What makes Namek saga the best part of Dragon Ball Z? Hell, what makes it one of the BEST sagas in all of fiction?

The other way around. Buu cast is doing decently, the Cell cast has to be incompetent and make bad decisions to let everything happen.

For me, it's the side characters. You got the side cast doing stuff around and exploring places while goku simultaneously does stuff. The dynamism of it.

This
This is why HxH is the best manga ever.

It's not. Freeza and Cell (Freeza 2) are the nadir of Dragon Ball as a franchise

instead of the arc milking a single enemy like Buu

Yeah, this is the main reason I hated Buu's arc.

best arc finale

Nah, if it ended with Frieza, Gohan would've been utterly worthless as a character. Frieza arc was better as a whole, but Cell's ending was peak fiction.

The Gohan/Krillin dynamics are so good

In Buu's arc, most of the stupidity happened before Buu hatched. Afterwards, everybody was just cucked by his utterly broken regen.

Every Z fighter from Goku to Piccolo to Krillin dropped 50 IQ points in Cell. Only Bulma was spared.

I don’t remember them being stupid in Cell.

You don't remember Vegeta helping the antagonist twice in a row and getting embarrassed the exact same way twice?

The issue in Cell is more that the characters act pathetic. Sure, they let Gero live, and then Piccolo led Cell to 17 (not his fault but still), and then 18 didn't fucking run, and then Krillin crushed the remote, and then Vegeta and Trunks let Cell (or failed to stop Cell) absorb 18... but more than that, the Earthlings just act pathetic and go "we're so useless!!" all the fucking time. It's demoralizing.

I'll take Buu 10 times over that. Put them in the background, give them a few scenes, don't humiliate them.

>several different enemies like Zarbon, Dodoria and the Ginyu Force instead of the arc milking a single enemy like Buu

Fat Buu, Super Buu and Kid Buu all have different personalities despite being the same enemy in essence.

Yeah, you can't really blame Cell or Buu in that perspective. Toriyama rarely, if ever, does the "let's spend 100 chapters fighting the same guy"

I do, but I consider that more an act of ego than stupidity.

Nothing in Dragon Ball sniffs Marineford in One Piece.

Marineford doesn’t compare to Egghead, and Egghead, despite loving it, doesn’t compare to Namek.

One Piss

Lol, lmao even.

The Dragon Balls take any tension and build up away. The stakes, symbolism, and ramifications at Marineford make any arc in Dragkn Ball ameture in comparison

What Dragon Balls? They're going on Namek to find Dragon Balls lol. Also:

muh stakes

Shonenshit characters dying doesn't make the story good. Oda will never be even half the mangaka Toriyama was

Didn’t take the tension away watching the show. Conditions were usually applied such as piccolo’s dead, db’s are gone or db’s can’t revive people it has previously revived.

I think this is a retrospective copout.

At least the non-Saiyan characters did something in Cell.

Not really, they kinda tagged along... Only Tenshinhan got to stall Cell. I'm glad for what they did during the Saiyans and Namek arc but Cell dropped the pretense of having non Saiyans (actually: non Goku/Gohan characters) mattering

The DBs were under Frieza Force or Vegeta's possession for most of the arc, there was insane tension on Namek.

The first part of Namek when Krillin and Gohan, and Vegeta, and Frieza's forces are all chasing avoiding each other is my favourite part of DragonBall
Second place goes to when Roshi and Tien go to confront King Piccolo

Back when even "fodder" like Dodoria could be threatening as fuck. Good old days.

Nothing post timeskip has been as good Marineford so far imo.

Personally… I disagree. I think WCI and Egghead were well-written, they deserve merit. Marineford’s strongest point is that Oda didn’t waste the death of characters and using it where it mattered, it’s not like JJK where people die left and right, only to magically reappear alive and well at the end of the manga.

Ace’s death was important Luffy’s character growth into a proper pirate captain. Krillin’s death contributed to Goku awakening his Super Saiyan powers, but… it ultimately meant nothing.

the best part of the manga is the 23rd budokai but namek is close

People who fetishize this saga are wrong. DB is good from beginning to end, and while the namek saga is a great highlight, I feel like it's not that balanced. Vegeta going on a one man kill streak against Freeza is great, but everyone having to wait for Goku TWICE - first as he gets, there, then after Gynyu - only for him to appear with two major random power ups, makes this a bit uncreative for me. It's cool that he slowly introduces the transformation theme through Zarbon and Frieza, and then has Goku topping all of them, but it feels too much like an arcade sequence.

In the Cell saga we have: Frieza returns, mysterious super sayian from the future, hunting the cyborgs who have no auras, escalation to three new cyborgs, Cell slowly getting stronger and stronger and more menancing in the background - ONE training session in the room of spirit and time, and the final Cell game with Gohan actually completing the arc he got from the beginning (and Vegeta significantly growing as well). There are moments such as Yamcha vs Gero, Tenshinhan kikoho against Cell, Kuririn falling in love with 18 and Vegeta being demolished by her that are super memorable. Gohan going ssj2 is also great.

The Buu saga is also amazing in that it goes back to the origins of the DB as a gag manga and introduces a seemingly gag enemy that it's actually stronger than everyone. The fights get more and more cartoonish and absurd by the end with the introduction of the "fusion" theme - Buu absorbs characters, Gotenks, Vegito - which turns this into a weird fever dream. The closing for the whole saga is perfect in saying that all these battles are actually pretty stupid, and what is really important is normal people's capacity to be friends with each other (Satan befriending Buu and convincing everyone to give energy to Goku). Vegeta sacrificing and acknowledging Goku as the best closes his arc in a great way.

I love this manga because it's always pushing itself further, just like Goku.

Goku being incapacitated twice feels a bit too much but otherwise it's pretty hard to criticize Namek. And I like what you highlighted about other arcs, but there's a lot more really cool stuff on Namek that doesn't keep up after it

Saiyans is also almost Namek level, it's really fucking good

>Namek is a really interesting and cool planet

Stopped reading there

I forgot to mention sayians but yes, it's absolutely great. It must have been insane to read this weekly - especially since the moments Nappa and Vegeta land on earth. Everybody dies, Goku jumps in, defeats Nappa, and then there's the fight with Vegeta which starts normal and then become crazier and crazier with Gohan and Kuririn jumping in. I really wish I knew how weekly readers reacted to Yajirobei cutting Vegeta's tail out of nowhere

It is, though. It doesn't have that much "content" because it's basically dead, but it's a fantastic setting.

ENTER

FUCK SUPER SAIYANS
FUCK POWER LEVELS
AND. FUCK. YOU.

Even he acts pretty pathetic in this arc, calling himself useless. That was a great scene, though, really cool.

"Namek is boring" is a shitty meme that got parroted, it's one of the most memorable set pieces

Thanks to beautiful art