This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
In my opinion, DragonBallZ is not the greatest anime of all time. It
feels strange to say this because DBZ was my childhood. It was the very
first anime I ever saw, and I've been a hard-core DBZ fan for years. I
watched every single movie, collected the action figures, owned just
about every DBZ video game and watched every episode. As I grew older,
my tastes changed and I decided to re-watch the series from a new
perspective.
I began at DragonBall, the prequel to this series. Goku is a little kid
with rapidly developing martial art skills, and he journeys to find the
dragonballs and to grow stronger. In my opinion, DragonBall is the
anime that deserves all of the recognition because it's a show that
teaches lessons and has role models for kids, like the eternally humble
Goku ,and the benevolent (but perverted) Master Roshi. But it was the
little things that made the show special, the stuff that wasn't in the
manga. The sequence that stands out to me the most was when General Tao
came into town to get a new outfit. Two guys wanted to take Tao down
for a huge reward so they tried shooting him from behind. Tao flipped
his slipper behind his back, which caused the bullet to bounce back
towards the assailants, and the slipper rotated above Tao's head before
cozying back onto his foot. He didn't lose a step or turn around the
entire time! The greatest part of Dragon Ball was the epic showdown
between Goku and Piccolo Jr. They were at each other's throat from the
start and kept going even when both were losing tons of blood. In the
end, Goku barely won by ramming his head into Piccolo's chest. Goku's
hard-fought victories culminated to make the entire series into a true
triumph of the human spirit.
I noticed a huge difference between DragonBallZ and its predecessor.
For one, as the series progresses, DBZ worsens in multiple aspects,
especially in the amount of character involvement. In the beginning of
DBZ, everybody had some kind of importance but, later on, most of them
aren't even there and the ones that are present take a backseat to the
almighty Goku and his gang of Super Saiyans.
The other issues I have with DragonBallZ is that there's way too much
screaming (lowlighted in the moment where Goku shows his friends the
Super Saiyan 3 transformation and yells for at least 4 solid minutes),
too much movement when the characters are fighting (we can barely even
see them) and an overall lack of a deep story. The early sagas had
their moments, like Piccolo saving Gohan from destruction in Saiyan
Saga because that was his only friend, and the emotional speech Vegeta
gave to Goku before he died. But, as DBZ progresses, there's a lot less
of those moments. There's some semblance of a plot in Cell Saga, when a
bitter Vegeta selfishly allows Cell to do what he wants in order to
defeat him later and get his pride back...or something.
The same elements that made DragonBall special are absent in DBZ. For
one, you already know the good guys are going to win because the Z Gang
is way too overpowered to worry about anybody. For such an amazing
fighter, Goku has a habit of giving up easily ( didn't do this in
DragonBall). Remember his fight against Cell or that one he had with
Bills in Battle of the Gods? The main character of DBZ doesn't seem
like role model material to me. The fights in DBZ are way too drawn
out( I think Goku vs Frieza took up the majority of Season 3 and the
worst part was you already knew the fight was over a long while before
Frieza exploded.) and I'm getting really tired of the 'falling over
backwards' routine the characters always do. Perhaps the worst thing
about DBZ is how the producers insert scenes that weren't in the manga
to get more money from the series. At least the added scenes in
DragonBall (like Goku's training around the world and the Goku vs
Master Shen fight before the tournament) was worth it. The extras in
DBZ was trash (multiple scenes of Super Buu eating sweets at empty
stores and Dabura talking to Videl, Bulma and Chi-Chi about love) and
an absolute eye- sore.
When I finished watching DragonBall, I felt like something special left
my life. When I finished watching DragonBallZ, I felt like I endured a
twenty-five mile race and I never wanted to run again. I used to love
DBZ as a child and I don't feel the same way now. I think that the show
is more appropriate for children who don't really have high standards
for shows in the first place. In order for DragonBallZ to be the
greatest anime of all time, it requires a little more than 'Kamehameha'
to make it worth anybody's time.… Expand
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