I think its a great story with great characters and fights. The problem is for me, after the first time you watch it, it's hard to rewatch because it's so slow moving. And also after watching DBZ Abridged, it's hard to watch the original too. DBZ Abridged might be one of my favorite things on the internet.
Dragonball Z is not very good. I loved it to death/enjoy thinking back on it and talking about it with friends, but the structure of the storytelling is absolutely awful. Character arcs are so weirdly paced and the show rarely did the emotional legwork to build legitimately engaging character relationships. I remember it fondly but can't imagine consuming the series now front to back. Power Rangers, Dragonball Z, they were all terrible. They were bright and engaging things for kids to look at and enjoy. And they did. Sometimes grown-ups try to justify their love of their childhood properties by arguing for the quality of their favorite cartoons and stuff, but rarely do they deserve it.
No, I'm not haha. But I won't have kids so unlike DBZ you can't say everything that came after me is better :p
I'm currently reading the Dragon Ball manga for the first time and very much enjoying it. Gonna go through DBZ when I get to it and I think revisiting it that way will work better because it won't be as drawn out as the anime is.
Dragon Ball was good. But DBZ is hailed as one of the greatest anime ever yet its greatest achievement was inspiring Naruto and One Piece, both of which have their own litany of issues but I'll argue to death that One Piece is far better.
I don't think anyone who's watched a lot of anime actually thinks it's one of the best ever. I still think it's way better than Naruto but I don't like that at all. One Piece is a much stronger series but I dont think the anime adaptation is very good honestly. The anime is why it took me so long to finally get into One Piece.
Super is garbage though. GT isn't great but I think even that's way better than Super which is seemingly an unpopular opinion.
All fair points. The anime is definitely worst than the manga, though it had some great moments. Naruto was fine up until halfway through Shippuden. Then it just because a shitty version of DBZ honestly haha. I give One Piece credit for expanding their world in the same way all these other shounen-anime did but actually adding more characters and showing more of their existing characters. Other shows take them away as it goes on. Like Gohan. What happened to Gohan? Though even at 11 or whatever I thought it was bullshit they brought Goku back.
DBZ is solid, it's like the anime equivalent to a mindless action movie haha. The Kai series was def an improvement though, the original series as aired had way too much filler and recapping. Now Power Rangers, yeah, that's some pretty bad stuff. I shamelessly had a ton of fun watching the movie though.
The original Dragonball is much better than Dragonball Z, particularly everything that happens after Frieza.
The Cell Arc was a lot of stuff I liked on paper but not in execution. Kind of like how A Feast for Crows is a great book if you read the detailed summary on Wikipedia lol
Frieza is supposed to be the strongest person in the universe, and Goku's ascendance to Super Saiyan is a proper end to all of that. It doesn't really make sense that an old Red Ribbon Army scientist made something as strong as the androids, and Buu existing without King Kai or anyone else mentioning it, plus the existence of deities above him, stretches credibility.
Cell arc was the best imo, definitely had the most going on. Buu was interesting but went on for waaaaaay too long haha. Got really ridiculous toward the end there.
Super bothers me because for some reason Master Roshi is a fighter now, even though both Chiaotzu and Yamcha are many times stronger than him.
Truth. Early on in the Golden Frieza saga, Frieza says something to the effect of "father told me there were two fighters to never mess with, Majin Buu and Beerus The Destroyer, and you're telling me Goku beat both of them?" And I was just kinda like okay, they'd be better off just not having Frieza know who either of those two people were. Seemed like a bad attempt to bring things full circle and also makes things less believable down the road when someone even stronger will inevitably randomly appear.
The Cell Arc is kinda weak, but I still love it because every character is in my favorite form of theirs.
Hard to disagree with any of that. Everything after was just fun, but yeah I feel like Goku going SS and fighting Frieza was the right climax to the series.
I have made myself watch it maybe three times over the last ten years, each time thinking it will "click" with me but nope, I just don't like it.
Twice for me. It seems like one of those foreign films that people really connect with because they are similar enough to American films. Amelie and Children of God are similar.