John Doe NOTE: This review can also be found on the other Dragon Ball Z TV page because it is the same series.Dragon Ball Z is the ultimate fighting anime ever to come out of Japan. It is the awesome sequel to Akira Toriyama san's Dragon Ball. This series is the Japanese Anime series you NEED to own. Every episode is amazing and action-packed! There are two hundred ninety one episodes in the original Japanese series they all are excellent. All the characters are likable and the entire story arc (there are multiple for each main 'villain' is very strong at least for the FUNimation dub) It was originally dubbed into English by The Ocean Group in Vancouver British Columbia, Canada but was later moved to Texas after the Namek Saga. FUNimation then localized it and dubbed the rest of the series using their own voice actors, and later went back and re-dubbed the episodes that were done for Canada. Dragon Ball Z has everything an anime fan could as for: action, comedy, drama and a great story.I give this series a solid 10/10

xamtaro First there was dragonball, then came DRAGONBALL Z which showed(I don't know if it was a first run or a rerun) in my country in 2000. I was 11 going on 12 that year and having loved Dragonball, i immediately grew to like its sequel. Oh how I enjoyed the toys, the keychains, the trading cards, even my water bottle which had pictures of both young and grown up Goku. I was enthralled by the awesome action and captivated by the vast array of cool looking characters. But that was a long time ago. Watching it now, 9 years later, the series does not hold the same amount of appeal as it used to. It's a "frog in a well" syndrome. Apparently I only thought Dragonball Z was that great because I was never exposed to anything better. For starters, the characters I once thought were "cool" are still cool, but nothing else beyond that. There isn't really much character development to speak off as the stories are more focused on the plot and the characters are just pre-set anime stock characters, put in place to advance the plot from one fight to the next. There are a couple of instances where the characters get some development and really shine as being remotely likable, but those come rarely and tend to get buried under all the action.The story is split into a number of distinct "sagas" but each of them progress slower than a sloth/snail hybrid. The pacing drags to the point of being unbearable only to the most patient and devoted of viewers. The horrendous story progression is not helped by the fact that every episode features lengthy rambling monologues, badly timed close-up shots that linger for too long, unnecessary dialogue and other cheap amateurish tactics just to fill up 25 minutes for an episode which contains no more than 15 minutes of actual story material. What starts off as an interesting premise soon falls into a set formula that goes from unoriginal to just painfully boring. The director's decision to follow different groups of characters on different adventures was a poor one and just made the convoluted plot so much more confusing. The fights are intense, epic and would please any action junkie out there. However some exceptionally poor animation and an over usage of animation short cuts give this whole show a very cheap look even for its time.(Some of the worse episodes of G I Joe were better animated than Dragonball Z). Thankfully, it makes up for that by providing some stunning and highly detailed artwork. So many anime fans extol the fact that Dragonball Z was so influential in making anime as famous as it is and influenced a whole generation of anime and manga creators. They cite Dragonball's numerous spin-offs and products as a testament to its greatness. Guess what, Adam West's Batman was influential too but I would hardly call it a good show. A popular show does not mean a good showIn the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. To kids who are not exposed to greater world of animated series and graphic novels, Dragonball Z would no doubt be one of the best shows around. People's minds tend to get clouded by the fact that Dragonball Z was so influential or might have been one of the first anime they ever watched(and thus introduced them to anime in general) that they remember only the good points and overlook the numerous jarring flaws of the series.Objectively speaking, Dragonball Z definitely does not deserve its current rating of 9.0/10. It is like a hot air balloon. It is beautiful to look at and even grand to behold, but look any deeper and it's just an empty basket and whole lot of nothing inside. This show has his moments like some good character progression, but nevertheless, it has too many flaws to speak of.

Eindyin I recently had the displeasure of seeing alot of this series when it came on public television over here. The dubbing was typically bad, though perhaps not quite as bad as some (possibly because what the characters are saying is complete crap anyway).This series has few redeeming qualities about it, if any at all. The problems that I saw with it:1. Poorly drawn - the lines are often messy, and the style is very simplistic; a whole eye consisting of skin color with a black loop around it and a dot in the middle? Not passable, 1989 or not.2. Poorly animated - there are so few frames put into the movement of characters, coupled with the fact that almost everything is looped OFTEN, and sometimes even blatantly repeated in the same episode, makes this very poor.3. Dialogue - usually consists of various grunts, sometimes with a few groans added in for good measure. When the characters do talk to each other, it's usually about how they're going to beat the guy they're talking to, in 4 or 5 episodes time when they actually stop grunting and try and fight.4. The 'fighting' in it is just a bunch of looped animation of them kicking/blocking each other. In some versions on public TV it's even cut out completely, removing what I thought was people's only reason for watching it.5. Sound - one word: repetitive. The same sounds are used many many times, and there seem to be about 3 background tunes used in the entire series.6. Storyline - the main character dies every few weeks, comes back to life and then dies again. When anyone who dies can get magically brought back to life... the fighting kind of loses any meaning. In closing... some things are just baffling. How could this have gotten so popular, a decade after it was originally vomited out? Really, I could eat a bunch of Archie comics and crap out a better animated action series.

Aaron1375 I love this show...very fast paced and entertaining. I don't mind the English dub either, because Goku sounds a lot better in the English version than he does in the Japanese (I think he is dubbed by a gal). This show is basically one long story with five chapters...1) the Saiyans, 2) Frieza, 3) Garlic Jr., 4) Cell, and 5) Buu. Each one has its good points though Garlic is short and the weakest. The reason I say they should have ended with this one though is that I have read the plot for GT and it just doesn't sound like it belongs. This show focuses mainly on Goku as he must train and train to overcome evil in many forms. One person said there is no plot, but I disagree. I like most anime, but the plots are sometimes very confusing, this is actually one of the easier animes to follow. Though if you are a fan of the show you will notice how some of the characters from the original Dragonball are just phased out more and more as this one progresses. This one was more fighting, while DB was more comedy and GT is a combo of both.