It needed more slapstick to be honest.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.There's no doubt that it hit peak popularity during the Freeza arc.
Doesn't matter for me which parts are popular though. I likes what I likes. And I like not having to sit through Freeza sandbagging for the fiftieth time, or a character letting the villain power themselves up for a bullshit reason, or the Buu saga just going on and on and why won't this pink bastard just die.
By the Buu Arc, there actually are no good moments, if you ask me. (except maybe Mr. Satan befriending Buu). Because any moments that could be considered good are just rendered ineffective in the same arc. Looking at you, Vegeta sacrificing himself in the perfect capper to his existance in the series NOPE HE'S BACK.
Actually, if you're looking at the series as a whole, since Gohan becoming top dog gets almost immediately driven off a cliff that's another giant moment that's completely undercut. And if you take that moment away from the Cell Arc then the entire Cell Arc just falls apart. It's just characters being massive, massive idiots to the point that you want them all to die to spare us all from their stupidity. That's the entire arc. It's saved by that moment. Without it it's totally worthless... not "meh" worthless, actively insulting towards the viewer's intelligence worthless.
Heck, even Goku going Super Saiyan ultimately isn't that impressive in the long run since it's quickly rendered into something any old Saiyan can do and the next time we see it it's already lost the most interesting thing about it - that the user goes into a berserk killing rage (to the point that Goku threatened to kill Gohan the first time he accessed it).
Dragonball pulls shit we would not let fly today all the time in Z and we put up with it because it was the first one to do all this stuff.
edited 4th Feb '18 6:06:27 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"I was actually aware of DB from the beginning, because I first found out about Z from a K-Zone which was promoting the series as it was about to air and explained about the DB anime and a cliff notes summary to prepare for Z.
Then as Z was airing, I was able to get the manga volumes for DB and Z from the library. These were the old, uncensored editions so Bulma's bare tits and all the violence was really surprising for chibi me.
I can't imagine the experience of watching Z without actually knowing DB was a thing.
Oh yeah. I watched Z first. Not all of it, but it was my first experience. It was weird having all the characters introduced with everyone knowing each other and it being surprising that Goku has a kid.
Later on I'd read the entire manga, though.
"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-MaeI actually did know about the pre-time skip stuff on account of imports being extremely common in my neighborhood. I just had no way of understanding it. So I was very much glad when they finally started airing it around when I was 10.
And yea, the pre-Z stuff I would agree is mostly "ok" and that Z has more genuine good moment. But the flipside is that it has much more "bad" moments as well. I still like Z's good moments, but the bad ones are really noticeable since the series maintained a decent quality up until it starts dipping in the Android arc.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I watched that first dub of DB that DIC did way back.
Though even then, I knew about Z first because I watched some raw videos of the 6 movie and the first two episodes.
Yeah, I admit, I didn't care much for DB compared to Z (though I got a lot of laughs out of it, especially when Roshi performed the Kamehameha for the first time).
That being said, I came to appreciate it when I got to watch the entire series after seeing Z. It's not perfect, but it's the foundation of everything that made the series what it was.
Plus both Goku vs Tien fights, and both Piccolo fights are spectacular.
One Strip! One Strip!I never knew pre-Time Skip Dragon Ball existed until Toonami started airing it alongside the Buu Saga episodes of Z.
TBH I don't think Z really has that many truly bad moments. There's like one major one in each of the Namek, Android and Boo arcs that is connected to the other issues I have, and they're not insurmountable.
Judging the series overall, the pros outweight the cons of Z. And the net result is much better for me then the net result of DB.
I watched Dragon Ball Z when I was a kid but I mostly lurked on the early days of the internet learning as much as I can about Z. I watched the original Dragon ball on Toonami and like most people most of the gags flew over my head. A few years ago that I learned about Dragon Ball in a way I never had before and I realize that I didn't like as much as I used to.
"Mai waifu."Saiyan arc is pretty much one of the high points of DB as a whole, I think we can all agree. (I do find Goku's decision to spare Vegeta slightly suspect, however). I also rate the early Freeza arc pretty highly (though I wish Gohan and Krillin achieved more given all the time we spend with them). But then Goku touches down to Namek, wipes out the entire Ginyu force barring some shenanigans with Ginyu himself, then gets podded again - which is exactly the same formula that happened with the king piccolo arc and the Saiyan arc. Then he does it again in the exact same arc.
In addition, all the potential of space is killed off, in one arc, by having Freeza be essentially emperor space. It takes a very special mind to look at the night sky and decide to blow it all in one load. The actual Freeza fight is by turns, dragged out, entertaining, then you have the Super Saiyan transformation, then it just sort of ends with a whimper.
Cell Arc is basically a laundry list of rubbish decisions by characters. The fate of the earth is at stake. You have gotten a fucking time travel messenger warning you... and they decide not to just nip this whole business in the bud by killing Gero. They then continue to do this bullshit for the entire arc right up to the Cell Games. This is not acceptable storytelling. If it was just Vegeta then it would be bad enough but everyone does something absolutely moronic at one point or another. The only redeeming aspect to the entire arc is Goku's death and the passing of the Torch moment to Gohan.
No DB arc is this dumb. No DB arc chooses to have this swiss cheese plot underlying it.
The Buu arc is almost an improvement in that regard in that characters are only stupid in retrospect, but that's the problem... it just goes on and on and it never ends. It also starts retconning a lot of stuff from earlier arcs, screwing up the two really good moments from the Cell arc in the process. I guess you could say the final spirit bomb is a good idea for an ending attack but by this point everyone is just fucking sick of Buu. He just won't die.
Throughout it all, the same sort of stuff just gets repeated and repeated over and over. Grunting powerups, exclaimations of "I can't believe he's that strong" (they need to tell us this because visuals are no longer capable of communicating power thanks to planetary being passed 3 arcs ago) Vegeta being massively cocky, a new variation on Super Saiyan after it is introduced, Goku saving everyone at the last second etc etc.
People are saying "but the good moments" - how many of those moments had any consequences at all? Tien sacrificing himself? He neither dies nor do Krillin, Trunks, or Vegeta use this opportunity to prevent Cell from becoming perfect. Goku sacrificing himself? Cell comes back immediately, Goku comes back the next arc. Vegeta sacrificing himself? Does absolutely nothing and Vegeta comes back in the same arc. Gohan going ultimate? Accomplishes nothing because he gets absorbed.
edited 4th Feb '18 6:45:39 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"If only Boo had won, people wouldn't be sick of him then.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Weren't there only 3 flashbacks...and the 3rd one was entirely new as well as made up.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.If only Tenkaichi 2 thought to do that.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.
I know that Dragon Ball was a product of its time but it wasn't until Dragon Ball Super that I realized that most of the tropes in Dragon Ball began to feel redundant. I also learned a lot more about the behind the scenes from watching some Youtubers and lurking around in some forums but it wasn't until Super that I realized how little I know about the finer points of Dragon Ball. As I learned more about Dragon Ball, I began to realize that Dragon Ball was not an action series about heroes saving the universe from destruction but a gag series turned battle manga about a country bumpkin who just wants to fight strong guys and whose heroics are mostly accidents. My exposure to Dragon Ball started with Z and that is where most of enjoyment came from and while I did see some clips from the Japanese version of Dragon Ball, it wasn't until later in life that I realized that Dragon Ball wasn't the show that I remembered watching when I was a kid. I felt disillusioned but ultimately humbled by the fact that Dragon Ball was not what I thought it was.
In fairness, you do not have to try very hard to make a better villain than Anime!Jiren. He's a boring musclehead with about ten lines. His sole characterising moment which came out recently was him shitting on his team mate for no good reason.
edited 4th Feb '18 7:14:23 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Is that you, Mistare Fusion?

I remember liking it just because how different it was surprised me, especially the music. And it was nice to see how these people who had clearly known each other for years in Z actually met and formed relationships.
edited 4th Feb '18 5:53:28 PM by LSBK