Post
by Kunzait_83 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 1:11 pm
1) 23rd Budokai: Dragon Ball firing on all cylinders. Everything is peak perfection: a simple revenge story of gods and demons mixed with a martial arts tournament setting, fantastic character payoffs to long-standing story threads from the previous few arcs, some of the best ever conceived and executed fights and martial arts techniques in the series, and all with tons of hyperkinetic energy and propulsive momentum to spare. Anyone who continues to claim that there is a clear line in the sand between the moment original DB ends and Z begins is just flat out incorrect.
2) Saiya-jin: Seamlessly continues the confident stride from the 23rd Budokai. Brutal, vicious space barbarians vs mystical martial arts masters with the latter as the underdogs is an excellent recipe and an awesome contrast. Killing off Goku after the first fight was incredibly ballsy, and the introduction of DB's endearingly Toriyama-ish afterlife is most welcome. An effective "doomsday clock" style first half builds up to a devastating gut punch of a final showdown that racks up a horrific body count and punctuates it with an admirable amount of dread and suspense. The beginning of a long daisy-chain of events and stories where the main cast are hopelessly in over their heads and their complete and utter demise is always hovering just a razor inch away at nearly all times.
3) 22nd Budokai: Another great use of a martial arts tournament setting, this time to tell a redemption story. Tenshinhan is one of the most underappreciated antagonists the series has ever had, and is nicely conflicted, humanized, and developed throughout. Not to mention more show stoppingly creative fights and increasingly weirder martial arts techniques. Also the best material that Muten Roshi has ever had in the series, hands down. Also where the Goku/Kuririn bromance, the most affecting relationship in the series, fully solidifies itself in nicely understated fashion. Everyone in the core cast shines like a beacon here.
4) Freeza: Probably the most, in many ways unfairly, over-derided arc in the series. Sports some of the most byzantine - but in a good, well handled way - twist-laden plotting in the series, as well as easily its very best Dragon Ball Hunt storyline. Amazingly well structured, considering Toriyama's "by the seat of his pants" reputation. Continues and further ramps up the dread-fueled "the heroes are doomed" tension of the Saiya-jin arc allowing the series to go to some of the darkest places its ever been. I'm actually fond of Namek as a setting: its just alien and odd enough to feel legitimately disquieting (which adds more of an eerie etherealness to the aforementioned "shit's gonna end badly for everyone" vibe), and the weird, distinctive architecture is some of my favorite bits of Toriyama visuals in the series. Some of the most down and dirty, brutal and violent fights in the whole series, to compliment the barbaric, heinous nature of the villains. Oh yeah, and also SSJ. Other than the back stretch of the anime sporting some of the unquestionably worst filler in the series, I have relatively fewer complaints with this arc than most tend to.
5) Piccolo Daimao: Everything in this arc hinges on Goku's revenge story, and its executed extremely well. Kuririn's death and the ensuing events after are handled very effectively, and Daimao remains one of the top 3 most iconic villains in all of Dragon Ball (alongside Freeza and Vegeta or maybe Cell), and not without good reason as his amazing design and general creepiness (not to mention kickass backstory) cement him fairly well as an intrinsic part of Dragon Ball's lore. Also contains more of Muten Roshi's A game material, as well as the debut of the Shinden (Kami's Temple) which is for my money the single coolest location in a series known for and chock full of cool locales. The final showdown at King's Castle is one for the books indeed, with easily the best and most instantly recognizable finishing off of a main villain in the series.
6) Majin Boo: Possibly the single weirdest arc in all of Dragon Ball, which is saying a lot. A divisive arc among fandom, and I'm honestly baffled as to why: its as pure DB and pure Toriyama as it gets. Adds a whole ton of fun elements to the series universe and lore (Kaioshin, Fusion, Madoshi & Majin, vaguely Persian design motifs, Boo's amazing innards) and the balancing act of the tone is as emblematic of the essence of what DB is at its core as well as of the time period in which it was made. Its so distinctive, idiosyncratic, bursting with imagination, ideas, and high energy, and just generally leaps out of the page at you so much that you'd almost never guess in a million years that it represented the swan song period of a massive global franchise of a children's phenomenon from an author who was by this point running on fumes.
7) Cell: Perhaps the least deftly executed arc in the series (being the most heavily effected by Toriyama's editors and without direction for certain stretches), what it lacks in narrative focus it makes up for with a lot of fun ideas, indispensable characters, and memorable setpieces. Trunks and the time travel-laden origins/B movie monster build up of Cell is easily the strongest stretch, adding perfect doses of sci fi and horror into the mix. There's some drag in the middle (namely the marathon of island battles, though Piccolo vs #17 is a series highlight), but the Cell Games is a memorable and iconic enough climax to make up for it. Cyborg Freeza is also just an awesome visual design, and Cell's initial form rivals Daimao and Boo as one of weirdest in the series.
8 ) 21st Budokai: The arc that originally made Dragon Ball gain some steam as the titanic name in manga/anime that it is, and its a fun, irreverently Slumpian ode to all things Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest. Muten Roshi's Jackie Chun persona is infectiously fun, Namu's a cool proto-Tenshinhan-esque straight man, and Kuririn's debut is just about perfect. Its still kinda slight, but the atmosphere and tone is already spot on. Great fun, more so if you were ever a Shaw and Harvest junkie. Goku vs Jackie Chun remains a contender for one of the best ending fights in the series that isn't Goku vs Piccolo Ma Junior or Vegeta.
9) Red Ribbon Army: Its almost more of a daisy chain of mini arcs haphazardly strung together, but the variety is nice and keeps it moving along while giving off probably the biggest (and most infectiously fun) sense that Toriyama is literally just pulling random shit out of his ass as he goes. Muscle Tower, Tao Pai Pai, and Baba are easily the most prominent highlights with Blue and the Pirate's Cave taking the silver. One of the two arcs in the series that people are generally thinking of when they (incorrectly) say that pre-Z Dragon Ball is "more adventure than fighting".
10) Pilaf: Humble beginnings. This is Toriyama fresh off of Slump, and it definitely shows to one degree or another. Still with one foot steeped in gag manga shenanigans, its simultaneously works as a self-contained little one-off Journey to the West riff as well as representing a deceptively much bigger series only just starting to find its voice and its footing. Establishes Goku very well at the offset, and his initial meeting with Bulma has a suitably fairy tale-like feel (with stupid toilet jokes thrown in, cause its Toriyama). Its hardly the most indicative of what's to come, but it's cute and harmless enough.
http://80s90sdragonballart.tumblr.com/
Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.