Dragonball Z (TV)

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Name:Dragonball Z (TV)
Contains:
checked Comedyun-checked Mechsun-checked Drama
checked Violenceun-checked Shoujo 
un-checked Hentaiun-checked Explicit Sexchecked Brief Nudity
Running Length:? mins.
Description:

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Dragonball Z (TV)
Dragonball Z review

(Remember, if this review is helpful or well-written, please give me a good rating (down below)! Thanks for your support! *^__^)

Animation:
This varies from season to season, but what it basically comes down to is that the animation gets better as it goes on, and eventually ends up at near-perfect quality. However, in the beginning of the series, it's almost painful to watch...

Plot:
First big arc: Surviving members of a planet of warriors come to Earth. Goku fights them in a showdown of power against power.
Second big arc: The being who destroyed that planet comes to Namek. Goku fights him in a showdown of power against power.
Third big arc: Androids are built by a madman who Goku didn't kill in the past. Gohan fights them in a showdown of power against science, since power/power is getting old... Not that you could tell the difference, since the androids fight using power and not lasers or anything you'd normally associate with science-based weapons.
Fourth big arc: A sorcerer unseals a being created by his father and who was sealed away by the rulers of the universe. Goku fights that being in a showdown of power against magic.
There. I've just managed to explain the storyline of over 250 episodes in about 100 words.
Seriously, though, the character development actually isn't too bad. Vegeta, in particular, was interesting to see turn around from the beginning of the series to the end, as was Gohan. I liked seeing the little changes made to their personalities over the course of the series.
The only problem I have with DBZ's character development is that it takes too long, as do the majority of the fights in the show.

Humor:
This one's really hard for me to grade. When DBZ gets some humor going, it has some of the best around. The Great Saiyaman episodes were some of the funniest episodes I've ever seen in any anime... But they only lasted for about six episodes. Which would have been okay if they hadn't had about 70 serious episodes preceding them.
I like the show's humor, but it's too spaced out between serious moments (for example, the episode with Piccolo and Goku learning to drive was in between arguably the two most serious story arcs of the series).

Soundtrack:
This differs depending on whether you're listening to the Japanese or English BGMs. Personally, I enjoy both. I do prefer the creator's original material being used, but I have to admit there are times when I prefer the English soundtrack. For example, when they're giving the previews for the next episode, the Japanese music sounds somewhat like it's a romp in the park, when the majority of the series is about fighting.

Overall:
Definitely one of the harder ones for me to grade.
I felt that the storylines were better at the beginning of the show while the art was terrible, whereas at the end of the show, the art was great and the characters had actually become interesting, but the storylines were too repetitive when you got up somewhere around the 150-episode mark.
Still, the strange thing about DBZ is, on any given day, I can watch it, whether it's on Toonami or the International Channel. It's simple enough that you don't really have to know what's going on to get drawn in, and somehow it manages to be entertaining enough to keep you watching it.
Still, I hate having to watch every single character, one at a time, show up on screen in shock every single the bad guy of the season shows a new technique. If they would just have the decency to be like most series and do a split-screen thing, this show would probably be 2 hours shorter. And if they cut out the amount of time spent between two opponents staring down, it'd probably be 6-10 hours shorter. (About 290 episodes at 20 minutes each equals 5800 minutes, or disturbingly close to 100 hours.)
And what really gets me is that the minor characters were barely able to do anything in the show from the beginning to the end. Piccolo, Krillin, and Tien couldn't do a thing against Vegeta, Piccolo could barely do anything to Freezer and Krillin was killed by him pretty fast, Yamcha and Krillin and Tien didn't stand a chance against 17 and 18 and Piccolo was having a hard enough time fighting just 17 even after he'd fused with Kami, Yamcha and Krillin and Piccolo and Tien combined were nothing to Cell, and nobody who wasn't a saiyajin could even scratch Buu. That'd all be okay except that they keep those minor characters around for literally hundreds of episodes and for the most part, they're completely worthless and you have to just sit and watch them getting beaten around over and over and over.
But anyway, if you don't mind the fact that the minor characters are generally pretty worthless to the plot, and if you like fighting, go ahead and watch. It's no Rurouni Kenshin in terms of quality, but there's something compelling about it that just makes you want to watch.
I sort of recommend this series - After all, I think we should all give in, stop being critics, and just let ourselves enjoy a show once in a while.

(Still, I will say that, although there are a disturbing amount of people who will tell you, usually in all caps, this is the best anime ever made, it's not.)

A list of my other 29 anime reviews:
Right here
All of the series I've reviewed are listed at the bottom of the Saint Tail review.

Overall Rating: 7
Animation:8 Plot:4 Humor:6 Sound Track:7
Weight: 40 (Reputable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=93249

Dragonball Z (TV)
One cool show with alot of long good fights.The characters are good but the minor characters are the best I think.

Overall Rating: 10
Animation:10 Plot:10 Humor:10 Sound Track:10
Weight: 10 (Trustworthy Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=97183

Dragonball Z (TV)
i do like this anime. IT was one of the first animes i ever watched...
regards of toonami. (STOP MAKING FACES!!! ^^)
and i do live vegeta. im in the middle of watching dragon ball and so far i think i like dbz better.
i would recomend it..
~dracochic

Overall Rating: 8
Animation:8 Plot:10 Humor:8 Sound Track:0
Weight: 10 (Trustworthy Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=92722

Dragonball Z (TV)
The plot may seem slightly repetitive, fight after fight after fight, but each saga is so different when you actually look at it. It has all the punch/kick/punch/blasting a brainless four year old boy could wish for, and all the romance, twisted relationships, and humor a fifteen yr old grl like me could want. As plotless as it may seem to the untrained eye, it will always be my favorite anime.
I'm not a freak, I just act like it sometimes^^

Overall Rating: 10
Animation:10 Plot:8 Humor:10 Sound Track:8
Weight: 10 (Trustworthy Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=69871

Dragonball Z (TV)
While a lot of people like this anime--and they have a right to--I can't really see what is so great about it.

The plot is repetative and everything takes 2 weeks to do if you watch an episode (sometimes 2) every day.

"Goku will be here in an hour!" One and a half weeks later, he'll just be setting his foot down on the planet.

It's a very slow moving plot. If all you want to see is fight, after fight, after fight, then this is the anime for you. The battle scenes are interesting to watch, if that's what you like.

And for the plot, the reason I gave it such a low rating is because that's I'm supposed to do. Give my opinion on the anime and this is my opinion. The only storyline I can see is:

Someone's going to take over/destroy (insert planet) and Goku (with his band of merry men) has to stop him/her/it/them. Each enemy is more powerful than before and therefor Goku (and his son, Vegeta, Vegeta's son) must get stonger so they defeat him/her/it/them.

Maybe there's somthing I'm missing, but I really don't believe this anime deserves an overall score more than a 4. It's can be quite funny though, so I gave it a 5. And if that sounds caullous, I'm sorry. But this is my opinion.

Overall Rating: 5
Plot:4
Weight: 10 (Trustworthy Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=65348

Dragonball Z (TV)
..Ok...so it's kinda unfair, voting all tens when sometimes it shouldn't apply...but what can I say? I LIKE DBZ!

Overall Rating: 10
Animation:10 Plot:10 Humor:10 Sound Track:10
Weight: 10 (Trustworthy Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=56282

Dragonball Z (TV)
Ok, I'll be honest, Dragon Ball Z is no way "deep", in plot. And the battles do tend to drag on. But the magic of DBZ, in my opinion, is that it is very exciting and simple enough to get into without being confused.
The character development ranges from non-existant to incredibly realistic.
For example, minor chracters such as Oolong the pig or Muten-Roshi, are just stand-bys while the show takes place, and we don't need them developed.
Main players in DBZ are well-thought out personality-wise. My favorite character, Vegeta, may seem like just a 2-Dimensional villian at the show's beginning. But as the series progresses, we learn that Vegeta is froced into his evil lifestlye due to his being held captive by Freeza, and also due to Freeza killing his father, he secretly plans to destroy him one day. This explains his hunt for the dragonballs. And near the latter half od DBZ, he actually begins to enjoy his normal life on Earth, and even has a son with his wife, Bulma.
Now, this leads to some humorous moments, since Vegeta being feared as the most powerful warrior in the galaxy, he not only is powerless around his wife, Bulma, but he even borne children with her.
Another character that is developed pretty well is Piccolo. Piccolo being the evil part of Kami's being, would try to rule the Earth many times. But when he trained Goku's son Gohan in the wild, he developed the emotions of love and friendship, something unknown to his being. By the middle of DBZ, he is not only an ally, but one of the Goku and Gohan's closest friends.
Since the series is almost 300 episodes, we get to see the personal sides to alot of the other characters.

And then there are the others. Well, also animation-wise, the quality ranges from really good to average. Despite it airing out in 1990, it still holds up well today. But the animators bring Toriyama's unique art style to the TV rather well.

The English version is what most US DBZ fans are exposed to, and while it is edited, it's no where near as edited back around eps 1-53. And the music is replaced with some wanna-be techno instead of the original orchestal music. But there is some decent music in there.

The US voices are pretty well-done too, extremely underrated. The dialogue takes a drastic change from the japanese script, sacrificing it for more corny jokes and phrases. This probably overshadows the good English acting.

So, in conclusion, DBZ is definately not up there with the philosophy of Lain, and the complexity of Akira, but it is still a nice action/comedy that has good reason for being popular. it's just not for everybody.

Overall Rating: 8
Animation:7 Plot:7 Humor:7 Sound Track:8
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=73965

Dragonball Z (TV)
Well its good that you want to critize a show. But saying stuff
like "whoever watches this is a complete idiot", does not constitute
a critique of the SHOW. It's dissing PEOPLE. And you expect them not
to fight back, you so educated "reviewers"?

I have to say that I love almost ALL anime. Put up against something
like "Kite", in which a 10 year old girl is raped and trained to become
a professional assassin; or "serial experiments lain" where the entire
meaning of life, death, and body are contemplated in 4 tapes, Dragon
Ball is not deep at all! But maybe thats what people like about it.

There are some touching moments in the series that are more simple to
understand, as well as some complexities or assumptions that fans may
make to complicate the series to their leisure ^_^ perhaps the possibility
of what COULD BE makes it more fun for MYSELF. I don't know about what
other people think when they see DB, but I love it. And then again, I
love Gundam, Kite (actually my favorite), lain, Eva, Devil Hunter, nearly
everything I watch. And I understand it too, contrary to the ever-popular
opinion; "anyone who watches DBZ is a dumb ass no brainer".

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have the right to express your opinion,
but try and keep it to a minimum, please? Excessive negative opinion is not
opinion at all; its just plain bitching. If anyone would like to get in touch
with me, and carry along this debate, email here; Chichi3147@hotmail.com

Thank you.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=16270

Dragonball Z (TV)
OK, can I talk about pacing a sec? I watched an episode, Goku was Fighting Frieza. I left town, I went to college, I busted my ass to the books. I got myself some credits over a course of a few weeks...Some beer too. I had good times, I had bad times, in the end it was a long time. I came back...Goku was still fighting Frieza. Hm... You know, for an action series things sure do move slow around here. I wish this series would move along with more ease.

F-"I'm about to boost up to 15% more power."
G-"You're bluffing, I smell your maxout like 3 day old fish."
F-"Not true, I've got 30% power yet unused where that came from."
G-"Well, now I've got a surprise for you, I'm going to boost my power by 11%"
F-"Big woop, I still got you beat."
G-"Yeah, except I've been holding back, and I've only been using 65% of my power."
F-"You still can't beat me."
G-"Did you miss math class or something? look, you claimed you had 30% energy left, and that means you've thus far maxed out at 70%. You then add to that the 5% you promised to kick my ass with and you're at 75%. I on the other hand have tied it up with you at my 65% maxout, meaning that when I add my 11% I'm going to be at a full 76%. Therefore, numerically, Your ass is grass.
F-"You're assuming that the 30% I told you about was deduced before I had deducted the 15% I promised to add. In truth I could have as much as 45% energy to maxout, so wussssaaaap!?"
G-WE'LL SEE WHO'S BLUFFING YOU WHOPPIE GOLDBERG SOUND-ALIKE!
F-BRING IT ON, YOU REJECT FROM FIST OF THE NORTH STAR!
*rumble*
G&F-Huh?
*Nemek explodes*
The end

Overall Rating: 5
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=16240

Dragonball Z (TV)
This has got to be one of the few greatest series out there to date. Not only do you have action, comedy, some romance, drama, suspense,...face it this series has everything including hot men. Sometimes the battles can be a bit drawn out and over six episodes can account for 5 minutes. Even so the character development is phenomenal. DBZ has some of the most emotionally complex characters in the history of most fictionary works to date. Not only that, but the art is very different and unique from any other anime out there and thats what I appreciate the most.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=16171

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