Dragon Ball Z

Love the Dragonball Z series. Started watching it back in 2001 during the airing of Tonnami after school at 5pm would be ready. Sadly I got introduced to the series late when they where in the middle of the Frieza arc and I watched from there to the end until I was able to get all of the series on DVD and was able to see it all in its entirety.

Dragonball was one of the first Animes I ever wacthed when I was a kid, even though I don’t like nor hate it. You can say I have a Neutral Feeling towards Dragonball and I still do. Although I can recommend this Anime to Disney Fans, Pixar Fans, Street Fighter Fans, Mortal Kombat Fans, Karate Kid Fans, Kung Fu Fans, Undisputed Fans, Never Back Down Fans, and Martial Arts Aficionados even though it’s not the only Anime I’ll recommend to them.

Krista like Dragonball/z? huh. news to me.

Anyway, Been a huge DB fan way back since early 90’s when My japanese friend would play on his tv (they have japanese channels on their tv). I know a lot about DB but lately my passion for it dwindled. not because I don’t like it anymore but that I feel I know all I need know of it and moved on. Still have my SH figuarts of many of the characters and multiple art books of it and Toriyama’s works.

I hold the entire Dragonball franchise dear to my heart, my own fictional universe started as a DBZ fanfiction many many years ago but eventually I removed everything DBZ from it, even wingless flight and Ki powers for the most part.

My 1st Dragonball experience was the 1st airing on german television, which was awfully “translated” (the Kamehameha was called Schockwelle der alten Ahnen, Shockwave of the old ones) and heavily censored (all sexuality, for example Roshi doesn’t asks for a puff puff but insted he asks Bulma to bake him a cake, and most violence, like you don’t see that she shoots Goku with an Uzi after he took off her panties while she slept, the next scene he is just scratching his back complaing about ants on him) for the 1st 52 episodes turning it into a literal children’s cartoon. The complaints were enough though so after a re-run of the 52 episodes they sadly never re-localized they finally continued the show, uncensored and well translated till the end of the original show. Learning about how bad the 1st translation was I started reading the manga, which I have read all and am currently reading Super, SD (a sorta comedy remake with super deformed characters) and Heroes (based on the Xenoverse games).

Then it went quiet and it took a long long time till we finally got DBZ, which was a bit of an inconsistent mess in terms of censorship, sometimes you even saw a violent scene in the recap that was removed in the actual previous episode, like when Guldo’s head was cut off, some episodes where so extremely censored that things didn’t made sense anymore and they became rather short due to it, the episode where snipers kill some old people and then Buu’s dog was not shown at all.

Again it took a few years till we got GT… what an absolute mess that was, I think around 13 episodes were just completely removed making events confusing and the others were of course heavily censored.

Thanks to the internet though I was able to watch it all, DB, DBZ and GT in its full uncensored japanese glory with english subs.

Now the movies and specials we all got on DVD were uncensored except the comical appearance of Adolf Hitler in the Janemba movie, also all contained optional japanese dub except the Hildegarn and Janemba movies (I do not know the english titles of the movies) which were actually shown in theaters as a double feature here for some reason.

Super I watched in the simulcast on Toei’s own website that sadly doesn’t exist anymore, I never watched the german dub of it as I stopped watching TV altogether in 2011 but my brother says it’s okay, and since the violence has been toned down already in japan anyway and my country is way more accepting of it nowadays, there was no reason to censor it.

Dragon Ball Z was my gateway anime, and it still remains one of my favorites.

Other than the story and the really great fights, I think another reason why I (and many others) like it is the underlying theme behind it. Goku is constantly training and pushing his limits to new heights, and constantly strives to fight more powerful opponents not necessarily so that he can beat them, but so he can can continue to improve. To me, the most attractive thing about the Dragon Ball Saga as a whole is the consistent theme of constantly pushing your limits, improving, and reaching new heights. To me, that’s a value that makes life worth living

Dragon Ball, easily one of my favorite stories of all time. I remember during my teenage years people loved to dunk on the series and dismiss it as “just a bunch of guys screaming and punching each other” and I found it hard to refute that. But after reading the whole manga and rewatching the anime in the early 2010’s (both Kai’s English dub and the Japanese verison of the original), the love I had for it was reignited. The classic saga in its entirety, from when Goku and Bulma first meet up until the final battle against Majin Buu, is a delight, with strong themes of honor, sacrifice and striving to improve one’s self. That’s not say it was perfect; Toriyama basically made up the whole thing as he went along, and there’s more than a few hiccups towards the end, but there was always something about this story which I think its detractors had fundamentally misunderstood. It’s still an immense cultural phenomenon which keeps capturing younger generations, years after it ended.

Over the last several years, I’ve noticed the attitude towards DBZ on the Internet has changed a lot: It’s gone from being widely-mocked to largely embraced. I like to think DBZ Kai probably had something to do with that: There’s a lot of legitimate criticism to be had for the re-edit, but cutting out roughly 50% of filler content was a huge plus in its favor that probably made people give it a second chance. If anything, there were people who liked Dragon Ball more than they willing to admit, it’s just that there was this social pressure not to out of fear of looking like an anime novitiate with poor taste.

And now we have DBS. I admit to not watching the anime and have only read its manga, but I think it’s okay. Toriyama’s tendency to retcon for the sake of convenience is annoying, and it’s pretty clear his writing skills have dulled somewhat (the story arcs don’t really flow well into one another like they used to). But it’s serviceable enough and its existence is a testament to the love that is held for this franchise.

You mean the guy crying on front of the Densetsu No Supa Saiyajin

hahahahahahahahaahaa