You've no doubt heard others poke and make fun at this show's various idiosyncrasies. Next time someone tells you that the plot of the show is "stupid and cliche", or that the "fight scenes drag on forever", get them into an armbar and make them beg for mercy because they just told you a goddamn lie straight to your face. Dragon Ball Z is, in reality, the beautifully paced, glorious tale of a group of proud men defending their universe from a rotating cast of bombastic douchebags. I don't even think its physically possible to not shed manly tears sometime during this show; the sheer passion of our heroes is magnificent enough to inspire Kim Jong Il to build a refuge camp with his bare hands. Did I mention that DBZ is probably one of the most engrossing anime ever written? From Goku beating the unintimidating, girl-like cackling out of Frieza and his loser henchmen, to the inspirational choreography and edge-of-your-seat action of the Cell vs. Hercule Satan battle, to the powerful and emotionally enveloping transformation of Gohan from boy to man, you might as well just cut your fucking legs off now because you're not going anywhere for the next 200 episodes. Sure, there are dull moments, but they're few and far between the literal hours of pulsating shin muscles, constant character revivals, hyperbolic time chamber training montages, explosive physical transformations, special beam cannons, and more. Those who are trained in martial arts, like myself, will appreciate the painstaking accuracy put into every move of every fighting style these characters make. Watching DBZ is like watching a real life martial arts tournament---it's that realistic. Childhood obesity? What the fuck is that? Plop their little asses in front of the TV, pop this into the DVD player and watch those pounds literally melt away. Total Gym? Fuck your Total Gym.
The artwork is VIP as fuck. Okay, let's be honest here, the backgrounds and environments are pretty consistently reused, and still shots and other cheap, corner cutting animation tricks are abound and noticeable, but the beauty in DBZ's art is in its action sequences and its character designs. The fight scenes (and there are plenty of them) are absolutely astonishing. We're not just talking fists here either---guns, swords, energy balls the size of pluto, it's all here and its all glorious through and through. Unlike shows that blow their budget upfront and are left with a crayon and two sharpies to finish out the series, DBZ's art actually gets better as time goes on. This is especially present in the aforementioned character models, who start off as beefy, badly proportioned messes and end up even beefier as the show progresses. However, this beefiness is what makes the character designs so goddamn cool. Everyone in this show has muscles---no exceptions. Women, children, even the fucking plants will flex a bicep here and there. Despite this, there aren't really any generic looking characters among the bunch. They have that signature Toriyama look which is always a plus, especially when compared to character models nowadays that all look like they were drawn to please yaoi fangirls, and everyone has their own distinct style even when they're wearing the same clothes. The hairdos? Holy shit, I think they brought actual salon stylists into the studio and told them to draw the stupidest fucking hair styles they could think of, because on real people this would look absolutely godawful. Luckily for us, what looks dumb on real people fits anime characters perfectly because without the signature outrageous hair this show would probably be boring as hell.
The music? I'm not going to lie to you. It's fucking terrible. I've never heard a worse mix of shitty techno rock in my life. It never stops playing either, even in scenes where there's absolutely no reason for it to be on. From what I understand the Japanese dub and the English dub actually have separate soundtracks, so I'm guessing this has more to do with Funimation being a bunch of faggots than anything else. But seriously, who the hell did you bring in to perform this trash? Trent Reznor? It sounds like someone recorded me taking a shit and then put it to a drum loop they made in 3 minutes in FL Studio 10. I mean, they do an okay job actually pairing the music together with the animation but the music itself just doesn't fit the show. Maybe if this was like, Texhnolyze, or a German porn flick or something then yeah I could see the thought process. But why would you put it in DBZ? It perplexes the shit out of me. Now, as for the OP, that's a whole different beast. Anyone who's heard Rock the Dragon, even just once, will never be able to forget it. This would be great if the song didn't suck complete balls. Now, the in-show music may be outrageously bad, but Rock the Dragon takes "shitty" to another level. Even when I was a kid I thought this song blew. I'm not one to spit on a genuine effort, but I'm sorry, when you played that back to yourselves in the studio after recording it, how could you possibly look at yourselves and go, "that sounds acceptable enough to be released to the public"? How could you listen to DRAGON DRAGON HUMP THE DRAGON DRAGON BALL ZZZZZZZ, even once, and think to yourself, "this is good"? I don't get it. Sure, the ED isn't much to write home about either, but this eclipses everything else in some sort of disgusting tidal wave of mullets and trashy rock music. When I hear this song, my mind doesn't start pumping me up for DBZ, it starts conjuring images of meth labs and trailer parks because that's probably where this song was recorded. Usually when I bring up the OP to guys who saw the show as a kid, they go "aww yeah that song makes me wanna fight somebody." Well, if that happened, not only would you lose, but the guy who mopped your shit would take your wallet and perform some hardcore identity theft on your ass just to spite you for making him listen to such a terrible song.
On a more positive note, the English dub is phenomenal, especially in comparison to the vastly inferior Japanese dub. The English dub makes our heroes sound like a band of courageous warriors fighting gloriously for the good of all man-kind. It's excellent in every way possible. The Japanese dub makes them sound like a bunch of losers going through puberty. It's atrocious and offensive and just thinking about it sends me into a fit of rage, so let's move on.
Now, we all know that DBZ has some of the most classic characters ever seen in anime history, and anyone who disagrees with this scientifically proven fact is a lunatic and a hater. Sure, some DBZ characters are leagues better than others, but you can't legitimately expect every character to be as mindblowingly badass as Hercule Satan or Vegeta or Piccolo. Still, what's great about DBZ is that despite this there's really no outright bad characters in the bunch, even amongst the villains who are kind of assumed to be somewhat shitty. Sure, Frieza was a little pretentious, but it only served to make his inevitable asswhipping that much sweeter. Cell was pompous but he was a menacing motherfucker and that's why he was able to stick around for so long without getting boring. It never got to the point during his saga where you felt like the writers were just keeping him around to fill up airtime (this shit happened all the time in the second season of Gantz), and that's precisely because of his constant transformations. It felt like you were fighting a different enemy each time. Buu is sort of the same way although he wasn't really menacing, he was just creepy. Raditz was just a snaky, slimy motherfucker, and I mean, that doesn't really make him a good character but it makes him a good villain, which is what counts. Good guy-wise, you have Goku who is just, your typical Greek hero. Not only is he the toughest man on Earth, but he's an uncorruptable, pure, genuinely good person who FIGHTS FOR JUSTICE and HATES EVIL. A little boring but it comes with the territory. Then you have Vegeta who is just, the fucking baddest dude ever even though he constantly gets his ass handed to him by everyone. The fact that he turns into a family man by the end of the show but still has the same bombastic attitude, with the same bombastic rivalry with KAKAROT just makes him that much better. By far DBZ's best character. Piccolo is ice-cold and takes absolutely no shit from any man, but he's also a good and righteous person at heart. Gohan is a little whiny, but he develops from this little kid into a full fledged, asskicking machine, and he's only a half saiyan at that. Same goes for Trunks, and being related to Vegeta only makes him that much better. Krillin is somehow a monk and a player at the same time which makes him awesome as fuck. Master Roshi loves porn and just generally does not give a fuck. He is what every man should strive to be in his old age. Hercule is a side-side character but he still deserves special mention for being the most hilarious Ron Jeremy look-a-like ever, and for being the PROUDEST and TOUGHEST fighter Earth has ever seen. Personally, I think he deserves his own series. It would be the most manly shounen anime ever made. Anyway, I think you get the point I'm trying to make by now. DBZ's characters are one of a kind and you'd probably be hard pressed to find one that isn't at least redeemable in some way or another. Sometimes they can be a little inconsistently written (Trunks conquers the shit out of Frieza in like 3 minutes, despite the fact that it took Goku AN ENTIRE SAGA to beat him. What the hell is that about?), but for the most part, this is the reason you will continue to come back to this story.
Still, I can't, in all good conscience, give DBZ a 10. As much as I would like to, a 10 implies that the show in question is practically flawless. Cowboy Bebop deserves a 10. FLCL deserves a 10. Bokurano, Baccano!, NGE, and Outlaw Star all deserve 10s. Big O deserves a 10 but I gave it a 9 for ripping off Flash Gordon in the OP (other than that it's excellent). These are all pinnacles of anime achievement, and each one of them is in some way or another the best at what they try to do. DBZ certainly has elements that deserve 10s. In fact, in retrospect, an 8 is probably too low. Still, I can't ignore some of the gaping flaws this show has, and combine that with an astoundingly bad soundtrack that literally makes my ears cry, and you start losing points pretty fast. This is not to say I don't recommend DBZ. In fact, it's just the opposite. If you don't watch DBZ you might as well just stay in bed all day and start buying products from infomercials because you're already robbing yourself of a beautiful experience---a journey that every man should embark on at least once in his life. However, if you're coming into this show with unrealistic expectations you are going to be disappointed and will probably end up right back here, writing a hate review about how "the story is cliche" and "the fight scenes drag on" instead of enjoying it for what it is, like you should.
Overall? Watch it if you're one of the 3 people on Earth that haven't already. Otherwise, watch it again for that glorious nostalgia.
