Dragon Ball Z
Director
Minoru Okazaki
Production
Bird Studios, Fuji TV, Toei
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
291 episodes
Year
1989
Dragon Ball Z
By George
28th Apr 04 By now, most people should already know what Dragon Ball Z is or at least heard about it. You either like it or you don't. The show is based on the manga series "Dragon Ball" by Akira Toriyama. It's 42 novels long it covers the shows "Dragon Ball" and "Dragon Ball Z". Some fans may not know that the "Z" was added to spilt the series since by then the story focused more on fighting than on comedy. The story for the "Z" part is pretty simple. It's about a guy named Goku who is the world's strongest hero and he get's attacked by aliens and other creatures and they fight to save the world. Now, there are differences in the way each fight comes to be but the basic formula is the same. Goku is not a human though. He is a saiyan warrior. Saiyans are very stron and can become stronger after every fight. He has a group of friends and some are also fighters but I'll talk more about them later. This is not the best looking anime tv show out there. Partly because the series itself is quite old. It began in 1984 and ended in '95 in Japan. Just now are we (US) getting it. They re-use sceens from fights a lot which can be annoying. Things also happen VERY slowly in each episode. This is especially true in the later episodes. Fights can last months which is fine but now when half the time it's showing them staring at each other or showing what OTHER PEOPLE are doing at the same time! Because of this, only about 5-10 worth of NEW stuff happens in each episode. One of the reasons behind this is because of the manga. Each chapter is about 15 pages long. They have to add lots of stuff to it to make it last 30 min. Because of this, plot holes occur lot's of times. Another complaint is that the show begins to drag on after the "freeza saga". After Goku becomes a Super Saiyen, any character that isn't a saiyen is forgotten because he's so weak compared to them. Characters like Tien who had a big rivalry against Goku back in the early days of Dragon Ball is now hardly ever shown. Even Piccolo who was once feared by everyone on Earth is now just seen as an old fart. And that brings me to my last complaint. People who start with Dragon Ball Z and don't watch Dragon Ball miss out on a lot. Most people don't like the comedy of the early days and just want to skip straight into the fights. Dragon Ball has it's share of fights and all of them are as exciting if not better then Z's. I recommend buying the manga instead of watching the show. The manga is MUCH better paced then the show, and it's cheaper then buying the tapes. You can watch the show for free on tv but it's censored. 7/10
-- George 28th Apr 04
Dragon Ball Z Images  
|
