I completely disagree with all of this. Goku and Freeza DON'T have any connection to each other besides "he's the main character so he's fighting the main villain of the arc," and Bardock's existence doesn't do jack and squat to change that. Freeza doesn't know who Bardock is in relation to Goku. Goku doesn't have the slightest idea what Freeza is even referring to. And even if he did, Freeza is talking about someone Goku doesn't personally know. So for anyone looking for more to Goku's and Freeza's relationship, looking to Bardock is going to lead to nothing but disappointment. The manga's referencing of the Bardock special is a fun little shoutout but contributes exactly nothing to the story.sintzu wrote:He is if you're looking for something more in Goku and Freeza's relationship. Without Bardock, Goku has no connection to Freeza other than "he's the main character so he's fighting the main villain of the arc" which is what a lot of anime do.
The Bardock special is even better if you watch it before the original DB cause there's this anticipation that builds across 8 arcs of them finally confronting each other. It also builds up his fight with Vegeta (and I think with Piccolo). Goku's unnatural strength, his ape form & his origin don't come out of nowhere if you watch the Bardock special first.
In all of Dragon Ball circles, there is little I disagree with more than starting the franchise with the Bardock special. In part that's because I believe in principle that prequels should never be watched chronologically. They simply aren't designed that way. But in this particular case, it makes absolutely no sense to me. The Bardock special does not fit at the beginning, be it tonally, thematically, or narratively. The story of Dragon Ball is not intertwined with the story of Freeza, nor is Freeza the ultimate big bad of the franchise, so opening the franchise with a build up to him is a mistake. It gives the events in the special undue importance that the series proper never ultimately capitalizes on.
Opening the franchise with a grand tragedy right before serving up slapstick and panty jokes is tonal whiplash so severe it would make any new fan's head spin. What kind of story is this? Who are these characters we see for 45 minutes who don't show up again for literally 200 episodes?
And why on earth would you want to spoil Goku's origins like that? Again, the question of his origin does not become relevant again for literally years of the story, so it's a setup that's immediately dropped and seemingly forgotten. It distracts from the stories that are being told in the meantime because it's this lingering question that begs to be resolved. It makes those other stories feel like frustrating padding in light of the narrative threads the "first" episode sets up. It disconnects us from the perspective of the main characters because we're saddled with this irrelevant information that nobody else knows rather than learning it organically through the story and when it becomes narratively justifiable.
At least when Kai opened with the Bardock special, as ill-advised as I found it there too, it jumped straight to material that justified its inclusion. Obviously it still has the problem of implying that all narrative threads are leading to Freeza, which is just as misleading as it would be at the beginning of the franchise. But at least it's tonally consistent and immediately justifies its existence. But either way, it doesn't belong at the front of the story.
At any rate, I agree with ABED on this one. Bardock is not important to the overall story of Dragon Ball. His story is a side story, and the Bardock special stands out as one of the best standalone pieces in the franchise... but it has next to no importance in the overall scheme of things.
