Dragon Ball (All Series)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That villain looks fucking weird... even moreso in action than on the original poster.

The character designs were actually done by Toriyama himself for this movie, including the villain designs. If you're familiar with Toriyama's art-work and character designs, his characters are deliberately more cartoony and have a light-hearted sort of feel to them. The anime kind of made the designs look a bit more serious, but there was always a touch of humor to the manga, so the result we got here is a villain that is more befitting of what Toriyama would draw in the manga than what anime fans would expect. From what I've heard, Toriyama himself was involved with writing the story for this movie, and he claimed to have written it like how he would write an arc of the manga if he continued it past the Majin-Buu arc (which itself was play more for humor in the manga than it was in the anime), and he did say that its not his style to go all-out dark with a series like this and prefers that it has plenty of light-hearted elements, so the design of the villain seems to fall very much in line with that claim.

As for me, I'm fine with it as long as the villain himself can still manage to be entertaining and memorable like past DB/Z villains. I mean, when you really stop to think about it, didn't Frieza look weird as fuck, as well? Yet he's probably the most memorable DBZ villain. Buu also looked pretty ridiculous, so this new guy's design doesn't really phase me all that much.

Nevertheless, I am still intrigued. Wonder if FUNi will ever get their hands on it...

Well, DBZ has always been their #1 money-maker, and I'm pretty sure Toei is well-aware of DBZ's international popularity, so I don't see how FUNi wouldn't be getting this movie localized here as soon as possible.

[Rynnec]

Funi still has yet to license the Jump Special from 2008 though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, to be fair, that was a pretty minor thing, and Toei Animation themselves streamed the English subbed version of the special for free.

[Kiddington]

So... this happened.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So... this happened.

Why did he only have 1 drumstick in his hand?

[Kiddington]

So... this happened.

Why did he only have 1 drumstick in his hand?

...so he can fight with the other?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm not at all into these pointless vs. battle things, but for what its worth, I found this video to be extremely entertaining in an extremely nerdy sort of way. Its all just for good fun, at any rate.

[Kiddington]

Whenever we do get the Kai dub of Buu, I'm still having a very hard time imagining any part of it without this theme.

It's become so iconic to that era of the series for me; from Goku going SS3 for the first time, to finally destroying Kid Buu once and for all, they played this during nearly every major moment, and it fits so perfectly. It's too bad they couldn't have used Faulconer's stuff after the original Kai score (which I do like, but it is what it is) turned out to be plagiarized.

On the opposite end, I could just never get into Kikuchi's score. It was great in the original Dragon Ball, but feels so out of place in DBZ.

[Rynnec]

I hear ya. I wish the Z portion of Dragonball had more rock music. I mean, listen to this cover of Cha La Head Cha La and just try to tell me that it's not completely awesome.

If nothing else,  having Arc System Works develop another DBZ game so Ishiwatari-san can compose the soundtrack would be pure bliss.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I've been re-watching the hell out of Dragon Ball, lately, and as of 30+ episodes in....yeah, this series TOTALLY deserved its place in our top 20 on our animated series list. Both the humor and adventure elements of this show have aged so damn well that its actually kind of surprising for me. I really do hate it when people confuse this series with DBZ. While DBZ was also based off of good manga material, there is such a cleverness to the early parts of Dragon Ball that were adapted so damn well in the original anime that its really a shame that this iteration of the series isn't at least as popular as its direct sequel adaptation.

I'm currently on the Red Ribbon army arc, BTW, and the filler material isn't half-bad, so even that element of the show still holds up to at least a certain degree, IMO.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Dragon Ball is still a fun adventure series. The music is great, too.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I'm really loving how great the score is when I watch this series. I agree with the person above who said it wasn't really that great for DBZ (I've stated before, though, that I'm not a big fan of either soundtrack for DBZ, and I think their both OK with a few stand-out tracks, each), but Dragon Ball's music just fits the tone of the series so perfectly. Its among the few truly memorable soundtracks that I've ever heard from an anime series.

[LumRanmaYasha]

While DBZ was also based off of good manga material, there is such a cleverness to the early parts of Dragon Ball that were adapted so damn well in the original anime that its really a shame that this iteration of the series isn't at least as popular as its direct sequel adaptation.

I'm currently on the Red Ribbon army arc, BTW, and the filler material isn't half-bad, so even that element of the show still holds up to at least a certain degree, IMO.

The filler in the original Dragonball is phenomenal. Hands down the best in any anime adaption, to the point where it's inclusion improves the already great story. The episodes featuring Colonel Silver especially hype up the Red Ribbon Army as a dangerous threat, making it all the more awesome when Goku completely owns Silver without much hassle. Not to mention that the inclusion of Pilaf in those episodes made his role at the end of the Fortuneteller Baba saga some good circular storytelling, whereas his inclusion at the end of it in the manga wasn't hinted at before and comes off as random. Dragonball Z has some good uses of filler, but nearly 80% comes off as padding that doesn't add to the story in any meaningful way. It's a shame that DBZ is more popular just because of it's battles although Dragonball has the superior story, but at least it was still popular back when Toonami aired it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I always liked how the filler in DB added to the core story and were not just random uninteresting stories that have nothing to do with the tale.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, with Dragon Ball, you really get the sense that the writers for the anime actually gave a crap about the story, and crafted most of the filler to try and enhance it, which works out well since Toriyama is the sort of writer who leaves a lot of finer details out of his story to keep the pacing moving along quick (which is perfect for a manga, while leaving plenty of room for interpretation from the standpoint of a writer adapting the series into an anime). Thankfully, the writers working on Dragon Ball clearly took advantage of this fact and capitalized on the opportunity to enrich the story. Of course, the series does have its fair share of stand-alone filler as well, but from what I can remember, even a decent number of those were pretty good.

And yes, I also like how Dragon Ball's filler will often take the time to show you what other recurring characters are up to. For instance, I like how the anime actually gave you a resolution to Nam's story, whereas the guy was completely forgotten about in the manga past Goku's fight with him.

I also like how there was more filler material in Dragon Ball to flesh out Tien's character. Honestly, Tien is one of my favorite characters from the Dragon Ball anime, specifically, whereas in the manga and DBZ they never really gave that much breadth to his character (though I did still like him during his early appearances in the manga, as well).