Dragon Ball Z is a product of Akira Toriyama’s creative mind. It’s original run was from April 26, 1989 up to January 31, 1996.

Dragon Ball Z is the Anime series that got me into Anime. Although a lot of modern Anime fans would criticize some of its elements such as exaggerated fighting scenes, etc., there’s no doubt that Dragon Ball Z is the king of its era. Although it was originally aired long time ago, this series still has a lot of die hard fans around the world (and that includes me).

Dragon Ball Z is the follow-up for the manga and anime entitled Dragon Ball. Like most of action anime series, Dragon Ball Z is a mix of comedy, action, and drama. It’s a long-running TV series that has a total of 291 episodes. These episodes were group together in different ways depending on what version you are watching. Toei Animation groups it into 4 parts (or sagas):

1. Saiyan Saga (1-35)
2. Freeza Saga (36-125)
3. Cell Saga (126-194)
4. Majin Buu Saga (195-291)

Funimation subdivided each of these saga’s so they came up with 16 sagas.

The main character in the whole series is Goku, although not every episode is centered to him unlike most anime series. In the first Dragon Ball series, Goku is a Saiyan who was born in a planet called Vegeta and before the destruction of the planet, he was sent to Earth. Goku possessed extraordinary strength and capabilities compared to humans. His final enemy in the Dragon Ball series was the Namekian (came from planet Namek) named Piccolo. But at the start of the Dragon Ball Z series, Piccolo and Goku made an alliance to defeat the other Saiyans who came to Earth with not-so-very good intentions. Goku and Piccolo also teamed up with other interesting characters like Kulilin, Tienshinhan, Yamcha, and Goku’s son, Gohan. Eventually the once-enemy saiyan Vegeta also teamed up with them to fight the tyrant named Freeza who was responsible for the destruction of planet Vegeta. Then their adventures continued fighting the Androids, Cell, and Majin Buu. It’s really a long series and I can acually write a review for each Funimation saga but right now let me just concentrate on the whole picture.
I’ve seen this series in three different languages, Japanese, Filipino, and English. But I bet this anime was also translated in different languages as it reached other parts of the globe. About the music, the opening theme song for the first season, “Cha la Head Cha la” is my favorite. It has a very exciting tune that fits perfectly with the series. The following theme songs for the rest of the series are mediocre and I don’t even remember them.

Dragon Ball Z gets the top spot of my all-time favorite Anime series. It’s just that nothing beats the excitement this series can give. Hat’s off to Akira Toriyama. But like I said in the introduction of this review, modern anime fans would disagree with me because they would argue that the fighting scenes are pointless because they are too fast that you couldn’t even see them. Good point but it’s not just about the fighting scenes but how each characters are built up and put together to fight.

I would recommend this series to anime fans who like action with cool characters. But I think nowadays, it wouldn’t give as much interest as modern Anime like Naruto and Bleach because the graphics and animation of these new series are far superior and the stories tend to be deeper. I think kids would still enjoy this series very much.

Resources and Credits

• Official Dragon Ball Z Website (Funimation) - http://dragonballz.com/
• Dragon Ball Z on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z
• Screenshots, thanks to http://www.myfavoritegames.com

Tags: No Tags

Category: Series Reviews

We are a strong team!