Is it time to accept Faulconer OST did it better than the original?

[ABED]

It’s like you never watched past the first arc of Dragon Ball or something.

Starting your argument by poisoning the well doesn't give me much faith that continuing reading is worth my time. I'm not interested in having these back and forth, mean spirited debates over an anime. As I explained last time we had this exact same discussion, I've watched both series to completion. For DB in particular, it wasn't even very long ago that I rewatched it. To pretend that there are no differences between DB and DBZ just because the name of the manga never changed in Japan is just silly. They're almost entirely different shows that happen to share the same characters.

It's not. DB is all the same story that changes a lot over time.

[MasenkoHA]

I did. Several pages ago. But nobody cared. You seriously going to dismiss my arguments simply because I didn't cite every single storyline in the series? Okay, then.

Your arguments might be not easy to dismiss if it wasn’t as asinine as comparing one part of the very first arc of the manga (which again everyone agrees is a lot goofier than what the series would become) to the premise of an entire arc later on? And legitimately believes its a sound argument.

First arc of Dragon Ball: A search for mystic orbs told through loosely connected episodes, competing with a blue imp who's trying to do the same thing, ending with Goku turning into a giant gorilla, and Oolong using the Dragon's wish for panties.

Second arc: Tournament

Third arc: Very similar to the first arc, except now it's the Red Ribbon trying to collect the Dragon Balls, so their leader can wish to become taller. Tao is the first villain who is almost like a Z villain. Up until this point, Goku was basically Superman, and hunger his Kryptonite. But now, he's actually challenged by someone stronger than him. Korin, the talking cat, promises Goku he'll become strong if he takes and drinks the Sacred Water, but it's just a trick to get him to train to become faster and stronger.

Fourth arc: Another tournament, but this time with Roshi's rival, Shen, and his students Tien and Chiaotzu.

Congrats on giving summaries on the story arcs? Okay?

Fifth arc: Piccolo, who is considered a "demon" at this point in the story

Considered a demon because he is actually a demon.

r. Goku trains with God--err "Kami"

I’m being pedantic but Kami=God. He is actually suppose to be God as in that dude who people pray to to watch over them and their loved ones.

Then Z comes along and gives us aliens, space exploration, Super Saiyans, time travel, androids, etc.

Androids were in the Red Ribbon arc ffs. Like two interconnected arcs in the Z portion had aliens and space travel it was back to earth bound problems in the Cyborg arc.

The only arc in DB that is remotely like Z is the Piccolo arc. But even then, the show took a pretty big shift once Zod--I mean Raditz--came down from space.

No, at best the biggest shift in tone was from the first Tenkaichi Budokai arc and Red Ribbon. That’s really where the story shifted from gag manga to straightforward action series with a sense of humor.

There was no big shift in tone from Piccolo to Raditz. There was a big revelation that shook the foundation of the story (Goku is an alien) and major characters appeared in that arc (Gohan and Vegeta namely) but there was no huge shift in tone.

And the only outlier in Z is the Buu arc, which kinda brought back the fantastical elements of original DB, but through the introduction of magic and gods, not tone.

Kaio is a God. The whole Saiyan arc has Goku in the afterlife running a million mile snake road to train with a God who watches over the Northern Quadrant of the universe. Not fantastical because reasons I guess.

In the Namek saga the characters are going to space and they fight aliens but why are they in space? Oh right, to get those magical wish granting orbs to summon a magic dragon god native to that planet to bring their friends back to life. But not fantastical because reasons I guess.

[Majin Buu]

This is where Faulconer shines. His music is epic and reflects what is happening: a battle to save the world. Not a martial arts fight like in Ip Man or Bloodsport or Dragon Ball.

This statement is indicative of a general tendency among dub fans to work backwards from their conclusions to retroactively justify all the changes Funimation made with the Z dub by arguing that they were somehow necessary (typically with some variation of "Funimation had to alter Z the way they did otherwise it wouldn't have been successful in America"). In this case, your statement is based on a logical fallacy: The implication that changing the music was necessary because the original score doesn't work for Z; which is fundamentally based on another logical fallacy: Because Z is fundamentally different from pre-Z. Which, as people have already pointed out in this thread and elsewhere on this forum throughout the years, it isn't that level of different at all.

Besides, the story basically becomes Z starting from Piccolo Daimao onward and dub fans generally don't argue that the music needed to be changed for that arc and the 23rd Budokai arc. I believe this is mostly dub fans trying to validate their nostalgia for how they were introduced to Dragon Ball: "The version of Z I was introduced to had a "hardcore" tone with "hardcore" music to match so Falconer fits for Z while Kikuchi doesn't and only fits for Pre-Z since that's how I first saw the Pre-Z stuff. Thus, the Kikuchi score only needed to be replaced for Z."

[jjgp1112]

I mean shit, Goku vs Piccolo Jr might be more violent than ANY fight in Z. How's that for hardcore?

[Rory]

I seriously think instead of partaking in this (tired) conversation, people should really just post this image:

[MasenkoHA]

Besides, the story basically becomes Z starting from Piccolo Daimao onward and dub fans generally don't argue that the music needed to be changed for that arc and the 23rd Budokai arc. I believe this is mostly dub fans trying to validate their nostalgia for how they were introduced to Dragon Ball: "The version of Z I was introduced to had a "hardcore" tone with "hardcore" music to match so Falconer fits for Z while Kikuchi doesn't and only fits for Pre-Z since that's how I first saw the Pre-Z stuff. Thus, the Kikuchi score only needed to be replaced for Z."

I think I’ve said this before. You could take the Goku vs Piccolo Jr fight, which is pretty bloody and has an adult ish Goku, slap some Faulconer music on it and your average nostalgic for Toonami Z dub fan probably would think it was from DBZ.

[ZeroNeonix]

I mean shit, Goku vs Piccolo Jr might be more violent than ANY fight in Z. How's that for hardcore?

If you remember, the question wasn't the degree of violence, it was the genre. Z is much more sci-fi, and has very different tone than original Dragon Ball. I also said that the Piccolo arc was the most Z of all Dragon Ball.

It's almost like nobody is reading a word I'm saying, and are just interested in jumping straight to telling me all the reasons my opinion is wrong. Honestly, the way "debates" like these go, I can see why people like the original poster would get frustrated and start trolling the site.

[Planetnamek]

Kunz-Oh i'm under no illusion that you're talking about me, i'm just kinda baffled as to why you are still hung up on this overly broad assumption that most people that grew up watching Toonami and still fondly talk about it largely only consume children's media, it just seems like an unwarranted stereotype born out of your own general disdain for that kind of anime and dubs.

Why should one "grow out" of watching Shonen anime though? Because you personally don't like it? You say that like it's something one should be ashamed of.

BTW disagreeing with you does not automatically mean someone is "taking things personally", it is possible to disagree with statements you made without it being personal ya know I'm just not comfortable with you stereotyping large swathes of people based on a handful of interactions on other forums over the years, that seems frankly unprofessional and unwarranted.

Also after seeing you tease people with the whole "OMG i've got something REAL big planned that'll TOTALLY blow the minds of dub and Toonami fans!" spiel since you've been on here, frankly i'm getting a little impatient here I think you should bite the bullet and make that thread when you've got time, because it's clear you've got a lot of things to get off your chest about DB and it's fandom as a whole.

I would just like to add that it's totally possible to be a 90s-born "anime is that thing for kids what I grew up with on Cartoon Network and Cheez TV" type of person that Kunzait is talking about above, and still think the Faulconer score is unlistenable garbage.

The idea that people could be nostalgic for that, or the old DBZ dub in general is ridiculous to me because I grew up with it as well, and cringe whenever I hear it now.

For me it's genuinely not nostalgia talking, as i grew up with Toonami but I barely remember paying any real attention to the soundtrack in DBZ much at all as a kid, I was far too engrossed in the action to really notice the music. So the first real time I listened to the Faulconer score and paid close attention to it was just after I finished high school when I listened to clips of it online, i'd seen Chris Psaros bashing it for years on DBZU and I was genuinely curious to see what it was like, and I discovered that I really enjoyed it, and when I watched episodes of the old dub online I found that the soundtrack complimented the show quite well IMO. Hell I was just listening to the soundtrack last night while I was doing some tidying up.

[Majin Buu]

It's almost like nobody is reading a word I'm saying, and are just interested in jumping straight to telling me all the reasons my opinion is wrong. Honestly, the way "debates" like these go, I can see why people like the original poster would get frustrated and start trolling the site.

That's because your arguments are based on a fundamental misconception about the nature of this story, making debating your statements point by point a waste of time. It's more productive to cut to the fundamental flaw that informs most your statements.

Plus you were cherry picking a certain part of the series that supported your viewpoints while ignoring the vast amounts of the Pre-Z era that negate said viewpoint until you were called on it and have generally been exaggerating the differences between the two eras.

Perhaps you should do a better job at arguing your viewpoint instead of getting defensive about people pointing out the flaws in your logic.

[MasenkoHA]

If you remember, the question wasn't the degree of violence, it was the genre

Your argument is Dragon Ball was a goofy comedy all the way through (“A typical Dragon Ball plot was a rabbit turning people into carrots”-You) hence why jjgp brought up the violence in the Goku vs Piccolo Jr fight.

. Z is much more sci-fi,

There’s much more sci-fi elements in the Saiyan-Artificial Human arcs. Yes. But the series didn’t switch genres. It’s still a martial arts fantasy where martial artist use chi to do super human feats and blast chi based energy.

and has very different tone than original Dragon Ball. I also said that the Piccolo arc was the most Z of all Dragon Ball.

The latter parts of Dragon Ball (including Z) has a different tone than the earlier parts. This tone shift started well before Raditz arrived.

It's almost like nobody is reading a word I'm saying,

We are, you just don’t like the rebuttal.

[GhostEmperorX]

The other lane however was anime that was picked up by smaller, independent licensing studios who treated the material with a tremendous degree more faithfulness overall, and would release anime (in both dubbed and subtitled versions) straight to VHS/video, with a target audience of largely grown adults while being 100% up front with the fact that these were Japanese films & shows and that Japanese anime was a whole wing of media unto itself.

*This* is the lane of early U.S. anime that this website/community - and indeed, a depressingly and inexcusably LARGE percentage of Cartoon Network-era fans and beyond - has had virtually ZERO clue of its very existence, much less possessing any substantive knowledge about it. This was also the lane that titles ranging from Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Vampire Hinter D, Bubblegum Crisis, Guyver, Fist of the North Star, Devilman, Lupin III, Gunbuster, Evangelion, Ranma 1/2, and even Tenchi Muyo (among many, many, MANY others) were all originally released within in the US: in many cases, more than a decade+ before Toonami was ever a thing that existed.

As I thought, it was a niche circle (about as niche as a lot of the older anime from the 70's-90's I watch nowadays, typically from the larger mecha genre). I know that those ones were active due to hearing such about Gunbuster even though I found no dub anywhere, that people apparently watched it subbed back then. But I also know that this niche circle in North America wasn't so much the same in other countries like mainland Western European ones (Italy), Latin America, and others like even the Middle East as they tended to get the true and uncensored versions of many of these shows.

And the very fact that this significant segment of U.S. anime licensing is so often completely ignored and unacknowledged as something that existed at all is honestly a LOT of what heavily, heavily skews most of these "if FUNi didn't dub DB, then who the hell else would've?" history discussions into all manner of completely false premises and false dichotomies: this whole thread certainly being no exception.

Meanwhile such a question wouldn't need to be asked in the other countries that got DB before America.

Put simply: you're doing the thing that most people on both this site, and in wider mainstream anime fandom of the last 15+ years have been doing, which is not understanding that edited for kids' TV anime dubs weren't the ONLY type of anime that was licensed and released in North America back in the 80s and 90s.

I understand what you're saying and don't mean to invalidate it, but I am myself trying to find out more about those other productions that had never been brought to the surface before as well, though I'm not American so I may not have found out about the VHS stores earlier. It also wasn't a mainstream thing which is why a lot of this is the case now. I know of ADV, they did Getter Robo Armageddon and Mazinkaiser, and while the dubs sounded like parodies, they weren't anywhere near adaptations.
Now I basically stay away from any sort of adaptation and even most dubs since I mainly watch anime in sub format now. I know that people used to collect merchandise of material that never did appear that much in the US mainstream as well.

[Dr. Casey]

Comparing each of Dragon Ball's six main arcs to Z...

The Pilaf arc is completely unlike anything that's found in Z.
The 21st Budokai is, on the whole, unlike anything that's found in Z. Yeah, there's a couple of genuinely cool fights here (Goku vs. Namu and Goku vs. Roshi), but the spirit of the Pilaf days isn't completely gone yet and the fights are vehicles for gags just as much as, if not moreso, than they're cool or exciting fight sequences.
The Red Ribbon arc is, by and large, much lighter than anything which comes after this point, but there are some points in Z which it's analogous to (though these stretches are relatively brief in span). The Uranai Baba tournament probably isn't that much different in feel to most of the Babidi's spaceship segment, Buu's insides is a really light stretch that's not much different from what the pirate cave is like (albeit a much more disgusting version of the Pirate's Cave), etc.
By the time you get to the 22nd Budokai, the series is maturing into more of a Z-like form. It feels a bit less tense than most of Z, sure, since it's not a life-or-death struggle (even if the spirit of competition is obviously a lot uglier and possesses plenty of bad blood completely absent from the 21st), which makes it the very last story arc in the entire series where the stakes are not "beat the enemy or else everyone dies," but the 22nd actually lines up quite nicely with Z's 25th. Both are overall fairly light in tone but have a sense of intrigue and an undercurrent of tension running through them, both have a mixture of goofy opponents and cool fights played much more straightly, both have instances of brutality that go way beyond what's acceptable in a fighting tournament. Multi-episode fights are becoming more common here and, unless I'm forgetting something, we get the first real bits of violence that are meant to be shocking to the viewer/reader courtesy of Tenshinhan.
And, of course, there's the two Piccolo arcs. Not much elaboration needed here. The Piccolo Daimao arc is the first part in the series which feels bleak and grim and oppressive at times, an atmosphere that's often present in Z even if, yes, humor is always present. Krillin dead, Roshi dead, Chaozu dead, the world's best martial artists being hunted down and killed, Shenlong killed and the Dragon Balls rendered unusable; this is all completely on par with a lot of the darkest moments in Z.
And then of course, the 23rd Budokai takes things several steps forward still and makes it even easier to get into a Z mentality by having Goku, Krillin, and Chi-chi grow up and take on their Z designs.

Overall I think this is a case of the truth being somewhere in the middle. Back in the dub's early 2000s heyday, the Funimation crowd seemed to define Dragon Ball purely by the very early material. Pilaf, the 21st Budokai, Goku happily flying around the world on the Nimbus during the early solo parts of Red Ribbon. The sentiment was "yeah Dragon Ball was pretty fruity and lame, and Z is the one that's really cool and hardcore LOL." Obviously this description is completely wrong-minded and inaccurate.

Yet at times it feels as though the tide and the common wisdom has maybe turned a bit too far in the other direction - maybe as backlash to the last paragraph - and it's become a bit socially unacceptable to say that there's any significant difference between OG and Z minus the very earliest episodes. And I don't think there's zero validity whatsoever to the "Dragon Ball and Z are a good bit different" train of thought.

If you sit down with Dragon Ball from episode 1 and want cool, well-choreographed fight sequences, you'll have to wait until around episode 60 for those to become a thing on a regular basis (there were certainly some prior to this, but not as many as "Goku OHKO's the enemy"). From that point on, you're golden - even the very lighthearted Uranai Baba arc has some really fucking cool fights, like Yamucha vs. the Mummy and Goku vs. Grandpa Gohan - but all the same.

And if you want tension and drama, you're not going to find much of that prior to either the 80s or the 100s, the Land of Korin mini-arc aside. The bad blood between the Crane and Turtle schools would do it for most people, but if not, there's always Piccolo Daimao arriving out of nowhere to turn the whole world upside down. That's still a fair wait into the series, though.

Z, though? You receive all of those things from episode 2.

And none of this is a bad thing, or makes Dragon Ball inferior to Z. I think it's a good thing for stories to be dynamic and slowly evolve and mature throughout their run. It's a really interesting process, seeing Dragon Ball slowly develop until more or less becoming full-on Z the moment Piccolo Daimao comes on to the scene.

[McDonaldsGuy]

Sorry that this turned out to be a double-post but I waited rather long.

Faulconer I felt captured this more. SSJ3 Goku's theme should sound awesome and action packed, and not the weird depressing orchestra music we got in the Japanese dub. This theme would have fit the Japanese show a lot more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVG07DbFJwY

OK, gonna have to stop you right there, using anything by Kenji Yamamoto kills your point as he more than likely plagiarized it off of something else. Orchestral music also depends on which one and who's doing it.

Also don't agree that DBZ isn't a martial arts show, it most definitely is. You can definitely include any genre at all in a soundtrack so long as it works for certain elements of it, but you need a proficient genius as well as good directors behind the wheels of that for refinement purposes (see G Gundam or YYH). But then it's DB, a Toriyama franchise, so would such a complex approach even work in the first place? The man himself isn't even all that refined either in the first place.

Yeah I know, but plagiarism was common then. Future Trunks' theme when he first turns Super Saiyan was also plagiarized (the bass part).

[GhostEmperorX]

Yeah I know, but plagiarism was common then. Future Trunks' theme when he first turns Super Saiyan was also plagiarized (the bass part).

And that too was Kenji Yamamoto. The guy's career is almost nothing but plagiarism as opposed to many others.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

plagiarism was common then. Future Trunks' theme when he first turns Super Saiyan was also plagiarized (the bass part).

The entire song "Battle Point Unlimited" is plagiarized. Kenji took 3 different songs (all by the same group) and combined them into one and called it his own. Someone even made a YouTube video to show it. It's quite impressive how Kenji simply cannot compose his own music. Fuck him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qda4OW8TTpE

[ZeroNeonix]

That's because your arguments are based on a fundamental misconception about the nature of this story, making debating your statements point by point a waste of time. It's more productive to cut to the fundamental flaw that informs most your statements.

Plus you were cherry picking a certain part of the series that supported your viewpoints while ignoring the vast amounts of the Pre-Z era that negate said viewpoint until you were called on it and have generally been exaggerating the differences between the two eras.

Perhaps you should do a better job at arguing your viewpoint instead of getting defensive about people pointing out the flaws in your logic.

Uh-huh. Sure. "Cutting to the fundamental flaw." In other words, skimming through my posts so you can get to the part where you tell me how wrong I am. None of you have addressed a single point I've made. Not one.

You sound like an apologist, accusing everyone who disagrees with you as "cherrypicking," when really you just don't want to deal with the points presented. Again, I'm seeing why the OP did what he did. The discussions here often are nothing but meanspirited. At first, I thought I could ignore one or two people who prefer to criticize the person instead of their arguments, but more and more people are being added to that list.

Don't flatter yourself. I'm not defensive. For that, I'd have to be challenged, but even then I would enjoy the discussion, because I actually like being presented with alternative viewpoints. You people seem love projecting, throwing that word around whenever it's convenient. What I actually am is frustrated with the lack of honesty here, and the focus on personal attacks and strawmen. If this kind of community was what I wanted, I'd have gone to a religious forum. Seriously.

BTW, it looks like Dr. Casey spent a couple hours basically making the same points I did, but it greater detail. Since you're apparently dying for a good argument, I'm sure you won't ignore it.

[MasenkoHA]

BTW, it looks like Dr. Casey spent a couple hours basically making the same points I did, but it greater detail. Since you're apparently dying for a good argument, I'm sure you won't ignore it.

No, your entire argument was “Dragon Ball Z was a huge tone shift from Dragon Ball” Dr.Casey’s argument was comparing the beginning of Dragon Ball to the beginning of Z is as different as night and day but the shift in Dragon Ball to Z was more gradual not the complete 180 you’re saying it was.

Because, yeah, I agree with Casey that the story was shifting into something more serious but it was starting well before Z was added to the title.

[VDenter]

That's because your arguments are based on a fundamental misconception about the nature of this story, making debating your statements point by point a waste of time. It's more productive to cut to the fundamental flaw that informs most your statements.

Plus you were cherry picking a certain part of the series that supported your viewpoints while ignoring the vast amounts of the Pre-Z era that negate said viewpoint until you were called on it and have generally been exaggerating the differences between the two eras.

Perhaps you should do a better job at arguing your viewpoint instead of getting defensive about people pointing out the flaws in your logic.

Uh-huh. Sure. "Cutting to the fundamental flaw." In other words, skimming through my posts so you can get to the part where you tell me how wrong I am. None of you have addressed a single point I've made. Not one.

You sound like an apologist, accusing everyone who disagrees with you as "cherrypicking," when really you just don't want to deal with the points presented. Again, I'm seeing why the OP did what he did. The discussions here often are nothing but meanspirited. At first, I thought I could ignore one or two people who prefer to criticize the person instead of their arguments, but more and more people are being added to that list.

Don't flatter yourself. I'm not defensive. For that, I'd have to be challenged, but even then I would enjoy the discussion, because I actually like being presented with alternative viewpoints. You people seem love projecting, throwing that word around whenever it's convenient. What I actually am is frustrated with the lack of honesty here, and the focus on personal attacks and strawmen. If this kind of community was what I wanted, I'd have gone to a religious forum. Seriously.

BTW, it looks like Dr. Casey spent a couple hours basically making the same points I did, but it greater detail. Since you're apparently dying for a good argument, I'm sure you won't ignore it.

I never got the sense that the community here was mean spirited or elitist in any way from my time reading several topics here.

The OP is a troll and has been banned from other sites as well. The OP doesn't seem like the type to ever take responsibility but instead just plays the victim card and blames everyone else instead. Pretty obvious when the OP has to specifically bring up a point that it was him/her that was trolling on a discord server. LMAO, as if anyone here gives a shit, but it is the typical obvious attention seeking nonsense from trolls that you see online.

So yeah i don't buy that the OP did this because of the reasons you say ZeroNeonix. How is it ths communities fault that the OP choses to be a manbaby and seemingly has nothing better to do with his time?

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Yet at times it feels as though the tide and the common wisdom has maybe turned a bit too far in the other direction - maybe as backlash to the last paragraph - and it's become a bit socially unacceptable to say that there's any significant difference between OG and Z minus the very earliest episodes. And I don't think there's zero validity whatsoever to the "Dragon Ball and Z are a good bit different" train of thought.

If you sit down with Dragon Ball from episode 1 and want cool, well-choreographed fight sequences, you'll have to wait until around episode 60 for those to become a thing on a regular basis (there were certainly some prior to this, but not as many as "Goku OHKO's the enemy"). From that point on, you're golden - even the very lighthearted Uranai Baba arc has some really fucking cool fights, like Yamucha vs. the Mummy and Goku vs. Grandpa Gohan - but all the same.

And if you want tension and drama, you're not going to find much of that prior to either the 80s or the 100s, the Land of Korin mini-arc aside. The bad blood between the Crane and Turtle schools would do it for most people, but if not, there's always Piccolo Daimao arriving out of nowhere to turn the whole world upside down. That's still a fair wait into the series, though.

This is a really great write up of the situation. Within the fandom there seems to have been a lot of backlash towards the "Z-only fans" which has led to the community twisting itself into some weird knots. Sure Dragon Ball is one continuous series but it doesn't follow from there that the series always had the same tone or emphasized the same things. OG Dragon Ball, throughout many of its earliest arcs, had a lot of adventure elements to it. Goku was always visiting new locations filled with unique and bizarre people. Some of those people were dangerous, forcing Goku to fall back on his martial arts skills but they weren't the central part of the story. And Goku's strength often wasn't the only thing to save day. Because the threats were varied, the heroes had to be creative with their solutions (Upa posing in the shape of a cross probably being my favorite because it was so ridiculous).

With the 22nd World Tournament and its emphasis on the Turtle School Crane School rivalry the focus shifted almost completely to whether or not Goku could overcome this new powerful fighter. Every subsequent arc doubled down on that formula and, with how successful they were, it's hard to say it wasn't a good idea. I might have loved the high adventure feel of the Red Ribbon Arc but I love a lot of shit nobody else does (for example, I'm the last surviving defender of 4th edition dungeons and dragons) so who cares what I like? Piccolo, Vegeta, and Freeza are several orders of magnitude better remembered than Tao Pei Pei, General Blue, Baba's Palace, Mt Frypan, and Upa T-posing to beat a vampire. Ultimately, it's the fate-of-the-world Goku battles that caught the imagination of most audiences.

[Planetnamek]

Yet at times it feels as though the tide and the common wisdom has maybe turned a bit too far in the other direction - maybe as backlash to the last paragraph - and it's become a bit socially unacceptable to say that there's any significant difference between OG and Z minus the very earliest episodes. And I don't think there's zero validity whatsoever to the "Dragon Ball and Z are a good bit different" train of thought.

If you sit down with Dragon Ball from episode 1 and want cool, well-choreographed fight sequences, you'll have to wait until around episode 60 for those to become a thing on a regular basis (there were certainly some prior to this, but not as many as "Goku OHKO's the enemy"). From that point on, you're golden - even the very lighthearted Uranai Baba arc has some really fucking cool fights, like Yamucha vs. the Mummy and Goku vs. Grandpa Gohan - but all the same.

And if you want tension and drama, you're not going to find much of that prior to either the 80s or the 100s, the Land of Korin mini-arc aside. The bad blood between the Crane and Turtle schools would do it for most people, but if not, there's always Piccolo Daimao arriving out of nowhere to turn the whole world upside down. That's still a fair wait into the series, though.

This is a really great write up of the situation. Within the fandom there seems to have been a lot of backlash towards the "Z-only fans" which has led to the community twisting itself into some weird knots. Sure Dragon Ball is one continuous series but it doesn't follow from there that the series always had the same tone or emphasized the same things. OG Dragon Ball, throughout many of its earliest arcs, had a lot of adventure elements to it. Goku was always visiting new locations filled with unique and bizarre people. Some of those people were dangerous, forcing Goku to fall back on his martial arts skills but they weren't the central part of the story. And Goku's strength often wasn't the only thing to save day. Because the threats were varied, the heroes had to be creative with their solutions (Upa posing in the shape of a cross probably being my favorite because it was so ridiculous).

With the 22nd World Tournament and its emphasis on the Turtle School Crane School rivalry the focus shifted almost completely to whether or not Goku could overcome this new powerful fighter. Every subsequent arc doubled down on that formula and, with how successful they were, it's hard to say it wasn't a good idea. I might have loved the high adventure feel of the Red Ribbon Arc but I love a lot of shit nobody else does (for example, I'm the last surviving defender of 4th edition dungeons and dragons) so who cares what I like? Piccolo, Vegeta, and Freeza are several orders of magnitude better remembered than Tao Pei Pei, General Blue, Baba's Palace, Mt Frypan, and Upa T-posing to beat a vampire. Ultimately, it's the fate-of-the-world Goku battles that caught the imagination of most audiences.

I'm with you on liking a lot of shit nobody else does( it practically comes with the territory of being a Zack Snyder fan ), I liked the Red Ribbon arc and while it was definitely worlds apart in tone from Cell I didn't mind that even as a kid.