AKA almost every single 90s Black kid's favorite anime ever
I don't think this is much of a surprise to anyone who knows me even remotely well, but I LOVE anime. The distinct visual style compared to western media/cartoons combined with its generally high quality animation is a combination that is highly engrossing to budding imaginations. I was one of the millions upon millions of kids who were infatuated with Pokemon in the craze that first hit the states in the 90s. Watching the show is what directly lead to my obsession with the games, hell as of the time of this post my twitter header is literally a picture of 6 year old me with my hands glued to my kiwi-colored Game Boy Color with Pokemon Blue inside. Little did I know that would it would only be the gateway into even more amazing stuff. In 1999 there was a new afternoon programming block on Cartoon Network called Toonami, which showcased numerous action tilted anime like Sailor Moon, Robotech, and Gundam Wing (spoiler alert, this series is gonna be the next Anime based post after this). One series however, clearly stood out above all the rest and was a cultural phenomenon that shaped the imaginations of little boys like me for years on end.
Dragon Ball Z is a shonen (Japanese for young boys) manga/anime produced by the Toei Company and written by Akira Toriyama, most well known for his VERY recognizable artstyle (and crippling inability to draw more than 5-6 faces). It is actually the sequel series to another series, simply known as Dragon Ball, a fact I'm sure most other kids were surprised by when it finally aired years later after Z's initial run in the US. The show centers around Goku, a naive goofy kid who for some odd reason has a monkey's tail, and his adventures around the world in his quest to both collect the legendary dragon balls that grant wishes and to become the world's strongest martial artist, picking up a variety of quirky friends and enemies along the way. It generally was a light-hearted, kid friendly show, but also definitely had its darker moments (Almost anything regarding the aptly named Demon King Piccolo). It also had fantastic moments of spectacle, like nearly anytime Goku used his trademark technique, the Kamehameha, a big blue beam of energy that destroys anything in its path.
(From Left to Right:Master Roshi, Chaotzu, Tien, Krillin, Goku, Puar, Yamcha, Bulma, Oolong)
(SPOILER ALERT: If you genuinely find yourself interested in the series to this point and are a newcomer just go ahead and skip down to the 2nd to last paragraph, you have been warned!)
To make a short synopsis of the first few story arcs, Dragon Ball Z takes place 5 years after the end of Dragon Ball, where our hero Goku is now a married young adult with a son named Gohan. The show immediately starts with a bang when a strange man emerges from a crashed capsule similar to the one Goku was found in by his adoptive grandfather. Introduced as Raditz, he claims to not only be Goku's older brother, but that his name isn't even actually Goku but Kakarot, both of them descending from a proud warrior race called Saiyans. He kidnaps Gohan shortly after and taunts them to try and take him back. Goku becomes so desperate he seeks the help of Piccolo, the aforementioned Demon King (or technically, his asexually reproduced son). Working together with teeth clenched teamwork, they finally manage to take down Raditz, but at a grave cost. Goku, the protagonist of the entire series, F***ING DIES! In the opening story arc no less!
This is something that blew my mind as a kid. My experience with storytelling at this point were that no matter how bad things seemed,the good guys would manage to pull it out at the end and everything would be okay. Nope, not here! All that fairy tale bullshit is immediately thrown out the window! Luckily for him, this is a world where the Dragon Balls exist and he can promptly be revived after a year long waiting period. The bad news however, is that two more saiyan warriors exponentially stronger than Raditz would be coming to earth soon, so it becomes a mad dash for everyone to become stronger to combat the future threat, with Piccolo going as far to kidnap Gohan himself in order to train himself for the fated day, and Goku managing to train in the afterlife!
The fated day comes, and the two saiyans, the bullheaded Nappa and cocky blue blood Vegeta, arrive causing mass destruction and killing off a significant portion of the named cast, including Piccolo, until Goku finally arrives making quick work of Nappa and after a desperate struggle with some assistance from his son, Vegeta too. Goku makes the decision to let Vegeta live and escape being goodhearted to a fault, and after Krillin overhears Vegeta talking about the original home of the Dragon Balls, Planet Namek, the group resolves to travel into space in order to find the planet and revive their dead friends, with Earth's Dragon Balls being rendered useless due to Piccolo's death. For a quick breather, try and remember that this show is supposed to be meant for KIDS! Quite a lot to take on when you're relatively new to the medium. Gohan, Krillin, and Bulma make the trip to Namek, with Goku following shortly after once he finished rehabbing his injuries from the battles with Nappa and Vegeta. Little did they know also awaiting them on Namek would be the most feared tyrant in all the galaxy, FREIZA.
This isn't even his final form!
I have a major affinity for quality antagonists in all forms of media and storytelling, almost to the point in being more interested in them than the heroes themselves. A protagonist can only be as compelling as his antagonist is a daunting, genuine threat to achieving their goals. Antagonists can take many shapes, the anti-villain types who have good intentions but use ruthless, potentially unethical means to do so, outright forces of nature who have no comprehension of human concepts of right and wrong, or the straight on sadistic mustache twirling assholes who punt kittens as a recreational hobby. Freiza FIRMLY falls within in the latter of the three and does it in a way that is thoroughly entertaining, between siccing his quirky henchmen on our heroes, or finally taking the kid gloves off and dealing with them himself. Child me was thoroughly terrified of him while the more genre-savvy adult me now looks back fondly on how much a thoroughly intimidating villain made the experience that much richer.
After a series of twists and turns, including Vegeta forming a temporary alliance with the heroes, Piccolo coming back to life and learning Namek is his true homeworld, and Goku temporarily forced to trade bodies with the leader of Freiza's elite mercenary team, the heroes finally face off against Freiza once and for all for control of the Dragon Balls. Freiza then proceeds to transform not once, not twice, but THREE times in a row like a RPG final boss, giving the heroes just a sliver of hope each time before ruthlessly crushing it. Goku finally arrives to combat Freiza's final form, using every single technique and trick he's learned to this point, only to find himself still hopelessly outmatched. Because of Freiza's sadistic tendencies, he decides to take a moment to start mercilessly killing off everyone else, including Piccolo, Vegeta, and Krillin (If you haven't noticed by now, death is kind of cheap in this universe!). He even starts to turn his attention to Gohan, but then, something amazing happens....
I STILL remember screaming my lungs out seeing this in person for the first time. This was the COOLEST SHIT EVER. Literally every single kid who followed this show has tried emulating this either in secret or embarrassingly in public, likely confusing their ignorant parents, friends, and siblings about why they were screaming bloody murder in their room watching TV. My parents thought I was being possessed by the devil and needed an exorcist. It had inadvertently been spoiled in the intro for the longest time and yet was still no less impactful or hype when the moment finally occurred. Goku realizes an ascended state of power only heard about in rumors, the legendary SUPER SAIYAN. He then proceeds to wipe the floor with Freiza (including quite literally, pimpslapping the shit out of him. I'm not kidding this ACTUALLY happens). In a desperate final gambit Freiza, being the wonderful villain he is, tries to take him down with him by blowing up Namek in its entirety. Thanks to the power of Namek's Dragon Balls, everyone previously killed by Freiza manages to be resurrected safe and sound on Earth, but Goku's fate is ultimately is left up in the air.....Until the following story arcs, but this is probably a good stopping point before I accidentally end up summarizing the entire series!
It's almost impossible to overstate the cultural impact that this show had, not only in its native Japan but also here overseas in the States as well. Its transcendent popularity lead to a slew of other shonen anime and manga being produced and dubbed for the western audience, hoping to capitalize on the newfound demand for anime similar to it. Various tropes and character archetypes from the series are gleaned and reused in modern anime/manga even to this day, with varying degrees of success. It is still the 2nd highest grossing manga series in history even after it's conclusion, only trailing behind Eiichiro Oda's One Piece. It remains a multimedia juggernaut to this day, with an impressive collection of toys, video games, and even an eventual follow up series called Dragon Ball Super (There's also Dragon Ball GT but for my own personal sanity we'll pretend it doesn't exist here in Ogre Chronicle).
Despite all of my gushing over the series, that's not to say it's flawless. The pacing in the original run of the anime was AWFUL, partially due to the fact that the anime was still running while the manga was ongoing, so in order to give them more time to flesh the story out they created anime unique content (usually described as "filler") in order to pad out the air time. It was very demoralizing as a kid to wait an entire week for an episode just to have the plot effectively go nowhere over that period of time. Thankfully this was rectified in a future release called Dragon Ball Z Kai, where all that filler content is cut out in order to streamline the viewer experience. Some complain that a significant part of the cast becomes increasingly irrelevant as the series continued on, seeing some of their personal favorites relegated to the sidelines. Another major nitpick was having the contents of the next episode CONSTANTLY spoiled within the episode preview at the end of each episode. Kinda ruining the suspense on if a character lives or dies if the episode title literally spells it out! Ultimately these are relatively minor complaints, and Dragon Ball Z still remains one of the foundational pieces of my childhood that formed my tastes for the medium that carry on until this day.
