Dragon Ball Z played a huge part in making anime as popular as it is today, and it has improved with time. Thanks to Dragon Ball Super helping revitalize the franchise, new generations of audiences are going back and discovering why Dragon Ball Z is considered the greatest by many around the world.
Since the Dragon Ball Z anime’s premiere, audiences’ interest in the medium has skyrocketed, attracting even more people to discover why Dragon Ball has been a household name even before anime’s wider acceptance in society. It doesn’t take long into a first watch-through to discover why Dragon Ball Z holds up so well.
8
Action Choreography That Set A Bar Too High
The cast of each Dragon Ball series is famous for shooting lasers and world-breaking energy balls at one another. While DBZ does have that, the work that the anime’s production team put into action choreography helped change anime forever.
Later adaptations of Goku’s adventures seem to have forgotten the series’ central focus on martial arts in favor of flashy attacks and foolish powerscaling. But Dragon Ball Z‘s brilliant framing, martial arts action, and brutal sound design made each battle feel like a world-ending clash of titans.
Many of Dragon Ball Z‘s best fights include a mix of hand-to-hand combat that sees its characters move to avoid attacks and counter with animation sequences that don’t repeat the same actions repeatedly. Battles like Goku versus Vegeta in the Saiyan Saga are a masterclass in storytelling and tension-building that can be conveyed with very little dialogue, a tactic that many anime have tried to replicate.
7
Character Dynamics That Continue To Inspire
Goku’s character inspires countless people around the world across many different cultures, and his charm even infected many of Dragon Ball‘s greatest villains. After fighting the Earth-grown Saiyan, many had a change of heart and even joined The Z Warriors. Many of those character dynamics have turned into rivalries that played a huge role in inspiring stories like Naruto and One Piece.
Goku and Vegeta’s bond is one of the most famous pairings in anime. The dedicated hard worker versus the natural genius is a dynamic that’s been seen in countless storylines, but few pull it off as expertly as Dragon Ball Z. Since DBZ, almost every action anime includes at least one pair of characters who consistently bicker but challenge each other to improve.
6
Arcs That Connect And Build
Lots of anime and manga series consistently adapt to audience reactions and even see dramatic changes that can alter the story in ways mangaka never intended. Thankfully, a large chunk of Dragon Ball Z‘s story structure was focused on telling the specific epic tale of how an outcast Saiyan rose to become the legendary warrior who’d avenge his people against a galactic tyrant.
Dragon Ball Z starts with a narrative bang by revealing that Goku was not from Earth, but actually from a nearly extinct alien race of warriors. The first arcs dive into what makes him different from the usual members of the Saiyan race while teasing the fate of his people and who accidentally set the wheels in motion for the entire DBZ plotline.
The Saiyan Saga perfectly leads into the Namek saga which then culminates in the Frieza arc that effectively wraps the plotlines of Dragon Ball Z‘s first few sagas with an explosive bow. While later arcs arguably feel more disjointed and less focused, DBZ starts with high stakes and then teaches those stakes how to fly.
5
Voice Acting That Goes Beyond
The endless debate between Dubbed and Subbed anime was once a contest that was difficult to argue for one particular side. That began to change in the late 90s and early 2000s when series like Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragon Ball Z proved the difference a good English dub team can make.
Poor lip-syncing, similar-sounding characters, and soft performances turned a lot of potential viewers away from anime. It was when the dubbing was done by teams who cared about the source material and the characters they were helping bring to life that English dubs began to attract viewers instead of scaring them away.
Dragon Ball voice actors like Chris Sabat and Sean Schemmel have become iconic with their performances of Goku, Vegeta, and Piccolo. Performances that inspired many of today’s greatest voice talents to get into the industry. Much like any great anime rivalry, the DBZ dub also helped push other production studios to level up their abilities. Today, there are far more good dubs than bad.
4
New Forms That Transformed The Industry
Super Saiyan is a vibrant transformation that DBZ carefully built up narratively, resulting in arguably one of anime’s most satisfying moments. Goku going Super Saiyan against Frieza for the first time is a moment that many fans will never forget. But it, and its many alterations, would go on to succeed wildly in ways that other series often struggle with: progression and merchandising.
Each new Super Saiyan form introduced was a thrill for those in charge of releasing DBZ action figures, but it was also a great help to the series’ visual storytelling. Fans know where in the story they are watching if Super Saiyan 3 Goku shows up. Each form represents what stage a character’s journey has reached and becomes synonymous with the story arcs and even particularly hype moments.
3
Timeless Moments Of Hype
Without question, there are more than a few Dragon Ball Z moments that would have broken the internet. The stellar combination of Akira Toriyama’s writing and the anime production studio’s talent created several moments that can get fans’ blood pumping and eyes teary by simply thinking about them for too long.
Moments like Goku’s first large-scale beam struggle against the furious Vegeta cut to the emotional core of what Dragon Ball is all about. It and many other iconic DBZ scenes would become clips that would sway countless fans to lock in to see what happens next.
Moments like Goku’s Kaio-Ken boosts, a new form’s display of power against a scary foe, or an unseen combination of famous attacks, the series has many moments that fans will be debating on which is best for decades.
2
World Famous Attacks
There is a good chance that if a person were to put their palms together and start to slowly say “Kamehameha” in a populated area, anywhere in the world, there would be another person who would know what is being referenced and might even join in. That is a level of recognition that few franchises ever reach.
Besides being flashy or tied to particular epic victories, Dragon Ball Z‘s iconic techniques are so memorable because of what they represent in the story and the emotional weight they can carry. Like how the Spirit Bomb requires help from others to accomplish great things.
Anytime Goku pulls out the Kaio-ken, dedicated fans would tense up because when the power-up’s multiplier ended, Goku’s body would be exhausted and often leave him helpless. Like many of Dragon Ball‘s most famous attacks, it helped raise the stakes and contributed to the story in a meaningful way that resonated with the franchise’s millions of fans.
1
A Fandom That Defines Super
Lots of older fans reminisce about the days of going to school and excitedly talking about what happened in the Dragon Ball Z episode that aired the night before. Finding out that millions of kids around the world participated in this ritual led to one of the world’s largest fandoms, giving people of radically different upbringings something to bond over.
Those fans eventually grew up and shared their love of DBZ with others, but it would be years until Dragon Ball Super gave those fans new content to enjoy.
Dragon Ball Super’s final exciting episodes brought thousands of those fans onto city streets during events that saw the episodes broadcast onto giant screens. Footage of those people cheering on Goku together is a reminder of what great storytelling can do.
- Created by
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Akira Toriyama
- Latest TV Show
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Super Dragon Ball Heroes
- First Episode Air Date
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April 26, 1989
- Release Date
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1989 – 1996
- Network
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Fuji TV
- Directors
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Daisuke Nishio, Shigeyasu Yamauchi, Osamu Kasai
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Masako Nozawa
Son Goku / Son Gohan / Son Goten (voice)
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Ryo Horikawa
Vegeta (voice)
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
