Dragon Ball Z

Five years after winning the World Martial Arts tournament, Gokuu is now living a peaceful life with his wife and son. This changes, however, with the arrival of a mysterious enemy named Raditz who presents himself as Gokuu's long-lost brother. He reveals that Gokuu is a descendant of the once powerful but now virtually extinct Saiyan race, whose homeworld was annihilated. When he was sent to Earth as a baby, Gokuu's sole purpose was to conquer and destroy the planet; but after suffering amnesia from a head injury, his violent and savage nature changed, and instead was raised as a kind and well-mannered boy, now fighting to protect others.

With his failed attempt at forcibly recruiting Gokuu as an ally, Raditz warns Gokuu's friends of a new threat that's rapidly approaching Earth—one that could plunge Earth into an intergalactic conflict and cause the heavens themselves to shake. A war will soon be fought over the seven mystical Dragon Balls, magic objects that can grant any wish. Only the strongest will survive.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Son, Gokuu Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Vegeta Main

Horikawa, Ryo Japanese

Son, Gohan Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Piccolo Main

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Kuririn Main

Tanaka, Mayumi Japanese

Future Trunks Supporting

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Freeza Supporting

Nakao, Ryusei Japanese

Trunks Supporting

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Bulma Supporting

Tsuru, Hiromi Japanese

Muten-Roushi Supporting

Masuoka, Hiroshi Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer, ADR Director

Shimizu, Kenji Producer, Planning

Seki, Hiromi Assistant Producer

Nishio, Daisuke Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Jul 7, 2024

LittleCholo69

Recommended

This is the Latin American Bible. I think Goku could be seen as a modern day Jesus, a role model for many and a good one at that. Just a sound guy innit. If it wasn’t for this show me and my fellow latino brothers would not have grown up watching this weird Japanese stuff so I’m eternally grateful. If you don’t know where to start with Dragon Ball I would definitely say this one, just the undeniable GOAT, I mean it’s got the cell saga c’mon man. Original and Super are great in my opinion but Z is just different gravy, please do avoid ... GT at all costs let’s forget that ever happened… super saiyan 4 is p cool tho ig.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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May 26, 2024

SnocZz

Mixed Feelings

This show means everything to me, and forever will. It's my personal favorite (FAVORITE, not best) piece of media in existence and I don't see that ever changing. And honestly? Whilst there's so much of the show that I adore, from the aesthetics, to the individual arcs, to the themes and storytelling...The main thing that solidifies it as my absolute favorite piece of fiction is the characters.

Goku's my favorite fictional character, Vegeta has the greatest character arc ever done in all of fiction imo (even goku, gohan, trunks and piccolo for example have phenomenal arcs), Cell's the coolest villain ever to me, and fellas like ... Chi-chi and Krillin just make me happy. Characters are the most important thing in any piece of fiction to me, if you're trying to write a defined story than the only way it'll stick with me is if it has characters I gravitate to, and DBZ has some of my favorites.

I sure as hell can't recommend this show though, I think that's impossible with how many asteriks there are when trying to introduce this franchise to people. You fr gotta spawn into reality with Dragon Ball in your blood to get the most of it (like I did), and if not, you'll either have an extremely hard time as you either start with Z and have no idea what you're watching, orrrr you start with the really poorly aged embarrassing Pilaf arc. Or maybe somehow you'll thug out the whole franchise and become a lunatic obsessed with it, I dunno, still doesn't change the fact that I find it difficult to recommend lmfao

Regardless though, as I've made clear, this show rocks imo. Yeah I grew up with it, yeah a lot of it could be better, but none of that holds any barring towards how much I adore it. I could write a whole ass several-paragraph thesis or several-hour-long youtube video detailing everything I adore about this show and why it's so special to me, but uhhh I kinda just got here and this is my first MAL review and it's like 2am right now so i'll just leave it at this for now lmao

also i personally prefer the inaccurate cheesy funimation toonami dub with the techno music and the more selfless goku characterization fuck u fight me

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jun 24, 2024

YoungVagabond

Not Recommended

Funny

Crappy popular anime can be split into two categories. Those whose appeal eludes me, and those where I perfectly understand the reason for their success. DBZ falls firmly in the latter category. Hell, I loved the series when I was a dumbass 14 year-old!

The premise is practically catnip for a male that age. Martial arts battles for the fate of the Universe against increasingly more powerful foes, with showdowns that destroy literal planets in their wake. As simplistic as it is, what could be fucking cooler than that? It's a young male teenager's power fantasy in anime form. Complete with over-the-top transformation sequences with entire ... minutes of pants-shitting yelling amidst intense music.

Alas, the execusion is as putrid, pathetic, and downright lame as it gets. To begin with, DBZ is a notable departure from the series, Dragonball, that preceded it.

The original was heavily based on the Chinese classic "Journey to the West", with Son Goku being based on Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, even copying his tail and magic staff. It focused more on fantasy and adventure, with a more light-hearted approach.

DBZ abandons all that to be a more simple, straightforward battle shounen centered around power levels, while taking itself far too seriously. Goku and his friends battle opponents across almost 300 episodes who fight exactly the same but we are told have much higher power levels; first Radditz, then Goku and Nappa, then Frieza and his henchmen, the androids, Cell, and finally, the Buus, with a filler arc featuring Garlic Jr.

And yet, DBZ manages to be a far worse fighting series than Dragonball in every way. It has several crippling flaws;

1. Crappy choreography.

While Dragonball featured the odd quality action scene and interesting sequence of moves based on actual kung-fu, DBZ is stripped down to a single punch, kick, or elbow either landing or missing, as well as a stock sequence of jerky animation where both combatants throw strikes and block, reused endlessly throughout the anime.

While the final series antagonist, Perfect Buu, is at a power level of 100 billion while the initial baddie Radditz is at 1500, they fight almost identically. In fact, Radditz's martial arts looks better, since the animators were trying harder back then.

Thus, enemies become more "powerful" while their techniques and fighting skill stay mostly the same. This power is simply demonstrated through the new antagonist being able to crush a previous antagonist with a single blow.

And how do Goku and his friends manage to overcome these beastly enemies? Through some clever strategy, new technique, or superior martial arts? Nope! It's from their own numbers going up, like a brain-dead RPG, usually through a transformation sequence and fusion, many of which are completely unmotivated deus ex machina and likely a cynical ploy for Toie Animation to sell more action figures and posters.

Choreography, or cool-looking, exciting battles is at the heart of battle shounen, and it sucks here. The resolution to the major battles is also disappointing, coming from a random spike in protagonist power levels, or worst of all, the "Spirit Bomb" attack, essentially a get out of jail free card for the writers when there is no reasonable way for Goku to triumph in battle.

2. Dangerously idiotic and unlikable heroes.

Time and again, Goku and company have an opportunity to easily defeat a threat to humanity only to forego it for utterly idiotic, selfish reasons, leading to the enemy becoming much stronger and beating them down.

Think Vegeta utterly wrecking the second form of Cell, only to allow him to absorb Android 18 because he wanted to face Perfect Cell. Think Vegeta joining Babidi or Goku not revealing his true power level in their fight, allowing Buu to be resurrected to begin with. Think Gotenks not taking the battle against a different version of Buu seriously.

If these supposed "defenders of Earth" don't give a shit about their suicidal actions and the countless billions of beings in the universe it would doom, why the hell should the viewer? And how can we possibly see them as heroes, as opposed to the overpowered, egotistical idiots (Goku) or outright villains (Vegeta) which their actions betray them to be?

3. Glacially slow pacing.

DBZ is the most painfully dull battle shounen ever devised. Entire episodes can be wasted on a single character powering up, composed of flashing lights and diarrhea screaming while a few music tracks loop endlessly. If we're lucky, an episode features a few punches and kicks in an episode in-between combatants standing menacingly and exchanging third grade level insults. As noted, the choreography sucks, although it beats the idiot characters talking. Oh, and that's not even mentioning the endless filler, which this show is notorious for.

Battles can last for dozens of agonizingly boring episodes, and what's worst is that at least 90% of what happens is entirely meaningless. All the blows and energy blasts until the very climax don't alter or determine a damn thing.

The entire anime is an exercise in tedium and time-wasting.

I understand liking DBZ as a 14 year-old new to anime. I was one of those myself. But looking back on it now, it's embarrassingly bad. The fight choregraphy sucks in the rare moments where characters don't just stand around powering up or shout "You're going to pay!", and the protagonists are a bunch of narcissistic morons or evil-doers.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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