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Dragon Ball Z, I clearly don't get it

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I used to watch the cartoon like 10 years ago. I didn't get it then and I so don't get it now. I know who all the characters are, and I know its been going a long time. I've been able to follow a lot of other fighting franchises like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and even DOA.

I still don't understand Dragon Ball Z.

Could someone explain to me the plot of the show / franchise?

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A bunch of aliens float around trying to squeeze out a turd for 8 episodes, then they fight. Repeat.

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So...the "Dragon Ball" is a turd?

Do they ever get it 'squeezed out'?

My little girl watched that. I thought it was stupid.

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goku and buddies want the dragon balls but sometimes others want them instead because then theyll have the power to blow stuff up but sometimes they already have power to blow stuff up so goku and friends fight them and also sometimes machines and people with swords come from the future or sometimes people stay in a room for two years but to everyone else its like one day outside lol and then there is a dude named hercule but hes dumb and not good at fighting but everyoneone thinks hes the man and also i have to say that all the bad guys come in order of how strong they are so the hardest guy comes at the end and then they beat him but if the hardest guy came at the beginning then it would be no problemt o defeat goku and his stupid friends and blow up the planet but then gokus kid becomes a great saiya man and dresses up and is generally a dumbie lol also goku sometimes is a monkey and then people on the internet say its over 9000000!!

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Actually you should read the manga: the anime is garbage IMHO.

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Ralphis said:

...but hes dumb and not good at fighting but everyoneone thinks hes the man

Sounds like Worf.

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The thing about the show that annoyed me was that they'd come up against enemies who were supposedly the most powerful thing they'd ever seen "OMG HIS POWER LEVEL IS 10000!!!" and then they'd get their ass kicked and have to train their power level up to beat it to get to the most powerful they could get (SUPER SAYAN!) and then beat the enemy. Then next season another enemy would come by who is the most powerful thing ever (POWER LEVEL 100000!!!!) and they'd have to train to the NEW most powerful form they have (SUPER SAYAN 2!!) to beat him. And they kept doing it over and over again to the point of ridiculousness.

That and the fact that roughly half of each episode was taken up by recaps and previews, which is INCREDIBLY annoying when you're watching 2-hour blocks of it on a daily basis and end up seeing the same goddamn scene 20 times in one week. Oh, and the whole episodes dedicated to one character powering up. More like Dragon Ball ZZZZzzzz...

I actually really like Akira Toriyama's art style, but Dragonball is the low point in his career, IMHO.

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I kind of liked Dragonball, the old original series about Goku and his friends when he was still a little kid. It was cute and didn't take itself too seriously, and there wasn't any screaming powerlevel nonsense.

Dragonball Z and whatever other spinoffs came after it, though, were pretty dumb.

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esselfortium said:

I kind of liked Dragonball, the old original series about Goku and his friends when he was still a little kid. It was cute and didn't take itself too seriously, and there wasn't any screaming powerlevel nonsense.


I don't recall fight scenes lasting for like 16 episodes either.

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Agreed and seconded. Dragonball is most certainly worth a watch. It doesn't have all the aforementioned problems its descendants have.

One thing I always thought was funny about Z was how it managed to take all the drama out of death. A main character would get fatally gored through the chest and you'd think "Oh well. He'll just get wished back in a later episode."

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i've made some bad choices in my life, but watching ranma instead of dragon ball is clearly not one of them.

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Ralphis said:

goku and buddies want the dragon balls but sometimes others want them instead because then theyll have the power to blow stuff up but sometimes they already have power to blow stuff up so goku and friends fight them and also sometimes machines and people with swords come from the future or sometimes people stay in a room for two years but to everyone else its like one day outside lol and then there is a dude named hercule but hes dumb and not good at fighting but everyoneone thinks hes the man and also i have to say that all the bad guys come in order of how strong they are so the hardest guy comes at the end and then they beat him but if the hardest guy came at the beginning then it would be no problemt o defeat goku and his stupid friends and blow up the planet but then gokus kid becomes a great saiya man and dresses up and is generally a dumbie lol also goku sometimes is a monkey and then people on the internet say its over 9000000!!


That about summarizes it.

Also, the old man doing stuff in exchange for being flashed.

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This thread made me wanna drop-kick my parents in the face, with a kick power of OVER 9000!!!

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Dragon Ball Z's great for some mindless super macho entertainment. Yeah, the original Z kinda dragged shit out (lol 5 minutes till Namek goes boom), but the recent remake (Dragon Ball Z Kai) condenses stuff and gets rid of all the filler. So yeah, just shut off your brain and enjoy the copious amounts of ass kicking.

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Q: How many Super Saiyans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only one, but it takes him 13 episodes to do it.

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geo said:

Could someone explain to me the plot of the show / franchise?


Despite being a big DBZ fan for 12 years, there was never much of a plot in it(if saving the world from evil villeins stronger than the main hero but later on the main hero is stronger than the bad guy and wins is actually a plot). However, the fights were the greatest damn stuff you would ever witness...well at least to me :P

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Having watched it since I was like 6 or something, I honestly don't get bothered by all the filler and stuff. Kai really does speed the whole thing up though, and it looks and sounds a lot better than it did originally. So if you've never seen the original series and don't want to sit through all the filler etc., just watch Kai instead. Or read the manga. :P

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Danarchy said:

The thing about the show that annoyed me was that they'd come up against enemies who were supposedly the most powerful thing they'd ever seen "OMG HIS POWER LEVEL IS 10000!!!" and then they'd get their ass kicked and have to train their power level up to beat it to get to the most powerful they could get (SUPER SAYAN!) and then beat the enemy. Then next season another enemy would come by who is the most powerful thing ever (POWER LEVEL 100000!!!!) and they'd have to train to the NEW most powerful form they have (SUPER SAYAN 2!!) to beat him. And they kept doing it over and over again to the point of ridiculousness.

To be fair, that's what most long-running fighting based anime are like :P Constant power increases to defeat tougher baddies etc.

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I prefer the Japanese audio to the Funimation audio, powering up sounds like straining on the toilet. But the Manga is 1000 times better. The English translated Vegeta saga manga is awesome.

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Dragonball Z is great because it's just mindless entertainment. Kind of like pro wrestling. Don't think about it too hard and you'll enjoy yourself.

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neubejiita said:

But the Manga is over 9000 times better.

Fixed.

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I found it to be terrible. Coming home after school every day for a week and finding some guy charging up was not fun.

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I still enjoy watching Dragonball for the right reasons and Dragonball Z for the wrong ones (DBZ Abridged, on the other hand, has some brilliant moments). I haven't watched either show in a while... Maybe I'll watch little Goku work his way through the RR Army or something.

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At first I misheard "Super Sayan" as "Super Aryan", probably because of the blond hair. Sieg heil!!!

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Watching either Dragonball or DBZ back-to-back is better than watching them as half-hour episodes, when you can observe the slowly unfolding plot, rather than a thirty minute snapshot of a very long fight with a bunch of people trying to take a shit. Watching DB or DBZ in 2-3 hour segments allowed me to piece together some brilliant plot ideas that would have left me questioning had it been shown in 30-minute segments.

Speaking of the drawn out fights in DBZ, with their lengthy standoffs, heavy breathing, and intense stares, are all signs of a duel to death in Samurai culture. The American viewer, not accustomed to shows where explosions don't happen every other minute, is confused to whether Goku was sizing up his opponent, or just needed Metamucil.

In seriousness, DBZ's depiction of battles are rooted in the Samurai culture and its treatment of the zen of battle. Having taken Kendo in the past, I can say that a large part of combat in Eastern Asian tradition is the silence between the blows, the breathing, the sizing up of your opponents, and overall control of one's ki. A part of the drawn-out moments in DBZ's combat, by design, is to let the audience contemplate the immense willpower of the combatants.

If you've ever seen a top-flight Kendo match, you'll also notice the long standoff accompanied by a lot of yelling (to increase one's ki). Here is a clip of the final match of the 12th World Kendo Championship:



What was left out of the footage is the buckets of sweat from the combatants after the fight.

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K!r4 said:
neubejiita said:

But the Manga is over 8000 times better.

Fixed.

Actually, now it's fix'd. :P

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Doom Marine wins the thread. I like DBZ, and I get what its detractors are saying. Yeah I could do without the filler, and the 5 minutes of Namek's destruction going on for like 30 episodes is ridiculous, but it is the show that got me into anime and it will always have a place in my heart for its over the top characters engaged in entertaining fights. I still think they should remake it with insane amounts of violence and swearing (more than the original Japanese even) just because.

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Maes said:

At first I misheard "Super Sayan" as "Super Aryan", probably because of the blond hair. Sieg heil!!!


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