Anime 813 Dragon Ball Z Reviews Filter Check 2

Well, if you've never seen this show, you must have been living under a rock, or a giant turtle, or something. Or maybe you've been living in some kind of strange alternate dimension...

Yeah, it's Dragonball Z. Some crazy anime show. It's been extremely popular in the past. It still has a big following, somewhere, I think. It's spawned like 30 video games. "But is it any good?" you ask. Well I've come here to tell you.

The show spans for almost 300 episodes, and is ultimately drawn out so long that it feels boring and pointless at times. Oftentimes nothing happens in an episode, except for ... a bit of powering up, some monologue-ing , and maybe an "exciting" revelation that gives just enough incentive to watch the next episode. (Will Goku survive? Will Piccolo die? Will Krillin stop sucking? Find out next time!) Yeah. However, I do like some of the visual storytelling that goes on when there's no dialog. Reminds me of old spaghetti westerns like The Good, Bad and the Ugly.

There's just enough story to propel the main focus of the anime, which is the fighting. The fighting is where the enjoyment of the show comes in. Who doesn't like to see a couple of over-powered super-beings beating the crap out of each other, and subsequently destroying the surrounding environment? Truly, the fights become epic and extravagant, and are decently entertaining when they build up to one. This is where the 7 enjoyment rating comes from.

The characters are well-designed and are decently well developed. They are generally easy to remember, especially Piccolo. (Yeah, he's green, gruff, and has a soft spot. Now you know everything about him) The world's pretty interesting. It's some kind of future world that is also inhabited by dinosaurs and strange animal-people.

The music is orchestrated, and sounds a bit dated, but fits the scenes and the epic scope of the show. However, there are some awful disco Superfriends style songs that are a bit cringe worthy at times, but overall, it's decent, and more original than most animes.

Overall I give this show a 6 out of 10. It's really nothing profound or meaningful. Purely for entertainment value, I give the show a 8 because of the awesome fight scenes and the memorable characters. Unfortunately, DBZ is in need of some serious editing. It's overlong and lacks satisfying closure. (avoid the terrible spawn, Dragonball GT. It will ruin all love you may gain for Dragonball and Dragonball Z) Watch it if you are a fan of action, martial arts, and shonen melodrama.

It seems like you can't say something bad about Dragon Ball Z without fans getting on your ass about it. Well screw the fans. I'll give my honest opinion on the show.

The Bad. Well the first thing I feel that I have to mention is the length of the fight scenes, they are all horribly long and in my opinion get boring after the first episode that is dedicated to a fight. That's something I really disliked about this series, when it's in a movie it's fine, especially the Bojack movie, because that movie actually served to develop both 3 of the characters in the ... show. But when you only have 3 characters in the whole of the series that really go through massive character development then you are doing something wrong. Dragon Ball Z is also written like something that doesn't want you to take it seriously but it does want you to take it seriously. It would have been better if it were created as a parody to action series but it really isn't, it pretty much defines the genre which I find very unfortunate as there are a lot of much better action series out there including Black Lagoon and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Both stop to take a look at the characters and plot rather than focusing only on the action. And the soundtrack outside of the opening themes isn't really memorable at all.

The good. The animation is nice and the fight scenes are fluid in animation. I found myself enjoying them when they weren't going on for literal hours. And the opening themes are good.

Final Verdict:
Dragon Ball Z is one of those anime that people really need to put down in favor of other action series. was still good but not perfect by any standard.

6.25/10

On the start, it's a good anime, the story runs nice and smoothly, and really enjoyable.

Sadly after Goku turns adult, the story is only between the way some random strong guy comes to earth to conquer or destroy it, and goku and his friends trains to beat them. Makes it not enjoyable anymore - at least for me, since it's turns like a "Smack Down" battle...

Not much special and unique things occurs after goku turns adult except new enemies, upgraded skill (yes only upgrade, it's just like : before : you only have a wild run missile, after : you add hovering ability to missile, ... after that you make it bigger for better firepower. Nothing special)

The art is Very Good, compared with another anime at those age, so do the sounds. Character development is good on the early episode, but turns so-so and slow in the middle-end.

Overall, If you wants to watch this series and still have good memories from it, just watch until the end of Tenka Ichi Budokain Tournament.
If you REALLY loves fighting scene (eventough it's only repeatable frame) you may wants to watch until the end.

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 surpass 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 passing 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.

Ah Dragonball Z, another show that drags on forever, and ever.

Ah Dragonball Z, another show that drags on forever, and ever. Using the same story lines over and over again, hell even using ones from the first Dragonball. Plus they drag on fights and stories for what seems like a few dozen episodes before they move on. The worst part of the show is Goku, Gohan and the rest of the family, what a waste of characters. I wish they would die.
Now for what I liked, the battles were great if you can get by the endless dragging them on forever. Piccolo and Vegeta are ... the best characters, I truly wish that they would have Vegeta kill off all the Goku family and Vegeta would take over the show. He and Piccolo are the only truly entertaining characters on the show.
Overall a average anime, not good or great, but not bad or terrible

Overview:

Dragon Ball Z is probably the most famous anime ever made. How famous is it? People that are hardly otaku still watched this show growing up and loved it. Rafael Nadal has admitted to owning the DVD box set! If you haven't seen DBZ, you have at least heard of it. Hell, even my ex-girlfriend had heard of DBZ and she had never heard of the Wizard of Oz! Although DBZ absolutely revolutionized Shonen anime and is considered the definitive Shonen series, it still had its share of flaws. It wasn't exactly a perfect adaptation of Toriyama's manga as I will explain in a moment. ... Now lets look at the most famous popular anime of all time!

Story: 8/10

The story of Dragonball largely parodied Chinese mythology along with the famous Chinese novel Journey to the West. In terms of story it was a sort of action/comedy retelling of fairy tales that were familiar to an East Asian audience in the way that Shrek parodied fairy tales that Americans were familiar with. The character of Son Goku is based on the Monkey King Sun Wukong in Journey to the West. A brief example: Goku's staff and magic cloud Kinto-un (flying nimbus in the English dub), were also used by Sun Wukong in the original novel. DBZ on the other hand, which began after volume 17 of the original manga, largely parodies and homages Western science fiction including Superman, the Terminator, and several others. Goku and his friends must fight in epic battles against increasingly strong opponents with increasingly higher stakes at risk. Eventually Goku must battle a powerful demon called Buu that has the power to threaten all life in the universe. The epic scale of DBZ's battles make it truly fun to watch. I rushed home every day from school to watch the next DBZ episode. My mom tutored downstairs, so my brother and I had to watch upstairs. Even if the AC was broken and it was 110 degrees upstairs, FUCK IT! DBZ was on, so we were gonna watch it no matter what! That was the level of devotion that kids growing up in the 90s had for this show! Unfortunately, the anime had to create a LOT of filler in order for the manga to stay ahead. Characters would power up for minutes on end, minor dialogue would be exchanged about how strong character "A" is, back to still shot of another character powering up. In the Freeza Saga, this took up entire episodes. A common joke in the 90s was "How many DBZ characters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" The answer: 1, but it will take 20 episodes!

Characters: 8/10

The characters in DBZ were quite good and rather memorable. Goku may be seen as a generic shonen hero today, but that is largely because he served as the basis for most shonen heroes to follow. Vegeta was an amusing anti-hero and although he would whine perpetually about how unfair it is that he isn't the strongest, we still thought he was cool anyway. Krillin was a good comic relief character, although that role later was transferred to Goten and Trunks. Some fans of the original Dragon Ball were disappointed that many characters that were big roles in the original like Yamcha, Tien, and Lunch were not important in DBZ. Like most people outside Japan and Hong Kong, I had never seen Dragon Ball when I first saw DBZ so it wasn't really an issue for me. The only real complaint I have with the characters is that the villains grew increasingly simplistic and lame as the series went on. Freeza was actually a decently written and truly despicable villain, but all the ones after him/her/it were rather weak in character development. Cell simply wanted to become the strongest being and later to destroy all that he could, and Buu was a brainless killing machine that simply wrecked shit. Well Evil Buu anyways, Fat Buu was admittedly pretty funny. Overall, these may not be the psychologically deepest or most brilliant characters ever created, but they were fun and fit with tone of the series very well.

Sound: 9/10

The openings were AWESOME, the battle music was awesome, this was a phenomenal soundtrack. I'm talking about the Japanese soundtrack by the way, the US soundtrack was ok, but not nearly as good.

Art: 3/10

Animation: definion - The process of creating movement. To call DBZ an animation is kind of insulting to other animations. Almost all of DBZ was still shots and using the same key frames over and over again. The only movement during a power up will be something like a characters cape flapping, which consists of 2 frames of animation rapidly going back and forth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uldSCaNDGD0

Here is a typical DBZ scene. Notice how little anything ever moves and marvel at the absolute laziness of the animators. Now watch any Disney movie EVER made, and you will see just how cheaply and lazily DBZ was made.

Enjoyment: 4/10

The filler really takes a lot out of the enjoyment for me. Some anime that I watched as a kid I can watch again as a 26 year old medical student and still enjoy. Shows like Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Rurouni Kenshin. DBZ on the other hand is a lot harder for me to enjoy. I have no problem with the manga, but the anime I can't really sit through. It takes so long for anything to actually happen! I don't have that kind of time anymore in my life! "This planet will explode in 5 minutes" - Freeza...about 20 episodes before Namek explodes.

Overall: 6/10

DBZ has some elements that it does amazingly well like creating quirky comedy, fun characters, and battles on an absolutely EPIC scale. It also features some of the most tedious filler ever created and horrendously cheap animation. It is certainly a classic and a Shonen masterpiece, but it is a flawed masterpiece.

For a show about fighting there sure is a lot of talking. Of course, this is all to built up suspension and give the show an identity. In retrospect, even though it was quite the ride, I find that as an older Anime fan it has its fair share of shortcomings. Sure we all still remember the charming characters and epic fights but then there was also the recycling of animations and overly long drawn out expositions which make this a flawed but enjoyable show.

I'm sure that everything else has been said about DBZ so I'll leave you with this:
I wouldn't recommend it to ... seasoned Anime fans but to those new to the genre, give it a go and see for yourself if it has any redeeming qualities.

Ok heres my review for a little somethin called Dragonball Z.

Really the plot is just horrible. Heres the plot: These guys wanna randomly want to destroy the planet cause they feel like it. then these other guys feel like fighting them cause there "super powerful"
really that IS IT. Its the plot for the 4 main arks and all the filler.
I am not over exaggerating at all, i dont hate DBZ at all. I just think generically not great.

Then somehow the creator feels like making someone die then come back. It happens like all the time. Then they feel like making about 4 forms for ... each character that make them "stronger". Then each character will moan and yell for about half the episode for no reason or in there head its because they feel like "powering up".

Geh, the art couldve been better. I gave it a could because its pretty old, and you have to think about it at the time period.
The sound is the same as the art.

Character wasnt bad, but they all almost had the same personality. I didnt find a character that stood out or was different. It has characters who feel like being good and characters who feel like being bad and characters who have no point. There isnt reason or depth behind them at all, nor is there reasoning behind their powers.

Seriously i wouldnt spend your time watching this anime. If you really want to watch a generic action anime go watch bleach and naruto. At least its not moan, fight, boom, yell, fight, fight, come back to life, third form, fourth form, fight, fight. Then if you want to watch an anime that is action, to bad cause all of either arent great without any depth or youll find it being mixed with about 2 or more other genres.

I never thought I would spend my time doing a review on this, but simply for a YouTube video and thousands of comments in different media praising dragon ball, I decided to do it, since it is something that I can not stand.
Saying things like:
-Dragon ball is a "masterpiece"
-Dragon ball is "the best shonen in history"
-Dragon ball has the best shonen arches
-Has "amazing characters"
I think that the aforementioned would fit better with "Hunter X Hunter" that undoubtedly has the merit of receiving those opinions, since Dragon ball does not reach even the dirt of the shoe to Hunter x ... Hunter in terms of quality.
Dragon ball has undoubtedly been a pillar in the childhood of some and that nobody can deny it, even I cannot deny it, simply this anime is so iconic and popular that it has been present in the childhood of many.
Now, the problem when one blinded by fanaticism does not want to analyze this anime and end up giving it a support that simply does not deserve for me.
Dragon ball is undoubtedly the most overrated anime I saw in my life, everything that leads to its development simply does not deserve everything it has:
1- Mediocre history, without depth, with extremely repetitive arcs that never reach a definite place
2- Bad characters, flat, with excessive script benefit.
3-Deus Ex macchina mediocre.
"Ohhh no, one of our protagonists has died after a hard fight with a villain, do we let him have a dignified death? Nahhhh let's relive it with the dragon ball spheres countless times we give utility to them, poor girls or serve for something else ".
I think it is a good summary of the whole saga, literally the name of the anime itself is the excuse in it to disgustingly favor the protagonists without any background or meaning.
I doubt very much that I can now see complete dragon ball without getting bored, because with these aspects mentioned it just happens very often, and it is really difficult for me to find something that I enjoy seeing it.

Oh boy here we go. Before you look at my score and get upset let me say I would rate the show from Saiyan Saga to the end of the Frieza saga a 9/10. Its the rest of it that really drags out and destroys the good rating for me. The characters are absolutely fantastic, but some go incredibly misused.

It falls into the problem of every saga playing out the same way. New enemy is the strongest of all time, Goku is off training or absent, everybody tries there best to hold off the threat, lots of training followed by lots of fights, Vegeta ... gets smashed for being arrogant, and Goku comes stronger than ever to save the day.

I'd go as far as to say I liked the Android saga but again, misused characters and Frieza being used as a device to show how strong Trunks is. A character who does absolutely nothing relevant after that moment. Then Vegeta goes Super Saiyan, and he does what? Right, his arrogance gets the best of him.

And the worst of everything would be the majin buu saga, an incoherent mess that wastes way too much time showing the kids and Gohan training all for them to end up losing and Goku and Vegeta having to save the day. Not to mention Fat Buu dragging on way too long as one of the most annoying villains I've ever had to watch.

Unfortunately I can't give this a good review when half of the show had tacky writing and such awful arcs. I can however say the first half is absolutely fantastic and a real time machine of great 90's anime. Oh and Krillin is awesome too. haha

If you haven't seen or even heard of Dragon Ball Z despite being even an avid fan of anime, then you must be living under a rock because DBZ is probably the only reason as to why most anime viewers today are even into anime. It is the godfather of all shounen anime, but it's also that one shounen anime that people always refer back to when it comes to what started all of the problems with today's shounen anime. It's popular because people remember watching it from their childhood. It's popular because of the epic fight scenes, the fantastic power-ups, the Super Saiyan transformations, ... the awesome villains, and the enjoyment that comes in watching such scenes unfold before one's eyes. But... is it any good substance-wise? The straightforward answer is... no.

Dragon Ball Z is the sequel to Dragon Ball, which is almost a completely different anime than Z ever was. It starts off right in the middle of Goku's life after... okay. I don't need to summarize its synopsis because its already there in its main page. So what is it about anyway? Easy. It's about a bunch of aliens fighting other aliens. Literally. That's what's it all about. It's that simple.

There is absolutely nothing special about the story. It's just Goku and friends fending off aliens hailing from different planets while they are in different planets. They fight off these villains while having epic moments, epic screams, epic music, and epic execution to create some of anime's greatest fight scenes to ever exist. They fly around in hyper sonic speeds while blowing up planets and destroying the environment around them, and they shoot laser blasts towards their enemies. You do not need to know more than this if you want to get the gist of the story.

Like all Shounen anime, this anime has these separate arcs, which often have subplots that distract the viewer from what the main plot is about, if it even has a main plot itself. The same formula is used for every one of these arcs, which means that none of the arcs are distinguishable from each other. The formula is simple: Some random ass aliens visit Earth or threaten Goku and his friends and the planet they are in, and often times, the heroes aren't strong enough to eradicate them. So what do they do? Oh, I don't know. They train a lot and use random ass power ups, which are nothing more than ass-pulls just so the heroes can stand a chance against the villain. Each of the arcs have villains with different personalities though, so that's a good thing, but only one of them ever stood out to me, and that was Frieza, who I believe to be the series' best villain to date. He probably deserves an Oscar for his performance.

The characters here are kind of a mixed bag. First, we have Goku, who is the main protagonist of the show. He might be one of my favorite characters in all of anime, but he's nothing more than a two-dimensional character whose only purpose is to fight off the everlasting number of villains in the show. He never goes through any development unlike his main rival, Vegeta, who is the exact opposite of Goku himself. Throughout the plot, Vegeta shows realistic traits that every good characters should have. He has his own flaws, which are often internal, and he can never get over the idea that Goku is better than him, which is the main driving force of his character. He develops more than any other character in the show, starting as nothing more than a villain to a family man, and it was truly a pleasure seeing him grow. The only other character who even had nearly as much development as Vegeta was Piccolo, who, like Vegeta, started off as a bad guy only to eventually turn into a good guy. The only difference between the two is that Vegeta was an interesting character all throughout the show, whereas Piccolo grew to become a boring character once the writer thought he was no longer as useful as he once was to advance the show's plot. Another notable character here was also Mr. Satan (who I almost forgot to mention), who starts off as a dick but then turns out to be a really likable character in the end. There's also one more character who I'd like to mention, and that is Gohan, who is the son of Goku. He was actually a decent character in my opinion, but like Piccolo, he was treated poorly. He started out as a bitchy boy, only to become a tough boy, then went through character regression to become a bitchy boy again just to become a tough boy again until he eventually became useless.

I'm not gonna mention every one of the characters in this show because there are simply too many of them to describe and it's also because I'm too lazy, but if there's anything I have to say about each of them, it's that all of them except for Vegeta were two-dimensional and/or were often put to the side because the author either forgot about them or because he didn't know how to use some of them properly. With that being said, let's move on to the other aspects.

A huge reason for why this anime became one of my favorites was because of its animation, and let's give Toei their props because they animated some of the most epic fight scenes in anime history. It is thanks to Toei that the fight scenes never became too boring despite the fact that some of them were drawn out. Speaking of drawing things out, this anime was notorious for doing exactly that. Even though the fights were nothing short of fantastic, they were also insanely long, with some of the fights spawning up to over 4 hours in length. What this means is that there would be episodes showing only the fights and nothing more. It was like that for over 200 episodes! Yeesh. One of the fights in this anime was also given a lot of flack because it was over 20 episodes long. Yes. You heard me right. One of the fights lasted over 20 f*cking episodes, which is like the exact same length that most anime are today.

If there's any reason why Toei should be criticized for making DBZ, it's that they significantly slowed down its pacing to the point that they were only adapting less than 2 chapters per episode from the manga. If you were like me and you read a shounen manga, then you'd know that around 17-18 pages are drawn into a chapter, and if you read it without any constant interruption, it would usually take you less than 5 minutes to read just one chapter. The fact that less than 2 chapters (which are around 34-36 pages) were adapted to make an episode lasting 20-ish minutes must've been hell for all the children who were watching it back when it was still airing because the pacing was devilishly slow. This might've been the biggest reason for the fight scenes being extended so unrealistically, but that was a good thing for most of us because the long ass fight scenes were why I was constantly on the edge of my seat.

The soundtrack, like the animation, was magnificent. Depending on which version you watch it on, (Funimation dub with a revised soundtrack or original Japanese audio) your enjoyment can either be stunted or amplified. Personally, I found the English dub for this anime to be the best version. Its soundtrack fit the fights and also sounded better, and the voice acting was far superior than the Japanese version. If you've watched the anime in both the Japanese dialogue and the Funimation dub, most of you would say that the Funimation dub is better especially since many of you will agree with me that Goku's voice is much better when it actually sounds manly and not high-pitched. (If you can't stand Goku's voice in the Japanese version, then do not make the same mistake by listening to it for 291 episodes. It never gets any better.)

The amount of enjoyment that this anime generated was perhaps the biggest catalyst for it being one of my favorite anime. With fight scenes lasting for over 9000 minutes in conjunction with the epic OST that was Bruce Faulconer's, this anime ranks high among one of the most entertaining, if not, the most entertaining things I've ever watched. I have yet to find another anime out there that comes even close to what Dragon Ball Z accomplished in terms of enjoyment.

So, do I recommend this show? Absolutely. I'd recommend it (Funimation Dub with Bruce Falcouner OST) if you are an adrenaline junkie looking for something with all-action and little dialogue. If you aren't a fan of that, however, then do not watch this anime. You will not enjoy the overly long fight scenes and its dreadful pacing or the fact that it basically has no story. If you are a casual viewer looking to watch this anime just to see what it's like, then you should definitely watch it with your "brain turned off" as that is perhaps the best way you can watch it.

Final Rating: 5/10

Review contains Spoilers.
Dragonball Ball Z is arguably the most influential and popular anime in existence. Most anime and non anime fans have grown up watching the anime and thus it holds a special place in them as nostalgia. However is it really among the best anime that exist, well in simply words no, it's not nearly well written or even enjoyable in s majeway. Anyway let's get to the specifics.

Story-5
The story is pretty much simple and easy to follow however due to its easiness there is literally no scope for any dilemma. The series pretty much focusses on the sayen life of Goku the main ... character.
It's divided into three specific arcs and it shows the different problems that the main characters have to deal with. While the first half of the series was tolerable due to the freshness of the concept and character dynamics, the second half introduces new characters and concepts and pretty much the freshness begins to dry out and m story becomes pretty reductant. Then we get to the biggest
problem with the entire anime and that it's it's pacing. The anime is pretty much renowned in having the example of filler arcs and that precisely drags down the flow of the story. The entire buu arc felt like it was told based on no script and in honestly that arc pretty much was the low point of the series. Moreover the actual story did get buried away because of the countless battles in the series.

Art-7
Despite being sold on animation I was still sold on the artwork of Dragonball Ball Z. It's nothing noteworthy however it did make the actual battles much more interesting and the infamous 5 minute
battle in name wouldn't nearly be as fun without the contrasting
color patterns between the characters. However the art pretty much remained stagnant throughout the series so yeah it's not a standout factor.

Sound-7
The overall sound was good. The battle sounds especially were pretty solid and it did enhance the actual conflict. The ost's were pretty forgettable and the scores weren't deep or even emotional to be considered great.

Characters-4
This is were Dragonball ball Z fails tremendously. The actual characters are the weakest point of the entire series. Despite bring the most influential Anime character in existence Goku is neither a deep nor a great character. He has absolutely no character development in the entire series and is basically an overpowered hero who doesn't even strive to go through any moral development. The only noteworthy characters of the entire cast are Vegeta, Piccolo and Future Trunks. The rest of the characters are just there for the sake of being there and doesn't even contribute anything for it.Gohan, Goku's son had probably the best character development by the end of the second half is completely thrown aside during its final arc thereby rendering his development useless. The main characters of the original Dragonball ball anime were either tossed aside or avoided to fill in the new one's. Even the characters death had no effect on their development as the series pretty much allowed them to be brought back to life.

Enjoyment - 7
This is tough, although I ranted on the flowed storytelling and useless characters i still very much enjoyed the series due to its fights and ham.

Overall - 5
While the anime did keep me entertained it really didn't give much to appreciate for and since it went from the direction of good to bad it's Fairly fitting that I call it mediocre.

It's automatically a given that the action in Dragon Ball Z is great. Despite what a lot of others may think, the show has a lot more going for it. Dragon Ball Z has you get invested early on in these characters like Goku, Gohan, Vegeta etc. and watch them grow not only physically but also mentally with every challenge they face. However, the storytelling has a lot of glaring flaws. Arcs tend to be formulaic in structure, with Goku constantly being taken in and out of the story. There are countless major plotholes throughout that are never addressed. The Buu Saga throws away the ... entire overarching narrative and make the entire conclusion of the previous arc pointless. The dub, while I expected the acting to be bad considering it was made it the 90s, changes a lot of the dialogue to something completely different and almost gives off the impression that the character is something that he's not. While it's far from perfect, Dragon Ball Z is definitely worth the watch if you like action (assuming you haven't already)

My very first serious anime love - as a kid, I would have given it a 10. I even made my first website about DBZ using Adobe Pagemill when I was 8 (it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the internet of the time, an image gallery of content not yet aired in North America). I have a lot of love for this show - it was genuinely the coolest thing I had ever seen at the time. And it got me into reading French (and is why I read all my manga in French to this day) - a particular feature of the history of official ... manga translations and the relationship between France and Canada.

But. Its just not very good... One day, I plan to watch Dragonball Kai (the version of DBZ without filler) to see if that helps improve the content. But I will never unironically enjoy Spirit Bomb charging.

In my opinion, I didn't enjoy this show at all. My friends would always say that this was one of the best animes to ever be created, so I tried watching it. I thought "Dragon ball" was good because of the simplicity to it. But when it came to DBZ I found myself having to force myself to watch the episodes because of how long it would take for a fight to start. And once the fight started, the fight wasn't even that satisfying (at least in my opinion). These fight scenes, I feel like were poorly animated because they wouldn't show the full movement ... and it would just be flashes of the character for a second. So, all in all, I couldn't find myself liking this anime even though the general public worships it.

To be fair, I will say DBZ was a childhood favorite. However, that was back when seeing screaming and macho fighting was enough to satisfy a kid's heart.

The storyline is rather weak though, especially with the filler clogging it up.


Speaking of which
The FILLER IS HORRIFIC.

The occasional plot twists aren't exactly suspenseful

... The worst part is how fights get stall to the point where the antagonists often can make a comeback with some tactical plotting.

Also, the dumb decisions made by the heroes lead to the villains living longer and getting stronger than necessary. Sometimes it really makes you think would you actually trust these men to save the world?

A more subtle issue is consistency of power levels. While it makes sense that the characters are getting stronger, the power of the attacks hitting a threshold and then resetting does not. A Kamehameha wave, a popular move in the anime, fluctuates in power over the course of the story even when the same character is using it. What could once destroy a hill can the destroy a whole city then a planet then back to just a mountain.

Holding back that power would only reinforce my point earlier of stalling out a fight.

At the end of the day,
the action is still amazing. It's an anime worthy a try albeit skipping all the filler. In fact, I suggest you try Dragon Ball Z Kai, a new, improved filler free version of the original.

Dragon ball z is a great series if you are trying to pass time. It is long, and on top of the 291 eps you have 14 movies, 153 episodes of the series before it (dragon ball) 4 movies for that series, and 64 eps of the series after dbz (dbgt) which has 1 movie. However if you are a fan of more story and relating to the characters, as well as strong emotion, i wouldn't recommend this anime. This anime is good for the effects, as well as the fight scenes, but even then i find that there are animes that have similar traits ... to dbz that are much better overall. If you are looking for something just watch and enjoy occasionally for amusement i would recommend watching it, but if you are looking for something with an enjoyable story, that still has some action, I would recommend either Baccano, Fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood, and Phantom: Requiem for the phantom. overall i enjoyed those series much much more then any of the dragon ball series. Still it is a fun show to watch.

Note: This review was written on my Review Book on Wattpad. If you are interested, don't be shy to check it out! (Link's in my bio)

So, recently after I finished Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, I thought Dragon Ball Z Kai, or DBZ for short, was another anime that seemed interesting to me, so I started to watch that one as well. But, like I said about Naruto, when I go back to the anime, it just doesn't do much for me anymore. I don't know why, but that's just how I am. So, maybe before, when I had just finished the anime, I would've ... given it something like an 8, but I have a feeling I might rate DBZ a 5 or 6, just like Naruto.



So, without further ado, lets get started!



WARNING! THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!



Story: 8/10



Ok, so like I said with Naruto, I really liked DBZ when I first watched it, but sadly, when I try going back to it, it just doesnt do the sane for me anymore. Im not saying that the story is bad, I liked it a lot to be precise. And yes, just like every other anime, DBZ has its flaws.

First off, battles are veeeeeery long. And I have to admit, some of them are enjoyable, if you're in that kind of thing. But if you cant get online to watch the series, and it comes on Television once a week, some battles can last weeks, months even. Sure, I love my share of extremely long animes, but without internet to binge watch the series, it took me forever to finish the series. Like what Im trying to get at is I really liked the story, its just the length and my capabilities to the internet at the time proved that lots of anticipation was found as I watched the anime. Sometimes that would be a good thing, and others it wouldnt, mainly because excitement would come for Saturdays, and other times i would be groaning in agony because Saturday was almost a whole week away, and I had to go through a full school week just to see one episode. Sometimes it would be very annoying, until I had recieved internet acess. After that, I sped through the anime way quicker, and Dragon Ball Z Kai became my 2nd completed anime. If I had given this series a review as soon as I finished it, I might have given it a 9 or 10 over all, but seeing that it doesnt do much for me as it did before, so this section i decided to give an 8.

Art: 8/10

Another 8/10 goes to the art. Now I have to admit, the art for this series is very simple and original. Unlike most animes that feature a lot of male characters, and plenty of references for the style of art in male characters, such as Free!, Naruto, and Daily Lives of High School Boys, never have I seen an anime that has such a fun and simple design to it. Unlike most animes, Dragon Ball Z Kai has a simple eye style, that usually conist of a single black pupil in a simple eye shape, like an arch, or oval shape, such as Goku and Nappa, while others do not have any white area to their pupils, such as Krillin. Some characters, like Bulma, have shinier eyes, which include a colored Iris, black pupil, and highlights and reflections to make the eye style more anime-like and cuter.

I actually liked the anime style a LOT. Its very unique and cute, a great change-up in art style, especially if youre looking for a change-up in your art style for once.

Sound: 9/10

To be honest, I really loved the soundtrack to Dragon Ball Z, it was a lot different than other soundtracks that Ive heard in the past (and future of course), that had a very lively tone to it. I mean theres not much to say about it that was bad about it, I enjoyed it a lot, and that's saying something, since when i go back to the series and im not enjoying it as i did before.

Characters: 7/10

Dragon Ball Z's character cast is pretty original, yet, even when watching it for the first time, I never really got attached to any of them, which is strange, since you usually have at least have one character you get attached to in an anime. I mean, you have your different species characters and plenty of little animals and creatures that are allies to the main character, Goku. And a plus to the character cast is that a good amount of characters can put up a fight, so if you really lile strong characters that take weeks for a fight to finish, this is an anime for you. There arent that many flaws on the series, except, like I mentioned before, I just didn't get attached to a character in the series, and Im not sure why. So, i believe this section deserves a 7/10.

Enjoyment/General: 6/10

So, another anime that I try going back to enjoy, that fails. I mean, I might've given it a 7 or 8, but, trying to rewatch now a days, it... Just doesnt do the same for me as it did the first time around. I mean, i really enjoyed it a few years ago, but I kind of lost interest when i tried to rewatch it, it just didnt do the same for me. So in general, I think i enjoyed this anime a 6/10.

What could I say, Dragon Ball Z popped the cherry, and brings emotional and blissful moments from my childhood. Your first taste will always be the best.

So why a rating of 6 you my ask?

To put it simply, I have grown older, and you wish for more quality and layers in your Cakes.
For all its fun, and Dragon Ball Z delivers, its lacks in most areas.

The Stories, Settings, Lore and rules leave much to be desired.

Young Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, F Trunks, Freiza, Fat Buu, Gotenks and Mr Satan are the only Characters that I could love and love to hate, and ... they can provide some good humor.

Everyone else just feels one note, flat or completely forgotten.

And I will never forgive what they did to Gohan in the Buu Saga.

Look at how they massacred my boy.

Its Dumb Fun, but fun nonetheless.

Give a crack at it.

Alright, who hasn't seen this anime? Some of my oldest memories are watching DBZ with my dad, which was the first show I watched when I got into Anime. DBZ is very close to my heart, and the story is top-tier. However, there are much better ways to experience this story. This review is more of a recommendation to read the manga than an actual anime review.

Many problems plague DBZ, with the biggest being filler. While it isn't comparable to the Naruto Franchise, copious amounts of filler episodes can hurt the pacing sometimes. Even in the "canon" episodes, there are often irrelevant cutaways to what ... a side character might be doing and the famous five-minute stare-off between Goku and a villain. A good example of bad pacing is the Goku vs. Freeza fight. It also drags a little in the manga, but it is not bad if you're a quick read. The Anime, on the other hand, DRAGS on for no apparent reason. What could have been a 10-15 episode fight goes for 20 episodes because they jump around to another character too much or have Goku and Freeza stare at each other for a long time. In conclusion, people should watch or read the story, but there are better options, like Kai or the manga.

Now some good things, the art is good most of the time. Sometimes it can be rough, but nothing compared to early Super. The Japanese soundtrack is also good, and when there are actual fights, they are choreographed very well and are fun to watch. I would recommend, like most animes, watching this Subbed rather than dubbed. Yes, the dub is nostalgic for anyone from the west, but the Voice acting is much better subbed than dubbed.

In conclusion, I would recommend the Dragon ball story, but not this product. The story is iconic and underrated, but I would stick with the manga or DBZ kai.