Title: Dragonball Z aka DBZ
Genre: Action
Company: Toei Animation
Format: 291 episodes
Dates: 19 Apr 1989 – 31 Jan 1996

Synopsis: Goku, the Saiyan sent to destroy Earth (but didn’t because he hit his head really hard) is back and he’s stronger than ever. Can he survive two hit men sent by the all-powerful Frieza and live long enough to kill him?

The Highlights
Music: Decent.
Everything Else: Really, really bad.

Dragonball Z is arguably one of the most popular anime to enter the American market. It is also one of the worst. Beyond the above average musical score, DBZ suffers from a chronic lack of originality after the first 40 episodes, along with reused cels and poor animation. Additionally, it has one of the slowest moving stories ever to exist.

It never ceases to amaze me that I once was addicted to DBZ, but let me tell you: it was an interesting and decent anime until the creators decided to prolong the series past the Frieza saga. From then on, DBZ got progressively worse by rehashing the same formula for every successive bad guy.

DBZ also suffers from being highly inconsistent. If you have seen Dragonball Z, you know that during each new epic battle, it takes somewhere between five and six episodes for the story to progress through ten minutes worth of events. After the battle is over, you skip ahead somewhere around ten years and three kids. Then it’s back to weeklong ten minute timeframes. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The only even remotely redeeming part of Dragonball Z is the soundtrack, which isn’t great, but makes the whole experience slightly more bearable. But while the music is as fluid as it could be, the choppy animation and constant reuse of cels nullifies any good that came from the soundtrack.

Dragonball Z is targeted to entertain pre-pubescent males, and it succeeds quite well, managing to hold my attention during those years better than Power Rangers and Justice League. However, to the more seasoned anime fan, DBZ is nothing more than a nuisance, and should be watched only to remember those times when you enjoyed kicking the crap out of your sofa pretending to fight those really, really bad evil-doers.

The Rating: 2

Reviewed by: Seven