Dragonball and Z discussion

[CyberCubed]

This thread is making me nostalgic. I used to be a huge DBZ fan when I was younger and I've seen the entire series a few times as well as all of Dragonball, GT and the movies.

But after say 2007 or so I just kinda fell out of it and never went back to it. I did watch the new movies they released like the one with Vegeta's brother, the 14th movie and I'm looking forward to the new one with Freeza again.

Its kinda strange how as kids/teens we can be so obsessed with a franchise and then completely fall out of it and never go back to it for years. I will revisit the series someday though.

[Slade]

Besides the fact that there's a PR fan film out, there's a new DBZ one out too. Anybody see it yet?

[shuriken]

^^ Yeah based on the history of Trunks. I like it better than the PR fan film honestly. That one felt kinda I dunno, outta place.

[Netkeeper]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Its kinda strange how as kids/teens we can be so obsessed with a franchise and then completely fall out of it and never go back to it for years. I will revisit the series someday though.

I know what you mean. I never fell out of love with Dragonball, but I dropped so many other franchises [TMNT was one of them, actually] only to come back to them eventually. I don't think there are very many I've ever actually abandoned, though.

[Bry]

My Valentine's Day gift from my wife was actually the 6th and 7th DBZ Blu-ray "seasons". I'd been pretty spotty with the dub airings at that point when I was younger, so it's been fun watching them full and uncut for the first time.

I just finished "S6"/the Cell Games arc, and I totally get why this was meant to be the big finale - lots of callbacks, lots of character growth explicitly called out (Krillin, Piccolo, Vegeta, etc), and the torch being firmly passed to Gohan... well, for now. Cell wasn't the most interesting villain, IMO, but considering he had cells of a ton of previous characters mixed in, it worked pretty well. It kind of represents the best and worst of DBZ in a way - it had some serious emotional significance, but a lot of its worst storytelling tics were on full display.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Bry

My Valentine's Day gift from my wife was actually the 6th and 7th DBZ Blu-ray "seasons". I'd been pretty spotty with the dub airings at that point when I was younger, so it's been fun watching them full and uncut for the first time.

I just finished "S6"/the Cell Games arc, and I totally get why this was meant to be the big finale - lots of callbacks, lots of character growth explicitly called out (Krillin, Piccolo, Vegeta, etc), and the torch being firmly passed to Gohan... well, for now. Cell wasn't the most interesting villain, IMO, but considering he had cells of a ton of previous characters mixed in, it worked pretty well. It kind of represents the best and worst of DBZ in a way - it had some serious emotional significance, but a lot of its worst storytelling tics were on full display.

Out of curiosity are you watching the dub or the Japanese version?

[shuriken]

Originally Posted by Bry

It kind of represents the best and worst of DBZ in a way - it had some serious emotional significance, but a lot of its worst storytelling tics were on full display.

SOOO in you your opinion what were the worst story telling tics that were on display?

[MrTMNT2012]

I loved Battle of Gods but Frieza's Resurrection seems like it's taking 5 steps backwards in everything it's trying to do.

The plot is unbelievably cliche (even by DBZ standards), the animation looks clunky and sluggish, pointless recurring characters and ANOTHER Goku-centred movie?! We just had one of the most well-developed arcs with Goku, can we PLEASE move on to Gohan or Vegeta?

Bringing the weakest villain back isn't exactly what I'd call 'exciting' or 'threatening'....

[Bry]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Out of curiosity are you watching the dub or the Japanese version?

Alternating between the two. Sometimes I'm multi-tasking (drawing, cooking, tidying up) so I'll put on the dub when I can't read along the whole time.

The dub's definitely clunkier between the two, but having the original music back helps a lot.

Originally Posted by shuriken

SOOO in you your opinion what were the worst story telling tics that were on display?

Mostly pacing issues. Drawn out battles (with the usual extended power-up/stare-down scenes), those somewhat regular "minutes of reactions from everyone watching" sequences, numerous (and long) flashbacks to things that just happened, and the trusty "we beat the villain, no wait he's back, hey we beat him for real this time" trick.

In hindsight, the Frieza saga was probably worse for this. And the manga (and Kai) don't have this problem to the same degree. I mean, I still really like the series and I'm collecting the full releases for a reason! But I think it's okay to acknowledge that the things I enjoy can have flaws.

[Netkeeper]

Bringing Freeza back is being done because he's probably the most popular villain in the series. And for good reason, too -- the stakes were at an absolute high when facing him [Cell didn't have this, and while Buu did have this, we were already pretty desensitized as viewers at that point] and he was really the first huge threat like it that they'd ever faced.

That said, I feel as a character and as a villain, Freeza was at his best in the Bardock special. I wish we could have gotten more side stories about him when he was this insurmountable threat. I loved that.

[CyberCubed]

The other thing is Freeza was killed by Future Trunks in an anti-climatic way just to show people how powerful Trunks was and to let everyone know the Androids were even stronger.

I always felt Freeza's final death should have come from either Goku or Vegeta, or even Gohan. Freeza was the "ultimate villain" tied into Goku's backstory so seeing him get a "real final battle" as opposed to Future Trunks killing him would be nice.

Keep in mind Freeza was also knocked out by Pikkon in the first Boo saga episode while in Hell, and in GT we see him again in Hell with Cell.

[Mew]

Hehe lol!

[Netkeeper]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The other thing is Freeza was killed by Future Trunks in an anti-climatic way just to show people how powerful Trunks was and to let everyone know the Androids were even stronger.

I always felt Freeza's final death should have come from either Goku or Vegeta, or even Gohan. Freeza was the "ultimate villain" tied into Goku's backstory so seeing him get a "real final battle" as opposed to Future Trunks killing him would be nice.

Keep in mind Freeza was also knocked out by Pikkon in the first Boo saga episode while in Hell, and in GT we see him again in Hell with Cell.

I don't really mind Trunks being the one to kill Freeza, but it WAS bad storytelling in any case. I wouldn't have been as keen on Gohan being the one to do it, since Freeza was not nearly as significant to him unlike Goku or Vegeta. Vegeta especially.

But I thought it was really cool that Freeza met his end by the hands of the grandson of the Saiyan king, so that does redeem the bad taste the anti-climacticness of the fight left in my mouth somewhat.

[sdp]

Yes, Freeza is the ultimate villain but storywise he was made irrelevant as much of the DB cast has after his arc. The problem with DB is that each new enemy was always "X times" more powerful than the last. Another problem is Akira Toriyama just couldn't get rid of the cast and by the start of DBZ we already had this huge ****ing cast of DB characters who really had no purpose anymore. I can't even understand how the likes of Yamcha, Tien and others have gotten fans if a person started watching the show with DBZ, by that time all those characters were pretty much useless and any impact they had in DBZ was when they were killed in the saiyan saga which if you hadn't watched DB you wouldn't even have felt that bad about it since you didn't see them be rivals and then become friends of Goku. That's what made Nappa and Vegeta such a threat, not sure how anyone could have started with DBZ and felt them as big of a threat as they were without watching more than 150 episodes before where you saw their relationship with Goku.

I just think Toriyama couldn't let go of the characters, I mean I liked them and was happy they came back but when you saw this huge cast of characters that did absolutely nothing later on would make me mad. I mean how many characters were once rivals(or enemies) of Goku only to become his friend later on? Krilling, Yamcha, Ox King, Tien, Chaotzu, Piccolo, Android 18, Vegeta hell even Buu and all of these just from the top of my head I'm sure I'm missing a few. It was clear Freeza nor his father could handle a Super Saiyan and now that they've gone many times beyond that its ridiculous to think they can become a threat. It was understandable they couldn't make Yamcha Saiyan level later on but even Piccolo struggled to keep up in all of the later Z sagas.

Don't get me wrong it was awesome to have this next "huge and bigger" threat with each enemy but if you over do it it just diminishes everything else. It could've been handled better like other franchises say Power Rangers, Lord Zedd from the original seasons is still as much of a threat to Power Rangers as the new evil guy in the new season, no one is "many times more powerful than before". In fact Power Rangers is a great example because at first they did market things as being "more powerful" it wasn't until MMPR finished that they realized each season couldn't be "More powerful" than the last since it'd be ridiculous and it worked out for the best.

[CyberCubed]

The Androids weren't necessarily stronger than Freeza, only Cell was. Dr. Gero and Android 19 were below Freeza's level its just that Goku got attacked by the heart virus. 17, 18 and 16 were the only ones more powerful than a standard Super Saiyan/Freeza.

Likewise Majin Boo was sealed away for years which is why nobody knew about him. Dabura was also confirmed to be as powerful as Cell was, but since he was from the Demon World nobody in space would know about him.

The movie villains are out-of-continuity so they don't really matter.

[Netkeeper]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The Androids weren't necessarily stronger than Freeza, only Cell was. Dr. Gero and Android 19 were below Freeza's level its just that Goku got attacked by the heart virus. 17, 18 and 16 were the only ones more powerful than a standard Super Saiyan/Freeza.

But 17 and 18 were the androids that Trunks came to warn Goku and friends about, so those are the ones that are obviously being referred to.

[shuriken]

You know what kinda irked me? If Cell was made from all of the strongest fighter IE Krillin, Goku, Tien, Vegeta, Piccolo and Freeza. How was Gero able to get Freeza's DNA if the tracking bug was destroyed by the Saiyan battle? Did he find the dust left by Trunks or how the hell did that happen?

[DarkFell]

Maybe Gero made another tracking bug; perhaps two were sent out and only one made it back to the lab and that bug would eventually be destroyed by Piccolo some years later.

Or because it is a never-to-be-explained plothole because it remained as a never-was-explained plothole.

I never gave it much thought honestly.

Spoiler:

]

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by shuriken

You know what kinda irked me? If Cell was made from all of the strongest fighter IE Krillin, Goku, Tien, Vegeta, Piccolo and Freeza. How was Gero able to get Freeza's DNA if the tracking bug was destroyed by the Saiyan battle? Did he find the dust left by Trunks or how the hell did that happen?

They explained that. Gero got Freeza's DNA when he and King Cold came to Earth.

[THGhost]

Frieza's God form has been leaked!

Spoiler:

Not sure what I think about it yet. I was expecting something... different? It looks exactly the same as his 4th form, just with different colours.