I’ve been discussing Dragon Ball Z for a few posts now, and I feel like it’s time to wrap things up. Here’s the final rundown for DBZ-
“Should I watch this show?”
Yes. Definitely. Given the repetitive nature of the anime, you don’t necessarily have to watch the entire show to get a good taste, but watching some of this legendary show is a must. I would highly recommend watching all the way through one of the show’s “sagas”, or villain arcs. Usually the sagas start and end cleanly, without a lot of loose ends to tie up, meaning you can start and stop after a single saga without feeling lost.
“Why should I watch this show?”
DBZ was a breakthrough. It was one of the first popularized anime in America and one of the first popular anime in the fighting genre. Its tropes and traditions have become iconic and its story still inspires to this day. For more info on exactly why to watch this show, see my previous posts.
“It’s over 100 episodes, ain’t nobody got time for that!”
Dragon Ball Z Kai is currently airing on Toonami and is readily available online. Kai, while still daunting, is a trimmed down version of the original DBZ story, with remastered animation and much less filler. What started out as almost 300 episodes worth of content has now been reduced to less than 200. It’s not exactly binge-able, but if you’re looking for less of a load, DBZ Kai is the way to go.
For those who may be new to anime altogether, I thought I’d give a quick primer on DBZ.
Here’s a brief synopsis-
Goku is a super-powerful humanoid alien who was shot to earth as his planet was about to be blown to pieces. He was found and raised by a martial arts master and eventually grew up to be one of the world’s best martial artists. Just as Goku starts to settle down and have a family, some of his alien brethren arrive on earth, hell-bent to destroy the plant and take over the human race. Dragon Ball Z is the story of Goku and his friends banding together to stop them.
Goku and company spend the rest of the show defending earth from various attacking aliens and androids, such as the villainous android Cell or the pink menace Buu. Though they may face extraordinarily overwhelming odds, the “Z Fighters” always manage to pull through, reaching a new power level or somehow managing to surpass their previous limitations. The show ends with the Earth safe, and the Z Fighters enjoying the new found peace.
I recently asked what makes Dragon Ball Z good. After reviewing some footage and giving it some thought, I’ve come to my first real conclusion- it did something new.
Up until DBZ’s release, mecha dominated the anime world. Gundam, Macross and other anime like them were the popular choices. DBZ took an entirely different approach than these, appealing to the He-Man and Thundercats-esque crowd. Given that animation was strictly aimed at children, when the anime was translated, television stations aired the show during the normal saturday morning lineup alongside shows like Power Rangers. It was an easy transition for most kids to make, and thus began DBZ’s golden age.
It also pioneered some of the most iconic and trope’d concepts anime has to offer. For example, let’s take a quick look at this gif of Goku.
First, we see Goku grow his muscles, rather explosively, indicating an increase in raw physical power. Smoke rises from his boot after this process is finished; Goku is serious. Next we see Goku’s hair begin to rise from the energy coming off of his body and his eyes change, yet another visible indication of his power. He yells and his hair changes into a bright yellow blonde. Small pebbles and rocks float up by his head, carried aloft by his aura alone. The camera pulls back to show a sizable yellow energy aura now surrounding Goku- he’s a Super Saiyan.
Why did I spend a paragraph taking that apart? Well, before DBZ, that kind of thing wasn’t done. You didn’t have characters intentionally “powering up” as you see here. Goku and his crew started this trend as we understand it today, and it’s iconic because of them. I’m betting that if you’ve seen any DBZ before, you were hearing this noise in your head when you watched that gif-
The sound design in this show works well enough that YOU fill in the blanks, even when you may not have seen the show in years. It show grabbed its viewers and implanted itself in their heads. It engaged a young, well-prepared audience with exactly what they wanted to see, and it did so well enough to see reruns, redubs, and hi-def remasters in the form of the recent Dragon Ball Z Kai airing.
This show started a revolution away from the mecha genre into what we have in modern anime.
Millennial Eye 