Dragonball Z topic.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

My largest problem with Goku in DB is that he can clearly defeat anybody yet it takes him a bunch of running around like an idiot and another five episodes just to defeat the villain. But it does get better as it progresses in my opinion. King Piccolo arc held up pretty solid for me.

[Captain Jin]

You guys might appreciate this.



Check out the guy's channel for more stuff. I honestly find a lot of it very impressive.

[Inhuman One]

There do seem to be some problems yes with fights of which you already know Goku will win that it goes on too long. That purple ninja got really annoying. It had a few funny moments but not enough to drag it on for multible episodes.

[Killerbee]

Well that's anime for you. In the manga series it was a very amusing fight, just perfectly long enough.

On a related note, I just noticed on YT that Goku vs Frieza lasted 4 hours. Four. That's as long as the extended edition of Return of the King.

[Kamos]

It seems to be an old anime trend that the final climactic battles had to last at least two hours.

[Killerbee]

Ironically a battle is not that climactic if you can actually skip 10 episodes and simply catch up again near the end

[Inhuman One]

It did go on way too long. There where even flashbacks to earlier points in the fight.
The interesting part was before Goku showed up though. Piccolo, Vegeta, Gohan and even Krillin really pulled off some impressive moves against Frieza. It was really their fight. All stuff happening on Namek was their quest. Piccolo did show up later but seeing how its actually his people getting wiped out there and him seeing others of his own race for once. (Kami doesnt really count since they used to be one person.)

Vegeta could have killed Frieza in his first form, Piccolo and Krillin might have killed him in his second form, and Gohan nearly killed Frieza in his third form. I actually do think it might have been much more interesting if Goku was not on Namek at all and the fight was won without his help. Considering Krillin could have killed him with a destructo disc that doesnt seem too far fetched. Just need a solar flare or other distraction. Like Gohan throwing some big attack at him that Frieza would struggle to block. Then Krillin can move in for the kill.

[Derpy Hooves]

It seems to be an old anime trend that the final climactic battles had to last at least two hours.

​Not true. Most anime series are 12-26 episodes. Two hours for a final battle would mean devoting four episodes to that. Few series have over 30 episodes, and fewer over a hundred

[Condottiere 40K]

Filler; some anime do suffer from that.

[Inhuman One]

I'd say the filler actually helps DBZ quite a bit, allowing us to get to know the characters better. Also allows some more involvement of side characters like Yamcha, Tien and Chiao Tsu fighting the Ginyu force.

Some of it is a bit weird though.. and they didnt always make the most of it. Garlic Jr Saga... Though even that one had its moments. A shame they didnt use the chance to let Yamcha fight with the others, it would have been a good opportunity.

[Inhuman One]

doublepost

[Inhuman One]

Been watching dragonball still quite steadily, I am now at the point where Goku trains with Popo.


What intrigues me, is that Goku basicly gets stronger due to some sort of protagionist entitlement thing.. hes pure so he survives and becomes stronger of ultra divine water, gets stronger due to growing his tail back, is send to train with Kami, etc. Basicly hes extremely priviligded in his training compared to the other Z fighters, and the remainder is because of him being saiyan. And in Z he continues getting many advantages that no one else gets.
King Kai did teach some other Z fighters, but did not teach them any new techniques.

Speaking of special techniques, it seems Goku developed nothing on his own. He always learned his techniques from others. Kamehameha, instant transmission, spirit bomb, kao ken.. he did not develop any of it himself.
Whereas Krillin, Yamcha, Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo and I believe all Z fighters do create their own techniques.

Seems only the Piccolo Junior arch remains for me to watch of Dragonball, and I must say I still hoped the others would get more to do. Seeing that I already know this will end with Goku vs Piccolo, I just hope the others will have some good fights before the finals.

Its really a shame how they could have just called it the Goku show. So many chances to get the others do some good, but always it has to be Goku. The others could have fought and defeated red ribbon officers too. Should have at least have Tien defeat Drum. But nope, has to be Goku as well. Seems the other Z fighters actually get to do more in Z despite the huge power difference, while I always heard people say the Z fighters had more to do in Dragonball. I gues that much is true for Master Roshi and Jajirobe at least.

Tien managed to hold back Cell and Krillin showed great skill throughout Z against many opponents much stronger than him. He fought very well against Nappa considering the huge power difference. Heck, if Vegeta said nothing Krillin would have killed Nappa. He remained pretty crafty on Namek too, managed to cut off Frieza's tail and overall had some good moments through the adventure. Also held his own against imperfect Cell and even had the guts to take on Buu to try and let the others escape while he knew he'd die.

Now here's a question.. what if all Z fighters had the exact same powerlevel, who would be the best fighter of them? It would all be up to personality, techniques and fighting skills then. Personly, I think I'd then rank them like this:
1. Tien. (due to his dedication and great amount of different techniques.)
2. Piccolo. (Also, very dedicated and has many techniques, including regeneration.)
3. Krillin. (He's very crafty and quick to think on his feet, and from all self created techniques, his destructo disc seems the best one.)
4: Vegeta. (I'd give him the slight edge over Goku due to being a more tactical fighter, but his arrogance is his weakness still.)
5: Goku. (Yes, pretty low on the list. Well he does not make his own techniques, can be a bit naive which is often exploited, and simply is not as clever as others in battle.)
6: Gohan. (He does not really want to fight, but can be pretty intense when pushed too far.)
7: Yamcha. (At the bottom still, he never was as dedicated to training as the others, and it was not a lack of power that caused his death. He was very careless.)

Didn't list Trunks since I'd not know where to put him. Probably somewhere in the middle since he can be pretty focused, but also did silly things like powering up to the point of getting all bulky and not seeing it would hurt his speed. But I havent seen as much of him as of the others. And Goten and kid trunks we didnt get to see much of either. Most of their fighting happened while fused, and other than that we only really saw them fight each other.

[Captain Jin]

Piccolo is the best at everything always. I agree about Goku getting special treatment. He was never my favorite so it was always frustrating. In fact when the show became the Saiyan show it was hard times being a Piccolo fan. But yah, when Kai trained a bunch of them how come he didn't teach anyone the Kayoken attack or whatever? And how come only Goku could do a spirit bomb?

Also, I also miss the older voice actors from the earlier dub before it was finished. My favorite characters were Piccolo and then Vegeta. They also had great voices originally-- Scott McNeill as Piccolo and Brian Drummond as Vegeta. Then when the show was fully dubbed, then re-dubbed in its entirety we got Chris Sabat for both characters. To be honest I felt like he was a serious downgrade. Just listen to some of these clips. I'm not just waxing nostalgic here.

Drummond as Vegeta:

ALthough this has clips from further on so I wonder if Ocean dubbed the entire series but I never saw it because I only had access to the Cartoon Network stuff that was finished then taken over by Funimation.

McNeil as Piccolo:


And this was probably one of my favorite scenes back when they only had two or three movies dubbed.

[Spartan999]

IDK know about Kaio Ken but the Sprite bomb requires you to have a pure heart.

Or something along that line.

[Captain Jin]

Oh that makes sense. I probably forgot those little things.

I also prefer the old Goku voice too. The screams to me were just better in the ocean dub.

[Spartan999]

That's why they were so surprised when Buu reflected that back to

Goku

[The Despondent Mind]

The old Vegeta sounds like some conniving snake while the new one is more the "arrogant/proud warrior" which is more in line with his character. But the old Picolo is far superior, I love that voice actor his work in Hammer 40k games is beyond amazing.

Anyway even as a kid I gave up on Dragon Ball pretty much because of reasons named in Inhuman One's post.

[Captain Jin]

The old Vegeta sounds like some conniving snake while the new one is more the "arrogant/proud warrior" which is more in line with his character. But the old Picolo is far superior, I love that voice actor his work in Hammer 40k games is beyond amazing.

I agree with that at the start of the series, especially when Vegeta had different colored armor. But once it got to the Namek saga he sounded a lot better. Just fast forward on the clip I posted. It doesn't sound as snakish. Also his yelling was a lot better imo.

[Inhuman One]

Well Goku does have likeable things about him, he can be pretty funny. But personly I simply have something against any story where there's one clear hero who always saves the day and everyone else is basicly there to make the main character look better.

But personly, I sympathise a lot more with flawed characters who can be affraid, arrogant, mean, angry and otherwise showing negative traits as opposed to always optimistic and upbeat Goku with his pure heart.
Basicly the only time I did sympathise with Goku was when he was up against Raditz. Here he was a real person, completely outmatched and with his son's life at stake teaming up with his worst enemy. And he could not beat him, only Piccolo had an attack strong enough to pull it off.

When you think about it its weird that Goku didnt mind his brother getting killed and would even give his own life to accomplish that while he did show mercy to worse people. People who killed his friends and had no family relation to him.

[Kamos]

He didn't really have the luxury of trying to spare Radditz. Generally he tried offering amnesty after he had pretty much already won and had the option of sparing people. When it came to close calls, say Perfect Cell, he went for the kill shot asap.