Seven dragon balls! Magic Dragon balls! (Dragonball Z)

Member Name: martial_loh

Product:	Dragonball Z
Date:	14/08/01 (910 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fights, Easy to understand

Disadvantages: If you are sensitive to violence, dont watch this.

"What the hell is that title?!" I hear you cry! Well, it is nothing, but the original theme tune to the original series of Dragonball (soon to be screened I understand). Coming from a family full of Chinese, I used to watch Dragonball and Dragonball Z everytime I went on holiday abroad. Unfortunately I never did learn chinese, so I had no idea what was being said during each show. However, the gist of the action was very simple. This is one of the best selling points of the Dragonball series.
The basic storyline is that there are seven dragonballs (or pearls) located on the Earth. When one collects them together and chants something, the mighty dragon god Shen Long is summoned, and will grant you a single wish. The hero of the story is Son Goku, who is an alien. He looks like a normal guy (aside from his crazy hair cut), but he really does have extreme strength and powers. His alien race is called the "Saiyans". He is one of the two last Saiyans in the known universe - his planet was destroyed by other forces- and Goku was sent to earth as a baby (superman style!).
When Goku gets into a serious battle, he powers up to Super Saiyan level and physically transforms. His hair goes blond and stands up even more than before, his eyes go green and his clothes tend to rip up a bit. As the series progresses (into the 'proper' second season) he gains even more power - Super Saiyan level 3 (which is UGLY!!) and even goes onto Level 4 in the follow up to Dragonball Z - Dragonball GT (a huge disappointment to me).
Anyway, back to DBZ. The other characters include Kilyn - a bald monk (you might call him Kuirin - but my way is correct ;P), Gohan (first son of goku), Goten (second son), Chichi (goku's wife), (Piccolo - green alien freak) and others...
Goku and his friends initially search for the dragonballs for adventure. However, they soon become the defenders of the planet, since many sinister forces hear of Goku's power and wi
sh to defeat him for glory.
The plot is initially quite standard Japanese-quest-like. They find something, find an enemy, kill the enemy and then celebrate. Also, the battles seem to take forever- sometimes 3-5 episodes just to see someone knocked out.. this long-winded-ness is what can let down DBZ. Although the action is nice, the animation is very outdated and cheap. It is clear that in many sequences, that the producers did not bother polish the look of the show - but having said this, there are literally hundreds of episodes..so I guess we can forgive them.

Being a classical fan of Japanese animation, I really hated the audio-work that the USA put onto DBZ. THe voices, music and dialogue are terrible. SOme jokes (I've been told by Chinese-speaking friends) were totally removed, or misinterpreted by the Americans...BAH! THe music is really annoying - DBZ used to have a cool Rock-theme in Japan + CHinese versions...now we have some lame Heavymetal crap. Voices.....no comment..too bad..

The other good things I want to mention - since the story soon settles into a "baddy comes - kill baddy - baddy comes.." scenario, it is so easy to pick up DBZ. you could easily start watching the show at any time in the timeline and you should be able to understand it.. JUst take time to learn the names, and faces (it is confusing at first) and yuo'll be OK. Do some background reading on the Net too - always helps!!
Also, the ultra-violence shown is great. I'm realy tired of seeing shows which have such potential, being ruined because they cannot show death, or weapons. I mean, if kids don't understand the difference between fiction and reality, then their parents should just be beaten round the head with a 10ft barge pole!!
The fighting styles employed by the series is very reminiscent of fighting games like Streetfighter 2. This , I believe, is what gave DBZ its big success-rate. Every kid (ok, nearly all boys - I dunno ab
out you gals - you never played Streetfighter when I used to!) loved Streetfighter, so a show that practically used it as a basis and took it further would obviously be a smash hit!!

Hmmm...*rambles on* Since I've seen the rest of DBZ already, I'd highly reccomend that you keep watching the show until it ends. You won't be disappointed - DBZ is a rarity - it actually gets a lot better as it goes along. It is never hard on your mind, so you can just sit there and absorb the violent-in-your-face vibes of the show!
The only real let-down of the show is its marketing...The way in which it has been shown here is somewhat annoying to me. I know it is supposed to appeal to the new western audience, but......the western methods of advertising it just don't work for me.. The adverts in UK have stupid american voices on it...which reminds me...people in japan with american accents? sigh. I'd better leave it there. I'll probably anger someone if I continue with my criticism on the American-style our TV is taking.

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