Favorite Dragon Ball (original, Z, Super) story arc?

[SuperSaiyanDad]

Which saga is your favorite and why?

[sintzu]

The 23rd Tenkaichi arc in DB. Goku and Piccolo's fight was among the best in the entire franchise. I also liked the Goku and Tien rematch.

The Buu arc in Z. I liked how Vegeta was used and developed in this. I liked Ssj3 and Mystic Gohan. the fusions were also a nice addition.

The Zamasu arc in Super. I liked the team fights. Zamasu and Black were great villains. Vegeta's fight in the manga was really good.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

Manga: 23rd Tenka'ichi Budoukai story arc. Superb panel work by Toriyama. There was a sense of dynamism he brought in the fighting choreography that was pretty easy to follow, was full-on entertainment and the best in the entire comic. Torishima keeping him in check as always is what I assume helped in improving the quality. Son Gokuu winning the Budoukai was one of the most satisfactory moments in the series. The victory felt earned. The battle with Ma Junior was brutal and amazing.

Red Ribbon Army story arc is a close 2nd.

Anime: Majin Boo story arc. While the comic took a nosedive, the anime was at it's strongest for the most part. The change in character designs helped. Yama'uchi Shigeyasu, who I think was the uncredited series director of the show at that point had a very strong vision and the staff available pulled it off and were successful for the most part. Some good visuals by Studio Cockpit, Yama'uchi's personally directed and boarded episodes were damn good. #232 and #279 were the stand-outs. The acting was excellent as always. Nozawa Masako's SS3 scream, the final Genki Dama scene and Gokuu's tone when he says those final words gives me chills everytime, Horikawa's Vegeta sacrifice scene, Gouri Daisuke as Mr.Satan in pretty much every scene were all great. The music by Kikuchi Shunsuke had this heroic and silly feel to it which matched the atmosphere of the arc. It made some of the moments 10x more entertaining. Gokuu taking the role of the main character back was also a big positive.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Tough one, it usually changes depending on my mood. Right now, I'd say that Baba's Tournament is my favorite for the manga, and the Saiyan Arc is my favorite for the anime.

[Lord Beerus]

This is my current top five:
- Future Trunks arc
- Saiyan arc
- Freeza arc
- Majin Boo arc
- King Piccolo arc

But re-reading the manga and re-watching the anime on occasions can lead to that ranking changing. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose one arc specifically, I'd have to got with the...

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Saiyan arc. In both the anime and manga. Fantastic lore, great character development for Gohan and Piccolo, death having actual weight on the plot, Vegeta as a villain, fantastic cumulative battle between Vegeta and Z-Fighters, effective use of the supporting cast, wonderful supplementary material in the anime adaptation of the arc, more specifically with the filler with Gohan training and surviving on his own in preparation for the Vegeta and Nappa arriving, and to cap it off, a brilliant twist ending.

[ecrockedboston]

Least favorite: Red Ribbon. It just carried on for too long, and was influenced by one of my least favorite western movie genres, 80's action flicks. I just think that aesthetic clashed too much with DBs. I'm reading the manga for the first time, and I'm about midway through the android arc, and I'm finding this to drag a bit much as well... Of course, I was first introduced (like many others) to the Saiyan and Namek sagas of Z.

Which brings me to...

My favorite: The Saiyan and Namek sagas. Everything about them I find amazing. I think the whole series could have ended with Namek and it would have been perfect. Of course, there's the nostalgia factor as well.

[Boo Machine]

Majin Buu is my favorite. it kind of gets boring sometime between Gotenks vs Super buu and Kid Buu appearing, but everything else was an absolute blast for me. It's what made Gohan my favorite character in the franchise and the final battle with Kid buu is my favorite battle in the series.

Also when Buu first appeared had to be one of funniest villain reveals I had seen when I was a kid. Since I had started the series with Z, the only other villains I had seen were ones like Freeza and Cell. Then to go to Fat buu and watch him still be pretty terrifying was great.

Close 2nd and 3rd would be, Saiyan arc and the 21st budokai arc.

[ABED]

DB: The 21st Tenkaichi Budokai arc is just pure fun. From the introduction of Kuririn, to their training, to the tournament itself is a pure delight.
DBZ: The Saiyan arc has some of the best animation and fights in the entire series. The entire fight with Vegeta is amazing. It's brutal and suitably climactic.
DBGT: The Baby arc is enjoyable even if I don't like the fights.
DBS: Haven't seen it so I can't comment, but from what I'm hearing, the Future Trunks/Goku Black/Zamasu (is this all one arc?) sounds promising.

[Zephyr]

The 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai through the Namek arc is my favorite continuous narrative chunk of the series. Tenshinhan, Piccolo, and Vegeta are definitely at their most enjoyable to me here, starting as villains, then rivals, and eventually becoming reluctant allies (reluctant in Piccolo and Vegeta's cases, at least). Yamcha, Krillin, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu are also on about as full a display as fighters as they're going to be. The era where Goku had grown up, but had yet to become a Super Saiyan is incredibly nostalgic for me (the Namek arc still fits here, since the Super Saiyan came at the very end, and was more of a novelty or an anomaly, rather than a standard "everyone gets it" thing).

If I were to narrow it down, the "core" of this chunk to me would be the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai and the Saiyan arc (conveniently one DB arc and one Z arc). Goku's an adult, but doesn't yet have Super Saiyan; Yamcha, Tenshinhan, and Krillin are still big players; the two biggest threats are Piccolo and Vegeta.

Outside of the original anime/manga: Super 17 is my favorite arc of GT, for the multitude of great character moments/interactions, sense of scale to the fight, and how it isn't long enough to overstay its welcome like the rest of GT. Super hasn't finished up yet, so it'd be insincere to pick a "favorite" this early, but if I had to choose among arcs that have already finished, I'd go with the Future Trunks arc. The way the villain goes about doing what he does is interesting to me, and I love how crazy the ending is. Sumitomo also improved a bit.

[ekrolo2]

Hunt for the Dragon Balls for DB
Saiyan & Freeza for Z
Baby for GT
Future Trunks arc for Super (making the best of a worst situation).

[MajinMan]

Dragon Ball - 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai arc. I thought the story and fights were both equally fantastic in this arc compared to the other two tournament arcs. The 21st Tenkaichi Budokai had a great story, but it's fights were overall the worst from all tournaments. The 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai arguably had the best fights from all tournaments, but I think had the worst story. The 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai is the best of both worlds and is my favorite arc in the DB portion.

Dragon Ball Z - Majin Buu arc. The Majin Buu arc has a lot if criticisms and flaws that I can't deny, but I'll be damned if I said that it wasn't my favorite. The first half of the arc is my favorite segment in all of DB. It has everything I want: comedy, cool fights, great character moments/development, and world building.

Dragon Ball GT - Baby arc. The Baby arc is really underrated by this fandom. When most people think of GT, they default to the "omg GT sux" mentality that has been drilled into their brains by other fans. The Baby arc offered a really interesting story and great villain in Baby, even though he got a little stale towards the end of the arc.

Dragon Ball Super - Future Trunks arc. The Future Trunks arc has a lot of moments where it made me get really invested into the story. The whole mystery aspect was something we had never seen in Dragon Ball before. Zamasu also turned out to be one of the best, if not THE best, villains in all of Dragon Ball. Overall a very solid arc, even if the ending was a bit strange and rushed.

Overall favorite - Majin Buu arc. In the end, the Majin Buu arc takes the number one spot for me. There's just so much I love about this arc that seperates it from the rest. I accept that I might be biased towards it, but if it gives me the most enjoyment, I have no choice but to accept those biases and call it my number one favorite.

[Bansho64]

DB: 22nd/23rd Tenkaichi Budokai
I couldn't decide between the two. They're both great in their own rights and have awesome ending fights in both of the arcs. I'm leaning moreso towards the 22nd because of Tien's character development, but the 23rd has so many awesome fights. I love em both a lot.
Z: Saiyan arc.
The arc perfectly led into itself after the blood pumping tournament we left off of. Our main lead is surprisingly killed in the first few episodes and we're introduced to his young son in the first episode.

This arc had great character development and the filler added into the anime only accentuated the story for me. The villains had the perfect connection to the main lead and the fights were awesome. The amazing music composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi is a big part of why I like this arc as well. That, and also the actors ans actresses included. Nozawa's Gohan is great and Toshio Furukawa's Piccolo really shines here.

[floofychan333]

If we're going by separate sagas, I'll say King Piccolo, by far. If we're going by actual arcs, I'd say Red Ribbon Army.

[ABED]

If we're going by separate sagas, I'll say King Piccolo, by far. If we're going by actual arcs, I'd say Red Ribbon Army.

What do you consider the difference between arcs and sagas?

[floofychan333]

If we're going by separate sagas, I'll say King Piccolo, by far. If we're going by actual arcs, I'd say Red Ribbon Army.

What do you consider the difference between arcs and sagas?

On the DB Wiki (I know, not credible) every arc is divided into sagas so that's what I think of when I think of arcs and sagas being separate.

[ABED]

The King Piccolo arc is in fact its own arc.

[Robo4900]

DB: 21st Tenkaichi Budokai. So much fun.
DBZ: Artificial Humans arc. So much yes.
GT: Evil Dragons arc. I actually really like GT, but the Evil Dragons arc just takes the cake. Especially episode 64.
Super: Champa arc. Kind of by default, but it is legit really good.

As a side-note, Super has only had 2 real arcs so far. First two arcs were retellings that were okay at best(Battle Of Gods), no one liked Potaufeu, and Universe Survival has only just got underway. So really, the question of which Super arc is best boils down to "How much did the ending ruin the Black arc for you?" For me, the answer is "Almost entirely", so the U6 tournament wins. If you didn't think the Black arc's ending was that bad, it'll probably be more of a toss-up, but it's still only a two-horse race, really.

Also, on arcs vs sagas; Toei and Kanzenshuu use arcs, while Funimation use sagas, which allows them to separate the arcs into like a million smaller parts, which was useful for the old DVD singles(Although they usually just use fairly arbitrary "Seasons" these days). IIRC, the OG Dragon Ball sagas are mostly the same as Toei/Kanzenshuu's arcs, but DBZ got pretty ridiculous(The Boo arc ended up split into 6 different sagas).

[Draconic]

Dragon Ball - Piccolo arc, and in that I include everything from Krillin's death to the end of the 23rd Tournament. It's just a great span of story with great fights troughout, memorable moments and beautiful development for pretty much every cast member.

Dragon Ball Z - Saiyan arc. While there are greater moments, better fights or more memorable stuff in the latter arcs, this one is just the most consistently well executed out of all of them.

Dragon Ball GT - Shadow Dragons arc, because there's not really much else to choose from. The Black Star Dragon Ball one is mostly a bore, the Baby arc has good ideas and great moments, but outside of some specific times (Buu's fusion with Uub and Piccolo's death), every character is at his worst. Baby, who becomes a bore once he takes over Vegeta and Goku, who is horribly written troughout, are the most affected and since they are the only ones doing something worthwhile it's a huge problem.

Dragon Ball Super - Future Trunks arc, not only because everything that came before is pretty mediocre, but because there are geniune highlights and moments that can stand up to anything that came before.

[Gog]

Dragon ball- The hunt for the dragon ball arc is my favorite arc, purely for the gags.

Dragon Ball Z- The Freeza arc is objectively the best arc in the entire series, this is of course undisputed fact, to the fight scenes, the designs, the battles, the transformations and especially for the humor. It's just the best arc all around. But Saiyan's still second.

Dragon Ball Super - The Future Trunk's Arc is currently the best arc in Super, for the music, Goku Black, the emotional moments, and tense atmosphere. Such a shame about the whole ass pull nonsense near the end.

[The gr]

DB:my top three is 22,23 Budokai tournament and the hunt for the dragon Ball,but if I had to choose one it will be the hunt for the dragon Ball because the gag are funny,the cast usage was amazing and it felt like a fun adventure

DBZ:the Saiyan saga easily, amazing story, great cast usage and this is krillin and piccolo at their best, and the villain and the fights are amazing,the namek saga goes second place,

DB GT:the baby saga, great concepts, amazing fights and ssj4 is epic

DBS: easily the ft arc despite the asspull,some boring episode and lackluster finale, Goku black is one of the Best villain,this arc had amazing characters interaction, great fights and great moments but I just wish the finale wasn't so underwhelming,I'm hoping the manga fix this issue