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
