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Quick Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z question (viewing order)
Idx86
Long days and pleasant nights.Registered User regular
Long days and pleasant nights.Registered User regular
God help me, I've decided to start watching the Dragon Ball series. However I am anal retentive in making sure I watch things in the right order. Is it safe to assume that one would start with the original Dragon Ball and watch that whole series before going to Dragon Ball Z?
If not, what is considered to be the "best" way in which to view this thing?
If not, what is considered to be the "best" way in which to view this thing?
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Original DBZ or if you want a "smoothed" experience DBZ Kai, which I've never seen but my understanding is that it's the same thing minus some filler content. Continues where story left off, ends with main character in late middle age? Hard to tell for reasons...
DB GT next, however not that the original creator was not involved with this. I liked it, for what that's worth. Main characters are kids and grankids of the original characters, plus a plot twist kid version of original character.
DB Super is new (like a year or two?), I haven't seen it, and the original creator is involved. I think it ignores GT happened at all.
There is also movies that happened during each run that are standalone stories involving characters from the show at the time plus some original to the movie. Usually the show plots impacted the movies, but not the other way around. The very first movie kind of mirrors the first few episodes of original DB (with some differences), i think it may have been the pilot for the show.
Dragon Ball Z Kai is basically a pared-down version of the original DBZ series, cutting out most of the filler (wikipedia says it's 167 episodes instead of 291 episode) and re-mastered for HD broadcast.
Dragon Ball GT was created as a sequel to Dragon Ball Z but wasn't actually written with any input by Akira Toriyama, and is now considered non-canon as well. You can safely skip it.
Instead, the new on-going series, Dragon Ball Super, is considered the official canonical successor to Dragon Ball Z.
Be aware that any of the films for either of the series are their own stand-alone things and don't really slot into the actual series continuity. That is, except for the two newest films, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', which actually were produced with input by Akira Toriyama.
Hope that helps!
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Dragon Ball, the start of it all. Introduces many of the main characters that you will follow through all the other series.
Dragon Ball movies are completely separated from the main series, but some can be fun.
Dragon Ball Z picks up a bit after Dragon Ball. The original or Kai, just kind of depends what you like. You could check out a few episodes of both and see what you think. The filler never really bothered me in Z (unlike something like Naruto where it bugged me a great deal).
Like the first series, the movies have nothing to do with the story, and are never really referenced in the main series in any way.
Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT both follow after Z/Kai. If you only want to watch "official" then go straight to Super. If you want to watch them all. I'd suggest GT first because Super is far superior and will end you on a better note, and will catch you up to current since Super is still on going.
GT movies are just like the previous 2 series. No tie in at all, except the last GT movie is sort of the "end" of the whole series in a way.
Super movies (Battle of the Gods and Resurrection F) are a bit different so far. There's a few differences, but the story arcs in both movies are covered in the show as well.
Super is the official followup to DBZ, however I recommend watching Battle of Gods and then Resurrection F and then pick up the show a little later into Super's episodes as the first chunk of Super is a retread of the movies and I feel the movies are better.
I like the idea of Kai because 200+ episodes seems daunting, plus the HD remaster is very appealing.
Thanks everyone!
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I'd go one further. If you like comedy, and find you like DBZ, or even if you don't like it but would like to see it taken to the absurd, then it's required viewing. I've laughed out loud at so many parts of abridged I can't even remember all the best moments anymore.
The thing is both are very different shows. DB is a very charming, simplistic (even by Dragonball standards) shows. It's more of a martial arts/hero's journey kinda show. There's a lot more humor, and definitely more attention to character.
BUT it's not the show people tend to think of when they think DBZ. Until probably the last bit of the series, power beams and the like are generally treated and ending moves, and you don't see people flying and busting out gigantic lasers from their hands.
So a lot of people end up getting dissappointed or calling it boring when compared to the madness DBZ and other shows like it continued. As long as you know this going in and are okay with it, by all means, watch it. But if you're going into the show to see world destroying battles, jump straight to DBZ.
Its the same story, with the filler cut out, with better writing and solid humor.
There’s no need to skip an experience a person may enjoy.
Abridged is funny without knowing the characters sure, but knowing them from the show makes it even funnier.
There's so many little jokes and references to things that aren't really shown because it's pared down so much.
And if they are looking to have the whole Dragon Ball experience, I think it works much better as follow up to be sure.
And then: One Punch Man.
There's an Abridged version of that too with one episode currently by PurpleEyesWTF
And it is fucking hilarious.
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IMO, don't bother with GT. It isn't even canon, but it also isn't very interesting or good. Also Super Saiyan 4 is stupid looking.
My advice is to start with DBZ and move to Super if you like that, and then check out Dragonball for some prequel action if you're interested enough. Dragonball is good, but DBZ is where all the really good shit is. Frieza saga, Androids/Cell saga being the top notch primo stuff IMO.
I say this as a fan of Dragonball, and as a guy who has Shenron and the 7 dragonballs as a half sleeve on his right arm.
Shit I never even liked DBZ and I think DBZA is great. Far as I can tell most of the characters are actually better realized here.
I actually hear that the people dubbing the newest Dragon Ball series really enjoy Abridged, and from some of the clips I've been linked they clearly are taking some notes on comedic delivery.
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As far as the original question, if you wanna watch Dragon Ball, go for it. But about all it'll do for Z is give a bit of added character depth to everybody. About the one crucial bit of character detail you might need to know is that the green guy is the clone/son of a really evil villain, and at the start of Z he's an enemy/rival of Goku's. Everybody else is friends with everybody else since they were younger.
As for which version to watch, I'd just stick to Kai. It's probably easier to find, it's shorter, and at this point the VA's are incredibly comfortable with their characters so the dub is excellent.
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Thanks again for all the Dragon Ball related guidance. Anime has been off the radar for quite some time, but I'm getting pulled back in now that my kids are more on auto-pilot at night and my wife and I have (some) free time again!
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the big problem with Z is that if you're familiar with anime at all they usually have filler arcs- Z has none of that(okay there's ONE filler episode where goku learns to drive), instead they pad scenes out by having people stare at each other a lot. that's why kai exists, there's a ton of people staring at each other that they could cut out with no loss.
and this is my personal opinion but you should totally check out some of the saiyan and namek saga scenes with the original ocean dub. the quality declined a lot as the series went on which led to the funimation dub but some of the early scenes with that dub are my favorite out of the entire show
They have tons of those! Young Gohan's adventures, fake Namek, Garlic Junior, etc
But yeah, the tactic that DBZ takes seems to be "make them scream some more" to stretch a single fight into an absurd number of episodes.
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Watch teamfourstar's DBZAbridged for the character interactions and comedy, watch Kai for the fights. TFS really cuts the fights super short, especially at the start when they are first learning about editing. And if you watch TFS, skip the first episode. It's pretty bad.
Edit: TFS is also a quick crash course comparatively. I think you can probably watch the entire catalogue in four or five hours, not counting the movies.
Not that I blame them. DBZA isn’t really a revenue stream, plus they’re actually being paid to dub a real show now.
Side note: Team Four Star’s Final Fantasy machinabridged is quite solid as well. Check it out.