Dragon Ball

Dragonball is overrated. There is no story. Goku is a obnoxious little kid. Bulma is annoying and abusive. The music is awful as well as the art. The pacing is slow and there are so many filler episodes. There is nothing good about this anime. Everything is bad from music, art, character design, fighting scenes, villains, solutions, endings. All of it is just awful. After skipping around and watching 50 episodes of this nonsense I dropped it. If you value your time and have a life then stay away from dragonball. Especially if your 18+. But if your an autistic 9 year old then go ... ahead and watch this cardboard wrapped piece of terd flavored candy.

Outdated, childish, perverted and annoying, not worth anyones time i'm afraid, It effectively created the battle shonen genre but so many shonen that came afterwards are so much better, this anime is really a relic of the time and it should be appreciated for what it did but not at all highly regarded as a show.

What else can I really say about this show, not much, aside from that I didn't enjoy it at all I suppose, although the 80's art style certainly has some charm to it and you know as i said i appreciate the impact that ti had on manga and I ... know its super popular but it honestly sucks, like it sucks some hot ass and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Many expectations and few of them met...

That was my first thought when I watched this part of Dragon Ball because I expected to see at least one fight that would be memorable in this part, but I ended up disappointed. I didn't see anything worth remembering. I was a little frustrated but I kept watching, thinking that would change that. Unfortunately, there was no change in that regard. For me, who always had a problem with Dragon Ball, watching the anime was a real war against the desire to abandon the work. The only thing that made me want to watch it was the fact ... that by watching this part of Dragon Ball I would have a better understanding of Dragon Ball Z and its other sequels, which are the parts I really want to see. I tried to watch this anime a long time ago but I didn't get past episode 32. At the time, because the work was especially tiring to watch and was long, I ended up giving up on watching it. Maybe at the time it was released it was a wonderful thing to watch, but for those who watch it today (which is my case), it's just something tiring and unpleasant. About the animation, I honestly don't see much of a problem. I don't really like the animation, which is kind of stiff and caricatured in this part. This is due to the fact that it is very old, which ends up making it a bit dated. As for the sagas here, the most interesting ones are the last ones. The first ones are too boring, like for example Pilaf's, which is dragged out and doesn't show any danger, or the Red Ribbon group's, which is definitely the worst of all because it is very boring. There is not a villain in this part that is in the least memorable. These two sagas are good examples of the suffering that it is to watch this part of the work. Overall, I conclude that this first, more classic part of Dragon Ball is the one that has the least of Dragon Ball's essence (I say this with some basis because I watched some episodes of Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Super). We don't have any great or impactful moments in this part of the work. This is so clear to me that I only hear two things about this part of Dragon Ball in my social circle: I only hear about Kuririn's "death" and Son Gohan's death. Basically, only a few things from Dragon Ball's story are relevant in this part. Otherwise, there's nothing special here. Anyway, for me, this part of Dragon Ball is boring, drawn out and tedious. I definitely won't watch this part of the work again. In my opinion, this part alone doesn't stand up on its own in its battles or in its narrative. The only thing that kept me watching it is that it's the prequel to Dragon Ball Z. If it weren't for this fact, I wouldn't even watch this part. I don't recommend watching this part, if you want something from Dragon Ball watch its sequels which are much more interesting than this part here.

=================================================================================================================Versão em Português=====================================

Muitas expectativas e poucas atendidas...

Esse foi o meu primeiro pensamento ao ver essa parte de Dragon Ball pois esperava ver ao menos alguma luta que fosse marcante dessa parte mas acabei decepcionado, não vi nada que fosse digno de ser mantido na memória, me frustrei um pouco mas continuei a ver pensando que mudaria isso, infelizmente não houve mudança nessa questão. Para mim que sempre tive um pé atras com Dragon Ball assistir o anime foi uma verdadeira guerra contra a vontade de abandonar a obra, única coisa que me fez manter à vontade assisti-la foi pelo fato de que vendo essa parte de Dragon Ball eu teria mais entendimento do Dragon Ball Z e suas demais sequencias que são as partes que realmente quero ver. Tentei assistir esse anime a muito tempo atras mas não passei do episódio 32, na epoca devido a obra ser especialmente cansativa de se ver e ser longa acabei desistindo de vê-la, pode ser que para a epoca do lançamento fosse uma coisa maravilhosa de se ver mas para quem vê hoje em dia (que é o meu caso) é só algo cansativo e desagradável. Sobre a animação eu sinceramente não vejo muito problema, não gosto muito da animação meio travada e bem caricata dessa parte, isso se deve pelo fato dela ser muito antiga acabando deixando-a meio datada. Já sobre as sagas daqui, as sagas mais interessantes são as últimas, as primeiras são chataaaaaaaaas demais, como por exemplo a do Pilaf que é arrastada e não demonstra perigo nenhum ou a do grupo Red Ribbon que é definitivamente a pior de todas pelo fato de ser muito sem graça, não há um vilão dessa parte que seja no mínimo memorável, essas duas sagas são bons exemplos do sofrimento que é ver essa parte da obra. No geral concluo que essa primeira parte mais clássica de Dragon Ball é a que menos tem a essência de Dragon Ball (digo com certa base pois assisti alguns episódios do Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT e Dragon Ball Super), não temos momentos grandiosos ou impactantes nessa parte da obra, isso para mim se torna tão claro ao ponto de que só ouço em meu ciclo social duas coisas sobre essa parte de Dragon Ball, só ouço falar da “morte” do Kuririn e sobre a morte do Son Gohan, basicamente só algumas coisas da história de Dragon Ball são relevantes nessa parte, de resto não há nada demais aqui. Enfim, de todo modo para mim essa parte de Dragon Ball é chata, arrastada e entediante, definitivamente não assistirei novamente essa parte da obra, ao meu ver essa parte por si só não se sustenta sozinha em suas batalhas e nem em sua narrativa, única coisa que me manteve a vê-la é que ela é a prequel do Dragon Ball Z, se não fosse por esse fato eu nem veria essa parte. Não recomendo a verem essa parte, se querem algo de Dragon Ball vejam as suas sequencias que são muito mais interessantes que essa parte aqui.

This was the first one I saw.
It is clear it is written for preschool kids.

My review is from the stand point of a adult who is a anime fan. A reminder that Anime in japan is generally watched by adults and not kids.... Like action seems to be the preference for kid viewing.

Overly simplistic story, hero is rather dim witted, plots are ... well... non-existent it seems.

It seems to be the source of the further mythology later on. Kinda sad to base a series on something so dull witted.
Another problem is EVERYONE is on steroids....
Again this is were it kinda started ... off on a bad footings.....

Doing this to help save people's sanity and intellect.
If you're like me and a adult and looking for content, not animated WWE/WWF then I suggest moving on....

HOW TO MAKE AN ACTION SHOUNEN BORING

Ight so I'm pretty hyped to watch Dragon Ball, but everybody keep tellin me. "Yo just skip to DBZ".
But I ain't about that lifestyle, I watch from the beginning no skipping for me I ain't no lightning mcqueen no tires just gas.
And ngl I was about to skip over this anime because 37 ep's in and I cannot take this **** anymore.

Let's adress the issues

First off the pacing is slow, and I mean like snail pace. Now slow pacing is not bad as long as it builds the world, characters and more importantly the 'STORY', ... however Dragon Ball doesn't have a story or at least the only story it had of finding the dragon balls happens in like the first 10 ep's. On top of this fights are often rare and are un rewarding thus making it feel like ages just to get through a singe ep.

The next issue is the characters, aside from Goku I do not give two ***** about any of the other characters, bulma and then pervert sensei are the most boring, uninteresting characters of all time. And look I get it they wanna be basic but you cannot afford this when the action is limited, the story is minimal and the pacing sucks balls.

It's not like I completely hate this show completly, the tournament arc was pretty fire but the red ribbon army arc puts you too sleep faster then if Mike Tyson knocked your *** out . And with another 120 eps to go I just cannot waste my time on an anime that keeps underdelivering.

SAVE YOUR TIME AND EITHER SKIP THIS **** OR JUST DO NOT WATCH DRAGON BALL AT ALL

This is my first, maybe only review. I haven't experienced any other Dragon Ball media, so I wanted to start at the beginning. And I'll do my best to honor Toriyama's legacy by recommending you to NOT give the anime a shot if you're in my same situation, and just hop on Z or the manga.

What I loved: Designs, music, fights.

Seriously, it's such a good time when you're watching fights play out, the tension is great, the impacts are felt, and the little ways Toriyama subverts you in the manga, are drawn out here to lengths. The opening and ending (s?) are amazing at ... bringing Toriyama's fun, adventurous illustrations to life.

What I hated: Comedy, pacing.

I know it seems like I might be harsh considering I disliked two things, but you have to consider that this is "a gag anime". A gag anime where all gags are just the same, boring old joke played over, and over, and over again. To its credit, the joke SOMETIMES isn't raunchy. And those jokes ARE great sometimes! But it's rare. And this wouldn't be so bad if it were your weekly, quick read comic strip, where it would maybe get a chuckle reading it in the toilet if you're into that brand of humor. And that's what the manga was for its original run! So I can praise that.

And I think I could bear it in the start. I mean, hell, I watched 50 episodes. And at first I thought, well, it's fine, but the same joke is a little overplayed.

Until I got to the Budokai Tenkaichi. And that was so amazing (bar, of course, the single repeat gag that happens in it)

The Budokai Tenkaichi is a perfect example of doing something so right, so correctly, so well, that it makes everything that isn't the tournament immediately more boring for it. I get the red ribbon army is some attempt at an over-arching story arc, but I can't stomach it when it's this slow. and the feeling of non-tension is exhausting. and nothing happens for multiple episodes at a time so it's boring.

"But it's great for its time / The humor at the time was all that way / anything to say about The Times" I get that, but I'm rating my experience I had today.

I wanted to give Dragon Ball a shot because people in my life had told me that they appreciated it a lot, that it was great, that it was a gag manga and good at what it was. But I can't even think of watching another episode. It'd be like going to your local wrestling match where they had this REALLY good, intense fight once, but now every time you go all it is is just a comedian stalling for two hours with the same raunchy jokes until you realize, there's not gonna be any wrestling tonight. And you didn't laugh. And you've just wasted your night.

dragon ball is balls
the overwhelming majority of the characters are living breathing gooners
the show is filled with incomprehensible ass fan services and creepy balls
how the balls is this a kids show
i thought this serie waa about fighting and hell yeahs
instead im greeted with 16 yo bulma fan services with an old man trying to balls her
(yes i used balls to censor some words)

if i were to give it a serious review (17/153):
yes, im only uncomfortable about this series because the author decided to add these tropes thorought the series
... no, this decision was totally unnecessary and wouldnt add to anything into the series.
yes, i know fanservices are "part" of the anime culture but using this to a 16 year old is bad.
for the sake of argument lets ignore bulma's age, it could be said that cultural differences dispute what is child and not.
the person who is responsible for the fan services, turtle hermit, is an old man. its one thing for a guy around bulma's age to do it, its a completely different thing for an old man to do it. and im saying this again, this is literally completely unnecessary. these kind of scenes does not add depth to turtle hermit. yes there are other series which also used these kind of scenes but those series used them to tell a story. berserk, mushoku tensei and other potential series that im not aware have used these kind of scenes with a purpose. but this is just bad writing, or at worst, a creepy act. it couldve been said that im nitpicking small stuff but this kept happening over and over again. there are million other ways to include some fanservice to the anime. turning a what is supposed to be a "wise but childish strong old man" to "just another creepy old guy" is not one. its just creepy. and again. the show is filled with these (at least up until what ive watched, which is 17 episodes). cant finish an episode before oolong or turtle hermit drools over the thought of a teen panties i guess
just watch hunter x hunter, please

Ok so I didn't grow up with this show so I never really had a childhood attachment to it. And here is my long sordid history and review of this show after watching it twice.
When I was in highschool I heard a lot of good things about it and decided to watch it. I watched all of it. Mostly because of being pressured and everyone telling me that it will get better as I got towards the ends. As soon as I started watching it the first few episodes seemed like they were animated by a very horny crew, which is not necessarily a bad ... thing but was kinda jarring for a show that was supposed to be for kids. But well each person finds their own level of what to expose their children to and well I don't really care for stuff like that anyway. The characters themselves (mostly at least) weren't horny but it sure felt like whoever made it had only one thing on their mind. So much so that they would break the pacing of the story and take me out of it. One minute I watching a kid going on adventure and the next it might turn into hentai. Oh wait no it's back to being an adventure. And I didn't find the story all that interesting in the first place so that kind of jarring disruption to what was supposed to be an adventure story really took all hypothetical enjoyment out of it. Everytime the story flow was broken I would sigh, roll my eyes and endure the rest of the episode so that next time my friends pastered me about it I could say I moved along in the storyline. I didn't really want to be left out of discussions and stuff back then so I grit my teeth and watched all of it but as I got further in the series it got more and more boring to me, and at some point I would put it on as background noise to do homework to, or watch it at 1.25 speed to help the story get along faster. I just wanted to finish it so I can say "Hey I watched it. You must be high on mushrooms or nostalgia because this sucks." And it never got better. That however was not a good way to watch an anime and decide I hated it, afterall maybe I missed some brilliant writing while paying more attention to my homework. But back then I could not get myself to get into it. My attention would drift to other things every few minutes and I often found myself falling asleep to those episodes. Which btw was great considering I had insomnia and this was one of the things helped which made me be a little less reluctant to put on more episodes. I progressed through all 153 episodes in about 8 months (unlike say something like one piece which once I started watching I finished arout 400 episodes in about a month until I caught up, lost so much sleep back then). It took me this long since in-between I would continue to watch shows I enjoyed a lot more and I couldn't really stand to do too many episodes at once anyway. I finished it and hated it, not really able to articulate why. And when my friends asked if I will see a sequel I replied with a horrified no. By then I learned to be more assured in having friendships and being more confident so I didn't do things just to please my friends.

Fast forward years later and me as an adult who is an otaku and a cosplayer. And from every direction many years later I would hear praise to the glorious Dragon Ball and being asked by people to cosplay a character from it. I wasn't particularly against it (it's miraculous ability to help my insomnia left at least some fond memories). My first watchthrough was painful and I could not remember much of what happened in the series at all so I decided to give it another go. As a much older person I might get into it I thought. It's still being talked about so there must be something there. So I sat down and began seriously watching it while also searching for a character I could cosplay. And you know what, my first impression wasn't wrong. It was not my cup of tea. On a more careful watchthrough and after seeing a lot more anime over the years I began to see how much it must have influenced so many of the anime I loved which rose my appreciation of it. But at the same time Dragon Ball itself was a horrible watch for me.

The story was horrible. Not because the concept was not interesting but the pacing really was interrupted too often. As soon as you would feel yourself being pulled into the story something would happen to pull you out of it and make you roll your eyes. The show really was pulling itself apart without deciding what it wanted to be: a fanservice softcore porn or a story of an OP character being and OP character while on adventure with sidekicks. Both are kind of things I enjoyed in a lot of different anime and I even have seen a mesh of those 2 genre before in other things that worked wonderfully together. This show must have been the first to do it as well so I can thank it for starting it all. Yet the tone each of those parts took didn't mesh well together as one cohesive story. It's like a show for 5 years olds everywhere was trying to mix itself with a show for horny single middle aged adults. And I guess not all kinks were worked out yet of that paring.

The art must have been good for it's time, but frankly it did not age well at all. It's not one of those timeless masterpieces. At least not the art.

The soundtrack was ok. It wasn't mismatched at all but there was also nothing that stands out. If you asked me again for any melodies from the show I would be hard pressed to produce any. They were easily forgettable honestly to the point where if you put them on without telling me what anime they were from I would probably not recognize it.

Characters that could have been great were ruined by jarring moments of bad writing. So much of those characters I see in shows and characters that I love, which made it devastating at points how occasionally bad writing could ruin those character for me. The worst was Goku. We all know the trappings of OP character, plot armor and power of feelings. Yet I sometimes enjoy all of those and Goku was ok-ish on that front. But as soon as the fights were over... egh. No words just egh. Does someone out there get a sick enjoyment of putting an innocent kid into these awkwardly adult situations? I would be fine if he was a perv and that was it. Or if the situation weren't as drawn out as they are. Or if he didn't repeat same pervy behaviour over and over and over and over. He gets told it's not ok but apparently at those moments his IQ drops well below retard and he forgets the meaning of all words. No really he goes full retard on us (and you never make your main character go full retard) and does the same thing over and over after being told explicitly that it's not ok to do. And he doesn't get it's pervy but those scenes also go on and on and on to the point they get painfully awkward and it's as if we are getting a wink from those making it and a "get it? get it? get it?" in the middle of the story. Like that one bad storyteller you know who pauses in a middle of the joke to explain the joke to the point you want to scream "YES I GET IT." Yes yes we know it's naughty behaviour oooh. Look at disney.They hide their adult jokes so well that for an innocent viewer it doesn't ruin the experience and for an adult viewer you smirk and move on and the story flow ain't broken. Here every pervy moments gets it's own wink and a moment to process this unbelievably hard concept ooh this should be funny because it's naughty but he is innocent and he does the same dumb invasion of privacy and straight up creep behaviour but it's not his fault he is innocent you know. Yeah we know. The creep is the one who wrote it, not Goku. We get it. You are "ooh so horny".
All the characters were token predictable characters. I could see how they influenced so many of the characters I loved in other anime throughout the years, but being one of the first or few also means getting a lot of things wrong. Other authors saw some good things, took them, improved them. Kudos on being one of the originals but there is a reason phrase new and improved exists. Worst of the character archetypes that really improved and was done better by hundreds of different authors now is the pervert character archetype. We have 3 in this show. The middle aged unattractive perv who we should be grossed out with, the younger attractive perv who we are supposed to root for since he is hot or something, and the old dude perv who is just having fun supposedly (let him have his fun before he dies). As a connoisseur of perverts everywhere those 3 dissapoint me. The ecchi should be fun & consensual. And when it's not we should see the characters get punished for their misbehaviour to uphold social norms or whatever. Anyway ecchi is always better when both sides are perving on each other OR the other side doesn't mind the perving just never reciprocates OR we see the non-consensual perv get his OR it's just in jest so no one takes it seriously. Gotta be one of the 4 and best if all 4 are included for a well rounded pervy character. We get heavily leaning on non-consensual perv who is presented as doing it just in jest and thus no one takes it seriously. There some slaps on the wrist and that's about all we get. The only one we really get to see who gets hurt for perviness is Oolong. And I gotta say the others are on his level but get away with it which makes me kinda sad for Oolong. At least stand your ground on your opinion of perverts. Don't crucify some and protect the others. He deserves equal treatment. And if you think I droned on a lot on proper use and characterization of perviness that's because it's a large part of the show, so I can't without good conscience review it without reviewing how they do on this front.

So due to this and many other issues (among which are inconsistencies in storytelling and the feeling that consequences don't matter ever) I still couldn't enjoy the show. As I said this anime is cross between a fanservice softcore porn for middle aged straight men and adventure tale for all them kiddies of ages around 5. Although honestly due to how it comes off instead of a perfect fusion we get some parts as if they were softcore porn written for 5 year olds or adventures written for those with middle aged crisis. It's a horrifying combo. I have seen it done and I have seen it done well. They must have looked at Dragon Ball, noted everything it has done wrong and fixed it, while making all new problems of their own. And that's ok. Dragon Ball should forever go down in history as work that inspired so many others and for this I appreciate it. But just as you don't go back to a horse-drawn carriage after you gain access to a car, you probably would not be able to enjoy this as I haven't. Leave that to those who have the luck of growing up with it and being given the wonderful ability to look at it through the rose-colored glasses of sentimentality and nostalgia. To a new viewer who already experienced the new and improved models of the many things introduced here it feels like a huge step back. Makes all the ugly things look uglier and all the good things become tarnished by the ugly. Still maybe you are one of those rare people who will enjoy this anyway. Just as there are people who still enjoy black and white silent films.

I didn't enjoy it. I tried, failed, tried again and now can firmly say that not only have I not found who I want to cosplay from this series I am actually not sure I even want to anymore. And I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who has watched a large number of newer anime, because you are likely to run into the same problems as me and 153 episodes is a huge commitment. Just trust me when I say that this is basically the grandpa of the anime you watched. But I am inspired now to see the sequels. I wonder how much they improved on the original and how much the curse of sequels plagues them. I wonder if I might like them better. And I do appreciate it as piece of anime history it is. I disliked it, but respect what it has done and the fact that it inspired a lot of stuff that I absolutely love to bits today. So this review is sort of a thank you letter.