I have to say I agree with mostly everything that Rakurai said
, talking about anime I would say:
DB:
+: Creativity, amazing progression of the characters, some interesting fights, sense of wonder and adventure.
-: Too much gag and low tension on the first few sagas, some cliché and not quite interesting villains.
I think Dragon Ball was "finding itself" with this first series, and it shows sometimes, as it progresses it gets darker, but the blend between humor and seriousness of the first sagas is nice at times. I actually did like all the Goku x Chi Chi stuff. As for the evolution of the series itself, it is amazing how it grows in quality over time, out of all the dragon ball series, this one improves the most over time.
DBZ:
+: Captures the essence of dragon ball battles and saving the world perfectly, impressive designs and characters, even more creativity than in DB, the battles are the best of the franchise, and some are bloody (as they should be), it adds the iconic super saiyan transformations and makes great use of the supporting characters. It also gets progressively lighter in tone, which sometimes works and sometimes it doesn´t. Adds great new concepts.
-: I kind of agree with " Began the good vs. evil trope, with the most evil villains remaining one-dimensionally evil" but I don´t really think that´s bad per se, I do think however that the overuse of dragon balls damaged the show´s quality a bit. I also think there is less sense of adventure (which is not really good after a while), and less drama towards the end of it.
DBZ is my favorite out of all series, without a doubt. The execution is perfect.
DBGT:
+: Nice new concepts and ideas, and a good way to round up the story, coming full circle. It gets darker progressively, but starts with a tone akin to original DB, which is a beautiful concept. Some impressive designs and fights, careful use of transformations, new developments for some of the supporting characters (like the new dynamic between Trunks, Pan and Goku that Rakurai mentioned), worthy ending to the anime trilogy.
-: Lack of drama at the beginning, plenty of characters are not used as much as I would have liked (Yamcha and Tien on the baby saga come to mind), too few episodes, some unnecessary padding, continued use of Dragon Ball tropes for the most part (but with less astonishing battles to pay off, though it did have some).
I find the anime trilogy extremely gratifying to watch, I love how DB starts on earth and DBGT takes us to space, I love how Goku turns young again (it was certainly a bold move); we die as we are born, with that sweet ingenuity taking us over again.
DBS:
+: Some new interesting concepts like Ultra instinct, some nice fights, a lot of tension and high stakes, cool stuff like SSJ God and Hit, new animations effects, people like Piccolo or Gohan participating and having their moment to shine (sort of), a few nice designs.
-: Movie retellings are a bit of a negative, also there´s Roshi above Yamcha and possibly Tien, and participating in the TOP, Yamcha is probably worse than Chiaotzu at this point, overuse of transformations, brutal overuse of Frieza, an entire new saga dedicated to him, a lot of unnecessary padding, trivializing some characters and situations far more than GT ever did, and
So,
so much this: - Bringing back old characters whose stories should've been finished like Freeza and FTrunks
- FTrunks x Mai shipping, disgusting
- Horrible pacing in the ToP in the anime, essentially leading to villain of the week type of show
- Many character designs are bland. (or are recolored from previous series, like Vegito blue or golden frieza).
I hope you don´t mind me stealing your ideas Rakurai
Also, retconning things established previously (such as potara not being permanent), also the use of "saiyans" from universe 6 (they don´t have tails wtf) unfortunately, in that I don´t agree with you, I dislike Kale and Caulifla, even though I was desperately looking forward to more female saiyans. The TOP had some extremely weak fighters, relying on old stuff and not being bold creatively (except to put saiyans with guns...that was honestly really lame to me for some reason).
Anyways, I think Super suffers from the "modern anime" syndrome, it slowly loses what made Dragon Ball magical to be more conventional and "fan servicey".
DBH:
+: Great new concepts and designs, entertaining fights, demon stuff, surprisingly amazing story concepts, new modern animation effects.
-: Lack of story focus, things happen too fast, the whole concept of DBH is kinda a handicap imo, too few episodes and story material, and some of it doesn´t make sense or seems too contrived, reuse of old stuff like Zamasu or Top instead of new things, sometimes. Too difficult to access for western audiences.
DBH has potential, let´s see how it develops, i wished they took themselves more seriously.
Overall, for me, it would be like this: DBZ > DBGT > DB (gt and original db are basically equal, though), DBS >DBH.