History WebAnimation / DragonShortZ

* VillainDecay: Vegeta has been reduced from being a legitimately dangerous TokenEvilTeammate to being treated as annoyance. Despite his power, all it takes to drive him away is harsh language.

* BeastMan: There are some anthro animals in ''[=Dragon ShortZ=]'', true to them being sprinkled throughout the Dragon Ball universe. There's a bear in the deleted scene from Episode 2, and Episode 4 has a fox and a dog among Yamcha's baseball teammates.

> '''Goku:''' Huh. He does look like a little me.

** With Goku gone, Freeza dead, and Cell blasted to pieces, Vegeta has no one left that can give him a challenge. The only ones who could are Gohan, who doesn't want to fight him, Piccolo and 18, who rightfully hate him, and Popo, who's so far out of his league Vegeta is terrified of him. Episode 5 is one long HumiliationConga for him as he can't find ''anyone'' who would bother engaging him.

** Also shown off with Krillin, who's only a smidge better than Yamcha in terms of respect. When Samuel insults 18, he immediately shows that he's still one of the strongest people on the planet and the strongest human in the series, smashing the table and making Samuel fearful for his life.

On February 1, 2020, Lanipator announced that ''[=Dragon ShortZ=]'' will replace ''Dragon Ball Z Abridged'' as their primary ''Dragon Ball'' parody series, as a result of [=YouTube=]'s ever-stricter copyright policies, and that if the Buu saga were to be adapted it would be via the digital format of these shorts rather than reused ''Dragon Ball'' footage. However, a few days later, they revealed that there are no plans to adapt the Buu Saga at this time, primarily owing to the idea being too impractical to put into action and due to heavy creative burnout towards ''DBZA''. Although, they would eventually go on to adapt select scenes from the Buu Saga for a collaboration with Totally Not Mark, via ''Buu's Bits'', which are available to watch on Mark's multi-part review on the overall Buu Saga (on [=YouTube=]).

On February 1, 2020, Lanipator announced that ''[=Dragon ShortZ=]'' will replace ''Dragon Ball Z Abridged'' as their primary ''Dragon Ball'' parody series, as a result of [=YouTube=]'s ever-stricter copyright policies, and that if the Buu saga were to be adapted it would be via the digital format of these shorts rather than reused ''Dragon Ball'' footage. However, a few days later, they revealed that there are no plans to adapt the Buu Saga at this time, primarily owing to the idea being too impractical to put into action and due to heavy creative burnout towards ''DBZA''.

* NormalFishInATinyPond: Episode 4 demonstrates that while Yamcha may be the series' ButtMonkey, it's because he frequently hangs around with people who are literally ''god-tier''. However, he's still a superhuman who's about as far above normal people as Super Saiyans are above him. When playing baseball, he hits ''500 consecutive home runs'' and wins so many games single-handedly that he has to be forced into retirement because the fans are becoming bored from knowing he'll ''always'' win.

* AbsenteeActor: Episode 5 shows Piccolo's usual "talking to Nail and Kami" RunningGag from the "outside", making it look like he's talking to himself (to Vegeta's confusion), while in another scene Gohan talks to Dr. Briefs but doesn't get a response. Presumably this is because Ben "hbi2K" Creighton (who voiced Nail and Briefs) left TFS in January 2019, but since he left on good terms[[note]]He disagreed with Lani and Kaiser about the direction the team was taking, but chose to step down as CEO rather than let the debate ruin their friendship[[/note]] the roles haven't been recast.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: "DTF" is basically one big deconstruction of this towards Vegeta. It has been over a year since Goku died and Future Trunks went back home, and with them gone, basically nobody else wants anything to do with him anymore. When Vegeta goes around trying to get someone to fight him, basically nobody he wants to fight gives him the time of day because they either hate him or just aren't interested, and if someone is willing to fight him (like Krillin) he isn't interested in ''them''. When he pushes them enough they give him [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech brutal speeches]] that leave him so stunned he can't even defend himself. By the end of the episode, he has alienated himself so much that not even ''Nappa'' is willing to answer his calls.

* MythologyGag: In Episode 5 Gohan goes shopping at a grocery store called "Moro Mart", presumably named for the evil wizard from the ''Manga/DragonBallSuper'' manga.

** With Goku gone, Frieza dead, and Cell blasted to pieces, Vegeta has no one left that can give him a challenge. The only ones who could are Gohan, who doesn't want to fight him, Piccolo and 18, who rightfully hate him, and Popo, who's so far out of his league Vegeta is terrified of him. Episode 5 is one long HumiliationConga for him as he can't find ''anyone'' who would bother engaging him.

** 18 gives a brutal dressing down on Vegeta when he goes around looking for a fight, calling him a walking inferiority complex who beats his son and ignores his wife, and then implies he's better off dead. To top it all off, she ends it by calling him [[CountryMatters the same insult he called her]] [[CallBack back when they fought.]] He can't even say anything in his own defense, and flies off, speechless.
** Gohan gives his own speech to Vegeta afterwards, which, while not as lengthy, hits just as hard, if not harder, saying that if he did fight Vegeta like he keeps demanding him to it would be nothing but a "pity fight".

* UnexpectedCharacter: [[spoiler: Kid Buu]] appears dressed as a witch in The Halloween Episode. [[spoiler: When the viewpoint character tells them he's out of candy (since Beerus took it all), he turns him into candy himself]].

* RealityEnsues:
** Episode 3 does this for Krillin, as a sleazy asshole but otherwise normal human of a waiter barely avoided finding out the hard way that the "midget" he insulted could easily turn him into [[LudicrousGibs a pile of guts]] if he so desired.
** Episode 4 is a gigantic series of these, all related to Yamcha:
*** While he was very quickly outpaced by the Saiyans and Piccolo, he's still far, '''far''' beyond the level of an ordinary human at this point. The result? Yamcha is probably the most successful baseball player Dragon World has ever seen with 500 consecutive home runs, a feat which even the greatest MLB players in RealLife could never hope to replicate.
*** However, the unfortunate downside of this is that he almost kills off the team by driving away the audience, all because he's ''too good'' -- nobody buys tickets to the games anymore because they know Yamcha is going to win it single-handedly, so there's absolutely no suspense or excitement.
*** Finally, when the team owner is dismissing Yamcha, he explains that they aren't going to leave him "high and dry", so instead they're offering him a '''20 billion Zeni'''[[note]]Since zeni is pretty much just the Japanese yen, that's $186,014,498.00 using the rates at the time of the episode's release[[/note]] buyout package with a non-compete clause, meaning that Yamcha is now so rich he'll probably never have to work another day in his life (unless he decides to do product sponsorship deals, as the owner suggested). And that's ''before'' buying one of the most lucrative sports drinks on Earth, and starting up a successful chain of sports grill bars.
** With Goku gone, Freeza dead, and Cell blasted to pieces, Vegeta has no one left that can give him a challenge. The only ones who could are Gohan, who doesn't want to fight him, Piccolo and 18, who rightfully hate him, and Popo, who's so far out of his league Vegeta is terrified of him. Episode 5 is one long HumiliationConga for him as he can't find ''anyone'' who would bother engaging him.
** When Piccolo starts talking to Nail and/or Kami, it's shown from Vegeta's perspective and it just looks like Piccolo's gone crazy and is talking to himself.

* ThemeTuneCameo: The brief theme tune for ''[=ShortZ=]'' takes cues from both "Cha-La Head Cha-La" and "We Gotta Power".
** Additionally, the establishing shot of the first episode and the "credits" theme are variations on "I'll Give You Romance"
** When Gohan is riding the Flying Nimbus in Episode 5, he can be heard humming "We Were Angels", the ending theme for the Buu Saga.
** Episode 5, when showing the Comet Camori being destroyed, the Final Flash theme can be faintly heard.

On March 19, 2021, another Abridged-based series, ''WebAnimation/{{HFIL}}'', began in a similar vein to this series, based around the Cell's life in the titular [=HFIL=] alongside other villains a year after his defeat.

On March 19, 2021, another Abridged-based series, ''[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebAnimation/HFIL HFIL]]'', began in a similar vein to this series, based around the Cell's life in the titular [=HFIL=] alongside other villains a year after his defeat.

* WhamShot: The non-cannon Halloween episode ends with [[spoiler:a shot of Kid Buu in a witch costume, who turns the house owner into candy when he runs out of candy to give.]]