Let's be honest Dragonball Z was better b4 everybody turned into a Super Saiyan

[BlackMajik]

Gotta cosign.

I rewatched the series last year and have to say from start to the end of Frieza saga is the definitive DBZ arc. Its such a complete, well thought out story compared to the rest of the series. Villain encounters were way better. Over a decade later and I'm still at the amount of effort it took to defeat Vegeta. And the shyt that went down on Namek was amazing. Finally learning everyone's back story was some heavy shyt. Vegeta's heel-face turn. Racing for the dragonballs, giving the title relevance. Frieza pompously terrorizing everyone. shyt was just all-around.


Android Saga started off great but soon devolved into empty showcases of power ups, with Cell and Buu Saga continuing the trend. Just a collection of "moments" with no substance. Not to say they weren't good moments, cuz there are many favorites, but it doesn't stand up to the earlier sagas as a whole. Not to mention inconsistencies everywhere. You can tell Toriyama was forced to continue after Frieza's death due to the popularity of the series.

I love rewatching the saiyan and frieza saga. it was set up perfectly

 

[Urbanmiracle]

I think the Frieza saga was set up to be end of the story because it brings all of everything together. Goku gets his origins, we get the origins of the Dragonballs, the origins of Piccolo, the origins of the Saiya-jins, Vegeta's origins, just great story telling. Very compelling. Frieza was the ultimate villain. He was dreadful in every second he was on screen. You couldn't tell if Goku and the gang could get out of it. Kiao-sama told Goku to avoid that boy. He aint regular. But Goku took the challenged. And who know that Goku would be the legendary Super Saiya-jin? NO ONE. The android saga like someone said start off EPIC, time travel, Goku dying from natural causes so he can't be wished back, it was great. Cell was cool to. And I also think they wrote that as a final arc to being that Goku passed the torch to his son, who finally tapped and unlock all the potential mentioned in the Frieza saga.

BUU? A mess. Was too strong from jump. WENT ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON for fukking ever.

 

[DaylitoJames]

Yea i found it ridiculous that every bad guy after frieza was a threat to everyone but only saiyans cane through and saved the day..they couldve built humans and namekians to be as powerful

was is funny to me is that while Frieza was the terror of galaxies that had even the kais shooked you had nikkas like Garlic Jr., Dabura, Bibidi, Babadi, and Buu running around who were all stronger than Frieza... could have all took over Frieza's empire for some reason they didn't.

Then if we can touch on canon... if all the kais can seal up Bojack and his crew WHO WERE ALL STRONGER THAN FRIEZA then why couldn't they seal up Frieza?

 

[StatUS]

Man one thing though. Naruto and Bleach are completely half assed stories that fell off way worse than Dragon Ball. Not even on the same level as one of the GOATs.

 

[My Girl is Bow Legged]

It obviously devolved into parody after awhile. Look at SSJ3 Goku, he looks like a joke

toriyama dumbed down his series and doubled his dollas

 

[DaylitoJames]

Man one thing though. Naruto and Bleach are completely half assed stories that fell off way worse than Dragon Ball. Not even on the same level as one of the GOATs.

That's why I rank Yu Yu Hakusho so high up, from beginning to end the whole anime was

 

[2 Up 2 Down]

I wished a spin off of a young Roshi was made

 

[Days of Future Piff]

The biggest problem with the series is that absolutely everybody who wasn't a super saiyan became irrelevant.

I remember in the Pilaf story arc in the beginning, Oolong came through and interrupted his wish, saving the day at the end
Bulma and her inventions
Launch

And the other Z fighters got demoted so thoroughly it's disgusting

Krillin and Tien were officially done by the time the Androids came through, and Piccolo got the as soon as Cell went perfect. There should have been more flabby and sick underlings and grunts for Krillin/Yamcha/Tien/Piccolo/Vegeta/Trunks to fight so they could score some W's and show off their dope fighting moves. Goku is cool, but after awhile you get tired of him being the only character who's not constantly catching L's.

Honestly, I kind of wish Goku had been the only super saiyan (besides MAYBE future trunks), and that he could only go SSJ in extreme last-resort scenarios where he was pushed beyond his limits.

Goten and Trunks going SSJ was pure

Low key, the tournament fights in the OG dragonball were official. It felt more interesting just because there were always new characters with crazy fighting styles that were totally out of this world.

Goku wasn't the only threat-- Giran, Nam, Bacterian, Roshi, Krillin, Tien, etc were all beasts in the ring and stayed putting in work

(Even YAMCHA and CHIAOTZU were giving fools work in the 22nd )

 

[Wild self]

Makes sense, but it don't explain why 17 and 18 were that damn strong. Maybe I feel like they should have dedicated an episode to show the backstory of 17 and 18 before they got kidnapped by Dr. Gero... it would have explain the hatred they had for him, how skillful they was before the kidnapping and how reckless and bout that life they were plus we could have learned their real names.

Remember, Mecha Frieza and King Cold temporarily came to earth. Dr. Gero saw the power of them 2 and decided to far surpass that in the three years before the androids were awaken. He figured out that there was no way Goku could surpassed that level of Mecha Frieza since the last recorded fight from him was the fight with Vegeta.

 

[Days of Future Piff]

Imagine if Vegeta and Future Trunks learned the Kaio Ken instead of being super saiyans

and Gohan learns it before going off to fight Cell in the end

That would have solved the SSJ overpopulation problem real quick

EDIT:

as for the rest of the characters...

Piccolo still gets the Kami fusion...

Krillin's potential being unlocked ends up actually being meaningful and helps him become just strong enough to hang with Piccolo and the Saiyans, making him the "Usopp" of the group.

Tien, Yamcha, and Chaozu get close to that same level through King Kai's training, which ends up actually meaning something.

In the end, Goku (SSJ) = Gohan (Kaio-Ken/Potential unlock) > Vegeta/Trunks (Kaio-Ken) = Piccolo (Kami Fusion) > Krillin (potential unlock) >= Tien (Kai training) > Yamcha (Kai training) > Yajirobe ()

 

[PS5 Pro]

Goku vs Vegeta's first encounter is my favorite so

I enjoyed all the bullshyt banter from the series, and the way they would structure the episodes
It was just a build up til a fight finally began. Then the fight would take a week
Ginyu Force n shyt comes to mind

The pace of the show, the content. It all just flowed
Later on in the series, it became too hollywood and lost its personality a lil bit
Looking back on the totality of the sitchatition... I liked the show better when it had principalities n shyt

 

[wise prophet]

Cosign big time. If it wasn't for nostalgia I would think most of DBZ is straight up trash.

Not gonna lie the DBZ Abridged Youtube Series got me about certain issues I didn't think about the first time around. After seeing 18 give Vegeta that work again it got me me thinking.....

How the hell did Dr. Gero make androids strong enough to break a super saiyan's arm when he didn't know what the hell a super saiyan was? As they pointed out Gero only had information on the Z-Warriors BEFORE they went to Namek/King Kai's Planet where they all leveled up tremendously. His creations shouldn't have had a chance

Why the hell was 17 and 18 that strong but Gero's body or 19 wasn't? Why the hell would you design a weak body or yourself to the point where your own creations can easily kill you? Then again maybe he knew that might happened which he design Cell to absorb both of them

Why didn't 17 or 18 have them energy draining sensors inplanted in their hands like 19 and Gero had?

Another point that DBZ Abridged brought up that I never even thought of...

Bulma told everyone where Dr. Gero's hideout was located. If she knew all along why didn't Trunks ask her so he could just go to the past and destroy the hideout?

That's why I rank Yu Yu Hakusho so high up, from beginning to end the whole anime was

Ehhh, the last arc wasn't that good. Togashi clearly lost interest and was just trying to finish the series.

 

[Urahara_Kisuke]

Gohan might be the biggest underachiever in history

Grew up to be a fukkin nerd

I think originally they were gonna make Gohan the main protagonist after the Cell Games, but people were bytchING and demanded Goku come back and keep the crown. So they pretty much had to reduce Gohan to a dork.

But we'll always have this!......

 

[JMurder]

nikkas just standing in the mountains and bytch ass Supreme Kai like

we don't know what we up against


Vegeta like nikka please I'll wash these nikkas with ease. fukk outta here with that noise

Goku like fukk all that, I only got a day, I'm already dead, they aint trying to see the Saiyans

Kabito Kai like These nikkas here

Supreme Kai like these nikkas rachet

I'm done

I won't lie...I lost it at " these nikkas rachet"

 

[AITheAnswerAI]

Vegeta was a way more interesting character because he had way more ambition and was making moves. After the whole super saiyen thing, he just became obsessed with beating Goku. It was really interesting overall up till the Perfect Cell, then the whole ssj thing became kinda ridiculous.