Posted about this elsewhere, but I read through DBZ for the first time. Got some thoughts, but first!
- Absolutely was one of those kids who watched DBZ from episode one to that episode where Goku shows up on Namek and then the Ocean dub seemed to stop altogether and the show would repeat.
- Went apeshit when they started airing it again on Toonami and was more desperate than ever to take in anything DBZ. Bought bootleg cards and figures from a dollar store in a mall in San Antonio. Bought one of those I/O serial adapters that let you play imports for my Playstation. Was late to school because I found out they were showing the Android saga on Telemundo like half an hour before school started.
- Watched the new episodes up to the Cell saga and fell off? I played the shit out of Budokai Tenkaichi 3, watched the original Dragon Ball like ten years ago and decided it was better, and that's kinda it.
So, Z!
- Saiyan Saga: Fantastic stuff. Much better with knowing the context of what happened in Dragon Ball prior than going into the series blind. Makes the whole "Piccolo kidnapping Gohan and slowly becoming a good guy" all the more effective. Plus, everyone stands a chance! Except Yamcha, I guess.
- Frieza Saga: Also great! Maybe so good they should have ended it here. 50 chapters ago you found out that Goku was an alien, and by the end of this one he's the strongest alien, so there! Done!
- Android/Cell Saga: I'll get two positives out of the way. One, I think the Androids are cool? 17 and 18 are fun, and 16 has a sort of dry humor that's nice. Two, and this is for the anime here, granted, but Norio Wakamoto always makes for a fun villain voice. Now with the gripes! One, this is the saga where, apart from Piccolo and maybe Tien, you start kinda phasing out the old core crew for all the goddamn Super Saiyan. Two, I realize now that Cell is a "cool and original villain" in the same way that MUGEN is the best fighting game. He's a mosquito with everyone's powers. It's...boring, actually. I was a big Gohan kid growing up so him going Super Saiyan 2 was a cool thing, and here you realize he's just kind of a dick that gets his dad killed. Welp! Anyway it's funny that this ends with "This is the end of Goku's story, the future is with the youth" because they immediately undo that attempted endpoint with...
- Buu Saga: ...the little image of Roshi saying "haha sike DBZ forever y'all, here's Gohan again" in the title of the next chapter. I never watched this saga, and have only experienced it and ita characters through the video games, so this one was...actually kinda fun? Like, it's a goddamn mess. The Super Saiyan thing gets pushed to the point of parody, along with fusions and everything else. But it also feels like kind of a joke in and of itself? There's some real old Dragon Ball energy in this saga that the Android and Cell sagas lacked. The stuff with Gohan and Videl is cute, Goten and Trunks are fun (so long as I can scrub their dub voices as I read it), Buu is great. There's this bizarre pairing of lighthearted humor positioned against the extinction of humanity and some really awful gore? A lot of "aw don't worry all our friends and humanity died, we'll just wish them back." It's so goddamn weird. And then it just sort of rushes to a conclusion with a deus ex machina.
Anyway! In conclusion!
- Original Dragon Ball is the best Dragon Ball, undefeated.
- The Saiyan and Frieza sagas are very good.
- Frieza is the best Dragon Ball Z villain.
- But Buu kinda rules.
- Viz y'all really censored the middle fingers but left all the exploding heads, huh?