Dragon Ball (All Series)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I wouldn't exactly call DBZ "dark and brooding" by any stretch. It was still a show with insanely over-the-top characters and fighting and had tons of comic relief. Also, the only villain that I ever found to be lacking in personality was Cell.

[Lord Dalek]

The only thing "dark and brooding" about DBZ was Faulconer's awful emorock ringtone replacement soundtrack.

[Rynnec]

The only thing "dark and brooding" about DBZ was Faulconer's awful emorock ringtone replacement soundtrack.

Go to sleep.

[Lord Dalek]

The only thing "dark and brooding" about DBZ was Faulconer's awful emorock ringtone replacement soundtrack.

Go to sleep.

Awwww.... does somebody like bad Guilty Gear midis? 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The only thing "dark and brooding" about DBZ was Faulconer's awful emorock ringtone replacement soundtrack.

Go to sleep.

You're absolutely right, Rynnec. What Lord Dalek said is far too offensive and out there. I mean, after all, I've heard ringtones that are WAY more interesting than Faulconer's monotonous emo-rock. Comparing the two is just flat-out insulting to ringtones.

[Rynnec]

bad

Guilty Gear midis

This just flat-out doesn't make sense. Anything sounding even remotely close to Guilty Gear can't possibly be bad, and since my musical taste is automatically superior to anyone else's, that means my opinion is the only correct one. 

[Kiddington]

Alright alright, poor choice of words, but you guys know what I mean; the series had a tendency to take itself wayyyyy too seriously more often than not. Other than the Buu saga, this was a problem throughout its run.

As an aside, the new movie made me wonder why we didn't get any Pilaf at all in the main storyline for Z. He was such a prominent (and quite frankly enjoyable) character in the original series, for him to not show up at any point until now is strange. I get that the focus was on more intimidating villains, but they could've worked him in there somehow.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Alright alright, poor choice of words, but you guys know what I mean; the series had a tendency to take itself wayyyyy too seriously more often than not. Other than the Buu saga, this was a problem throughout its run.

I think that's more a fault of the anime than the manga. I certainly wouldn't say that the manga was ever taking itself TOO seriously. It had plenty of comic relief dispersed throughout (hell, almost every character name, even the villains, was a pun of something), and the tone was firmly tounge-in-cheek with a lot of scenes. I mean, it did have more serious moments than early Dragon Ball, for sure, but you can't tell me that something like the Namek arc was way too serious when it featured ridiculously over the top villains like the Ginyu Force (who literally played Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who would get to fight Vegeta, Gohan, and Krillin; and who had their own poses and theme song), or that the android saga was always too serious with all of the shenanigans that 17 and 18 went through when they were on that "road trip" on the way to finding Goku, or all of the stuff with Hercules in the Cell Games. Something like the Chapter Black arc of Yu Yu Hakusho is what comes to mind when I think of a super serious story arc in a shounen series. The closest that DBZ ever came to that was really only with the Saiyan arc, and even then, King Kai and Yajirobe's involvement brought much levity to the situation.

As an aside, the new movie made me wonder why we didn't get any Pilaf at all in the main storyline for Z. He was such a prominent (and quite frankly enjoyable) character in the original series, for him to not show up at any point until now is strange. I get that the focus was on more intimidating villains, but they could've worked him in there somehow.

That was also more of an anime thing, and one thing that I really like about the Dragon Ball anime that was an improvement from the manga. In the manga, Pilaf didn't really appear for a long while outside of the first story arc. He only had a brief cameo, for the most part, when Goku needed to get the last Dragon Ball after BaBa located it, and then again in a few scenes in the King Piccolo arc since he and his minions helped to release him. In the anime, they added way more scenes with him in the Red Ribbon Army arc, making him feel more prominent than he really was. Since Toriyama never used him again in the manga after King Piccolo, and since the DBZ anime is where Toei went seriously downhill with adapting the series (IMO), naturally they never thought to bring him back again, despite being a fun villain, though to be fair, he really would not have fit in with the story of any of those arcs, anyways, whereas he actually had a reason to have additional scenes in the early parts of DB, so that it wouldn't be so jarring to just see him pop up suddenly when Goku needed to retrieve the last Dragon Ball again.

[Eddy]

I also got to see Battle of Gods in theaters with a group of friends from work. I had already seen it previously fansubbed but I loved it even more seeing it this time around, as did all my friends and everyone in the theater. Easily the best DBZ movie by far containing a perfect amount of elements from both DB and DBZ.

FUNi did a fantastic job with the dub, too. I liked it even more so than the subbed version. I will pick this up without hesitation when we see a BD release in the states.

[Eddy]

Pre-orders now available for Battle of Gods on BD http://shop.funimation.com/Shop/ShopProductDetail.ss?itemid=95175&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=DBZ_BOG&utm_source=Blog&utm_content=Home_Video_Announcement&utm_nooverride=1

Special features include:
Behind the Scenes: Battle of Voice Actors
The Voices of Dragon Ball Z: Unveiled
Textless Closing Song
U.S. Trailer
Trailers

[Kiddington]

want so much 

Glad they're getting it out so fast, I was hoping we'd get it before Christmas. Curious about the uncut version as well, looks to actually be quite a bit longer than what we've seen (about 20 or so minutes).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Are those extra scenes the ones that Toei specially added for the TV broadcast of BoG? That'd certainly be interesting to see, if that is the case.

[Daikun]

Kai is getting an Ocean Group dub.

Scott McNeil as Piccolo again...

[LumRanmaYasha]

More information about the 2015 Dragon Ball Z movie has been revealed! The movie is called "Fukkatsu no F" and is about the resurrection of Freeza! Here's the key visual and a plot summary.

An Earth where peace has arrived. However, remnants of Frieza's army Sorbet and Tagoma (from the Japanese word for 'egg') arrive on the planet. Their goal is to revive Frieza with the dragon balls. Their dastardly wish is granted, the "F" that plans its revenge against the Saiyans is revived...! 

This is pretty interesting. Obviously, the big question here is how this is going to work, considering Freeza is massively weaker than how the other characters in the series are by the end of it. Of course, Toriyama said before that this film will be "utterly funny," so in that case, I'm sure there are a few ways they can exploit him for humor, though I hope they will still keep him as a somewhat credible threat. Also, Beerus and Whis are going to be in this movie too, and it should be fun to see them again. I hope we see a trailer for it sometime soon.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'd love to see more of Beerus's history with Freeza, which was hinted at in Battle of Gods.

While I'm totally up for a comedic Dragon Ball movie, I am hoping that they don't turn Freeza into TOO much of a joke, as he still deserves his status as one of Goku's greatest villains.

As for the new guys, I actually really like Sorbet's design, as it looks simple but very reminiscent of a classic Dragon Ball villain, such as Pilaf or Bobbidi, but Tagoma looks a bit too bland to me.