Dragonball Z was not that good in the beginning..

[Lujin_16]

In my opinion the fight with Raditz was rushed than until episode 21 nothing special is happened..At Episode 21 came Vegeta & Nappa it was good really actionpacked but i think

not that great....At Episode 40 with Planet Namek Dragonball Z has started to become great like Dragonball Super with episode 37(Trunks Arc)

[TheMikado]

In my opinion the fight with Raditz was rushed than until episode 21 nothing special is happend..At Episode 21 came Vegeta & Nappa it was good really actionpacked but i think

not that great....At Episode 40 with Planet Namek Dragonball Z has started to become great like Dragonball Super with episode 37(Trunks Arc)

Except I recently got the entire first season of Z and in my opinion I does hold up. The entire first season is literally struggling to improve and ultimately still not measuring up. There's no @$$pull power ups yet, it nothing but intensive training for a stronger enemy that they still couldn't easily defeat and honest completely lucked out on.

[Bansho64]

I'll have to disagree. The Saiyan arc's the best arc of the Z portion of the series in my opinion. The build up, the combination of everyone's effort to defeat the threat, the character development. It's all just amazing to me. And it's one of those arcs where I'll rarely agree and say that it had some of the best filler in it's anime adaptation. For me, this is the arc where Toriyama really started to bring back past hints and plot points and expand them in different ways. He seemed to be on his roll with it. I honestly was never once bored through it. Not to mention that the art and character designs in this particular arc are some of my favorite in any anime franchise. I honestly can't think of one problem I had with it.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

As much as this pains me to say but yeah the beginning of the arc is a slog to sit through. I'm thankful that Ocean cut the Saiyan arc up otherwise as a kid I probably wouldn't have continued watching Z lol.

Kai on the other hand. Perfect. Looks good did the cutting better than Ocean and an excellent non offensive dub to go along.

[sintzu]

The pacing doesn't hold up but Kai fixed that and it can stand up against the best of today's anime.

[floofychan333]

I enjoyed the Saiyan arc because it still tries to hang on to the greatness of Dragon Ball that was mostly lost but still replaced by new greatness in DBZ.

[Lord Beerus]

I think the filler with Gohan training and surving on his own in preparation for the Vegeta and Nappa arriving was fantastic, but everything else not including Raditz fighting Goku and Piccolo... was... yeah. It doesn't hold up well at all. I mean, the Saiyan is still my all time favourite arc in the franchise but the pacing for the first twenty episodes is pretty awful. As, Baggie_Saiyan and sintzu mentioned, Kai did a wonderful job in trimming the fat of the Saiyan arc, but I'm conflicted about the fact that, while the plot became more streamlined and less of slog to get through, the trade off was that some of the finest character development and filler for one of the most integral characters of Dragon Ball was lost in the process.

[Bansho64]

I'm ok with the Kai version. It's still great. I just think that some of the little moments that were lost were very important. It still holds up as the best arc in the franchise to me as Lord Beerus himself said.

[Boo Machine]

Even if the Kai version fixes the pacing issues, I find the the original is still pretty great aside from a few filler moments. I just can't not love everyone banding together to defeat a common enemy. Even if it was Goku who ends up doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Plus Gohans Mini adventure is great.

[ABED]

I don't think Kai fixed the pacing. It went in the opposite direction, it went too fast.

[Doctor.]

I don't think Kai fixed the pacing. It went in the opposite direction, it went too fast.

Do you think the manga was too fast?

[Bansho64]

Do you think the manga was too fast?

I know you weren't asking me but, yes, I do think it was a bit fast. I think MistareFusion (Gaffer Tape) said that in his Dragon Ball Dissection as well. We don't really see enough of Gohan's training or his development in the manga. It kinda leaves you wondering what happened. The anime filled in these blanks wonderfully in my opinion.

[Anime Kitten]

I agree 100%, if not more so, with Bansho64. The reason I love the filler in the Saiyan Saga is because it advances character development so well. That, and it had C-6 and Chico.

[precita]

The Saiyan saga aged very well. Its basically an episodic version of Dragonball until Nappa/Vegeta land.

What hasn't aged well is the stuff that wasn't good from the start, like Fake Namek or the pacing during Goku Vs. Freeza which needed to be cut in half.

[Wizard Sesame]

The Saiyan saga is my favorite part of DBZ. The filler, the fights, the story during the saga is where it was at its best.

[Chibi Gohan]

The arc itself for me had the best filler in the series and showed some great character development. The fights were also not horribly stretched out. It's the only arc in Z that I watch without skipping episodes.

[Kunzait_83]

Ugh, I don't think (or at least remember) ever talking about this, but over the years I've quickly grown to really, really hate most of the "pacing" discussions about this series.

The whole "pacing" thing is easily one of the single most tiresome (and at times, revealing) complaints about the series: while the original Z anime certainly has some indefensibly AWFUL pacing problems in certain spots (late Freeza and much of Cell in particular mainly), its also in the same breath simultaneously WAY the fuck overblown by fandom as a whole. Egregious filler & sluggish pacing are indeed a major, massive flaw in the old series; but people have, over time, exacerbated the severity of it well past the point of sanity.

Old-old fandom used to joke about it at times ("Drag-On Ball" is a nickname that originates long, long, long before the dub ever happened), but newer fandom has obsessed about it to the point where its been made into this all consuming canker sore that people can't stop biting at.

Part of the problem I think stems in part from people who genuinely can't seem to distinguish between the genuinely gratuitous padding (which of course obviously the series certainly and unarguably has plenty of its share of) and legitimate tension-building and atmosphere/direction. We can all generally more or less agree (justifiably) about which actual whole added filler storylines and plot points are good or bad (i.e. which ones do or don't add something), but a BIG part of what made the original anime special (and endeared itself to people like myself way back in the day) was how genuinely "cinematic" it often presented itself as, particularly in its direction and yes, its pacing. Dragon Ball was always at its best being exactly what it was: a great big, silly, out of control, everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink epic martial arts fantasy movie as a weekly TV anime.

Martial arts film has historically often been axed on slow, methodical pacing, either to set an ambiance of the setting (which tends to very often be in ancient China: of a more realistic sort, of the outright fanciful "Jianghu" of Wuxia lore) or to build up anticipation for the big, epic fight sequences. You can more than very easily draw numerous parallels between Chinese (and Japanese) martial arts cinema and Italian Spaghetti Westerns, which share not only very similar themes at times, but also VERY similar directorial and pacing/tension & atmosphere establishing sensibilities.

Bickering over whether or not the Garlic Jr. or Afterlife Tournament Arcs are any good and ripping on Fake Namek are one thing: the part of the whole "pacing" shit that drives me crazy though is when people seem to universally hold ANY slow, tension or atmosphere-building directorial flourishes in the anime in universal contempt as some kind of crippling flaw ANY time it ever shows up, when in actuality - at least at one time back in the day - that aspect of the anime was originally considered a HUGELY laudable feature that even further helped make it special.

Dragon Ball/Z was a Japanese children's cartoon that made extensive use of the cinematic language of much more genuinely adult martial arts genre filmmaking: be it the "stare-downs" between opponents sizing one another up just before a big fight, or the cutaways to calm, peaceful, windswept fields and mountainous wastes to punctuate the more violent/visceral moments, or yes, even the cutaways to other characters observing and commenting on the fight (a VERY common Wuxia/Kung Fu film trope in itself): these things, in and of themselves, are NOT inherently bad by definition, but (when used properly) are a BIG part of what helps DISTINGUISH Dragon Ball/Z from your typical, junky Shonen schlock.

These things aren't even just purely stylistic tics: they're a part of the narrative and help tell a story by making use of tools unique to a medium like film/animation that are not available to comics or literature. It may be a show for children, but it doesn't let that fact become an excuse to not take its cinematic heritage as seriously as if it were an actual Kung Fu/Wuxia film for a more mature audience. THAT'S probably the single biggest aspect about the anime that has kept it as easy for me to go back to as an adult without very many caveats.

The real nuance of the issue is that these directorial/stylistic/narrative flourishes can also be (and very much are, make no mistake) horrifically ABUSED and over-relied upon by a weekly TV series trying to stay reasonably behind its manga source material week in and week out. There's DEFINITELY occasions throughout the whole series where those elements no longer become distinctive cinematic language, but instead totally obvious padding and a crutch to keep the overall story behind the manga by a certain margin (with the final Freeza battle's whole "Five Minutes" portion easily and without question being by far and away the single most over the top egregious, easy to point to, and just downright hateful in its awfulness, not to mention pointless, tiresomely repetitive shenanigans with Mr. Satan's entourage in the Cell Games).

Making the Dragon Ball/Z anime not only follow the story of a martial arts/wuxia film writ-large, but also genuinely FEEL like one and ACT like one in as authentic a manner as possible in its overall presentation and directorial storytelling is easily and without question one of the single most ingenious aspects of the entire enterprise and without a doubt one of the absolute biggest draws that has kept me coming back to it again and again and again all throughout my life, both childhood and adulthood. For that reason as well as, more importantly, the fact that its what helps so significantly set it apart from other, more soundly generic Shonen, the idea of COMPLETELY expunging those aspects of the anime 100% and without exception is, to me, just outright creative vandalism that robs an unfathomable TON from the actual experience of watching it.

Don't misunderstand me: Dragon Ball/Z is hardly at all some bastion of artistic/creative perfection, and there's a LOT that can EASILY be cut to make for a much superior, leaner version. But due to the nature of what the original production was trying to do and the type of story it was trying to embody and represent (classic Kung Fu/Wuxia fantasy fiction), you'd have to CAREFULLY weight and pick/choose what stays and what goes. What's actually adding something to a scene (on a narrative level, stylistic level, or probably most often some measure of both), and what's just clearly there to keep the anime on a particular schedule and offers nothing else.

Editing the anime into an "ideal" version wouldn't just be as easy as "take out anything that's not in the manga": many, if not most, of the episodes simply aren't structured that way to make it so simple a matter. Such an endeavor would have to be, on some level at least, a genuine labor of love. Someone would have to actually and sincerely give a shit about things like "emotional effectiveness" and "creative integrity" in the process of editing it.

And Kai of course was certainly anything BUT that.

The part that I find most disheartening about these discussions though is when certain people make it plainly evident what kind of show they want Dragon Ball Z to reflect. When you take out EVERY single instance of anime-exclusive material and shots/moments not in the manga, when you go full scorched earth mercenary and cut EVERY last second that's not directly tied to the main story thread at its bare bone basics, when you strip the episode run times down to the point where the story moves at a bazillion miles an hour with zero bathroom breaks... something VERY vital and fundamental to the original concept of Dragon Ball gets lost in the process.

Make no mistake, there are PLENTY of other kinds of genres and stories where that "keep things moving no matter what" mindset is VERY appropriate and makes for an overwhelmingly stronger finished result. No doubt at all. But Dragon Ball, something that aims to reflect ancient myth and Chinese epics (even through a more bizarre and modernized/contemporary lens), just isn't at all one of those things. Something like DB that's trying to be grand, epic myth (even wonky, zany, and silly grand epic myth, as is Toriyama's want) simply NEEDS the looseness, the breathing room, and the detours. The original anime, as is, goes much too far at various points (mostly due to the realities of the production schedule and the manga's serialization), but what bothers me is when so many fans want to take things in the OPPOSITE wrong-headed extreme and turn it into a non-stop roller-coaster ride that never ever pauses.

We've seen exactly what happens, first with the original FUNimation version, then later with Kai, when you take everything that makes DBZ contain the feel of an authentic a martial arts fantasy epic out of the equation: you get a solidly generic, mindless, brain-numbing bash-a-thon action cartoon that leaves substantially less of a lasting impression, with little more than the work of the better Toei animation studios and Toriyama's raw art style/visual designs and ideas/concepts (and sometimes in FUNi's case, not even the latter of those) to keep it even SOMEWHAT as distinctive as it was before.

I find it especially funny that its the early Saiya-jin arc/Raditz stuff that people are focusing on here, particularly with regards to Kai: for me, Kai lost me almost IMMEDIATELY with its treatment of that stuff, where it cut WAY too damn much and turned what was originally one of the utmost effective, directorially evocative, and genuinely film-like fights in the whole series, into a just a total nothing that would've left utterly ZERO lasting impression on me had that been my very first exposure to that part of the series.

I distinctly remember the entire time I first saw those episodes of Kai, all I could keep thinking of was first seeing the Saban/Ocean version when that first aired in the mid/late-ish 90s and the sense of hollowness it left in both me and my friend at the time. Kai's editing got a BIT better after that, but not by NEAR enough: its still to me WAY too much of a careless over-correction on the pacing issue, and to point to the Raditz portion as indicative of its editing strengths is, to me, EXACTLY backwards.

[MajinMan]

The Saiyan arc is one of my top 3 favorite arcs in the series. I love the filler, fights, and cool moments. There's also some nice world building with the Otherworld. It includes arguably the best fight in the series, Goku vs Vegeta. There's just so much to love about this arc that I can't name them all.

[Kakacarrottop]

I can't understand why certain people strongly dislike those episodes between Raditz and Vegeta/Nappa arriving on Earth. They do a great job building up the Saiyans as a super serious threat. And some of the episodic filler was really creative (the Pendulum Room, Hell & Princess Snake, etc.)

I've always found the Saiyan arc to be the easiest DBZ arc to watch from start to finish. It's like a simple movie narrative spread over 30 or so episodes. The subsequent arcs with all their false dawns were far more tedious to watch, imo.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I can't understand why certain people strongly dislike those episodes between Raditz and Vegeta/Nappa arriving on Earth. They do a great job building up the Saiyans as a super serious threat. And some of the episodic filler was really creative (the Pendulum Room, Hell & Princess Snake, etc.)

I've always found the Saiyan arc to be the easiest DBZ arc to watch from start to finish. It's like a simple movie narrative spread over 30 or so episodes. The subsequent arcs with all their false dawns were far more tedious to watch, imo.

I think it's largely due to a lack of tension.