I'll be rating anime only, so my rating won't be comparing how well it represent manga or LN.
\\ spoiler alert just in case //
Art: 9/10
DB looks really good if you take in consideration it is from 1986. Big variety of planet earth environment from cold mountains to hellish deserts it looks absolutely great. Fighting scenes looks amazing, it's an easy 9.
Characters: 9/10
Our MC is Son Goku, he's a grandson of Son Gohan a famous martial artist. Goku is an 11 years old and has an ape tail which gives him a "special ability" when is full moon. Goku is very laidback and always very cheerful, enjoying exploring new things and fighting strong opponents. Goku is a pure hearted person, which is shown multiple times, thanks to his pure heart, he has "Kinto un" a magical cloud, which he can use for travelling. His journey starts when he meets Bulma, dragonball seeker ( Dragonballs are magical balls that can fulfill your wish if you collect all 7 of them).
Bulma is a Dragonball seeker, she wishes to use dragonballs to get herself a handsome boyfriend. She's an genius inventer and a daughter of a famous genius and head of mega corporation. She dislikes perverts and likes handome guys. She's a first Goku's friend and companion whenever Goku looks for the dragonballs. On their travels they meet with Yamucha, who later has an interesting relationship with Bulma.
Yamucha is introduced as a bandit trying to rob Goku, when he learns about dragonballs he decides to follow Goku and steal his dragonballs once he gets them all. After series of events Yamucha starts to like Goku and befriends him and sets his goal to defeat Goku. Yamucha always travel with his companion Pu'erh. After he befriends goku, Yamucha stops being bandit and becomes more good hearted person.
Last MC is Kuririn, he's a bald martial artist training on Tenkaichi tournament (martial arts). We meet Kuririn when he asks Muten Roshi (Goku's mentor) for training, after giving him Ecchi magazines and bringing him a "female companion" with Goku, they begin to learn. Kuririn is determined, but also lazy person who likes to take easier way to finish, which is shown multiple times in their training. Sometimes he cheats, but karma usually gets him. During his training he befriends Goku and soon becomes his helper with dragonballs for a while.
Dragonball has a lot of characters we meet through the show, it helps to keep the show fresh and entertaining.
Character development: 8/10
Training, meeting new people, bonding DB does really good job with showing us progress of our characters, even though it is training development often.
Story: 8/10
New opponent, Goku gets beaten, then he do some godly training and defeat his opponent. Okay DB story isn't exactly anything complex.
At the beginning Goke and Bulma are seeking dragonballs and defeat villain, then Goku is training for Tenkaichi tournament,
then Goku is seeking dragonballs and defeat evil organization, then he is training again for Tenkaichi,
then he is seeking dragonballs to resurrect his friends and defeats a villain and finally he is training again for Tenkaichi.
You can see the pattern, what saved and earned DB 8/10 is the simple fact seeying Goku meeting new friends and enemies during his travels or training, it was this simple, but important fact that kept DB entertaining even after 150 episodes.
Story progression: 9/10
Story goes at good pace, battles are cool, but not too long, training takes reasonable amount of time, Goku's training adventures are entertaining, it's pretty good.
Villains: 7/10
Pilaf: 9/10 Iconic DB 1986 villain, he's a more of comical villain than serious villain, he's the only villain that stays with us through the entirety of the show. He's seeking dragonballs in order to achieve his dream to become the Emperor of Earth. He's enjoyable villain.
Red Ribbon commanders: 5/10 There's not much to them, their only purpose was to give Goku some sort of competition, but it's basically the same scenario: Goku and commander meet then Goku goes for dragonball, after he obtains the dragonball he defeats the commander and commander is later executed or killed by his organization, only exception to this rule commander Violet, who robs her organization HQ, when they're fighting Goku.
Piccolo Daimao: 7/10 Basically the same as the Red Ribbon his purpose was to give Goku a reason to collect the dragonballs, the only thing that earned him 7/10 are his achievements in DB world.
Sound: 8/10
Through the show we are accompanied by many melodies. DB has 1 opening song and 1 ending song, both of them of are solid and definitively nostalgic if you watched the show when you were kid or if you watched it years ago.
So overall rating of Dragonball 1986 is 8,29/10 that means 8/10.
