Dragon Ball Z Movie 12: Fukkatsu no Fusion!! Gokuu to Vegeta

When it comes to the Dragonball films in general they usually follow something different. instead of the canon material that the series contains
It instead mixes certain content from the series themselves but only to present a different setting that usually is not always direct from the series.

So therefore, Do not go into watching them expecting anything that great of a premise in the first place since its not meant to do so, except just take them as special added content for its standard viewing alone.

So on to the 12th Dragon Ball Z Movie and I totally loved it!!
This surprised me because I didn't have that ... much expectations of it and yet as soon as I started watching it, It starts to go with the action and comedy formula right of the bat and it works so well for this film.

The action is fun, You get your silly slapstick moments of the characters, some bizarre real life character references like hitler in this like wtf xD, as well as fusion from the series.

The animation looks brilliant for a mid 90s movie along with its fights as well which was pretty memorable in terms of how epic it looks.

The voice acting was fine on both in English and Japanese, Though I like more of the soundtracks from the english version since Gogeta and Janemba's theme sounds really cool.

The villain here Janemba who doesn't have any personality what so ever is this manifestation of evil negative energy similar to majin buu in terms of having a primal like personality starting his form as this giant oversized child like thingy than shortly enough into this sinister looking demon which I have to admit the design of it looks brilliant.
Janemba also possesses a pretty incredible ability of materialising and manipulating space and anything over the dimensions of space itself making him capable of transforming the universe in its entirety into his image which includes the Other World where goku is fighting pikkon.

These effects causes the other world and their overseers including the checking station to falter in this dimension making the villains escape from their confinement.

Not only that but the magic of the dragonballs are also effected by this as well.

The movie's main plot is mainly about goku, vegeta and the others trying to stop the powerful janemba and his powers over the dimensions that pulls in some of these entertaining moments out really well.

The only thing I wished to have seen more of was janemba effecting other parts of the universe and for the other villains though only minor, to be a little more involved in the movie to at least make the film a little more longer but other than that, this movie was fun and enjoyable and Gogeta totally rocks!!

Its probably my favourite dragonball film so far ;)

In my opinion the best DBZ film out of them all apart from the latest one which I am yet to watch.

Story 7/10 The story is slightly better than in some of the other movies as its not just another typical bad guy returning to destroy the world with this movie they have gotten at least a little bit more creative and came up with a new idea for a villain.

Art 8/10 The art work is amazing for the year it was released in, the characters were all well animated and the scenery was packed with colour and detail.

Sound 8/10 The music in this movie ... was really good especially throughout the fight scenes it added epicness to the fights.

Characters 8/10 By far one of the best things in this movie with a new bad ass looking bad guy Jenemba, Goku and Vegetas fusion Gogeta, Picon and guests appearances from old villains such as Freeza himself.

Enjoyment 9/10 this movie is one of the finer movies of the DBZ collection it has a little bit of everything and the fight scenes were just the best with Goku and Vegeta facing an opponent with abilities they've never seen before.

Overall 8/10 This is a really good movie and also has a lot of humour in there as well from Mr Satan himself all the way through to the return of Hitler. With old bad guys appearing from the dead that are no longer a match for the Z fighters and an all new enemy that is the strongest they have ever faced, this is one enjoyable watch.

I've talked about Toriyama Akira's Dragonball and I've talked about the Dragonball Z: Battle of Gods movie. Now it's time to delve into the franchise once more with a look at the twelfth Dragonball Z movie, Fusion Reborn. Will it be on the level of the fourteenth movie or is this one of the weak Dragonball Z films?

Story:

Our story opens after the Buu saga with an afterlife tournament where Goku faces off against Paikuhan, in spite of the fact that Goku was resurrected by the old Kaio during the Buu saga and the fact that the grand Kaio decided that the prize for the afterlife ... tournament needed to be withheld for a while so he could get back in shape. Unsurprisingly, this is a Dragonball Z movie that doesn't fit in with the continuity, which is an issue with a lot of them. Moving on, King Yama is busy judging souls while the oni in charge of monitoring the soul cleansing equipment goofs off. This results in an accident which causes the evil to burst out and transform the young oni into Janemba, a being of pure evil that seals Yama's palace, enabling the souls of the dead to break free and roam around on Earth. The tournament is postponed so that Goku and Paikuhan can investigate.

To be fair, the concept behind this isn't a bad one. The idea of the dead wreaking havoc could have been very interesting. But this is DBZ so it's used as an excuse for action sequences and that's pretty much it. To be fair, that's pretty much to be expected from the franchise and it's what people are going to be watching the film for. That's why the biggest problem is the final fight itself. It is really anti-climactic. You get some good buildup for it, but the fight itself ends in about thirty seconds. Mr. Satan fought Cell longer than Gogeta fights Janemba. On the positive side, the film does have some funny moments and some stupidly awesome bits, including Trunks and Goten fighting undead nazis.

Characters:

The film focuses primarily on the saiyajin and half saiyajin characters. Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks and Goten. Videl also plays a somewhat significant role. None of them really develop in any substantial way over the course of the film, but you do get a good sense of their personalities, which is fair enough given that the film isn't even an hour long. Then we have our villain, Janemba. He's basically like Majin Buu right down to starting as an obese man-child and transforming into a meaner, more heavily muscled form. It's like the Frieza and Cooler thing where a film just makes a weaker copy of a villain from the main series.

Art:

The artwork and animation are pretty decent. The biggest issue is that the action sequences are kind of weak in this one. Given how much the franchise relies on those, that's pretty bad. I will give the film credit for having some really interesting backgrounds during its tour of hell.

Sound:

The entire vocal cast delivers decent performances. There's some exaggeration, but no more than the usual given the franchise's tendency to have dudes screaming to get stronger. The music is pretty good.

Ho-yay:

There isn't any homo-eroticism in this movie.

Final Thoughts:

Dragonball Z: Fusion Reborn is an action movie with some good ideas and funny moments, but that suffers from weak action and a boring antagonist. It isn't a bad movie, nor is it one of the worst DBZ films for what it is, but there are a lot of better Dragonball Z films out there. This one is just kind of dull. My final rating for it is going to be a 5/10. Tomorrow I'll take a look at Spirited Away.

Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn is one of the best movies the franchise has to offer and I shall elaborate my statement in the following.

1. Story

Fusion Reborn's story is nothing to write home about. It is by no means a "bad" story for a Dragon Ball movie, but it is obvious that it was not the main focus of the movie, or at least not the parts that don't feature the two protagonists. It is definitely no Dragon Ball Super: Broly in terms of story, but it suffices for the movie's premise.

2. Art

Despite my wish to give this category a solid 10, there is one ... minor thing that has bugged me in my multiple watching-sessions. The movie adds very thick borderlines on the non-protagonist characters which really are off-putting. Other than that, most of the movie looks like how you would expect a Dragon Ball Z movie to look like, and I personally think that it looks better than the show at some points.

3. Sound

The sound design and soundtrack of Fusion Reborn surpass at least the Funimation Dub of the original show. Near the end of the movie the punches and kicks sound like explosions and it really adds a lot to it. The English dub made a good effort in terms of the soundtrack, but it is fair to say that the Japanese dub has the better soundtrack overall.

4. Character

The characters in the movie aren't as fleshed out as in the show, but fairly well written for a Dragon Ball Z movie. The most interesting character in the movie is the main villain, because of their uniqueness as a Dragon Ball villain. I felt like it was a refreshing change from "super bad villain that wants to destroy Goku because of reasons" types of villains that were featured in previous movies.

5. Enjoyment

While this is mostly subjective, I only have warm feelings whenever I rewatch Fusion Reborn. It definitely is a highly enjoyable movie, especially as a fan of the franchise. Though most of the enjoyment stems from the fight of the main protagonists and the main villain, the side characters have their fun moments as well.

Overall:

Fusion Reborn is a solid 9 in my book, because it really comes to show what a Dragon Ball movie can be if the people involved really put in effort. With enjoyable characters, good music and mostly good art, I cannot recommend this movie enough to all Dragon Ball fans. People that are new to the franchise will also get a lot of enjoyment out of the movie, but I recommend to watch more of the show or perhaps even other movies beforehand.

Dragon Ball Z Movie 12: Fukkatsu no Fusion!! Gokuu to Vegeta aka. Fusion Reborn is a movie where the death return to life after an accident happened in hell creating a monster known as Janemba. It is up to Goku, Vegeta and Paikuhan (or Pikkon in American) to stop Janemba from destroying the balance of the circle of life pretty much.

The movie does a good job in showing the chaos Janemba's existence has to both the afterlife and the living world as the viewers will be able to see both what is going on in these different locations.
While Goku, Paikuhan and Vegeta deal with Janemba ... while Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Videl do their best to deal with the revived villains amounts which is Frieza. The movie also uses two artstyles for the serious and non serious moments but not necessary for comedic scenes. There are references to famous movies or historical events that get parodied which some countries won't be able to see because of censorships like the infamous dictator scene being removed from the German dub.
Speaking of artstyle, the visuals and animations are even holding up today and are the best looking Dragon Ball visuals up to date. Animators took full advantage of the tools they had making Janemba's abilities especially the teleportation a visual spectacle. It is alongside Wrath the Dragon and Path to Power without the doubt the best looking Dragon Ball film.
There is a good reason why this alongside Wrath of the Dragon are the only Dragon Ball movies from the original run that had a worldwide theatrical release.

As the name of the movie suggests, the selling point is Goku and Vegeta fusing to Gogeta being the first time these two merge to stop a common enemy. And the build up to that moment was done beautifully.
We see more about Vegeta's inferiority complex and the hate of the idea to fuse with his rival. And it might even rival Vegeta's development throughout the Boo Saga.
While on the topic of Boo Saga, this movie can't fit to the main story timeline and can be seen as a sidestory where the good guys defeated Boo with Goku and Vegeta remaining death.

Janemba is a villain that resembles Boo a lot but is created out of pure evil. He starts off as a fatso and later becomes a muscular demonic lizard thingy after one of the creepiest transformation scenes ever. His abilities are also very unique to him but it feels like there are also too much powers of Boo added for no reason like arm extension. But the main appeal obviously is altering objects and teleportation. Not only can he teleport himself but can also create teleportation portals which he cleverly uses to attack opponents without physically appearing or sending back attacks aimed at him. Meaning he can use his abilities as offensive and defensive tools.
But personality wise he is inferior to Kid Boo after he turned evil. Since he can't speak, most of his emotions are expressed by emoting with his body. He is also the only character in the series that uses a physical weapon after the Frieza Saga and makes it being dangerous believable as something like a Sword for Future Trunks didn't enhance his fighting abilities and was just visually pleasing.

Comedy in this movie is also great as jokes some which had build up in this movie or from the show being viewed. It would be hard to explain some of them without spoiling it. But they aren't the only ones.

The environment is another thing notable for the movie as viewers of the anime have had seen hell, but now that Janemba appeared viewers can witness how Janemba's existence altered it. Combining the flying multi-colored giant jelly beans created by Janemba and the unusual color scheme of hell creates one of the most surreal landscapes in the franchise. Simply put, changing an already explored location into a brand knew one.

Like always there are some criticism. Of all the villains from the show that returned, only one fights and gets defeated in an underwhelming way. I think you can guess who is it. Someone who just won't stop returning. Pretty much wasting the potential of old villains getting a second chance to get what they want and taking advantage of the secondary cast better like Piccolo, Yamcha, Tien, Chaotzu and Krilllin to beat someone like Bojack, Turles or Lord Slug. Instead most of the living world scenes are wasted for historical jokes and Goten and Trunks.
As with most DBZ movie villains who are similar to the current story arc villain that came out around the time, Janemba is basically similar to Boo. While he has some unique abilities and a killer design, he just feels like a watered down version of the last DBZ villain. Both start out fat and at the runtime of the Boo Saga the latest form when this movie came out was Super Boo and Janemba's final form has a similar body structure. And as a character, he is shallow after his transformation who had a childlike innocent personality. And there is the question why he is as strong as he is. Another problem is the transformation from big to small is that in regards to Boo who is made out of magic and bubble gum substance, Janemba's transformation that happens in a similar matter seems unrealistic because it doesn't have a believable excuse like Boo. It also makes it less believable that Janemba can extend his arms, an ability it didn't even need. One other issue is neglect of Paikuhan as a character. While he did appear to help out, most of the time he was just trying to free Enma or King Yama, only appearing to buy time for the fusion briefly. So he was wasted as a character for most of the film.

Overall Fusion Reborn is a good movie still well remembered and the movie that made Gogeta the character everyone loves. This movie has the debut of Super Saiyan 3 and might be the best use of the transformation in the franchise. Even the transformation scene of Super Saiyan 3 surpasses the one in the Boo Saga version from the anime version taking advantage of how the environment shifts as well as the tone from the battle from fun to serious. So if you like more development for Vegeta, love fusion especially Gogeta and wants some good Super Saiyan 3 action, you owe yourself to watch Fusion Reborn.

I don't give it the score for its storyline, thats not in this movie at all. the story is only made for this movie to be and tell why everything happens but thats it. The fighting is good in and is also the biggest part of the movie.They also made everybody so that you can see how strong everybody is, for exemple that Gohan is stronger than ever before in the series and how badass Goku and Vegeta are. The effects used by the powerup to ssj3 are a little stupid that the film goes to negative color but its fairly done and the ending...well ... the bad guy dies and Goku and Vegeta say goodbye in a really gay way...

The Dragon Ball Z movies had become the living definition of money grabbers after the 7th movie. Many non fans would actually argue even before that. The movies were severely lacking in creativity and imagination, to where the writers found themselves either resorting to gimmicks or just playing copy and paste with stories. Therefore, I remember coming into this expecting the same thing, which was why I put it off for way over a year after its US release date. When I finally gave it a look; I was surprised with the solid effort as it did manage to work well with its key elements; ... the action, plot, and even the comedy held my attention to actually consider this a good movie.

The plot follows the same pattern as any DBZ movie; a threat shows up that could destroy the world or even the entire universe, and Goku must face this threat. This time around the culprit of mischief is a mutated being by the name of Janemba whom is completely responsible for the living and dead to collide. Goku engages him in battle which leads to quickly being pushed to his limits. I guess this movie will only be about as great or bad to you all depending on how well DBZ comedy and action jells with you.

The movie constantly flips between Goku's battle and his sons battle with the undead. The latter is completely comedy motivated all the way down to the visuals and it does work at times. I actually laughed during Frieza's return, plus the parody on Hitler down to some of his dialog, where he even admits that he should be recruiting these super strong blond guys. It's rare to find a DBZ movie where the comedy can make you do something other than groan. However, it's the serious fighting that will grab everyone's attention. It contains the usual Super Saiyan gimmicks plus Vegeta makes a very predictable appearance. The fighting is fun to watch, but again, the comedy has moments where it shines here as well concerning the Fusion technique.

Although I enjoyed the movie; I will admit that some of the scenes drag and I doubt this is due to multiple watches. I always felt this way about this movie, and even at 48 minutes I wanted it to end. The villain Janemba is the living definition of cookie-cutter, completely lacking any type of personality which is something that had been plaguing the DBZ movies for a very long time, probably after the Return of Cooler. All he does is just grunt and laugh, and that really isn't cool.

The visuals are much better here than in the TV series. The animation is a lot more crisp and vibrant. Although there is a heavy re-use of cels during some combat, there are moments of sharp blows and some type of action choreography. I liked the backgrounds this time too. The Other World where Goku and Janemba battle in has some pretty cool details, such as a rectangular shaped blood pond just floating in mid-air, and a forest made from sharp metallic needles. There are other elements indicating they are fighting in a different world, which is a good change of pace from the usual mountain and vegetation like areas. There is also a second, more manga like style during the comedic living and dead conflict. The designs at times are more cartoony with a darker outline here. I thought it was fine for the most part, but I probably wouldn't have been able to tolerate that had the movie been longer.

The voice acting for the English dub which is the only one I can tolerate, is fine for the most part except at times the dialog can feel awkward, as if the cast are just creating plot holes or something. It just sometimes feels strange. In any case, the usual Funimation suspects show up for the party, with Chris Sabat delivering a solid performance as usual playing Vegeta. Plus I will always admire Kara Edwards range playing both Goten and Videl. I would have never noticed it was the same person if not for the credits. The BGM rock score works well with the action, but don't come into this expecting Cooler's Revenge or Broly: Legendary Super Saiyan.

Fusion Reborn is among the better DBZ titles. It actually tries to be a better movie and succeeds. Plus it can probably rope in new fans despite it not really fitting into main continuity. It appears to be taking place at some point during the Fusion Saga, but this is hard to buy into. In any case, if you're a fan of DBZ than check this out. If you're new and heavily interested in DBZ, I recommend starting with the TV series first season, then the Dead Zone movie only if possible. Others with no interest or knowledge, there is far better anime out there to invest your time in.

Highs: Clean visuals, action and comedy that has good moments

Lows: Has its weaker moments too, plus a cookie-cutter baddie

[Original English Dub with Japanese Music]

This film is a great combination of everything I love about Dragon Ball. With light and goofy bits mixed in with a wonderful array of great action choreography and artwork, this bizarre premise of a film had me laughing and cheering throughout the whole thing.


Also Hitler was in it along with some interesting Gas Attacks, so that was fun as hell. It got kind of a bit slow in the middle with Veku, but I had a great time! I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did. 7/10,would watch again!

#ChrisAyersBestEnglishFreeza

Let’s get straight to the point, this is without a doubt the most overrated original DBZ movie by a long shot. Even on my 4th watch, I fail to understand why people consider this the greatest Dragon Ball anything when it's just another boring story with admittedly good looking animation (at points). The only reason anyone likes this movie is because of one scene at the very end that barely lasts 3 minutes of screen time.

STORY
Fusion Reborn has a pretty strong setup and introduction (as most of these Z movies tend to have). After the defeat of Majin Buu (presumably in a timeline where Goku ... was not brought back to life by the Elder Kaioshin) a second Otherworld Tournament is taking place. Now I really enjoy the Otherworld, I think it’s Toriyama’s most visually striking and creative locations, (certainly more so than rocky wastelands or grassy plains!), and I find Paikuhan to be a pretty well done anime original character. As the fight between Goku and Paikuhan gets underway, we get an ominous voiceover telling of a great danger that will soon arise at the Otherworld Check-In station, followed by the 2nd Z opening We Gotta Power (a welcome addition, it is a great OP)

After the short break, we are reintroduced to Lord Enma and the primary function of the Otherworld, to sort the good and evil spirits who pass through. If you watched DBZ, you should be familiar with how Otherworld works, but for those who don’t, what you really need to know for this story is that all evil souls are sent to Hell, where their souls are cleansed and reincarnated into the living world. In Hell we see this soul cleaner in action, holding a glass tank for all the “evil ki” to be dumped into (basically nuclear waste). A teenage demon operating as the tank clerk isn’t paying attention when suddenly the tank housing all of this evil ki clogs the machine and causes not just it, but all the other tanks to burst, releasing all the stored evil into Otherworld. The demon begins to transmogrify into a being called Janemba, which I guess is supposed to be a conglomeration of all the evil ki in Otherworld.

Janemba’s distortion of the living world and the Otherworld is the primary conflict of the movie, and unfortunately this is where the interesting part ends. From here we get the typical Dragon Ball Z action that many know and love. Later in the film we see Freeza, as well as many of the movie villains, begin to attack Earth, and Gohan (as the Great Saiyaman) goes to stop them. This could’ve been a pretty interesting rematch, but unlike in DBS, Freeza was not able to train, and gets one shot by a Super Saiyan Gohan. There’s a lot of other weird antics we get to see on Earth, like Goten and Trunks fighting Hitler, but as outlandish and absurd as it is I can’t say I’m a fan.

CHARACTERS
Alright, starting off with the man of the hour Goku. Goku is Goku. There’s not really much to add, he’s pretty much the same as he’s always been. Goku trying to figure out how to fight fat Janemba was pretty fun to watch. That’s all I really have to say

Paikuhan: Earlier I praised Paikuhan as a well done anime original character, but unfortunately he doesn’t do much in this movie. I suppose he does figure out the primary weakness of the evil ki barriers (I just call them the jellybeans) floating around, as well as Janemba itself, being…shouting insults at it? It’s a silly concept that could really only fit in the world of Dragon Ball. At the end of the movie Pikkon tells Goku and Vegeta that he’ll hold off Janemba while they undergo fusion, but then proceeds to get absolutely washed by Janemba IMMEDIATELY, so that was pretty funny I guess.

Vegeta: Oh boy Vegeta. Where to begin? I said at the beginning that this movie presumably takes place AFTER the Buu Saga ended. Why is this important? At the end of the Buu Saga, Vegeta has arguably his biggest character moment in the series in admitting that Goku is indeed number one, and from there we can assume that he starts to push his ego aside when it comes to a threat like Janemba. Well for those of you who think Super regressed Vegeta’s character, I point you to this movie. Vegeta is so goddamn insufferable it's honestly surprising. He insists that HE and HE ALONE will be the one to defeat that weakling Janemba WITHOUT the help of that clown Kakarrot, and outright REFUSES to do Fusion (even though he agreed to use the Potara before this movie happened). When he gets taken out by one of Janemba’s attacks, he whines that “even in the Next World I’m still inferior to Kakarrot.” This is honestly the worst depiction of Vegeta in the series to me, arguably worse than in the Tournament of Power.

Janemba: Conceptually, Janemba isn’t bad at all. I’m one of the few people who doesn’t absolutely hate the Buu Saga, so I’m all for this force of nature kind of villain. He has a shit ton of cool abilities and tricks up his sleeve that keep the fight scenes pretty engaging, one of the few things I liked about this movie.

The other characters don’t really have enough screen time for me to make any meaningful comments on them. Moving on to…

ANIMATION
I have to admit, this movie has some really good animation, especially Super Saiyan 3 Goku vs Janemba. There’s a reason that clip is one of the 2 things people post to tell you how good this movie is!! Seriously though, not just Fusion Reborn, but all the Z movies have moments that are really well animated. No complaints from me.

SOUND
Not bad at all, typical of what you would expect from Dragon Ball performances. The soundtrack was pretty good but nothing super memorable.

CONCLUSION
Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn is a film with a strong premise and terrible execution. It relies on its good animation and cool moments to make up for an otherwise underwhelming story. Not the worst of the Z movies, but it’s certainly not the masterpiece that fans will try to say it is.

Back in the day when Dragon Ball Z was on Toonami they would sometimes do runs of the Dragon Ball Movies. I happened to catch this one and it's probably the only Dragon Ball Z movie I've actually seen all the way through up to this point not counting abridged versions. So it gets a review.

I think the story of DBZ movies fall squarely into that anime movie non-canon territory of barely having any relation to the show it's about, but that's fine for a show that barely has a plot to begin with. The Legacy of Goku 3 game on GBA actually managed ... to fit the story of the movie into the plot somewhat. You just have to ignore a lot of sequence of events and do some head cannon to make it work. That was actually where I was familiar with the story such as it is. I had watched my brother play those games way back when and now I was seeing the movie it was based on on TV and that's probably why I tuned in for the whole thing.

But yeah the story is basically there's a new strong guy, go fight him. Like the rest of Dragon Ball. Doesn't really need to be more complicated but they mix it up a bit by adding a new fusion to the mix. The fusion is a slightly different named rehash of Vegetto but it was still cool. The fight scenes themselves were cool. The villain was cool. It was all very cool.

But when the best thing you have to say for a show is that it was cool it probably didn't have much of an impact otherwise. I'm all for it on one level but when you think about what makes a show really great or stand the test of time it isn't just cool fight scenes. So 7 out of 10 it has a little something for everyone.

The opening is brief and enjoyable enough. The concept of how the villain comes about is interesting, but ultimately it's not a very interesting character outside of the design. The best part of the movie is the environment the character creates, and the weird otherworldly powers. The fighting is okay, and it's good to see SS3 actually be used for a while.

There's not much to the villain as a character, and at some point toward the end some of the comedy felt forced and went on too long, it would've been better without it. I also think the bit with hitler went on too long ... and wasn't very interesting to begin with. If they needed filler fights on the side, there were much more interesting things they could've done that would've made more sense than infinite tanks. The end of the fight is anticlimactic, but the end of the movie is good. Overall I'd say it's okay, with some high points. It's worth giving a try.

Ah, HERE's the good Dragon Ball Z movie. The best one by a really wide margin. It's utterly silly stuff, but it doesn't attempt to take itself seriously like some of the worse movies in this extremely long series. This is classic comedy-action stuff that early Dragon Ball was famous for, just with the ridiculous over-the-top powers that all the characters have at this point in the series.

It's a tough battle between this and Bio-Broly for my favorite so far. On one hand, Bio-Broly has a more cohesive, interesting story, while Fusion Reborn is fairly stitched together and has a villain so paper-thin that he ... literally doesn't speak or have a motive. On the other hand, that villain is also the best villain the Dragon Ball movies have had yet-- possibly the coolest in the entire series, aside from Picccolo and maybe Frieza. The dude has reality-warping powers and uses a sword and it's friggin' awesome. After trudging through the banality of the Buu Saga in the TV show for a couple weeks, I am so glad to have gotten to find a villain that's actually fun to watch.

The fight animation is pretty incredible, which is typical for these movies. However, for some unexplained reason, while the stuff in Hell is really well-animated with gorgeous art direction, the stuff on Earth is given a completely different style, with the characters all getting thick outlines and much worse animation quality, as if it were made for the TV series and then pasted into the movie all of a sudden. I kind of like the art style in these silly scenes, especially when they're fighting friggin' Hitler, but it doesn't mesh well.

If you want to encapsulate Dragon Ball Z all in one movie, Fusion Reborn is probably it. It's wacky, fast-paced, nearly-plotless, super pretty, and has a sense of style you won't find anywhere else. I wouldn't suggest watching this without any prior knowledge, but you can probably go in not having seen the show in decades and still come out with a smile on your face.

This fits in nicely with my theory that the Dragon Ball Z movies are getting sh*ttier with each new addition. "Fusion Reborn", being one of the last ones as far as I can tell, manages to hit a new low.

I must have missed something in one of the earlier Dragon Ball Z movies that I didn't watch, for in this one, all the characters from the old generation such as Goku and Vegeta appear to be dead. Either that or this movie is meant to be set in the far future relative to the other movies... who knows, it's probably too much to expect Dragon ... Ball Z to make much sense anyway.

"Fusion Reborn" is an incredibly boring movie. But what's more incredible is that they somehow manage to stretch the nothingness of the content into almost an hour long film when there have been other Dragon Ball Z movies that's got more content that are shorter. I watched through most of "Fusion Reborn" in a kind of trance as one of the most bizarre story lines I've ever watched took place in front of my eyes. They appear to be going for some sort of original, comical storyline, and the result isn't pretty. Dragon Ball always seemed to be quite a childish franchise, but this one takes it down to a brand new level: Hell, or whatever that place is, gets frozen in some sort of jelly bean, with a big baby as boss for Goku and Vegeta to battle... what the F*CK? Although I have to admit I chuckled at some of the comedy, like the fusion poses, most of this movie is pure sh*te.

Other than that part of the storyline, which is different but worse, the rest of the anime is mostly standard Dragon Ball Z fare. The animation is typically mediocre - although at least there's none of the usual fast exchanges of punches/kicks style fighting that I hate so much, the voice acting is typically rubbish (although the music used is okay), and again they managed to collect 7 dragon balls and summon the dragon Shen Long. That creature is seriously starting to lose its novelty value due to appearing so frequently.

I appreciate that they appear to have tried something different from the usual Dragon Ball, but unfortunately the result is something that's worse.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I wanted to watch this after seeing the goku vs janemba clip on YouTube. I thought the whole movie would be like that but no, this movie is unfunny, stupid and childish. I love dbz, I love some of the movies. But this was terrible. It feels like the target audience is 3 year old. I'm genuinely surprised most dbz fans love this movie because to me it was insultingly stupid. But then again anime fans aren't exactly known for liking high quality. This and bio broly are offensively bad and if you care ... about your time I would suggest you don't watch this