Toriyama forgot that one more person survived the Boo extinction attack. Because nobody cares about Chaotzu…

Tales from the Nuzlocke