This Week in Anime

A Trip Down Memory Lane with Dragon Ball Z

Nicky
Well, your wishes will be granted because today, we're tackling one of the biggest powerhouse franchises known to anime-kind! We tend to focus heavily on seasonal series here at This Week in Anime, but we do love to take a minute and reflect on anime from years past when we have the moment. With the spring season gone and summer yet to arrive, many anime viewers may choose to spend time with series that are more evergreen, so to speak, whether it's crossing something off their insurmountable backlogs or revisiting old favorites. This is part of what keeps anime from fading, and there are fewer series that are bigger and greener than good old Dragon Ball Z.

"Films" is also a bit different from what most people might expect, as most of these are more akin to specials. Toei would produce several different short specials and then release them in theaters as limited double-features, resulting in approximately one to two Dragon Ball specials a year (a trend they continued with Z, of course). They're not super fancy, and their runtimes barely ever extend over an hour. Some of them are retellings of arcs from the show, while most of them serve as early examples of Jump movies as filler.

Though, that might not be as sacrilegious as it sounds when you also have to consider that most of DBZ's audience might not necessarily be there for the plot so much as an excuse to watch the characters do things. So, some might get a kick out of situations like Piccolo being mind-controlled and Goku struggling against him to protect Gohan, a little banter between characters, or really just watching Goku come in and pulverize the crap out of some guy, as he ought to do.

It's also not like Toei has ever had a good track record for adaptation and pacing. The series was already plagued with padding and budget issues, something I'm sure modern One Piece fans could sympathize with.

The World's Strongest and The Tree of Might also predate the concept of Super Saiyan, so I found that the nature of the skirmishes had a little more resemblance to their live-action kung-fu style roots, as they didn't have the shortcut of that additional power creep. However, the whole premise of The World's Strongest is just that Goku is inherently OP. At least popping a fish-like mook like a balloon feels creative! It makes a sad deflate noise and everything.

I should also mention that this is the first time I've really revisited Z since I was a kid, so there's a chance I might misremember some things. Also, I've mostly watched the series on TV (not counting Super), so this is my first time watching these movies.

Gohan also plays a much bigger role (because this was before they gave up on pushing him as a protagonist character), and you can see where they're kind of experimenting with tropes that come around again later, like Turles being an evil version of Goku before seeing that done again with Goku Black in Super.

Oh yeah, that's also a thing that comes up with Dragon Ball as it ages, and the characters fall into their more domestic patterns of being a super-sitcom. Though, I will say I thought The World's Strongest was fun too but mostly also because it's another example of Piccolo being a better father figure to Gohan than his actual father (much to the agony of Chichi). #1 Green Dad, right there. The Daydream sequence at the beginning was a cute touch, to mention something that isn't a fight.

The second one also introduces a cute dragon (Haiya Dragon or Icarus in the dub, I'm told) that is essentially Gohan's stray puppy, including the part where Mom says, "No, you can't keep it, but Dad says it's okay as long as it stays away from the canon."

Gonna call up my boy Shenron next time a car breaks down or something; he's clearly just a very good handyman despite having very few hands. In hindsight, they probably should've thought about that when the bad guys blew up Yamcha's car.

Speaking of hindsight, do you ever think about how many bullets Bulma dodged Matrix-style when you start comparing Vegeta to heckin' Yamcha?!

And then to completely non-sequitur onto the topic of another thing that blows and involves money, as much as I had fun with these movies, I will note that their transfer quality and audio kinda suck. Current anime fans might feel dissatisfied with the quality. If you couldn't tell from our screencaps, the versions on CR aren't very polished; they're hella grainy and in need of an update. There are notable holes in the film, and the dialogue is occasionally blown out. Some may be curious why these couldn't be touched up before being brought to a modern platform compared to their 2006 DVD release.

I concur that it was a nice change to hear the Japanese cast, especially Masako Nozawa mixing up her performance for Tullece, or Turles as he was named in some versions, but missing the Dub is a significant omission if you're relying on nostalgia. DBZ has had a complicated localization history, including dubs, but the current English dub cast has rightfully earned their place in my heart alongside those characters. Not to mention, it's poor for accessibility. In fact, DBZ is one of the few series where you could be totally fine as a pure Dub-only fan, as many people are. The other audio tracks are also missing, which means you can't even listen to the original Spanish dub as God intended!

Oh yeah, I mostly bring it up because I want to inform you that the licensors aren't the only ones responsible for maintaining the quality of older anime. Having a vague knowledge about the anime restoration process, I know that the version of anime we get can really only depend on the materials we're given from JP licensors. Some licensors, like the folks at Discotek, try really hard to get the best quality no matter what, but it's a painstaking effort to try and remove that many errors. I'm not really sure if this version of DBZ can be "fixed" without Toei doing the legwork to actually get the old broadcast tape or another version that can be used. Other large properties under Toei's jurisdiction, like Sailor Moon and One Piece, have had to deal with similar issues of non-cooperation from the home end of things. It's frustrating enough that some people may recognize Toei for having a reputation of being a cheap studio only capable of producing poor-quality animation, some of which is a result of the poor transfer.

However, it's still disappointing since while Toei is cheap, they are a historically important studio, having made its name with the 1958 Panda and the Magic Serpent (currently The White Snake Enchantress), and history is kinda a large part of its biz at this point. Since they're historic, they've also kept some of the best talent. For every sloppy shortcut these movies make, there's some occasional brilliance. Especially during the fights, DBZ's iconic fast timing limits the number of frames but leaves room for the overall impact.

Yeah, those hand-painted backgrounds are definitely part of what gives this cell-shaded era of anime that "theatrical" feel. They really contribute to the sense of overall scale. It's better than an empty wasteland, I say. Some of the hand-drawn special effects are also nice, occasionally. There's a color cohesion I don't see as much once everything became digital.

Hmm, as I sit down and spend an afternoon, World's Strongest and Tree of Might were pretty nice to revisit (although, they lack a few important elements like Vegeta), but they're also banking on your familiarity with some of the premise and the characters. It was perfect for me, as someone who is very casual with Dragon Ball as a whole, but I still had the base concepts like the characters and the whole Saiyan thing ingrained in me from childhood and decades of fandom osmosis. Tree of Might, as you said, works really well on that kind of indirect familiarity, knowing what Saiyans are capable of and the tension regarding how the same evil nature that shadows Goku also resides within his son, Gohan (before we are reminded of Gohan's gentle heart).

Kai is "shorter" at 167 episodes instead of the original 291, but it is a little more recent too. I think the digitally animated version of Dragon Ball has other visual issues, but it's probably going to be more familiar to a modern fan compared to some of these. The Lord Slug movie looks particularly rough, with its transfer somehow being way dirtier than the other two. It particularly suffers during the crowd shots when taking on multiple henchmen.

Goku may have been raised by Humans from the get-go, but Piccolo is Dragon Ball's original proof that domesticating your arch-villains is possible. I should also note that although the villains introduced in these films aren't in the manga or the series, several of them such as Lord Slug were designed by Toriyama, which is part of why his role feels very believable.

Also, Piccolo is domesticated, but he is not above playing dirty. He often offers a hand of mercy to his opponent before following up with a "psych" and even rips off his own ears!

I think it also fully depends on the person. While there has been pushback against filler for as long as I can remember, enjoying media isn't always about min-maxing your time. A person might feel differently if they're aware that the stakes are of no consequence to the actual series and are seeking an hour of distraction.

I could definitely see myself putting the dub on while cleaning or something if that were an option.

Well, watching an anime from your childhood can definitely make you feel young again. Though, be careful what you wish for because we wouldn't want a repeat of what happened in GT. Until then, take your eyes off the clock and give yourself a breather, folks. This Week of Anime will be taking some time off for vacation. Later~