LogFAQs > #909918766

58. Dragon Ball Z
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So, I have three things to base this writeup on, which will probably make it unrepresentative of my true thoughts on the series, but I dont even know what those are. First, I watched the series as it aired as a kid, up until the end of the Frieza saga. There were lots of repeats and sometimes it was difficult to figure out when new episodes would air, but I enjoyed this quite a bit. Second, I watched Dragon Ball Kai a few years back, after it finished (but not the Buu saga part). I enjoyed this quite a bit too! Even here I was noticing how slow the pace would be sometimes, but obviously it wasnt as bad as with the original anime. Third, I read the Dragon Ball manga in its entirety just a few months back. This was a lot of fun too! Honestly, I think it was the best of the lot. The pacing is great, and the art is always very good. This is the only place I experienced the Buu saga, which is a good thing or the series would probably be ranked quite a bit lower.

The show does a lot of things well in general. The cast is cool, the fights are neat with constant escalation (until Cell at least, who doesnt really escalate anything past Frieza levels), the story facilitates everything that happens really well, etc. The whole show is just tons of fun, for the most part. Lets just go over the arcs, since those basically affect my overall opinion of the show. First, the Saiyan Saga is awesome. Raditz is a great short-term villain, Vegeta is amazing, Goku training in the afterlife is awesome, King Kai rules, the pacing is quick, and the fights are super cool. We get to learn the truth of Gokus tail, Gohan gets some neat content, and all the story bits are good. This is peak Dragon Ball. Frieza is basically just as good, ignoring the stretched out fights in the original DBZ anime. Frieza actually feels more powerful than Vegeta, the transformations are cool, we get Vegeta as both ally and enemy (he kills a lot of innocent people here!), and the fights are all great. This is just as good as, or better than the Saiyan Saga. Cell is where the series starts having issues. I actually love all the Android stuff. Theres a lot of cool character development in the non-fighting scenes. Future Trunks was always my favorite character in the series (a Saiyan with a freaking sword!), and his episode where he goes back to the future and punks the Androids is one of my favorites. The Androids themselves are totally unique villains with very different personalities. They arent necessarily all about conquering the world or whatever like some previous villains, and its neat to see all the stuff unfold with them being more powerful than in Trunkss timeline. Unfortunately, Cell comes along and ruins everything. Hes kinda interesting when hes trying to absorb the Androids. He has an interesting goal there, and throws a bit of a wrench into everyones plans (I still dont think hes great there though). After that, what even is Cell? He has no real interesting motivations, and no personality. Hes not really any more of a threat than Frieza (Frieza was going to destroy the world, and now Cell is going todestroy the world). I dont think the fights here are very interesting either. Buu has all the problems of Cell but is even worse. His personality is terrible. The mix of comedy and seriousness mostly does not work at all. The non-Buu parts of the arc can be great (especially the father/son bonding scenes with Goku and Gohan. Those were fantastic). I liked the early parts of the arc too. Great Saiyaman was just the right amount of silliness, and the tournament couldve been amazing. But no, Buu has to go and interrupt it. Blah. Anyway, the best parts of the series are amazing. Its just too bad about the stuff that comes after.
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