Best Point(s) in the Series?

[Zephyr]

We have a thread for the worst point, why not have one for the best point?

I think broadly speaking, the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai to the Freeza arc is the most solid stretch of the series. That's a tad broad though. If I had to narrow it down, the first bit I'd shave off would be the Freeza arc, followed by the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai and Piccolo Daimao arcs.

The 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai and Saiyan arcs are probably my absolute favorite points in the series.

If I had to isolate to specific individual parts among the bits of the story that lie outside of my favorite stretch:
- Tao Pai Pai's appearance in the Red Ribbon Army arc (most importantly that godly pillar riding)
- Gohan's fight with Cell
- Vegetto's birth and fight
- Drunk Gohan, karaoke Piccolo, bingo dance Vegeta, and break dancing Beerus at Bulma's birthday party in Battle of Gods (also fighting-with-chopsticks Beerus)
- Goku performing a One Inch Punch on Golden Freeza in Resurrection F
- Goku and Vegeta renaming Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan in the Super manga

[ABED]

I agree. That's where the fights were excellent, it contained my favorite art style of Toriyama, and in the Saiyan arc, the cast was probably most effectively used.

[Gorou]

Freezer, cut into two, praying Goku to help him

[AS_Saiyan]

-Tenshinhan VS Goku at the 22nd TB.
-23rd TB & Saiyan arcs as a whole.
-Goku turning SS for the first time.
-Great Saiyaman-Majin Vegeta in the Boo arc.

[B]

DB's creative peak is more or less Chapter 70, the beginning of the Blue portion of the Red Ribbon arc, to the end of the "pre-Z" material in Chapter 194. I speak broadly; the most interesting stuff happens along the way there. Other portions before and after had their bright spots, but they were spread apart slightly further. That era is just one you look at and go "wow, I can find almost no faults here with anything. I am thoroughly enjoying every tangible aspect of this."

Really enjoyable stuff outside of that stretch would be...

-The fights with the Ginyu Force before Goku and Ginyu swap bodies
-Vegeta's Buu arc sacrifice
-Anything with Gotenks

Gah, I feel I should mention something from... all the other arcs I haven't brought up yet, but they don't really have one great, individual moment for me. Oolong's overall introduction, a frightening demon who is revealed to be just a pig, who kidnaps girls to become his wives, and then gives us a second reveal that they're all nags and each new kidnapping is him looking for a quiet girl who won't ask for anything, is hilarious to me. What is a children's comic without the oh-so-important '80s sexism element?

[Soppa Saia People]

The Saiyan arc. This is as close to perfect that Dragon Ball will get, good story, great fights, really good filler and gave us two more good characters (Vegeta and Gohan). Overall just really solid.

[Gorou]

Soon I will make a more detailed list.

[Zephyr]

Neglected to mention two of my favorite Krillin moments:

The moment in the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai when Goku reminds Krillin that he has no nose, and thus can't actually even smell Bacterian. Followed by the moment in the Red Ribbon Army arc, where Bulma gives a gem she found to Krillin...only for him to sniff it.

[MajinMan]

My favorite stretch in the entire series has to be from the beginning of the Buu arc until Vegeta's sacrifice. You have great character moments, good comedy, interesting events, fun fights, and Vegeta's character development. What else could you possibly want (other than a dark tone)? It's the reason why I like the Buu arc the most out of all of them.

[sintzu]

1- Goku and his friends vs Nappa and Vegeta.

2- Vegeta's fights with Freeza's army and his death.

3- Goku going Ssj and his battle with Freeza.

4- Trunks coming out of nowhere and killing Freeza.

5- Vegeta saving Goku then going Ssj and taking out #19.

6- Vegeta's fight with Cell.

7- Goku sacrificing himself to save everyone from Cell.

8- Gohan's Ssj2 transformation and the father son Kamehameha.

9- Goku's battle with Majin Vegeta.

10- Vegeta sacrificing himself against Buu.

11- Mystic Gohan's arrival and his battle with Buu.

12- Vegetto's birth and his battle with Buu.

13- Vegeta accepting that Goku is #1.

14- Everyone working together to kill Buu.

15- Vegeta's attack against Beerus.

16- Goku and Beerus' fight in the movie.

17- Vegeta's fight with Golden Freeza in Super.

18- Goku and Vegeta training together.

[Lord Beerus]

- All of the Red Ribbon Army arc (Manga only)
- All of the King Piccolo arc
- The 23rd WMAT
- All of the Saiyan arc (including the filler)
- Everything from Freeza taking on Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Piccolo to Future Trunks slicing Freeza in half
- All of the Majin Boo arc (Including the filler)

[trick007z]

From the moment Tao fights Goku to the conclusion of the Freeza arc are the most "pure" the series ever was. Before that it was just finding it's footing and discovering itself. After that it was sort of existing just because it was still popular.

-I'd say the whole Tao portion of the Red Ribbon arc.
-Goku vs King Piccolo (where Goku actually was fighting for something more than his own enjoyment)
-Goku vs Piccolo Jr (arguably the best battle of the series)
-The battle vs Vegeta and Nappa (the most versatile battle of the series that gave everyone something to do),
-From the point Freeza transforms into his Final Form up to right after Goku goes Super Saiyan. Just menacing and easily the best built villain.

[Kuririn Fan]

22rd TB arc - Freeza

[Kakacarrottop]

The fight between Goku and Vegeta in the Saiyan Saga was the peak of DB/DBZ/DBGT in terms of animation and general quality.

[DBZAOTA482]

All of 22nd Budokai - Freeza Saga... great, near-flawless work.

It all goes downhill from there, however.

[Faustus]

Boo. Boo Boo Boo Boo. That's right, the whole arc. In the manga. The interval from Gotenks' de-fusion to Vegetto's birth can kinda put me to sleep sometimes, but...

It's Toriyama’s flawed masterpiece, and my favorite portion of the whole doggamn franchise just ahead of the second half of Red Ribbon and nearly all of the Namek stuff leading up to the final bodyswap. Seriously, I love this shit, and it will always baffle me that the community largely thinks otherwise. Just a real blast to read through.

Three big reasons as to why that is (and this shit gets me real excited and I am going to be gushing, so heads-up):

1) THE BAD GUY: The baddie. Folks say it all the time, but what a stroke of brilliance it was to have a god-gobbling, big genocidal ball o’ pink gooey goopglob for a final boss -- who goes round magically zapping folks into chocolate and jawbreakers, no less! Add on to this absurdity the arc's initial mystique, an escalating sense of dread and the friendship that’s later woven rather compellingly between Messrs. Satan and Boo -- whose dynamic also happens to hark back in some subtle way to some of Bulma and li’l Goku’s very first interactions to bring us back around full-circle -- and you’ve got one hell of a concoction.

2) ERRTHANG: Almost everything else (ok, ok so I’m cheating): The frenetic energy, the horror and the humor; it’s such a wonderfully hectic ride, and an almost totally careless one at that on the part of the author. Few would contest that this is Toriyama at his most unbridled, one might even venture to say unhinged, artistically, as far as Dragon Ball goes -- where, almost totally unburdened of editorial pressure, he's free to perform whatever footloose swerve of heel his whims dictated for him at any given moment of any given week. I couldn’t stand it if the series had had this tone the whole way through, but holy mother does it work for a finale. Taken on those terms, this is an arc that simply can’t be beat: the mane-trailing Super Saiyan 3 is deliciously irreverent self-parody; Gotenks’ wacky, power-drunk cavorting explodes riotously on the page, like comic dynamite (rollingthunderpunch); and the trite and expected conclusion that would have Gohan beat big bad Boo is fortunately averted thanks to a sharp improvised turn near the end of the arc that while not without leaving its blemish on the plot structure helps set the stage for what is a far more satisfying ending for the series at large. Speaking of which...

3) DAT ENDIN’: Increasingly throughout the arc we’ve seen device heaped on plot device without reserve and with lots of flash and verve, running the whole gamut from fresh spanking new form, to mega-fusion, to Arthurian sword, to yet another beyond-the-beyond potential-unlock but this time on steroids, to god-bestowed magic earrings -- all, ultimately, to no avail, leaving no one to finish the job but a pair of tired old dogs depleted and worn to the bone and teetering on their last paws, with no recourse to victory left but an old trick that’s never worked: a big ball o’ fire. Hot damn! color me engaged. (Admittedly, the excuse for why Gohan and Gotenks are not brought to fight remains, at least on a technical level, one of series’ most egregious narrative defects, but I think the end result is well worth this expense.) A last-minute turnabout. The accustomed flash and sparkle of new props and powers is brought onstage as for show -- to be briefly toyed with but ultimately discarded. Completely counter to initial expectations -- lo and behold! -- the old elbows out the new in the final act.

What a shout-out this is. In one blow barriers between the dead and the living are collapsed, and the old (proverbial) skeletons of the Nameks, the cyborgs, Snow, Upa and Bora are resurrected for a last hurrah of cosmic proportions. (Why do I feel like I am 10 again?) What a tribute to everything the series is and has ever been. Really, how could anyone forget the impact of that sheer dramatic tour de force at the climax, where everyone of note and their grandma and their pet dragon in both this life and the next (and the dragon balls, too) get to contribute to the mighty deathblow -- oh baby -- culminating, of course, in that timeless, comically (and cosmically) contagious globe-spanning piece of blasphemy that’s sure to echo down the ages for the rest of eternity: “Satan is our savior!!”?

Friggin’ glorious.

And that -- ladies and gents, girls and boys, friends, Romans, countrymen -- is the Boo arc. (And that’s still leaving out quite a number of other things about it I enjoy, like Piccolo’s mentorship, or the rather fitting closure brought to Vegeta’s character.) /giddyramble

[Kuririn Fan]

My favorite stretch in the entire series has to be from the beginning of the Buu arc until Vegeta's sacrifice. You have great character moments, good comedy, interesting events, fun fights, and Vegeta's character development. What else could you possibly want (other than a dark tone)? It's the reason why I like the Buu arc the most out of all of them.

I love that too, series needed that time to relax because after the time skip in the Z era, they were constantly fighting. It's nice to see how the characters changed and where they are now, you definitely get the feeling that you've been following them for a really long time.

[Kunzait_83]

Firmly in the 22nd Budokai through Freeza camp. The only major speed bump in any of that is the Z anime's handling of all the egregious filler throughout the Goku vs Freeza fight, particularly the further in it goes (which is pretty widely and justly hated). Plus Fake Namek obviously. Most everything else though is (in either manga or anime form) the series at its rarest form and firing on every cylinder its ever had. Not only does this stretch of story arcs contain the best fighting and best use of its characters, it also has the best plot progression and sense of general forward momentum (5 minutes bullshit aside). Its definitely Dragon Ball's halcyon years.

For the best stuff outside of that golden stretch, I'd go with (just off the cuff at least):

- Goku vs Jackie Chun
- Everything involving Tao Pai Pai at Karin Tower
- Goku fighting and reuniting with Grandpa Gohan's spirit
- Trunks' intro against Metal Freeza
- Trunks TV special
- #19 and #20's introduction
- 1st form Cell's introduction
- Piccolo vs #17
- Most of the Cell Games in general (minus some crappy Mr. Satan filler in the anime version)
- The old gang reuniting at the 25th Budokai (including with the Announcer), and seeing how much the tournament has changed
- Videl's viscous, brutal fight with Supopovitch
- The Z Warriors fighting through Babidi's spaceship (culminating with the Dabura fight)
- Goku vs Majin Vegeta (anime mainly)
- Gotenks vs Super Boo
- Vegetto vs Boo
- Goku and Vegeta wandering and fighting through Boo's innards
- Any Boo arc episode in the anime animated by Studio Cockpit (particularly on the Kaioshin planet)

For GT (because why not?)

- Episode where Baby-possessed Gohan and Goten ambush Vegeta (probably the single best executed fight in GT as a whole)
- SSJ4 Goku vs Baby
- Goku meeting and fighting Si and San Xing Long
- Final episode, natch

And for Nu Dragon Ball:

- Goku's reaction upon being told about the other universes at the end of Battle of Gods
- Piccolo, Gohan, Kuririn, Tenshinhan, and Muten Roshi throwing down with Freeza's minions is Resurrection of F

[Draconic]

Dragon Ball: The 21st and 23rd Tenkaichi Budokais and everything in the Red Ribbon Army Arc after Tao Pai Pai is introduced
Dragon Ball Z: The Saiyan Arc is the high point of the entire series, followed by the Namek Arc
Dragon Ball GT: Everything after Nuova Shenron is introduced
Dragon Ball Super: For now, the fight with Beerus (except the horrible episode 12), the episodes between the BoG'arc and the Ginyu episode. I reserve my judgement for the U6 Arc because we haven't even got to the meat of things, but if the manga is to go by, that is probably going to blow everything else out of the water.

[Gorou]

Considering only the manga, it is hard to choose, because it does not have the obvious defects of the anime (filler senseless and often contradicting, stretching and totally busted the narrative rhythm ).

Although some points are erratic, it always maintains a general good level, and internal consistency that the anime (where everything seems more stupid) does not.

We say that all the salient points of each arc, (Goku vs Jackie Chun, Ten vs Goku, Goku vs King Piccolo, Goku vs Piccolo, Vegeta vs Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and Goku vs Frieza, Goku vs Cell and the final mach with Bu with Genkidama) are objectively the best moments.