Alright, the Buu Saga, the most infamous saga in all of DBZ, you want to know what's funny? I used to be harsh on this saga myself but after watching it recently, despite the issues it has, I still think it's pretty enjoyable and far from the worst saga in DB overall, for me that award goes to the Red Ribbon Army.
The Buu Saga starts off decently enough, and I can honestly say that everything before Buu shows up is geniunely solid. It does a good job at building up established characters like Vegeta, Goku and Gohan and does a good job highlighting on how Gohan has been slacking during peace time while Goku and Vegeta have been training their butts off. Goten, Kid Trunks and Videl are also built up pretty well too. Videl is a decent enough character giving Gohan more to do after the guy was basically just getting involved in fights protecting the earth a lot of time. In fact, Goku's entire expanded friend circle is my favorite apsect of about DB in general, it feels like so much has happened if you watch the series from the very start all the way to now, the amount of friends and family Goku has made geniunely feels incredible that he even has that many people trusting of him. I say DB handles friendship better than a lot of shonen and this is why, in this series and unlike a lot of other shonen, characters aren't connected to each other due to being in a small down or a common goal, here, it's because they choose to be together despite living completely different walks of life.
That and this Saga also is an interesting change for Toriyama as a creator too, here it feels like the story is coming full circle with him homaging the original Dragon Ball with the World Martial Arts Tournament being shown again, the emphasis on comedy and magic just like how Dragon Ball was when it first started.
But back to the characters themselves, all the characters both old and new do a good job at establishing their personality and potential later on in the saga, admittedly it does a fumble a bit due to an issue I will mention later. Goten and Trunks being inexperienced but being overly arrogant when fused, or Gohan while being weaker still has that Sayain arrogance in him in fact the Buu Saga overall does a good job at establishing just how much Gohan has been slacking since Cell with the characters point out even when Gohan fully powered up, he is still not as powerful as he was when he fought Cell.
Vegeta's foreshadowing when he becomes Majin is really well handled, it constantly shows his face with a disinterested look and him not even reacting to Videl getting brutalized that happens later and just how Vegeta was so disinteresting in the tournament overall.
Piccolo's personality "change" is also an infamous aspect of the Buu Saga while it can be a bit jarring to see but the thing is, Piccolo as far back as the 23rd Martial Arts Tourament and the Sayain was never truly a "bad" person and was a soft person deep down so this isn't too out of the ordinary and while Super Sayain 3 was Toriyama making things up as he went a long, at least Vegeta approiately chastised him for it, and this saga was showing how arrogant and prideful sayains are overall.
Majin Buu despite having his issues I will mention later is a solid enough antagonist for the series, a big issue with him is that he makes everyone besides a Sayains, "useful" but the thing is, what makes Toriyama so memorable as a writer is how much he abuses the worf effect and isn't afraid of making your favorite character look like an idiot. Buu is portrayed very dominantly throughout the whole saga and while there are issues, he does a good job at feeling like a powerful villain like for example he beats up Gohan who defeated Cell, he survived against a powered up Majin Vegeta, he took on a Super Sayain 3, killed everyone on the Kami's Lookout, and was even going to wipe out the entire universe, honestly, Buu might be the most memorable villain in the whole series due to Toriyama taking the Worf Effect to the crazy extreme here. It's what makes Buu such a memorable villain, if Tien, Yamcha and Krillin stood a chance against Buu and laid dent on here, Buu would be so much more boring as a result.
Another good aspect of the Buu Saga is Mr. Satan himself, he went from being a one note show off in the Cell Saga to being a geniunely good character despite being one of the show's weakest characters in terms of strength, he managed to save the entire world from Buu and he has an interesting relationship with Buu. With how much Mr. Satan wanted to kill Buu to being the first friend Buu has ever had and this is what makes Dragon Ball's handling of the idea of friendship so interesting. It's because of Mr. Satan was friends with Buu and Goku saving Mr. Satan from Buu is why they were able to win, it wasn't because of the power of friendship, it was because Goku showed compassion towards Mr. Satan and Mr. Satan showing compassion to Buu is why they were able to win.
And I might as well address a complaint the series has had for a while is the whole wishing people back with the dragon balls. While I get it as a complaint, I am not sure if having the dragon balls getting magically erased and having DBZ end on a depressing note especially out of nowhere with how goofy the Buu Saga is to be good writing either.
Now after singing all this praise, why am I giving this Saga a 7? Well a big issue while Majin Buu is a memorable villain and portrayed very dominantly, the problem with him is that he is so overpowered that Toriyama just kept adding abilities and powers on top of more of them because it's magic we can do whatever we want. For example, take Buu's regeneration, he can only do it because of magic and it's never explained how his regeneration actually works or if there are any drawbacks to his rengeneration. With Cell and the Androids, in spite of them breaking the power scaling, there was a logic to how they worked. With the Androids, they didn't have energy making them hard to sense and they never lose energy when fighting, Android 19 and 20 needed to suck energy out, Cell had all the cells of Goku, his friends, and Frieza, so it does make sense why Cell would be so powerful, that and Cell's regeneration came from Piccolo and he needed the nucleus to be destroyed to be beaten, the series was vague about it but there was some logic behind it, with Buu, he can regenerate to his heart's content and still be as powerful as ever. Frieza also had some drawbacks in that he had to use the scouters and overly relied on them which ultimately lead to his downfall in the long run. As a result, it feels like Toriyama never knew how to actually get ride of Buu due to the lack of drawbacks, every time Buu gets beaten, he would transform or get a new ablity, as a result while the way Kid Buu gets beaten is great themematically and is good writing in a different way, it feels like Toriyama desperately wanted to find a way to get rid of him, and while it was interesting, it almost felt like Buu only died because the plot decided for his unlimited regeneration to not kick in.
And the finally, the ending, while I don't dislike it as much as I used to, I felt like the Cell Saga's ending felt like there was some degree of finality to it because evil was only connected to Goku but now, it feels like evil can happen at any time and it can appear forever despite Goku and friends living in peace the story can keep coming up with threats forever, and now there probably never be a sense of finality to the story. As a result, Z's ending doesn't so much feel like a conclusion but a prelude of things to come which doesn't make for nearly as good of a conclusion as the Cell Saga.
Overall, Buu Saga is good but it felt like Toriyama kind of overstepped himself in some cases while having many great moments.
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