Dragonball Z
Welcome to the section of my page dedicated
to the show that got me interested in anime in the first place, Dragonball
Z. In case you know nothing of this show, it is a little bit of Japanese
animation that has become rather popular of late. It was pretty popular
in Japan, and also pretty popular with the fansub crowd here in the good
ol' US of A. A company called Funimation bought the rights to distribute
Dragonball Z in the US, and they edited it considerably. The original
Japanese version had a lot of violence in it that was taken out, and the
dialogue was extremely softened up. It got so bad that the version
that they showed on cartoon network wasn't even allowed to acknowledge
the deaths of characters. For two seasons they referred to death
as "phasing into another dimension", edited out all of the blood, and made
the dead bodies fade out like a video game or something. While this
was a particularly lame touch, it didn't seem to detract too much from
the story. I really enjoyed following the series on cartoon network,
and I am currently waiting eagerly for the fourth season to begin.
The story of this show follows the
adventures of a fellow named Goku and his friends and family. Goku,
in the original Dragonball series, was sent to earth from his home planet
as a baby, with the intent that he would wake up and destroy the residents.
Instead, he conked his head and was adopted by a fellow near where he landed.
His race was the Saiyans, a warrior race from the planet Vegeta.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, he became strong and defended the earth a
few times with some of his closest friends, blah blah blah, same old stuff,
right?
The main point of this page is to
show my affinity for a particular member of the cast of characters.
This character would be Vegeta. Vegeta is one of only 2 remaining
Saiyans, the other being Goku (whom Vegeta refers to as Kakarott).
In the first season, he and another Saiyan named Nappa (but there are only
2, you say! Well, the thing of it is, Vegeta gets pissed at Nappa
and kills him.) come to Earth in search of the legendary Dragonballs.
These are capable of summoning a dragon who can grant you a wish, if you
can gather all seven into one place. Anyway, Goku and Vegeta face
off, and Goku amazingly pulls off a victory against all odds, since he
IS the protagonist of the series. Goku, being the pure hearted sap
that he is, lets the near-dead Vegeta escape in his space capsule.
Later on in the series, Vegeta follows Goku and the rest of the Z warriors
to a far off planet called Namek in serach of the Dragonballs there, only
to get killed by the new unbeatable enemy, Frieza (or Freezer in the subtitles).
In a swift move, the good guys use the Namek Dragonballs to wish everyone
that Frieza killed back to life and send them to earth. This, of
course, includes Vegeta. Namek explodes in final battle between Frieza
and Goku, in which Goku transforms into something called a Super Saiyan
(which Vegeta REALLY wants to be) and no one has any idea what happens
to Goku. A year and a half or so later, Vegeta returns from his search
for Goku (he wanted to find and defeat him, of course), only to meet a
mysterious guy who claims to be a Super Saiyan (which also REALLY pisses
off Vegeta) that defeats a revived Cyborg Frieza with ease. Soon
after, Goku returns and Vegeta finds out that Goku is a Super Saiyan.
Now this really makes Vegeta angry, and he has a scientist named Dr. Trunks
build him a room that has gravity adjustable up to three hundred times
that of Earth. It is through training in this hostile environment
that Vegeta finally reaches Super Saiyan level, which increases his power
dramatically, and turns his hair gold and eyes green. That is as
far into the series as I have seen (about 1/2 way), but I have read about
the rest of the storyline on a few webpages, which you could read too,
if you really wanted to.
Why Vegeta?
Now, we reach the main point of this page.
Why, you ask, do I prefer Vegeta? There are so many viable options!
Goku, who is the one who usually prevails, who is the most powerful, who
everyone loves, etc... Gohan, the son of Goku, who is strong like his father,
but not as dumb... Trunks, Vegta's future son, who has purple hair AND
a sword... Well, I'll tell you why I like Vegeta the best.
Of all of the characters in this show, Vegeta is the one with the most
attitude. He is a warrior through and through, and he doesn't take
shit from anyone. He has good foreboding lines ("You shall know the
wrath of VEGETA!", etc.), and he ends up helping the good guys, so he isn't
evil through and through. Below i will try to show you in various
media, rather than tell you, why Vegeta kicks so much arse.
Pictures
Some of these pictures are from the anime, and some from
the manga....
Vegeta training at 300X gravity
Vegeta going Super Saiyan
Vegeta about to blast you
Sounds
"You should know better than to oppose
Vegeta!"
Vegeta laughing, from the Japanese
language version
"BIG BANG ATTACK!!", also from the
Japanese
Video
Vegeta going Super Saiyan
more to come....
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