Dragon Ball Z - Reviews

This anime has gone a long way and still seems to be going strong

The first episode I watched was Goku ssj taking on Frieza 100%. I did not know what was happening at the time, but I wanted to watch it.

The story is pretty simple. You follow Goku, A Saiyan that was sent to Earth to survive, thrive and eventually destroy it, but after he accidently hit his head as a child during a nasty fall, he seemed to have forgotten about his original mission, his roots. He grows up as an Earthling with a loving family, loving to compete martial arts and sees himself as an Earthling, not a saiyan.

However, his heritage attracts other 'saiyans', which leads to confrontations versus them and as time passes...other and stronger opponents. And to become stronger Goku must train hard. And that is the story. Goku doing his best to keep his family and friends safe, protecting the Earth, and looking to compete against the best of the best.

This anime shows you how far our main protagonist Goku's come to become as strong as he is now. You see him train, you see him get beat down and get back up. You see how his family develops as the story progresses, the bonds the characters create as time passes (father-son, rivalry, etc...).

The fights are amazing! They all have their signature moves, and develop new techniques, and when one of those new techniques finally comes out, or a combination of two is being used, never seen before....I can only fangirl of how amazing it was.

Also...I watched many anime but whenever I hear the word Villain, one of the first characters that comes to mind will always be Frieza. The whole Frieza arc, he was menacing. He had everything that I would like a villain to have. I didn't know who was going to make it or not, I was at the edge of my seat. And also in that arc...that one hystorical LEGENDARY DBZ moment happened. I love the other villains as well, they're all so different and unique, but Frieza just really stands out to me.

I think I watched the whole thing like 4 times now. Doesn't seem to get old, I still rewatch my favorite scenes every now and then.

Really recommend it

This series is absolute and total trash. When you see ratings of 8-10 given for this anime, that means the reviewer is a little kid rating it high for nostalgia's sake.  An adult with a normal level of intelligence notices this anime is like cotton candy- all fluff and no substance. This series is such pure crap that you'll find yourself skipping through episode after episode. This anime could win a world record for the anime series with the most filler. I abandoned this stupid anime at about episode 180 when I couldn't stomache one more episode of the 50 plus episode fight with majin boo. How did the story turn out? At this point I don't know and don't care.

 This series has a fatal flaw- it's 90% filler. If there is going to be a fight in the episode, they'll devote half the episode to still shots of each of the fighters standing there and glaring at the other guy. They'll intersperse that with images of horrified onlookers and then go back to the fighters, once again standing there with balled up fists trying to look mean. It gets really boring and redundant when 90% of every fight is just two people standing there glaring at each other. They'll eventually fight a little bit, followed by another ten minutes of posturing. I find myself skipping past a lot of fight scenes since I know that if I jump forward ten minutes they'll still be staring at each other. That stupid tactic ruins every story arc because you wind up skipping through the episodes to get past all the filler, which takes you out of the story. And when they do fight, it's like watching the same fight over and over again. The fight will start out with both people punching and kicking each other at light speed. This phase of the fight never accomplishes anything. Neither fighter ever gets hurt here, so it's really, really boring when you know that what you are watching is meaningless. Most damningly, the fights almost never resolve anything. People will fight for 10 straight episodes and then 90% of the time, the fights will end without any resolution and sometime in the future you will have to watch the same people fight for another ten episodes- again with no resolution. The fights are just a gimmick by the writers to steal the viewers time and deliver the proper number of episodes to the publisher. 80% of this anime should have been left on the editing room floor. it's 291 episodes that could have been wrapped up in 30-40 episodes. It gets so ridiculous that by the final arc a fight with majin boo goes on for around 50 episodes. why would anyone want to watch a fight for that long?

 Another lame aspect of this anime is the powerups. goku. gohan, goten and trunks are the only people that significantly power up (aside from Gotenks, but if you thought boruto was an annoying brat, you haven't seen anything yet). The rest of the cast of characters are weaklings that lose every single fight they get in. The only reason why these characters fight is to kill time so each episode has the required 20 minutes.

Despite being 291 episodes long, there is no real story. There's just a series of marginally related events sandwiched between utterly tedious and pointless fight scenes.

 Also, I hate anime/manga in which the story is driven by the characters making stupid decisions. For instance, characters in dragonball will stand there screaming in order to power up and their enemies just stand there and watch instead of just killing them before they complete their powerup process. That stuff happens because the writers are stupid and they can't think of a rational way to get the story to go in the direction they want. Drgonball z does this quite a bit. Not as much as more current anime, but still. . . Time spent watching dragonball z is time wasted,

Dragon Ball Z

An anime as well as a manga that I'm sure many of us grew up with. I don't know exactly how many times I've seen Dragon Ball, but I think it's been about 4x by now. And even now I still think that the title is well worth seeing and you can definitely enjoy it.

But this is a "brain-off" series. After all, Dragon Ball Z is not a well-executed and content-rich shounen. In this sense, nothing can be expected here other than a simple action. If it appeals to you, you can follow the series to the end. If this is not the case, the best thing to do is to consider whether you want to continue watching, as nothing will develop or improve over the course of the series.

Characters are individual enough and have personality. Unfortunately, very little character depth and poorly implemented character development, but at least this is there. No matter how flat the characters are, I can't really speak of the fact that Dragon Ball has inherently bad characters. There are quite a few mistakes, but at least they don't feel forced and natural. Of course, there are exceptions like Vegeta, Prince of Tsunderes, or Goku, the guy who has 2 brain cells in reserve. These two each also have their minimal highlights, but less so than most of the supporting characters or antagonists.

The main story does not exist. It only works according to the Arc-> Arc principle. One new story follows the next, at least somehow connecting them. Unfortunately, these are also stretched out enormously. Some fights take up a ridiculous 10 episodes and above, with almost all repetitive scenes and a number of filler moments. I am not interested in whether the characters charge energy for 4 minutes or shoot energy balls 10 times during the fight. The total time taken by these filler moments is alarmingly large.

The Saijayin Arc - Is the one who is best remembered and also has the most parodies and memes. In terms of content, however, it is nothing worth mentioning, but still the arc with the fewest plotholes.

The name Arc- Had many moments that I liked personally. It was my favorite among the arcs. However, it is so badly written that it hurt. And had an endless amount of plot armor and a terrible power system.

The Future Arc- Had a very interesting approach, but that's about it. The arc had been drawn out enormously.

The Boo Arc was probably the biggest disappointment here. He had hardly any beginnings, nor did he have a good implementation of brilliant moments. Served like any fan service arc.

Dragon Ball Z generally had the problem that 95% of the arcs consisted of pure fighting and nothing to actually build the arcs was possessed. This did not allow any tension to develop and you just waited for the opponent to be defeated. This was also done with "One Punch Man", but the implementation differs massively.

The biggest problem with this work, given the Fighting Shounen genre, is clearly the fact that its creator was not concerned with his own power system. Most of the power ratios are so slipped and misleading that they don't make any sense. "A sajayin on the verge of death gets stronger" nice, but the multiplier is so ridiculous that the creator himself stopped using it after the Namek Arc. The power ranking alternates every 5 episodes and most of the time the difference is just too huge just to fit the scene.

In spite of everything, animations were surprisingly good for the time. Many recycled scenes were used for the backgrounds and ki-blasts, but mostly everything was animated smoothly. I also liked that the fights were often visually appealing and offered various combinations or attractive attacks.

In the end, Dragon Ball Z is unfortunately just a "sympathy" work. I like it too, but as soon as you try to evaluate the series in terms of its actual quality, you can see what is actually in it. Nearly nothing.

Story - 3
Art - 6
Sound - 5
Character - 5
Enjoyment - 6
Overall - 4

STORY:

I can't believe it; as a child this was my favorite show, my inspiration. Regardless I give it a 5 if you're older than 13. This is arguably the shounen that changed the world and the way it is designed is far different from its predecessor: Dragonball in that it has a more serious tone and its action scenes are all about power rather than form.

Set five years after the events of the Piccolo jr saga; Goku and his pals are living the good life, our hero has a son now: Gohan who resembles a young Goku in appearance (by possessing a tail as well) however his attitude is less adventurous and more geared towards education than fighting. The serenity of this life is disrupted by an alien from an outer world who proclaims that he is Goku's brother: Raditz. Raditz came to recruit Goku and informs that he is of the saiya-jin race (something his comrades knew on a partial level) and that his name is really Kakarot. Raditz is astounded by Goku's refusal to join him and is equally perplexed by the fact that he lost his tail: the source of the saiyan 's power, which manifests itself at the full moon. As an ultimatum Raditz takes Goku's son by force and requests that Goku must kill 100 humans within the deadline and then proceed to come with him otherwise he'll take his son instead of him.

In response to this Goku joins with his arch nemesis Piccolo (who was defeated earlier by Raditz) to try and stop him; and from then on the story evolves into a series of battles, deaths, training and enormous power- oh and saving the earth but that's a given. The dragonballs which grant wishes are also a major device in the plot however their involvement is not a integral to the latter part of the story and are merely used as the means to an end rather than an end in themselves.

In terms of story I think that up to the Frieza saga the story is a classic and where it had its main allure however due to popularity the author Akira Toriyama had to extend the story beyond the Frieza saga and adapt it to the fans' wishes this later manifests itself into grandiose effects which finally can't be exceeded.

The whole plot becomes boring, the super saiyan's mighty name is reduced to child's play and the characters run out of ideas. Also the buildup to each battle is too slow, sometimes you have a mindless jabber and powering up which consists of shouting like a woman in labor for up to 3 episodes at a time. There were also a multitude of filler episodes that were simply cringeworthy. Comic relief was awesome; Krillin and Muten Roshi served their parts well. I do think the show could have been saved if they had just stopped at the Android or Cell saga unfortunately they didn't and the story became repetitive, mindless and childish, come to think of it had it not been for the overall excellence of the saiyan and frieza saga I would give it less than a 5.

 

ANIMATION:

To be honest I don't really have any complaints about the animation, it was satisfactory in terms of art. I do think the animation was a bit too flashy at times but this complimented what the producers were trying to achieve. The auras in particular are something to praise, that fiery image they exhumed represented the kind of power that was being played with. What I didn't like most was how the faces were designed, i don't know why I guess it felt like they were all related.

 

SOUND:

I've heard the opening themes of the japanese, the italian and the english and they're all okay, nothing to shout about though; the soundtrack during the show is okay too, it is especially good during scenes of comic relief or during the build-up to a battle.

 

CHARACTERS:

The characters are all obvious. I think Goku should be the most hated character of the show; seriously he steals the spotlight from everyone! I feel that many characters could have developed even better mainly Tienshinhan and Yamcha who were important figures in Dragonball but simply fade away as the show goes on, later Piccolo and Krillin also join him and eventually even Vegeta loses out. But more importantly Gohan who was supposed to become the main figure after the Cell saga never really realizes his potential, this is said to be influenced by the fans who were dissatisfied with Goku's mitigated role in the story, if that is true than I can say they officially ruined Dragonball.

The villains were fairly unoriginal as well; as were their aims. I can sum them up into monsters or aliens who's main goals were either to conquer the universe or destroy it. They show lacked intelligence and real meaning especially at the end, while it wasn't meant to be taken seriously I think Toriyama could have at least invented a character that was able to outwit Goku (which shouldn't be hard) rather than overpower him through the same devices: absorbing energy and new transformations.

OVERALL:

Seriously the Dragonball franchise was ruined by its financial ambitions. Its a shame too, it could have been much greater than it currently is and its followup was shameful. If you're going to watch Dragonball Z, watch Dragonball first to get a hang of what's going on and for a few laughs as well. If you like adrenaline-fueled action where strength and willpower are the driving force towards power than this is for you. It doesn't require a lot of thought to understand however you have to learn to ignore some of the plot holes that it presents.

I will admit, there are some cool action scenes here or there in this anime. It is also worth noting how much of an impact this had on laying the groundwork for a community of modern anime fans.

But, let’s face it, this anime is overrated, silly, ridiculous, and repetitive

One of the main things that got on my nerves was the constant ”breaking of the ceiling” on limitations stated by the creators. Every time you’ve seen a limit to the power levels, there is some new power that crushes everything you knew before. This leads into the ridiculous and repetitive gripes that I had with it.

Anyway, I dropped it as a teen- but I got the video summary of the rest of the series to see how it ended. I would say it is under average, but not the worst thing out there (A 4/10 overall).