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Dragon Ball Z

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File:DBZLogo.PNG
The Dragon Ball Z logo (English manga)

Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボール Z, Doragon Bōru Z) is the long-running sequel to the popular shōnen anime Dragon Ball. The series is a close adaptation of the second half of the Dragon Ball manga (in the United States, this second half is also titled "Dragon Ball Z" to prevent confusion), but also features characters, situations and backstory which were not present in the original. (This additional "filler" material is generally considered non-canonical and occasionally contradicts the main series.)

The series follows the adventures of the adult Son Goku who defends the earth against assorted villains. While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Goku through childhood into adulthood, Dragon Ball Z continues his adventures with his children and grandchildren. The separation between the series is also significant as the latter series takes on a more dramatic and serious tone.

The anime first premiered in Japan on April 18, 1989 (on Fuji TV) and ended on January 31, 1996. In the U.S., the series ran between 1996 and 2003, though not always on the same networks or with continuity of dubbing. It aired in the UK, albeit with the same dubbing problem, on Cartoon Network, premiering on March 6, 2000 and running until 2002, with the final few episodes being shown on CNX starting from October 14, 2002, before that channel relaunched as Toonami, on which it is repeated daily.

After Dragon Ball Z, the story of Son Goku and friends continue in the anime-only series Dragon Ball GT. That series was not based on a manga by Akira Toriyama. Toriyama's humor/parody manga Neko Majin Z features several concepts introduced in Dragon Ball Z (several Dragon Ball Z characters even make various appearances), but that manga is designed as a parody and not a true continuation of the series.

Plot Summary

Template:Spoiler Son Goku, the protagonist, is an extremely powerful martial artist who is simpleminded and kindly. After a visit from his previously unknown brother Raditz, he discovers that he is an alien (specifically a saiyan or saiya-jin) that was sent to Earth to destroy it. When he informs Raditz that he has no intention of doing this, Goku and his friends become the erstwhile defenders of the Earth from the oncoming invasion by more of his kind.

As the series progresses, Son Goku, his son (Son Gohan) and their companions age, get immensely stronger and fight increasingly more powerful and sinister villains. Many of the main characters die, are resurrected, get married and/or have children. The series progresses dramatically throughout its entire run.

Many important facts were introduced into the series that add a different, more Sci-Fi oriented, story arc to Dragon Ball Z from its predecessor:

  • Son Goku is an alien from Planet Vegeta. This is the source of his previously unexplained abilities and why he has a tail (which was later removed and not seen again until the next series, Dragon Ball GT).
  • Son Goku's enemy from the first series, Piccolo, is an alien from Planet Namek. He is the product of Kami (guardian of Earth) splitting himself in half to purge the evil from himself.

Sagas

The Dragon Ball Z series can be (somewhat) logically broken into 4 series, which can be broken further into sagas, based on the current enemy or theme:

Saiyan Series:

  • The Saiyan Saga (Renamed to the Vegeta Saga in the Funimation Redubs)

Frieza Series:

Cell Series:

Buu Series:

Movies

There are quite a few Dragon Ball Z movies made based on the popular series. Some can be counted as side stories (gaiden) that happen between sagas. These movies include:

  1. Dead Zone (Return My Gohan!)
  2. The World's Strongest (The World's Strongest Guy)
  3. The Tree of Might (Ultimate Decisive Battle For Earth)
  4. Lord Slug (Super Saiyan Son Goku)
  5. Cooler's Revenge (Best of Strongest Verses Strongest)
  6. Return of Cooler (Warriors Clash! The 10 Billion Powerful Warriors)
  7. Super Android 13 (Extreme Battle! The Three Great Super Saiyans!)
  8. Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan (Burn Your Spirits to the Max!! Close Battle, Violent Battle, Super Bloody Battle)
  9. Bojack Unbound (The Galaxy is in Danger! The Super Awesome Guy!)
  10. Broly: The Second Coming (Dangerous Partners! Super Warriors Never Rest!)
  11. Crushing Super Warrior! I Am The Winner! (Not released in English)
  12. The Rebirth Of Fusion! Goku and Vegeta! (Not released in English)
  13. Dragon Fist Assault! If Goku Can't Do It, Who Can? (Not released in English)

DBZ and anime fandom

Dragon Ball Z was (and largely still is) one of the most popular shōnen anime series in the United States. Due to its length, associated varying production quality, creative devices, and sometimes overenthusiastic young fanbase, anime fandom at large has mixed reactions to the series. These range from simple lack of interest to downright vocal hatred of the series (or even of its fans) as overrated and superficial. While contributing much to the shōnen genre in Japan, some feel Dragon Ball Z has created a stereotype associated with anime at large in the West amongst those outside the anime community.

The main character of Dragonball Z, Son Goku, is often compared to the DC Comics hero, Superman, due to their outward similarities in origins (as redefined in DBZ) and abilities. Many of these connections are a deliberate attempt by the Japanese writers (manga and anime) to pay homage to the Western superhero archetype, just as the earlier Dragonball series paid homage to Chinese folk archetypes.

Because of inconsistencies both in the original manga (few, but some) and introduced in the anime series (many), and the common acceptance of the anime as canon, much debate is had by the younger fanbase as to the relative abilities of the various characters (power levels, in the series) and in their other abilities. This conflict has not only helped to grow the community, but also often defines it negatively as one of the most otaku of the current anime imports.

Censorship Issues

One of the biggest criticisms of the series in North America from fans is the extensive amount of editing it faced, especially when broadcast on network television.

Dragon Ball Z was marketed to appeal to a wide range of viewers from all ages, and contains crude humor and occasional excesses of violence which are commonly seen as inappropriate for younger audiences by American standards. When it was marketed in the United States, the distribution company FUNimation alongside with Saban decided to initially focus exclusively on the young children's market, because the market for Japanese animation was still small compared to the much larger children's cartoon market. The series underwent many changes, with the removal of nudity and partial nudity, references to sex, alcohol, and smoking. For example, FUNimation digitally removed the cigarette from one character's mouth, and digitally pasted the word ROOT above a sign that said BEER to make it say "ROOT BEER". Many violent scenes were left on the cutting room floor, and others had wounds digitally removed, and blood removed or re-colored as spit. The dialogue was changed, removing references to Heaven, Hell, God, and death. In fact, probably the most infamous dialogue edit would be the characters saying "I will send you to another dimension," rather than "I will kill you." Also, Hell was changed to HFIL (Home For Infinite Losers) and the acronym was overlaid onto shirts saying "HELL" on the characters placed there.

This amount of editing led to characters' speech not matching what occurred on screen, unrealistic and twisted plots with major holes, and obviously altered images. Combined with the replacement of the original musical score, these changes left many fans irate. Some Dragon Ball purists refuse to watch the American version of the show. One of the biggest points raised by critics of the editing of violence is that the removal of wounds, blood, and death from a show ultimately about fighting will encourage violence without showing any of the consequences.

Starting with the Ginyu Saga (3rd US season) on Cartoon Network, censorship was reduced due to fewer restrictions on cable programming. FUNimation did the dubbing on their own this time around with their own voice actors. Some censoring, of nudity for example, was still unavoidable. Subsequent DVD and VHS releases of those episodes were not censored in any way. In 2003, Funimation decided to redub the first two sagas of Dragon Ball Z, to remove the problems that were caused from their previous partnership with Saban. They will also be redubbing the first three movies that were also dubbed by the Ocean Group voice actors but were distributed by Pioneer. It was recently announced that the distribution of the redubs will start in April 2005.

A very bad scene with the extended version of Freiza's impalement of Krillin during the Frieza saga was edited out on CN and merged with the other two episodes. non-graphic scenes such as the beginning (krillin getting stabbed)and the end (Krillin getting thrown into the water) were kept in. All blood was removed from the already fixed and edited down version. Copies of the scene are viewable by purchase of the FRIEZA-TRANSFORMATION (Uncut version) dvd.

Post 9/11

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Cartoon Network cut an episode of Dragon Ball Z where Gohan saves a plane from crashing, then later has to deal with a burning skyscraper office building, due to the obvious parallel imagery.

Filler

In addition to censoring material from the manga, the anime version also includes other changes. Most of these changes are for time and to provide backstory to the occasionally terse manga. As the anime series was forced to expand 12 pages of manga text into 20 minutes of animation footage, these changes were introduced to kill time or to allow the (anime) writers to explore some other aspect of the series' universe (The afterlife tournament between the Buu and Cell Saga is a good example of this). They have also been known to contradict the manga and often create new plotholes. For example, during the Freeza Saga there is a flashback showing that Vegeta, Radditz and Nappa were well aware that Freeza destroyed their home planet long before the events in DBZ took place even though the series showed that Vegeta was not aware until Dodrio told him on Planet Namek.

Uncut Version

In 2005, the Cartoon Network has started showing the uncut version, meaning that what was edited in the past is completely shown as it was for the Japanese by celebrating its appearance with a darker opening theme. The foamy water is actually pure beer, Piccolo's blood during the battle with Raditz is completely pure red blood whereas the edited version showed green, references to death and killing are heard and Master Roshi's lecherous attempts on Bulma are shown at their fullest. Very intense and brutal fighting is now clearly shown. There are also missing episodes not shown ever since Funimation edited them, such as young Gohan helping out a robot that refused to help him as an act of teaching him to take care of himself, and eventually saved his life before he shut down and died. Lunch is also shown now; she was edited out of 4 episodes of the older version because at the the time they only dubbed the first 13 episodes of Dragon Ball, in which she did not appear. Other characters such as Kuririn, Piccolo, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and Yajirobe had also not been seen in those 13 episodes, but they were important to the plot so they were not cut. Since Lunch was not as important to the plot, and her scenes included bank robbing, guns and alcohol, they decided to remove her. These scenes were restored in the new uncut version. In Dragon Ball Z, Lunch is constantly following Tenshinhan because she is in love with him. Other new scenes include the showing of Gohan's lower central area (albeit not detailed) and Goku's bare butt while bathing at Princess Snake's palace. The Saibamen are also more sadistic and the graphic scene in which Vegeta blows one in half is kept in. Mild use of profanity is also heard, as Korin says "give them hell!" as Goku travels to a battle with Vegeta and Nappa. Another profanity usage is when Goku shoots a ki blast at Vegeta's eye while he's in Oozaru form - Vegeta yells "Damn you!" All this is now showing on the Cartoon Network Monday-Thursday nights at 10:30PM EST.

Live Action Movie

In 2002, a rumor surfaced on the internet claiming that 20th Century Fox had acquired the rights to make a live action Dragonball Z motion picture. This created a furor in the online fan community. Online forums were created for the express purpose of relaying rumors and "insider information" about the live action movie. Magazines like Beckett Dragonball Z Collector as well as the official DBZ website began to write surveys and polls soliciting fan input about casting for the live action movie. Several fan sites were created for the movie, though few had any verifiable information about the movie. Official news about the movie was primarily relayed through the official DBZ website or via the Internet Movie Database. In early 2004, production was halted, but, in June 2004, screenwriter Ben Ramsey (The Big Hit) signed on to adapt Dragonball Z for the big screen. The movie is currently in development, though no director has signed on and no casting has taken place. There is currently no scheduled release date for the film.

Senzu

Senzu are small green beans which completely restore the strength of exhausted fighters. Eating just one bean will fill you for ten days. They are usually carried in a bag and often brought to fights as a safety precaution. One memorable usage of it includes a young Son Goku kindheartedly giving one to the then-evil Piccolo, despite his attempts to kill Goku.

Not always effective. Notably, they had no effect on the deadly heart virus contracted by Goku in the Android Saga.

See also

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