Anime: Dragon Ball Z 3pi38

Dragon Ball was a charming classic. It offered a good deal of combats, action, and storytelling filled with a comedy that varied from simple jokes to perverted nonsense. It was fun, refreshing, enjoyable. Yet it stuck for too long with its three years of airing. The formula got old and the audience demanded something else. The answer to that was Dragon Ball Z.

Dragon Ball Z (DBZ) ended up becoming a classic, an inspiration to all super-power shounen that would be born in the following years. It offered a grand scale of events, telling the saga of an alien family and the fight against evil from every corner of the universe. It grew from a small boy who spanked Bulma's genital to a man capable of teleporting through space and blasting away entire planets. That was the answer to the audience's demands, an answer that even today, nearly 30 years later, still applies.

Art & Animation
Akira Toriyama has an iconic art style, instantly recongnizable by anyone who where at their teens during the 80's or early 90's. Dragon Quest still comes up regularly to refresh the presence of Akira's legacy in Japan, yet it was with Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Chrono Trigger, and the first releases of Dragon Quest it became encrusted in the minds of people in the west.

1. 
   Identity is not everything though...
   DBZ art style is charming, it manages to express a happy-go attitude during the daily-life events, it can offer some seriousness when the fight kicks in, and it even does a great job being cartoonistic without looking bizarre with characters such as Mr. Satan and Krillin. The issues, however, are just too many: proportions are a mess, muscles are simply bizarre, brute warriors have feet of bailerinas, and everyone would be a clone of Goku if not for different hair styles and default expressions. If you can look beyond such issues perhaps you can extract more from DBZ, if not, however, you are in for a rough ride...
   
   aaand it is not that greatly animated as well
   Fights, lots of fights. This is the essence of DBZ and during the first arc it will please you with a good mix of dialogue, landscapes, and interesting battle coreographies. Give it a few dozen episodes, however, and the pattern starts to change. Dialogues become more and more frequent mid-fight, many scenes become more about sliding over a static image while characters talk, and combat ends up being about two guys dissapearing and some blinks going onscreen to show "Wow! How fast they are!!!". When combats become more about who can do the best trash-talk instead of decent coreography and sequences, the charm fades. After Freeza's arc this issue becomes drastic, turning Buu's tale a huge arc of beautiful colors and lazy animation work.
   

Sound
Cha-La Head-Cha-La offers an idea of what to expect from DBZ: perfect shounen music. Sound direction here is a blast, especially considering the age of the show. Beyond the opening there a few remarkable background themes and a voice-acting that never fails to deliver. Sound-effects, however, are a let down, with many powers sounding as cheap trick effects from the 70's and the ambient sounds rarely being used. The sum of this is a decent experience for shounen standards and a solid work, but sadly it doesn't manage to turn DBZ into something bigger, more exciting, and more vivid. Another let down is the fact new themes are rarely inserted, making the 291 episodes a bit too repetitive to the ears.

Story
DBZ is the continuation of Goku's tale, many years after the events of the original Dragon Ball. Now a father to a boy named Gohan and married to Chichi, destiny once again puts Goku on trial, revealing his alien origin and tackling him against others of his kind. He must fight again to survive, learn more about his past and his mission, as well as to protect those he love.

1. 
   It is the legacy of a family
   The older Goku is still a happy man, but nothing comparable to the insane perverted kid he once was. This change of personality dictates the new direction of the tale, something far less comical and more focused on fights followed by more fights and major power-ups. This extends to his son Gohan and later to his other child, Goten. The essence of DBZ is developing the saiyajins, a race of mighty warriors from whom Goku descend. Although this initally seems like a more deep and interesting idea than just giving Goku a random mission to kick alien asses, the result of this choice goes awry after a while, escalating power in a speed that is hard to understand and parting ways with any kind of drama the show could use. The rare moments to explore Goku as a father or as a weird alien are lost to unexciting episodes in avain attempt to be comical.
   
   and the pace...
   5 minutes to explode... five minutes... FIVE MINUTES. You know how long that takes? You want to try to guess? One entire episode? Two? Four? Seven? HA-HA-HA. MORE THAN TWENTY. DAMN. EPISODES. Yup. Twenty, a two followed by a number. More than two dozens to be a bit more precise. This, my friend, is the perfect example of how DBZ's pace is one of the most ridiculous things ever made in the japanese industry.
   
   By the time of its release, however, it could be even said DBZ was "original". No other show was so slow to progress. Legend of Galactic Heroes, a contemporary, was the exact opposite, rushing things to spit all content on the screen. DBZ was calm, slow, and boring to a fault. It uses landscape scenes, staredowns between characters, or the usual typical shounen trash-talk about who is stronger to fill episodes. In a way, this is much better than the recent trend of filling episodes with random useless sagas because it at least keeps you focusing on what is happening. But damn, no one can endure nearly 300 episodes of that.
   
   Thrilling sequences with a repeated formula
   Although the pace is a mess like no other, the events are interesting. You know what to expect: a villain appears, Goku's friend try to fight him, they lose, villain transform, a more powerful friend of Goku fights him, villain transforms again, Goku finishes his special training/gain special power and kicks the villain's ass. Done.
   
   These things, however, are always entertaining to watch. You get to see many characters in action, power ups come in good moments, Goku makes enjoyable entrances, and the powers are fun and simple enough not to turn the show into your usual convoluted crap. Sadly, this is not enough to get by the entire series, which lead us...
   
   to the fact it gets utterly boring
   Yeah. Perhaps if DBZ ended after Freeza, perhaps if it removed half of Cell's saga, and perhaps if it was condensed to around 100 epidoes, things would be more interesting. The last arc, which lasts for around another 100 episodes, however, is pretty much unbearable. Buu is not only a poor excuse for a villain, it also offers a saga that is only about new power-ups and fights that never have a conclusion, only teasing and fleeing while taking dozens of episodes to show any progression. It gets boring, it loses the charm of the start, and events unfold in just the exact way they need to grant pure fanservice. "Want a fight between Goku and Vegeta? Hm... how about... e-v-i-l m-i-n-d c-o-n-t-r-o-l? Fun eh...? Nah.
   

Character
DBZ is a show spanning nearly three hundred episodes. Many of the characters, especially those from Earth, have the plus of being part of the original Dragon Ball, a place where they were nicely developed with their funny moments and weird story sequences. Sadly, those introduced in DBZ are not only quite basic, but the terrible pace leaves little to develop them beyond a few basic areas and their skill in combat.

1. 
   The scale of the tale is the killer
   DBZ gets large. Its tales involves exploding planets, aliens who dominate entire galaxies, creatures told to obliterate the universe, gods capable of reviving the dead, and legendary powers beyond anything people can think about. This grandeur, this obsession with depicting Goku as the strongest man in the entire universe, can work to please some teens, but it has a toll somewhere: character development.
   
   Goku, Vegetta, and the other saiyajins become the only beings capable of helping as the show progresses. guys like Krillin, Yamcha, Bulma, Kame, and many other become useless pieces of meat in the combats that follow. It is easy to predict what happens when everything is determined by how godly powerful people are: they become boring. The weak are left behind, but these weak characters are the ones filled with emotions and personality, Goku and his alien friends are just chunks of muscle and pure energy, fighting and fighting, sometimes giving a speech about good and evil, and then training and killing so they can enjoy a comical scene with the forgotten mortals.
   
   They are charismatic still
   Although lacking in development, there are a few tools that makes DBZ characters interesting people. First are the time skips, managing to jump a few years and turning badasses aliens into fathers, brothers, adults, or companions at least for as long as there are no fights around. As I mentioned, they don't exactly earn that, but showing the effects of time on those around him and sometimes reminding the audience there is something behind the endless combats make these people fun. Vegetta is one of those that benefits from this, much more than Goku, showing us that the badass prince with superpowers and superjealously is still just a weakling when near Bulma from time to time.
   
   The second is the amount of episodes. Nearly three hundred episodes certainly work to make them stick to your memory. When this happens you are bound to like one or other of the cast, even if they are meaningless to the long run. The third element are their power struggles, trying to know who is stronger besides Goku (because he is the superman of japanese animation). As in all shounens that came thereafter, forging the strength of each characters can work as a charm to turn them into iconic fighters you can for years to come.
   

Value
Saint Seiya was the show behind the ascension of the shounen super powers. DBZ followed its footsteps, abandoning the comical value of Goku's infancy and exploring the universe with mighty warriors capable of ridiculous feats. No one have tried that degree of nonsense at that time, not like DBZ. It became the model to all shounens that followed, from One Piece and Naruto to Bleach and Nanatsu no Taizai. The power comparison, the numbers measuring the characters ability, fights dragging for dozens of episodes, the incoming of new enemies after the closure of a saga. DBZ set the standard to that, much like WoW took the elements from Lineage 2 and Ragnarok Online and set the standards of the MMOs. If nothing else, DBZ deserves respect for that.

Enjoyment
Teenagers are sure to be pleased with DBZ. It was made to hit them, and it hits them hard. All the excitment about the new powers, the shounen trash-talk, new enemies popping up, a protagonist that acts like a kid but is a grown man, an evil guy who turns friendly yet is always in bad mood. It also picks a few random episodes to try and reminiscence the comedy of the original Dragon Ball, although it is far lighter in all regards. It does many things right. The pace, however, is insanely disturbing. It is slower than anything else you've seen, it gets more and more boring after each arc, and this affects many other aspects of the show. By the end, you are more likely enduring it to see the end because you've already spent dozens of hours in it than truly enjoying the last few episodes.

If you want shounen action and a solid superpower show, however, you have found it. If you enjoy Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece today and never watched DBZ, be a man and watch it.

Comments
Dragon Ball Z. I have a personal love and hate relationship with it. I never found it truly remarkable, I feel a bit disappointed because many of my friends label everything in japanese animation due to their limited experience with DBZ, and it angers me when many people only watch superpower shounens such as this and never ever explore other genres that are so better developed by the japanese industry. Yet, there is a part of me that loves DBZ for what it represents. It works a charm to introduce many people to the media, it manages to surprise those who start watching it expecting to be a thing only for kids, and it is the true model to hundreds of shounens that came after it.

The pace, however... ergh. That Namekozei explosion. Damint. Few things annoyed me more than those infinite scenes in DBZ, especially because I've watched it one episode per day when it aired on Cartoon Network here in Brazil. I can only imagine what it was like in Japan, when one episode aired each week and many of them where 20 minutes of scenery shots and 3 minutes of action. I even toyed with my friends that DBZ had more actions in the "Next Episode" part than anywhere else, and today I can only say I was right on the spot.

Anyway, pay your respects for DBZ though. This is a behemoth of its time and a true changer in the history of the industry. If you claim to be a fan of shounens you should certainly watch it to make your claim stand.

DBZ is indeed a classic, and for its time it was a very good action anime. The arcs are for the most part pretty interesting and the characters are well done. One of the only things I have against the anime is its length. Five episodes for two energy balls to collide and the warriors to talk is just too long.

But to be frank, it is still a good shonen action anime and as sales have shown, a very successful one.

Animation:
The animation quality is decent, falling between the original Dragonball and GT. I think the quality got better as the series progressed. As for fights, you'll see a lot of repeated frames and lots of moving-too-fast-to-see instances as well. However, I can't deny the coolness of going SS.

Sound:
I think sound is one of the highlights of this show. I found that the BGM complemented the mood of the show very nicely. As I saw the dubbed version and found the voices to be adequate but not awesome.

Story:
The story starts where Dragonball left off. Goku is now married to Chi Chi and they have a boy named Gohan. Suddenly new opponents arrive seeking the dragonball and Goku begins to learn about his roots and his Saiyan past. As he makes new allies, new opponents keep showing up to keep him busy, each opponent being much stronger than the previous one. The plot was pretty predictable in that the good guys would win but the method with which the good guys would win was always worth watching for. The reason my rating here isn't high is purely because of the drawn out length of the anime and specifically certain battles that just took way too long. I do give props though for making sure that the other Z-warriors had a role and did something other than get their butts kicked all the time as in GT.

Character:
All the Z-warriors are introduced and it was very nice to see everyone's moves. All the personalities are well defined and different fighting styles were noted. Overall, the characters were well developed and the growing strength of the characters was well done, especially with Gohan. Rising from a cry baby to a powerful warrior in his own right.

Value:
It was a rather good anime in all but the length was just too darn long to be worth keeping in my collection. The music, characters, and fighting (for the most part) made the show interesting but not enough so to re-watch it when there are better animes out there. I'd advise looking at Kai for the same experience in a much more compact, and updated, package.

The Saiyan Saga

Dragonball Z began by retconing a lot of details for the sake of leaving room for a continuation. Gods and demons, became aliens, what used to be mystical or magic was now replaced with science and bioengineering. In practice, the original show was inspired by Journey to the West with Goku being the monkey king, while Z was inspired by the Justice League with Goku being Superman.

These retcons were not very hard to accept and enriched the setting, since the plot was no longer confined on Earth. Goku and Piccolo were no longer the only ones with such powers, but rather representatives of alien civilizations, each one having its own history and culture. Despite being the strongest on the planet, they were also nothing compared to other aliens out there.

Furthermore, for the first time since the beginning of the series, we had multiple agendas and different points of view, which was making everything multi-layered once again. Every major character had something to contribute, the interactions were meaningful, and the plot was not straightforward.
-Goku: Faced his dark side by facing his own race and dealing with the realization of killing his grandpa
-Gohan: Anti-Goku, shy and smart, forced to become violent for the sake of protecting the world, but also brought out the good side of Piccolo
-Piccolo: Left behind his quest to kill Goku and rule the world, by finding kindness through Gohan
-Bulma: Fixed the scouter and gathered the Z warriors
-Kuririn: Helped Goku to use the spirit bomb
-Yajirobi: Severed Vegeta’s tail

But it was nowhere as great as the Emperor Pilaf arc, since there were still many characters existing as background decoration at this point, who ceased having something to do. Such is the curse of constantly introducing more characters and then doing nothing with them, while also refusing to get rid of them for the sake of selling merchandise.
-Yamcha was already a loser, and now became even less of a character by no longer having a relationship with Bulma
-Tien and Chiaozu were there just because Toriyama changed his mind during their introduction, but also refused to get rid of them
-Lunch disappeared forever
-Chichi stayed in the kitchen
-Roshi became a useless pervert old man
-Raditz was forgotten the second he was defeated and was instantly replaced with other saiyans with the same personality

There were lots of other retcons that came off as cheap in the longrun. One of them was turning death into something positive instead of negative. First, the senzu beans removed the recovery time from injuries. Then the Dragonballs did the same for death. What used to be tragic and permanent, was now a temporal inconvenience. And then, the option to train in the afterlife mutated death into an opportunity to get even stronger by the time you resurrect.

It was extra silly when the show was constantly trying to make you feel sad every time a hero was dying, when in effect it was only used as means to make him return with a power up. It was even more stupid when it’s revealed Mr. Popo had a flying carpet that could teleport someone anywhere on the planet. None of the Z warriors would have been killed if he had used it to bring Goku to the battlefield. Or, I don’t know, extending his training period by a few months by teleporting him straight on Kaio’s planet, thus allowing him to master Kaio Ken. Death had become fake tension at this point.

Another thing that began to break at this point was the power scaling. It used to be easy to follow up until now and made sense in how stronger someone becomes, based on progressively harsher training. This was no longer the case, since hereon someone is as strong as the plot wants him to be.

Before:
-Training with Korin, the teacher of Roshi, could excuse why Goku could defeat Tao
-Training with Kami, the good side of Piccolo, could excuse why Goku could defeat Piccolo

Now:
-Training with Kami does not excuse the Z warriors becoming as strong as Raditz within 1 year, when Goku was a third as strong after 3 years of the same training
-Training in the wilderness for a year does not excuse Piccolo becoming stronger than Raditz, when he was doing the exact same thing for 4 year before that and had only a quarter of the power
-With what logic can Goku rival the saiyans by training with Kaio? Kaio has no connection to them for forming a scale

A few simple excuses for fixing these nonsense would be the following, even if Toriyama didn’t care and neither did the fandom:
-The Z warriors train with the spirit of Raditz instead of some nobody saiyans, thus excusing being as strong as him. This also takes away the plot hole of Mr. Popo being powerful enough to kick the crap out of Piccolo all these centuries, but didn’t.
-Piccolo’s body was still maturing after his birth. This fits well with how I had proposed for Jr. to be born at the end of the original series.
-As for Kaio’s training, he could have simply said that Goku had the proper training but not in the proper gravity as the other saiyans, thus by training him on a planet with the exact same gravity would place him on their level, and the kaio ken could be used as a temporal boost for reaching the decades of battle experience they had on different planets.

Speaking of power scaling, this was also the beginning of one of the greatest misconceptions in the franchise. Battle powers were introduced for seemingly offering a measurable way to tell how strong was someone compared to someone else. It quickly proved to be erratic and seemingly random to have a fixed number, thus it was impossible to trust the numbers of a scouter. Someone could be using a power boost ability, or could be suppressing his ki; there was nothing certain about battle power readings. Toriyama gave many instances where it was just a trick for the enemies to underestimate the heroes. The fandom had other ideas and went on trying to calculate and fought over arbitrary numbers for decades after the creator himself stopped using them, since they were, in effect, bullshit.

Something else that was always an issue but never to such a degree, was the train of thought they use for defeating the saiyans. Why would they go through all the fuss of training for a year and resurrecting Goku, instead of simply wishing from the dragon to make the saiyan space pods blow up in space? Why risk everyone’s life on Earth just to bring Goku back? It was simply not worth it. It was as if everyone had accepted their fate as cannon fodder, instead of believing they could do something without Goku being around to save the day.

So, if you put all these issues together without letting nostalgia to cloud your judgment, you can easily see why the arc was not that great despite having a very good build up and a bombastic finale. If I remove a point for every mishap (useless characters, nerfing of death, broken power scaling, and wonky train of thought), I can’t give the arc more than a 6/10.

The Namek Saga

The Namek Saga is both the peak of the franchise, and also the point where it broke its consistency and should have never continued further. The most obvious evidence was the rewrite of what Saiyans were up to that point. Goku used to be a fast learner of new techniques, and every Saiyan had a tail. Saiyans no longer having a tail had no in-series excuse; Toriyama simply got bored of drawing them. Without this simple detail, nothing could visually distinguish Saiyans from humans, and removed what was making them special. And I know that you will probably think Saiyans were still distinguishable by their SSJ transformation, but let me remind you that as of then there was no indication there could be more than one SSJ every 1000 years.

And speaking of said transformation, it was essentially a cop-out for beating Frieza. Yes, it was foreshadowed by a prophecy, which is a cop-out on itself, but there was nothing to justify why Frieza didn’t kill all the Saiyans despite knowing that and having way stronger soldiers at his command, or why Goku unlocked the transformation by seeing Kuririn getting killed the second time, but not the first time. There were some indirect rules made up by fans to explain the unlocking of the transformation, such as having a high enough power level at base form, and seeing one of your friends dying in front of your eyes. They would all be proven wrong in later arcs, but even during its first appearance, it was all too convenient. What could have easily saved it was the excuse of Guru unlocking Goku’s potential with his ability, but this wasn’t meant to be.

Another downgrade was the plot hereon turning into “how to get 5 power ups in the same arc, in the least amount of time” instead of spending some time in meaningful characterization. Up until now, a character would need to train hard with a stronger master for getting a power up. From this arc onwards, this was not necessary, since all it took was getting a zenkai by healing your injuries. Thus another limitation was taken away, since now even defeat in battle was a victory.

And it wasn’t even only limitation taken away. The Dragonballs of Earth could only resurrect someone once. The Dragonballs of Namek could resurrect you as many times as you like, thus making death even less of an issue. As if that wasn’t enough, there was also Guru, who could instantly unlock your potential with a simple touch. What most of us didn’t seem to understand at the time of watching it in the 90s, was the importance of limitations for maintaining tension. Without them, the only way for having tension came through constantly increasing the stakes by making the next villain more and more powerful. And nothing proves this better than Emperor Frieza, who in his initial form alone was eclipsing every mortal in the universe. By the time he got to his final form (for now at least) he was over 200 times stronger, which was completely ridiculous and unnecessary for the fights to remain interesting.

Toriyama stopped trying to find a way for a character to need progressively harder means to get stronger, or spend years in training with a master. He realized the shonentards didn’t give a shit about training that would make a power up feel deserved. They just wanted to see some damn power ups goddammit. Thus, he just skipped the downtime of training, which was a fine way for the teacher and the student to bond, as well as an in-series explanation for what exactly the power up meant on a mental level, aside from having the result of punching the bad guy harder.

This in effect, made power ups to be hollow and a waste of time, despite being instant. Take the Ginyu force. They offered nothing to the plot and could be removed without changing a thing. They were in a sense the evil counterparts of the Z warriors and did help Vegeta to level up, but instant power ups are not plot and the zenkai excuse had no philosophy behind it, unlike the earlier power ups. Nobody was learning something new each time; they were just punching harder than before.

Dodoria and Zarbon shouldn't have been foddered from the very beginning. Frieza's foot soldiers and Cui were more than enough to show what a power house Vegeta was before them. Dodoria and Zarbon should have been Frieza's elite men. They were next to him all the time in flashbacks and had a personal history with Vegeta, unlike the Ginyu force which was retconned and had no past history from flashbacks. This way the arc could have been 20 episodes shorter, with stronger characterization for the villains, and wouldn’t be recycling the constant “get injured and healed” power up nonsense.

The same goes for Nail the Namekian. What a throwaway character. Powerful enough to take out Dodoria and Zarbon, yet did nothing and abandoned his people to get slaughtered, before jobbing to Frieza. He should have done more than becoming an excuse for Piccolo to get a power up. Speaking of Piccolo, the whole plan to waste the wishes on resurrecting him and bringing him on Namek made no sense. What exactly was he supposed to accomplish? How did he assume fusing with Nail would make him strong enough to take on Frieza? The train of thought of the heroes still makes no sense. Nail should be the one doing all that, traveling around the planet, fusing with other Namekians, thus excusing his power.

A last thing I have to mention is the pacing. By now, the anime was very close to the manga, so they had to slow down the pacing with characters yelling while slowly powering up, panning slowly through backgrounds getting destroyed, as well as making five minutes in-series to last five episodes. We didn’t mind it as much when we had nothing better to watch on television, but binge-watching the arc nowadays can be quite frustrating. The Saiyan Saga was at least short in comparison to later ones, which indirectly makes it easier to watch and better as an experience.

As a whole, the Namek Saga was like a second Red Ribbon Saga. Lots of pointless episodes, and meaningless power-ups, leading to an amazing finale. It also broke the consistency of the show forever after and it should have been the ending of the franchise, because everything that followed served only in making it worse as a whole. It was pure hype when watching it without caring about the quality of its writing, but from a critical standpoint, I can’t give it more than a 5/10.

Android Saga

Toriyama wasn’t planning ahead anymore. There was no more thematic continuity and he was making up shit as he went along, often changing his mind midway, based on what editors and fans were telling him to do next. Not to mention how the entire plot was about time travel, one of the laziest plot devices so you can have an infinite amount of retries to fix something. As much as he tried to make sense of it, he eventually broke his own rules by making Trunks return twice in the future at the same time without causing a paradox. And yes, it is a paradox since a new timeline is formed when you go back in time and not when you return from it.
-The show is called Dragonball Z, yet nobody cares about the dragonballs anymore
-Somehow, a grandpa used inferior technology to create androids far stronger than a super advanced space civilization with cyborg technology
-Somehow, filming the techniques of a fighter is enough to create an android using the technique
-Somehow, wanting to kill fighters you considered being around Saiyan Saga level, means you have to create androids that are above Frieza.
-Cell can regenerate as long as his head is intact, yet he still regenerated when his top half was blown to bits

And it wasn’t just the time travel. Everything was a mess of ideas, constantly replacing one another without ever connecting properly or making any sense. First the big bad was supposed to be Gero, until Toriyama was pressured to make up something less ugly. So, the big bads became 17 and 18. Not even that pleased the editors, so new the big bad became Cell. And even his design wasn’t very likable, so Toriyama was forced to make him look more human. This resulted in some really shallow characterization for the villains, since none had enough presence to be more than filler arc material.
-Gero: Wanted nothing but revenge (and then what?)
-17 & 18: Wanted simply to have fun (boring)
-Cell: Wanted to be the strongest (by killing everyone)

Traditionally, the main villain of every arc was giving Goku a reason to want see him defeated. It wasn’t simply because Goku loved fighting strong people. There was always a vendetta forming out of the deaths of his friends for excusing his battle frenzy. No such thing existed with any of the villains of this arc. None of them did something to make him want to kick the crap out of them. Saying they killed everyone in the future was not much of a motivation, since it hadn’t happened yet. If he really cared about it, he would have found Gero’s lab instead of waiting for the androids to attack. There was no personal connection up until the finale, and thus it truly felt like the heroes were fighting for the sake of fighting.

Gero was a 1-dimentional idiot who wanted revenge, so he could never be a cool villain. No.18 had the potential to be a great character; a villain who after an existential crisis becomes a good guy. But in the typical Toriyama fashion, she is quickly turned into a submissive housewife, before getting replaced by Cell, the worst written villain yet. He had no history of achievements like the previous big bosses, and had no special powers of his own. He was nothing but a patchwork of other characters. He looked like Frieza and Piccolo, he was behaving like a Saiyan, and was using everyone’s abilities. There was nothing creative about him. This changed a bit at the Cell Games, when he actively threatened to kill everyone and made Gohan to take it personally, thus finally giving the viewer something to care about. Unfortunately, it was too late to have much significance, and Cell wanting to prove to everyone he was the strongest by killing everyone made no sense.

In fact, nothing made any sense at all. The train of thought was all over the place, and was changing on every episode.
-Frieza didn’t simply blow up Earth from orbit
-Goku didn’t simply teleport to Earth and instead came with a spaceship
-Trunks didn’t go back at a time when he knew where Gero was, so he could stop him before creating the androids
-Gero didn’t know of Super Saiyans, yet he obviously took data from Frieza, while he was fighting a Super Saiyan
-Nobody bothered to find Gero’s lab for making sure he never creates the androids
-Bulma fell in love with Vegeta with no explanation
-The Z warriors went to face the androids, even when they knew they would never sur them in power and Goku was the only one able to defeat them
-The Z warriors forgot to learn Kaio ken
-Goku forgot to take the medicine, and nobody made sure he used it in time
-Goku forgot to mention to everyone about the room of spirit and time, which could have made them ten times stronger by the time the first androids appear
-Goku didn’t simply teleport behind the bad guys and teleported them away from Earth, way before they threatened the planet
-The Saiyans forgot they get zenkai just by healing their wounds. The room of spirit and time was worthless, since training was not needed anymore. All they had to do is impale each other and have Dende heal them afterwards.
-Trunks changed his mind from destroying the androids to protecting them from Cell in a matter of seconds
-Nobody used the dragonballs for fixing any of the above
-Cell wanted to prove to everyone he is the strongest, by killing everyone

There was no plot. Everybody was simply one-uping each other, without the lore or the setting getting more enriched somehow. No new areas, no new themes, and just an alternative timeline that doesn’t even matter by the end of the arc. Power-ups were coming one after another, losing their importance in matter of minutes, and without ever having a visual escalation. The amount of damage they were causing was always the same, if not less.
-The SSJ form was nerfed from a unique legendary transformation that appears once every millennia, to yesterday’s news everyone can achieve and doesn’t have much of an effect
-Piccolo fusing with Kami had no change in his appearance or personality, and was rendered useless when Cell leveled up
-The SSJ grades were becoming useless within a single episode
-SSJ2 was the exact same thing as SSJ1

There was no epicness compared to the previous arcs, since the level of threat shrank considerably, despite everyone becoming a dozen times stronger. Frieza was ravaging the universe for centuries, wiping out countless civilizations. What did the androids do? Fooling around on Earth for 2 decades. Gohan turning SSJ2 against Cell was a rehash of Goku turning SSJ1 against Frieza and it didn’t have the same cool factor because what triggered the transformation was the destruction of a minor android nobody cared about, and everybody else was busy getting humiliated by a bunch of Cell babies.

The only thing this arc sort of did right was the interaction between fathers and their sons. Goku and Vegeta were terrible role models and it was nice seeing them trying to reason with the far more intelligent and down to earth Gohan and Trunks. It didn’t lead to something significant and even the sort of ing the torch to the next generation was taken away in the next arc. So as a whole, it was a complete mess and I can’t give it more than a 2/10.

Buu Saga

In the last arc of Z, Toriyama was given more creative liberty. Things had more consistency instead of constantly replacing one thing with another because of pressure from the editors. At the same time Toriyama had lost interest in the franchise, since he was rehashing old ideas, like Buu being a repeat of the Piccolo set-up and the plot mimicking the one of the Android Saga. He didn’t even bother to flesh out the new ideas he introduced. Setting and lore were enriched, something which was absent in the Android Saga, but the new concepts were left undeveloped.
-We have no idea how Goku learned the fusion dance
-We have no idea what the demon realm is
-We have no idea how Buu and Dibidi were stopped in the past

The older characters were also a shadow of their former glory. The new ones had nothing to offer.
-Kaioshin was foddered in a few episodes, despite being the strongest god as of yet
-Piccolo became a mentor of a technique he couldn’t use himself in the same way
-Gotten and Kid Trunks were quickly turned from the last hope against Buu, to useless comic reliefs
-Videl was supposed to be another dynamic fighter, but in the typical Toriyama fashion, she was quickly mocked in battle and became a submissive housewife

Gohan in particular was a huge middle finger, since he supposed to be the new protagonist. But Toriyama had no idea how to write a smart hero and Japan seemed to love Goku a lot more. Thus the finale of the Android Saga was contradicted, by mutating Gohan into a loser doing super sentai nonsense, and bringing back Goku to the role of the protagonist despite claiming he didn’t want to return anymore.

Vegeta was sort of cool for awhile, as he got possessed and killed a lot of innocents, before sacrificing himself to protect the planet he came to love. Unfortunately, it was hollow and cheap in the longrun. He had killed billions of people in the past and instead of getting punished in the afterlife, he was allowed to return for the fusion dance. Also, the deaths he caused were taken away when everyone was wished back to life, and his sacrifice was pointless since it failed to defeat Buu.

Also, his much anticipated rematch with Goku was the most pointless event in the arc, since it didn’t have the tension of the Saiyan arc. As if by magic, Vegeta was now as tall as Goku and was using the exact same techniques as him, effectively losing everything that was making him stand out. The rematch also got interrupted before there was a definitive winner, so there was no pay-off. Also, Goku would have won anyways, since he could go SSJ3 anytime he felt like it and kick the crap out of Vegeta. Effectively, the rematch was a troll and eventually a waste of time.

Speaking of waste of time, Toriyama was procrastinating at this point by making Goku act like a retard. By not defeating Vegeta right away, he allowed Buu to gather enough energy to be freed, and then changed his mind about personally defeating Buu with SSJ3, causing everyone on Earth and countless other planets to die. It’s the result of Goku no longer having a vendetta with his enemies after Namek, and playing around with them even if it endangers the entire universe. But, hey, it’s all done for the joy of the battle, right? No reason to blame him for having fun instead of protecting the innocent, as he seemed to be doing in the previous arcs. Turns out he was never the hero most of us thought he was. He was just a battle frenzy asshole.

As before, the plot was just the characters constantly one-uping each other with power-ups that were cheaply acquired, were not used properly, and were losing their importance in a manner of minutes. And this time it was worse than in the Android Saga because defeat meant getting absorbed by Buu, thus making him stronger the more they were trying to become stronger. By the time they managed to defeat Buu through a convoluted combo of wishes, I just wanted the damn thing to end.
-SSJ was a joke by now, as even little kids could unlock it with no effort
-SSJ3 was completely worthless and never defeated a single opponent
-Gotenks was too stupid to bother defeating Buu
-Mystic Gohan was too careless to bother defeating Buu
-Vegeto was too prideful to bother defeating Buu

Speaking of Buu, he was suffering from the same issues as Cell; not having any personal connection with the heroes, as Vegeta and Frieza had. Because there was no vendetta, Buu had a mentality of a baby, Goku was just fooling around, and death had lost its meaning, the story had become a playground for manchildren instead of a sinister plot full of tension and suspense.

Unlike Cell, Buu had a personality, although it was closer to multiple personalities coexisting in the same body. It was a good idea at first, showing how his emotions can make him flip from one persona to another, based on how he was treated by others. But, just like every good idea after Namek, it was ruined because Toriyama stopped giving a shit. The hints of complexity Buu’s personality was showing were taken away when he divided into good and evil bodies. It became a clear case of help the good side and beat the evil side. And even the evil side reincarnated into a good guy later on, thus making good and evil to lose their meaning if they can flip-flop so easily.

The only good part of this entire mess was mister Satan and his interactions with Buu. They were funny, tactical, and far more meaningful than the father and son interactions of the previous arc. Yes, Satan was introduced during the Cell Games, but he was just comic relief and filler material. It was in this arc where he became a part of the plot and manipulated everyone for his personal gain. And he did it without ever becoming a villain or needing a useless power-up for beating the bad guys with brainless force. He was essentially more heroic, than the main heroes, who at this point were procrastinating and looking for excuses to fight, instead of using their brains to stop the bad guys with something other than useless power-ups.

As a whole, I consider the Buu Saga to be slightly better than the completely throwaway time travel BS / no personality Cell. But not by much, since it’s still a complete mess with very few good parts to make it worthwhile. I give it a 3/10 and wish these two arcs would fusion dance into one. Their plots were pretty much the same (Cell = Buu, Gero = Babidi, Trunks = Kaioshin), most of the character had pretty much the same role (or none), and doing so would improve characterization and minimize the time wasted on useless power-ups.

This anime is the sequel to the classical oldy "dragonball".
It features the now grown up Son Goku, a hero who looks like a human but had a monkey tail. He also wields a terrefic supernatural power that doesn't seem to be from this world.
In this anime his past and what he really is gets revealed while also showing his fighting companions and him getting stronger and stronger and keeping the peace on earth.
The way fights in dragonball z are shown is very unique; its a combination of martial arts and supernatural power, enabling the fighters to use their ki (hidden body engery) to fly, shoot energy blasts, get stronger etc.

The animation... well, its still rather good if you consider this anime is almost 20 years old. But of course it can't compare to the animes these days.
The fighting scenes get complimented by it well anyway, but you can often see the objects that will get destroyed since they use a different animation for them (as an example you see a drawn landscape of rocks and just one rock looks a bit brigther than the rest. of course this rock is going to be destroyed soon).
You will also discover that wholes shot into bodys of the fighters are perfectly round and sharp. You wont see any bowel or nasty things like that, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Well, to sum it up this anime lacks much of the elegance of todays anime but most of the time it doesn't drag down the enjoyment too much.
Old and way under average, but still bearable
6

The sound is old and very bad sometimes. Exspeccialy the first episodes were a pain to hear, most likely due to the quality of the raw.
The voice actors are ok all in all, but there are some annoying ones and exspeccialy the back ground music tends to get very annoying at some times.
If you tend not to hear good background music since it fits perfectly to the thigns you see making one big experience, in this anime you will often notice the annoying music stronger than the things that happen in the animation, and not in a pleasant way either.
Some scenes are getting rather corny just cause of the music, while other scenes get even more boring out of the same reason.
The sound is not just under average, the music seems to be rambo no 2
4

The story is difficult to judge. Sometimes its rather creative made and the characters seem to be really smart, you also get the answer to confusing things that happen in the anime explained by one of the characters a short time after they happend, but sadly that isnt the case always.
For example, they first explain you that move x is bad for your health and it will rob you your life energy so you will die faster, but when they actually do it it wont get mentioned again and they dont seem to be any less healthy then before.
Sometimes the story takes drastical and surprising changes keeping you entertained, but often you can alrdy imagine what step will come next since its made rather simple.
It also happens that the characters will talk or do some things over many episodes while they actually just have 5 min before something terrible will happen, in other words they often drag out time with talking, doing non sense etc etc. This times tend to annoy and bore you.
They usually dont "cut" time, meaning some weaks will with just a small notice leaving the fan out of what really happend, but if the fighting stopped and there is peace once again on earth, they tend to do it.
This isnt necessarily bad since they focus on fights and crises anyway.
An both interesting and boring story with many flaws. Cleary under average
6

The characters are well made and have interesting, entertaining characters and make sometimes surprising dicisions and you will most likely get to like one or two of them. Its also entertaining to see them train to get stronger for different goals.
However, due to the nature of this anime (dumb actions and talk over some episodes to drag time, and of course fighting fighting fighting) this advantage isnt always brought up.
Entertaining and interesting characters who couldve got used in a more efficient way
7

The value is definetly one of this animes stronger points, since there isnt anything similiar like it.
I mean, there are some animes with martial arts as the main content, though still too few for my opinion, and there are also many with supernatural powers.
However, this unique combination of close combat fights and energy beams... this scenario is special to dragonball (z) and gives you a special feeling everytime you see it.
The many flaw this anime has ruins the value a bit, but since there isnt anything like it this anime is still a jewel and has many fans even though its alrdy considerable old. I didnt keep it cause of the flaws it has, but you still cant deny this anime has a special and unique value to it
8

The enjoyment was average all in all. The many flaws this anime has definetly were hard to bear at times making it hard to continue to watch, but the fights and characters were also rather entertaining and there were definetly anime with a worse flow than this one.
Its just sad that AHQ sometimes took the english DVD subtitles instead of translating on their own, this way the things the characters say and the things written in the subs are often off.
All in all enjoyable for the most part, but the flaws still took their toll
6

Well, I'm in quite a dilemma with this review. For quite a while this anime was one of my favorites, despite seeing tens of other series. I could write this review in a manner in which to praise the anime for it's worth in my eyes or I could write it from an observative point of view on it...I think I'll try to combine these two and steer clear of the shitty kind of review in which the anime is bashed just because of the fact that it's famous, old or gigantic. This is just an anime and if you'll read further into this review which will be quite lengthy I assure you, you will see my opinion on it.

Animation
We are talking end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s and this is a series which spans for almost 300 episodes. As such, there is a major difference in animation from start to end. The first saga of DBZ is quite horrible in of animation. The fighting is bland, movement is shitty and there are a lot of still frames and the overall rhythm is very slow. But the animation does improve throughout the latter saga and actually reaches a decent quality in the last couple of sagas. Overlooking the Fat Buu saga which is boring in of fighting and considering the Perfect Cell and Kidd Buu saga, those are actually very interesting in this area. The fighting is pretty dynamic although the battles still stretch out on tents of episodes.
One other thing that is noteworthy is the fact that the style evolves with the sagas...there is a noticeable change in character design, not what one would call as being off key, but a change which comes with age and experience. Although I am sure such a change came from the fact that it was indeed a gigantic series and improvements needed to be made, the transformations are quite nice. Vegeta for one meets some of the best modifications in the character chasey if I could call it that.
Overall, I do agree that the animation is nothing to praise but, as stated, it improves an awful lot until it reaches some decency in the last 100 episodes. That and the style of drawing also add to the overall quality...
I believe a 6 is fair for the overall quality of all 291 ep.

Sound
I have watched the dubbed version of this so I'm only commenting on it as far as the US version goes, sound-acting and all and I will edit my comment as soon as I'll see the Japanese version of it.
The English voices are pretty well chosen. Taking the inevitable Hamish over-acting from the voice actors, the common problems of dubs aren't as bad here. There aren't the usual annoying voices which just ruin the pleasure of watching. Probably because there is a giant amount of dialog here and bad voices would've really harmed the anime.
The rock music fits very well with the anime.
I will get back on the matter if I see the Japanese version.

Story
Well...this is where everything comes crashing down. The origin of Goku is established in the first episode so that's good for starters. But the story is weak and unlike the (here I go, making comparisons) original DB it is much less oriented on adventure, exploring and discovery and more oriented on fighting, evolving in the battle plan. This is actually a drawback, although the transformations add a different level to the fights. The story between the characters is well told and created through the dialog which is excellent.
Most of the anime is filler, just episodes in which the combatants just attack pointlessly, or waves after waves or energy are flying all over the place, sending everything to Kingdom Come...just to be repaired by the Dragon Balls. Speaking of which, their constant use at the end of the saga kills any kind of suspense because it is known that everyone will be better again.
The wayyy too long battles actually kill any kind of plot this anime could've had...
A good point in which it could've ended was at the end of Frieza saga...everything was good until that point but it just went on a descending curve afterwards, with weird motives.
Shorter would've been better this time...much better.

Character
Well, the characters are the backbone of this anime. The characters are developed in a way that I must say it's one of the best in any anime. There is a large cast as good guys and enough of them as villains.
Development is not restarted from the original DB but continued for Goku and co and the new character: Vegeta is one of the best. Vegeta being the opponent of Goku and always a step behind him is nothing new nowadays but for it's time it was quite a good idea. Most of the characters' pasts are shown, their interaction is fairly deep.
There is nothing extraordinary about the mental evolution for the chars here...basically nothing changes from start to end but the viewer's understanding on the chars.
Although Goku is the leading role, my personal opinion is that Gohan or Vegeta make for far better characters than him. The fact that Goku retains almost everything that made him Goku is a not-so nice touch. He is STILL Goku and that's upsetting in a way because it feels that the character gets boring.
The introduction of transformations is a double edged blade...on one side it's the fact that it makes the battles more dynamic, faster and emanating a lot of power...the other is that the question: "How much more?" arises...technically the characters just keep getting stronger and stronger with virtually no limit...
The villains were quite a good group...Frieza, Cell and Big Buu were excellent...the others could get very well discarded. The fact that the villains are pure evil and at times you wonder what their motivation is. What Buu does is totally senseless and there are other examples.
The characters were nice and some were even to but they're counter balancing one another out so a 7 is more than enough.

Value
Well, for a normal fan this has very little rewatch value...it's extremely long and boring at times. Some scenes are worth rewatching as many times as possible.
Overall, I enjoyed this anime even though I am aware of the flaws it had(as written...the truth has been said). It was lighthearted and fun at most...the highest mark for enjoyment...9

Edit: Due to certain interactions on a forum I have come to the conclusion that I was wrong to give DBZ a 6 for value and thus I change it into a 10. Why? Simple...DBZ is a collectible anime...it was a landmark in the anime industry and I consider that for one to enjoy anime, one must know where anime came from. That's my point of view of course so I'm not forcing anyone to swallow it. The king is dead...

[I am rating the Japanese Version]

DBZ is one of the most popular animes in history. It centers around it's main character Son Goku, who is an alien; and was sent to Earth by his father to avoid being destroyed along with his planet [remind you of a certain hero with a big S on his chest?]

Animation

Anyone who gives the animation of this anime less than a 7 is crazy [imo]. This thing was made in 1989 and had the best animation by FAR back then.

On another note: I keep hearing "Reused frames all day on the fighting scenes makes the animation bad." when the truth of the matter is that back in this day making action scenes took a hell of a lot of time and money on computers. Imagine making a fucking anime on a 1988 PC for 300 episodes, you'd reuse frames too >_>. Name a fighting anime in 1987-1994 [guessing how long it took to complete the series for the animators] that didn't. Oh that's right, there aren't any that look as good -_-.

Basically, my grade of an 8 comes from my understanding of what it takes to make good animation and not of just what it looks like compared to anime being made at later dates. I will also add that my former grade of a 9 was too complementing thus the change to an 8.

Sound

Lol. The soundtrack for DBZ is very cool... sometimes. Puts you in a good mood imo, however the seiyuus are fucking horrible [not exaggerating here]. OP/ED aren't bad, and aren't good either. The songs still put me in a good mood to this day though, most likely because it reminds me of my childhood being a DBZ fanboy.

Story

-_- I love DBZ for being the first to make "energy" combat, but the story was down right stupid yet original... until after the first saga. A constant barrage enemies who just want to blow up the Earth and use the dragon balls >_< is a summary of every saga. Also, a lot of times things that can't happen do, and after episode 200 [I know it's all filler, however this does not change the fact that it is part of the anime] it's just horrific.

Characters

This show had lovely armor and suit designs for it's time. They were all completely original. Also there are so many fighters with completely different skill sets it gives you a lot of favorite characters to choose from. However, the character development is very poor and meager, in an emotional respect.

Value

Licensed and very popular, 8. I would love to have all of this series as something my son could enjoy one day... if I have a son lol. A great anime for youngsters.

Enjoyment

If you like fighting anime and you're a young person who doesn't mind a bad [...horrible] storyline, it's a 10 [until the saiyaman-buu sagas], if not it's a 1. I mean why would you watch DBZ if you weren't looking for a fighting anime though? :o