Pretty much the action and the more serious tone. That's pretty much why the Majin Buu arc is lambasted, because it brought back the wackiness of early Dragon Ball, even though the plot and all events therein had stopped making sense a long ass time ago. The only difference between the Cell and Buu arcs is that the former hides its nonsensical plot behind a smokescreen of a more serious tone. The Buu arc just drops all pretenses of being uber serious, even though some of the events therein are some of the darkest and most messed up of the series. Go figure.
I changed perspectives on DB and DBZ throughout the years. When I was first introduced to them, it was when Toonami had them back to back, so I started watching at the Uranai Baba arc for DB, and the Majin Buu arc for DBZ, two very weird areas to begin. And at first, I liked Dragon Ball a lot more, even though both eras of the series were similar in their strangeness. However, as I kept watching, I shifted more to the mindset that DBZ was better, because my teenaged mind was thinking "darker, more people dying, cooler looking enemies, and lots of explosions and flying around" = "better". Having seen this same general sentiment throughout the years, I imagine this is why a lot of people like DBZ better, especially since a lot of people were introduced to DBZ first. Going back to Dragon Ball, especially the early arcs, might feel like a step backwards from the epic scale of Z.
Then, as I got older, I switched them around again. Dragon Ball overall is more consistent throughout than DBZ, which peaked with Freeza and then started to decline from there on. The sense of growing scale and seriousness from beginning to end in Dragon Ball is also intriguing to me, whereas DBZ starts us off with that seriousness and epic scale and thus has no place to evolve from that, which is understandable given the kind of show it is.
Sleepwalk through eternity.
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sandroalgra
10 years ago
Talking about consistency...
One of the fun parts of the original Dragon Ball is the bizarre world that Toriyama created. The protagonist was a little boy with a tail, but that wasn't even the strangest part. The world was inhabited by a 300-year old guy, a man with 3 eyes and a shapeshifting pig. And no one seemed to be particularly bothered by the fact that many earthlings displayed supernatural powers. Master Roshi was a bit of a celebrity back then.
At first DBZ was pretty much the same. During the Saiyan saga the humans appear to be open to the idea that they're facing an alien invasion. They also remember Piccolo and the rest of Goku's friends from the tournaments. But later on, DBZ had the tendency to make the human world more 'normal'. After Mr. Satan (aka Hercule) makes his debut the earthlings no longer seem to remember that such powerful warriors exist. They are genuinly shocked when Goku & friends display their abilities. At first I considered MR. Satan to be a great comic relief. But as the series progressed he became more annoying, he made the earthlings look really stupid.
Majin Buu is obviously one of the weirder characters in DBZ. He's just as silly as Monster Carrot from the original Dragon Ball. But that was a supporting villain who only appeared in one episode. I love me some bizarre comic relief villains, but Majin Buu is supposed to carry an entire saga, that is otherwise pretty serious.
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scabab
10 years ago
It's because the series is very universal unlike most anime. Whether youre from Japan, America, France or Australia you can enjoy the show.
A lot of anime and just animation in general are made for a certain audience and don't appeal to those outside that group.
It can also be enjoyed by people of a wide age group, little kids love it just as much as people in there 20's and 30's.
It's like the Star Wars or Marvel of anime. It's for anyone.
Aside from that it's really got everything you could want from a show like this, the characters are likeable, the world is interesting, there's comedy, there's adventure, there's tons of action, monsters, aliens, robots, gods etc it has a good story, it's colourful, it's intense, it's exciting.
And most importantly it's just really good.
Not many anime have any kind of success outside of Japan. Pokemon was big but was it was terrible so it was largely a fad and you don't hear about the anime much anymore. Digimon will always be seen as a Pokemon wannabe. Yu GI Oh was another fad.
But Dragon Ball Z because it was good, it's retained it's popularity long after the series has finished and because of that there's now a new movie and a new show on the way.
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kiti22
10 years ago
Digimon will always be seen as a Pokemon wannabe. Yu GI Oh was another fad.
Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh! Are not Pokemon Rip-Offs
Digimon is only a show
Yu Gi Oh is only a show
Pokemon and Those 2 Shows are awesome
It can also be enjoyed by people of a wide age group, little kids love it just as much as people in there 20's and 30's.
DBZ is not just a Little Kids Show nor just for little kids
It was OK for Adults or over 20s to watch DBZ
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scabab
10 years ago
You just repeated what I said with that sentence.
And I said Digimon (not Yu Gi Oh) was always seen as a Pokémon ripoff. Whether it was it not is another matter but to me and friends growing up Pokémon showed up, was a very popular show and then you had Digimon come not long after which was another anime about small monsters and kids.
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kiti22
10 years ago
My goodness! How do we even watch DBZ without the fillers? I mean, what did the commercials look like?
[as an announcer]
Hey, kids! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles making too much sense for you? Then put on "Dragon Ball Z"! You'll love this cosmic, epic, legendary, fighting roller coaster. It's like the marvel and star wars of anime, only you still have no idea what's going on,
You must be 11 or over to watch.
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Arbuckle_T_Boone
10 years ago
One of the fun parts of the original Dragon Ball is the bizarre world that Toriyama created. The protagonist was a little boy with a tail, but that wasn't even the strangest part. The world was inhabited by a 300-year old guy, a man with 3 eyes and a shapeshifting pig. And no one seemed to be particularly bothered by the fact that many earthlings displayed supernatural powers. Master Roshi was a bit of a celebrity back then.
Your forgot dinosaurs living outside the cities and eighter, the mummy, vampire, invisible man etc. To be fair people were bothered by the supernatural powers. It was just the main characters who were ok with them except for Bulma who was always amazed at what Goku could accomplish. The crowds at the tournaments had no way of making sense of them. Some of the people mistook strength and speed for supernatural powers. When they would fight at high speeds and their eyes couldn't keep up they claimed the fighters disappeared. They were completely terrified when Piccolo blew up the arena.
At first DBZ was pretty much the same. During the Saiyan saga the humans appear to be open to the idea that they're facing an alien invasion. They also remember Piccolo and the rest of Goku's friends from the tournaments. But later on, DBZ had the tendency to make the human world more 'normal'. After Mr. Satan (aka Hercule) makes his debut the earthlings no longer seem to remember that such powerful warriors exist. They are genuinly shocked when Goku & friends display their abilities. At first I considered MR. Satan to be a great comic relief. But as the series progressed he became more annoying, he made the earthlings look really stupid.
Did they actually remember them? With the exception of the announcer from the tournament they all looked stupid with no help from Mr. Satan. The only earthlings9non fighters) I had any respect for was Bulma, her parents, and the announcer from the tournaments. Towards the end I started losing some respect for Bulma when she began degrading Goku to Chi Chi at the tournament. She made a really rude comment about Goku "losing" to Cell when he actually sacrificed himself to save the Earth and everyone on it.
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sandroalgra
10 years ago
People were flying and shooting ki blasts during the tournaments in the original show. The announcer also mentioned that the kamehameha was a famous technique invented by master Roshi. And even if you exclude guys with supernatural powers, there were still participants like Nam or Giran who were clearly capable of exceeding the strength of a regular human. What happened to those people? My point about Mr. Satan is that the earthlings just seem to have completely forgotten the powerful warriors who used to fight at the tournament and instead view a regular guy as the invincible saviour. That's a gag that could've worked if they had established a world where people like Roshi weren't famous to begin with. And yes, they were affraid of Piccolo during the last tournament in Dragon Ball. But that's because they recognized him as the person who briefly conquered the world several years earlier, not because he could fly and shoot ki blasts. Really, how do you forget someone like that? Apparently they have forgotten him near the end of DBZ, except for the announcer.
Did they actually remember them?
Yamcha mentioned at one point that he had become very popular with the ladies since the last tournament, which annoyed Bulma. During the battle against Nappa a camera crew was filming at a distance (after Yajirobe told them about the fight). They recognized Piccolo and even appeared to know what a Saiyan was. Of course, some of this is filler and shouldn't necessarily be taken seriously. I also don't know how the comments of the people vary in the different dubs .
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Arbuckle_T_Boone
10 years ago
And even if you exclude guys with supernatural powers, there were still participants like Nam or Giran who were clearly capable of exceeding the strength of a regular human. What happened to those people?
No clue. Some of them probably retired but that still doesn't explain the dojos and future students. The only explanation I have is that people simply forgot about them. There was also the former tournament winner King Chappa who Goku defeated twice who was also supposedly famous and should be remembered as well. I'm not sure how much time passed but the tournament stopped being held after Goku won until it was brought back and Satan won it before the Cell games. Not that it's a good excuse but I wonder if the tournament being televised helped Satan become so popular. When Goku and friends entered it seemed like it was a closed event that you had to attend and IIRC Yamcha was able to listen on radio from the hospital. Word of mouth should have spread about their fighting abilities though.
The truth is that they were written out and bad writing is the only explanation. People should have been unimpressed by Satan's fighting prowess and the tournaments should have been considered a joke by the people.
Really, how do you forget someone like that? Apparently they have forgotten him near the end of DBZ, except for the announcer.
Stupid people. Its part of the reason I don't think they deserved to be saved. When Goku and his friends talk about protecting the people of Earth I always envision him talking about protecting animals and plants, you know the things worthy of being saved. Vegeta was right about them.
What's insulting and if you have the DVD's you can go back and check it out is during the spirit bomb scenes in the Kid Buu saga. When they do the montage of people giving energy after Satan talks to them they show Nam and his village giving energy. Nam seemed like a good person who would have listened and possibly even recognized Goku's voice much like Upa's father, Eighter and the village. I guess it's not a big deal but it bothered me.
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byson5186
10 years ago
This might be long, but here's my list of DBZ success:
1. The Continuous Storyline: Anybody who watched DragonBall Z, knows the story like a Soap Opera is a continuous storyline with each episode taking place from where the last one left off. This is a reason some people don't watch Soap Operas, because they feel like they'll get into them and always have to find out what happens next. Of course, DBZ isn't a Soap Opera. But, almost all the episodes ended at like the most exciting part where we had to know what happened next and we remember the narrator saying, "Find Out Next Time On The Next Exciting Episode Of Dragon Ball Z."
2. The Plot: While some of you have mentioned the numerous inconsistencies and plot holes from earlier in the series that either seemed forgotten or no longer important, there is a huge continuous plot with the series that we seem curious about. The show seems to have more of a plot than The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers where a lot of the episodes were the characters hanging out of school, park, or Youth Center and Rita/Lord Zedd comes up with a different monster that typically gets defeated the same way. I feel like one thing that makes a show or movie better is if there's a well thought out plot to it that holds are attention.
3. The Characters: You guys are write, a lot of the non-saiyan characters got phased out later in the series as they couldn't keep up with the Saiyans which bothered some people. It looks like they'll be put to more use in this movie coming out. But, the characters we know from the series are characters we remember and get to like for their different characteristics. We could look up any character from the series on DragonBall Wiki and get an in-depth description of who they are.
4. The Action: If you like action, or action movies are your favorite then there is plenty of action in DragonBall Z. It's been considered the greatest action cartoon ever made. This show has breathtaking action that could entertain a lot of us.
5. The Excitement: I have some of the seasons on DragonBall and DragonBall Z on DVD. Sometimes when I put it on, I'll just get right into it as it has breathtaking action and a plot we want to follow. Like the episode Save The World when Gohan defeats Cell is such an exciting episode I don't see how you could not get into it.
6. The Music: When the show aired on Toonami we didn't really hear the music minus the background music by Bruce Falconer. But, I like the background music better in the American Version than the Japanese version as the episodes seem more watchable in the American version and I feel like the characters have better voices than the Japanese version. Though, I like the opening and closing songs they have in the Japanese versions and some songs they write for the show.
7. The Empowerment: When I watch Dragon Ball Z, it often times motivates me to push myself harder. You likely will not want to feel lazy after watching the show, but you'll want to do as a shirt I bought says, "Training To Beat Goku Or At Least Krillin."
8. The Strength: The characters on this show seem stronger than any other show I know of. They could easily blow up the earth. It's cool to see their physical strength.
9. Goku's Cheerful Attitude: Most of the people who watch the show's favorite character is Goku. He puts me in a good mood seeing how cheerful he is when he's not fighting and how funny he and other characters can be.
Well, sorry for this long post. But, these are the reasons I thought of which if you read it I think you'll agree with me.
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