Favorite "Series"

[VidelCoolGirl]

I'm sure there have been a lot of these. I'm not asking for your favorite saga (Android Saga and Cell for me), but what's your favorite Dragonball story? Dragonball, Dragonball Z (so to speak), or Dragonball GT? Give your reasons why, and why you think the others aren't as reputable.

[ryushe]

*Stands on soapbox*

I'm sure this thread will be filled with post on top of post with people saying Dragonball Z is their favorite series of the whole DB timeline. How could you not? It had everything. Epic fights, The introduction of many key feature to the whole series (New characters, Super Sayajin, Fusion, etc.), Great character development and some of the best saga's in the whole show (Majin Buu was a godly saga FYI), but only one series will stay true to my heart and that's the original Dragonball series.

Why you ask?

DB just had everything I thought a shounen anime should have. A simple plot, fun and interesting characters and pure martial arts. Now you say, "DBZ and DBGT had martial art's ryushe, What are you talking about"? I don't mean flashes of light and lines on a screen. I mean real martial arts. I know even DB had it exaggerations here and there, but DB had real fighting. Not spamming Super Sayajin levels or who could do the biggest KI blast, DB was fighting, with punches and kicks....and your occasional Kamahamaha

You know what always bothered me in DBZ (We'll get to GT in a little while) is by the time Goku turned Super Sayajin 1 for the first time, everyone who wasn't a Sayajin or at least half Sayajin was practically useless. I remember in DB when Goku and Krillien was on more or less equal standing, I remember when Yamcha and Goku could fight together and goku wouldn't completely outshine him and I remember when Tien was actually worthy competition for Goku. Do you all remember that fight? it was awsome.

When Goku lost to someone in DB, you know what he did? He trained. He relied on his own strength and not that of a SSJ whatever number.

I guess by the time DBGT came around, they realized that the original DB had this kind of "Magic" about it, thus why they wanted to make Goku a child again. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm one of the only Dragonball fans out there that really like DBGT. In a way, turning Goku into a child again kinda had a nostalgic felling to it reminiscent of the DB days. I could have worked, but by this time, everything was already addresses and no mistakes were corrected.

Vegeta turning Evil...Again? Check
Earth Destroyed...Again? Check
Another over powered SSJ level...Again? Check
More alienation of side characters...Again? Check
No added character development...Again? Check

Nothing I haven't seen in DBZ already. Still a good series, just my least favorite. Awesome music though. To this day, "DAN DAN Kokoro Hikareteku" is still my sh!t.

It's funny, Everyone who's a fan of the DB series loves Dragonball Z and hates Dragonball GT. Dragonball is sorta like the middle child. No one ever seems to remember about it.

[Vaikyuko]

I love Dragon Ball. Much like ryushe said, it's the epitome of shounen.

On a personal level, I prefer DBZ though, because I prefer more beatdown.

[lunarvesperia]

I like Dragon Ball the most.

I enjoyed the first adventures of kid Goku a lot,and i think it was more cute .
Oh,and as Ryushe said,i prefer real martial arts as well,from energy waves.

[Nigokio]

Yes I couldn't agree more with Ryushe about this. I recently started watching some of the earlier parts of DB and I realized that it's very underrated compared to DBZ and, even GT to some extent. This scene (well the entire fight) is pretty much in my top ten Dragonball anything moments because it's just pure marital arts action that not even DBZ really could compete with. Well maybe some parts of the Buu saga but, now looking back on things I feel that as a whole DBZ is missing too many elements that made watching Dragonball enjoyable. I still enjoy DBZ, but I have a much higher respect for DB than I had a few years ago.

[Hajime Saitou]

I like both DB and DBZ, but they each have a different style. I guess the main reason I like DB more than DBZ is because I prefer the focus on adventure in DB to the focus on fighting in DBZ.

[J Dude]

I fall into the category of liking both DB and DBZ, but I definitely prefer the added amount of action in the DBZ part of the series. Needless to say though, the last fight with Goku and Piccolo at the end of the DB is one of the best fights in the entire series and one of the most brutal.

[Hisoka]

I never know how to reply to this. I've always treated the first episode of Z as the very next episode. The letter Z being at the end of the title never made me think of it as a different show. Maybe it's because I'm one of the few who watched the series in order and didn't start with Z, but I really just group it as one. So if I had to choose I wouldn't be able to. There are parts of DB I like more than Z and vis versa. It ticks me off when I see someone refer to the entire series as DBZ though. Hell, I think most American Z fans haven't even seen DB all the way through. I love the fact that you can pin point on any area of the series and nearly every saga has it's own separate feel to it. I never in a million years thought it could possibly change throughout the course of the series so drastically. That is something you very rarely see and I welcome it.

You know who doesn't get enough love? General Blue.

What's Dragonball GT?

[Nigokio]

Originally Posted by Hisoka

I've always treated the first episode of Z as the very next episode.

You know I don't know when, but I used to always treat DB and DBZ as separate series. I think it might have been when I was watching DB Movie 3, and DBZ movies 3 and 7 in the same weekend that I really stopped and thought to myself, "Wow, no matter how drastically different the "Z" portion of the series got, it was still Dragonball at heart. I mean yeah I know the manga is just titled, "Dragonball" but it just never hit me as hard as it did until I really thought about it.

P.S. You're really lucky to have seen Dragonball all the way through without starting at Z BTW.

[Hisoka]

Can someone explain to me what it was like starting with Z? Were you really confused as to what was going on? The intro to Gohan episode was pretty much cut out and you have this cast that seems to already know each other really well. They're suddenly frightened by this guy named Piccolo who it seems they have history with... You find out Goku is an alien which probably wouldn't be very significant if this was the first episode you ever watched. Lots of time had passed and the story was going in a different direction so I suppose it was a good enough spot to start with. But it just seems so odd to me. I can't imagine starting at episode 154 of any series and eventually going back and watching up to that point. When I found out Goku was part of an alien fighting race, that he had a brother, and that he was sent to the earth to seek and destroy, it blew my mind. You always knew he was an odd ball with freakish strength and fighting abiling, that he had a tail and could turn into a huge ape. But that was one of those huge shockers.

[Nigokio]

^You know I really don't know. I've never ever watched this anime consistently from beginning to end in any language and The only DB related thing I've done consistently was read the manga, and even then I haven't read that in a while now.

I started when Vegeta fought Goku all the way to end of Cell, then I saw all of the DB series, then I saw the beginning episodes of DBZ up to Vegeta vs. Goku, then I skipped to the Buu saga. Mostly the entire time I was putting one and two together. Sooner or later I'm gonna watch it from the first episode to the very end, but most of the surprises and impacting moments were gone, most specifically everybody's fear of Piccolo, some things from the Saiyan saga, RR Army stuff, and things that had to do with Piccolo Daimao. It was still fun but I felt that I could have got more out of things if I didn't start at "Z".

[Sushikins]

Originally Posted by Hisoka

Can someone explain to me what it was like starting with Z? Were you really confused as to what was going on? The intro to Gohan episode was pretty much cut out and you have this cast that seems to already know each other really well. They're suddenly frightened by this guy named Piccolo who it seems they have history with... You find out Goku is an alien which probably wouldn't be very significant if this was the first episode you ever watched. Lots of time had passed and the story was going in a different direction so I suppose it was a good enough spot to start with. But it just seems so odd to me. I can't imagine starting at episode 154 of any series and eventually going back and watching up to that point. When I found out Goku was part of an alien fighting race, that he had a brother, and that he was sent to the earth to seek and destroy, it blew my mind. You always knew he was an odd ball with freakish strength and fighting abiling, that he had a tail and could turn into a huge ape. But that was one of those huge shockers.

Well, I've only really watched the dub, so my opinion may not account for too much, but it definitely was confusing. I'll admit I caught and started watching the show about the time that Vegita and Nappa landed. I was confused, since it was basically my first anime that I really got interested in, but I eventually started figuring stuff out. It was definitely confusing when I eventually saw those first episodes of DBZ and there were all these references I didn't get, I just chalked it up to the thought that perhaps I missed something and would catch it on the air later. It would be at least a year till I even heard of Dragonball, when I finally went to check out where this Piccolo vs. Goku fight had happened, since I knew I'd seen every episode at that point, and didn't recall that fight (ignoring the fact that it was edited and episodes removed.) I did watch DB back when it aired on CN, though I admit I didn't really appreciate it back then, do to it's lack of "action" compared to Z. I don't know how far I really got with that, sometime during the RR army stuff, but it never really caught on with me at the time. I just treated DBZ as its own series, the fact that the characters were just there, didn't really bother me back then, I was just watching it to see some cool fights, just like when I watched and enjoyed Gundam Wing back then.

Well, past mistakes are past mistakes. I haven't watched DB or DBZ since, save for some clips friends have sent me and my own searches, but I plan to eventually watch DB and DBZ all the way though in Japanese, unedited, someday down the road.

[lunarvesperia]

Originally Posted by Hisoka

What's Dragonball GT?

I guess you are right about that :p

[Gyt Kaliba]

I admire ryushe's speech, and agree with him that the original Dragon Ball is underrated by hardcore Z-crazed fans - but I still have to vote for Z as my personal favorite.

Call me nostalgic, but without Dragon Ball Z (Not DB, but DBZ) I wouldn't be an anime fan today. Sure, I started watching Pokemon, but that was just another really cool Saturday morning cartoon to me while in the 5th grade. But DBZ, that made me think, it made me grow up, it made me be more creative, it got me talking online - and most importantly for me, it taught me that I don't care what my peers at school thought, I'll watch the shows I think are cool not what's 'Hot' in Hollywood right now, and DBZ was THE show for me at the time.

Since watching it, I've watched the original Dragon Ball and loved it to death. Meeting characters for the first time (well, the first time they were meant to be seen anyway) had quite an effect on me, it felt like visiting an old friend even the first time I saw the show. And yes, the fights are a little more realistic, and I love that it relies more on strategy and training rather than who can go 'Suparh Saiy-jiihn level 5!1!!!1' or whose power level is 'Over 9,000' or '1,000,000'. None of that mattered then, it was simply who was gonna come out on top, disregarding all that junk that makes people go crazy early in their fandom.

Then GT...ugh, it's not that I don't like GT, I love it as much as I can, but it shows what is wrong with some anime fans today. They want something to go on forever (I'm guilty of this too, so I'm not a hypocrite in saying it, I'm talking to myself here too) when it's not always good for it. I know this was made in the late 90s (98 for GT I believe), but it's still true today. Pokemon was a decent show (and the games continue to be so) with the first 151 pokemon, then when they added another 100+ it was nice. Then they added another 100+ creatures, and already it began to lose it's magic. Now they've added another 100+ (or have they done that twice again already?), and all that it was before is in shambles. No one can catch them all and still have time to eat, not even Ash! Getting back on topic, GT for all it's errors was still good, but it showed me that some things need to end before they wear out their welcome.

So, in the end I still have to pick DBZ. I hope some of my ranting explains why. ;

[radishman]

DB for the simple fact that it wasn't filled with the trash that plagued Z.

Vegeta