Genre: Martial arts action-fantasy with elements of comedy
| Music: | 7 | Plot: | 6 | Characters: | 8 |
| Animation: | 5 | Filler: | 4 | Entertainment Quality: | 7 |
| Overall Score: | 6.17 |
This very popular sequel to Toriyama's famous Dragon Ball series picks up five years after DB's conclusion. Continuing the ventures of the Z-Senshi, this series puts a new wrinkle into the Dragon Ball world by introducing the revelation that Son Gokuu is a member of a vicious alien race known as the Saiya-Jin. Following this revelation, grand conflicts ensue between the Z-Senshi and the Saiya-Jin, and later between Gokuu and the alien overlord Freezer. Through these battles, Gokuu finds out about the roots of his Saiya-Jin heritage and attains the almost immortal status of Super Saiya-Jin.
Following the conflict with Freezer, a smaller conflict gives way between Gokuu's son, Gohan and a demon named Garlic Jr. Ater this fight comes the Jinzoningen Saga, which sees the return from Namek of Son Gokuu, and the appearance of Vegeta's son from the future. Also appearing are the saga's villains, the Artificial Humans and the monster Cell. In fighting these villains, Vegeta, his son Trunks, and Gohan all attain Gokuu's Super Saiya-Jin level and Gohan even surpasses Super Saiya-Jin status to conclude the saga in a stirring battle with Cell.
Finally comes the longest saga of Dragon Ball Z, which sees Gohan become a teenager, Gokuu return from the dead after dying against Cell, and a plethora of new character emerging, including the newest additions to the Vegeta and Son households, Chibi Trunks and Son Goten. At the center of this saga's conflicts is the demon, Majin Buu and his controllers, Madoshi Babidi & Darbura. In a series of conflicts which give way to new techniques like fusion, a higher level of Super Saiya-Jin, and the complete destruction of the world, Buu and his controllers are killed through Gokuu's ultimate fighting technique. As the series concludes, the world is again at peace and Gokuu flies off to train a resurrected Buu by the name of Uubu.
Many anime fans will say that Dragon Ball Z is the greatest anime of all time. To these fans, I have one suggestion: switch off Cartoon Network and seek out your local hobby shop fast.
The plot of Dragon Ball Z is rather simplistic: villains show up, Gokuu & Co. battle with and eventually destroy said villains over the course of 10 - 150 episodes, all the while showcasing new techniques and powers. The simplicity of DBZ provides for a series that can be easy to follow, even if you haven't seen the first twenty or so episodes. However, it does lead to the show getting insultingly predictable at times. And with the series divided into sagas, it also tends to get repetitive fast. Basically, once you've seen the Freezer Saga...you've pretty much seen them all.
The development and pacing of the plot is very slow and meticulous. Often, entire episodes are spent with characters just staring each other down and talking. While this extremely slow pacing will ensure that not a single plot point is missed, it can also get very frustrating. I mean, if you've been waiting weeks and weeks to see Gokuu and Freezer or Gohan and Cell go at it, you don't want to wait another week while they talk to each other for hours on in. If I remember correctly, I fell asleep one more than one occasion waiting on something to actually happen.
Dragon Ball Z is a series that's divided into five primary sagas and three shorter "filler sagas." The sagas themselves tend to vary in quality. The "main" sagas (Saiya-Jin, Namek/Freezer, Jinzoningen, Cell, and Majin Buu) tend to be the better part of the Dragon Ball Z series, where the decent storytelling comes in. However, the vast majority of what are known as the "filler" sagas (Garlic Jr., Annoyochi Budoukai, Great Saiyaman) tend to be on the level of pointless crap. If it weren't for entertaining moments like the infamous driving school episode, my opinion of the filler would be much, much lower (as if it could be any lower right now?).
Though the original Dragon Ball already had a very large cast, the amount of new characters introduced in Dragon Ball Z is simply exponential. Though many great new characters are introduced, including Vegeta, Son Gohan, Freezer, Kaio-Sama of the North, and Mr. Satan, most of the returning Dragon Ball cast is largely ignored. Further development of the original Z-Senshi is limited to Gokuu, Piccolo, and Kuririn. And even when DBZ is well under way, the main focus of the series falls on two groups: the villains and the Saiya-Jin characters. While we learn nearly everything in the universe about Vegeta, Gokuu, Freezer, Cell, et al, we forget that such great characters as TenShinHan, Yamucha, and Oolong even exist! Even Piccolo becomes next to nothing by the end!
The music and animation in Dragon Ball Z are almost insulting. The background music is usually, though not always befitting of the scenes it's placed in, though it's typically the absense of music that creates greater atmosphere. However, these BGM selections are typically rather dull, and the theme music by Kageyama Hironobu, while catchy and upbeat at first, gets boring quickly. As far as animation goes, it tends to shift between extremes. Important events like Super Saiya-Jin transformations and major fights tend to be on-par for a typical anime TV series, while the majority of it tends to be of much, much poorer quality.
Perhaps the biggest problem of Dragon Ball Z, despite the aforementioned flaws, is the English dub. Though the American distributor FUNimation has, as of late, been attempting to improve the quality of their English-language product, it remains as one of the overall worst dub jobs in anime history (probably second only to Sailor Moon and anything shown on FOX Kids). Originally produced under the watchful eye of Saban, the first two seasons of DBZ's English dub featured butchered footage, completely re-written scripts, horrible voice actors, and a totally new (and totally sucky) soundtrack. However, when FUNimation began to produce its dub separate from Saban, it began to improve. Slowly, butchering of footage began to disappear, scripts became more accurate, and voice actors & music became less harmful to the ears. With the dub of the Majin Buu saga, it seems FUNimation may finally have a decent product, though its previous work still remains an atrocity to the anime world.
In conclusion, Dragon Ball Z isn't as holy and sacred as many anime fans tend to make it out to be; rather, it's a so-so series with fatal plot and animation flaws and an English dub that grates on the nerves. My suggestion is that instead of watching the TV series, pick up the manga graphic novels instead. No filler, no music, no lame animation, and the plot flows much more smoothly.
