I feel like the slow pacing for DBZ in the anime and filler works to its advantage

[MyVisionity]

I think episode count doesn't matter as much as how well the time is being used and what works best for the story. For some series, a 90 episode saga may fall short. Maybe a story might need a 200 episode arc,

I can’r think of a single series where a 90 episode saga feels short or any story that would need 200 episodes to tell an arc

I was thinking about something like the final saga of Naruto, which was like 200 episodes. But then I remembered all of the filler sections and realized that it didn't actually need that many eps.

Although I'm sure it's not too big a stretch for story arcs to go on for that long out of necessity. I hear One Piece is currently around 1000 episodes in, but I don't know.

Dragon Ball is different because its style and writing isn't suited for super long sagas. Things pop off quickly and the pacing leads to much more contained storytelling.

[MasenkoHA]

I think episode count doesn't matter as much as how well the time is being used and what works best for the story. For some series, a 90 episode saga may fall short. Maybe a story might need a 200 episode arc,

I can’r think of a single series where a 90 episode saga feels short or any story that would need 200 episodes to tell an arc

I was thinking about something like the final saga of Naruto, which was like 200 episodes. But then I remembered all of the filler sections and realized that it didn't actually need that many eps.

Although I'm sure it's not too big a stretch for story arcs to go on for that long out of necessity. I hear One Piece is currently around 1000 episodes in, but I don't know.

Dragon Ball is different because its style and writing isn't suited for super long sagas. Things pop off quickly and the pacing leads to much more contained storytelling.

I wouldn’t use Naruto or One Piece as good examples of lengthy television arcs being a good or admirable thing.

[precita]

I agree about the Saiyan arc and Namek arc filler, but the Buu arc filler worked in its favor? It's an arc that's already too long to begin with.

A lot of the Boo saga filler was self-contained arcs or segments, and while of course the fights against Boo are longer in the anime than the manga...you can say the same for any anime fight. The problem with Namek is the bulk of the filler in the latter half was just to extend Goku Vs. Freeza, along with the constant cutaways to King Kai's planet, whatever Bulma was doing, and so forth.

Likewise getting to see base form Gotenks fight Fat Boo was great IMO. We got to see that form get some use, same with Vegito fighting for an ep in his base form. I quite liked all these added aspects, as well as SSJ2 Goku fighting Kid Boo a bit before powering up.

What self contained arcs are you referring to? There are BITS I like but the arc is still way too long even in the original manga. In the anime it's well over 90 episodes. That's too damn long. The Buu arc has this odd dichotomy of feeling too long and rushed.

The Boo saga is like 5 different stories in one, of you include the anime:

- Pikkon tournament
- Great Saiyaman/High School eps
- World tournament
- Babidi/Dabura and Goku/Majin Vegeta segment

Then after Boo is hatched

Fat Boo/SSJ3/Mr. Satan
Gotenks and Super Boo
Gohan/Vegito/Super Boo
Final arc with Goku against Kid Boo

It's 90 episodes, but covers a lot of different stories. It's not like one huge never ending fight.

[Matches Malone]

I was thinking about something like the final saga of Naruto, which was like 200 episodes. But then I remembered all of the filler sections and realized that it didn't actually need that many eps.

The difference is that you could/can skip those episodes, as the vast majority of Naruto's filler is within self contained episodes, unlike DB and One Piece where they instead stretch out the manga's material.

[MasenkoHA]

A lot of the Boo saga filler was self-contained arcs or segments, and while of course the fights against Boo are longer in the anime than the manga...you can say the same for any anime fight. The problem with Namek is the bulk of the filler in the latter half was just to extend Goku Vs. Freeza, along with the constant cutaways to King Kai's planet, whatever Bulma was doing, and so forth.

Likewise getting to see base form Gotenks fight Fat Boo was great IMO. We got to see that form get some use, same with Vegito fighting for an ep in his base form. I quite liked all these added aspects, as well as SSJ2 Goku fighting Kid Boo a bit before powering up.

What self contained arcs are you referring to? There are BITS I like but the arc is still way too long even in the original manga. In the anime it's well over 90 episodes. That's too damn long. The Buu arc has this odd dichotomy of feeling too long and rushed.

The Boo saga is like 5 different stories in one, of you include the anime:

- Pikkon tournament
- Great Saiyaman/High School eps
- World tournament
- Babidi/Dabura and Goku/Majin Vegeta segment

Then after Boo is hatched

Fat Boo/SSJ3/Mr. Satan
Gotenks and Super Boo
Gohan/Vegito/Super Boo
Final arc with Goku against Kid Boo

It's 90 episodes, but covers a lot of different stories. It's not like one huge never ending fight.

I don’t think anyone was counting the Otherworld Tournament arc as part of the Boo saga. I consider that a bridge gap arc like the Garlic jr arc between Freeza and Cell. If we did count that it brings the total to 97 episodes which is closer to 100.

The Great Saiyaman stuff leads into the 25th Budokai which itself leads to Boo but I wouldn’t call that 5 stories in one.

[Shaddy]

If anything, I felt like Kai didn't go far enough. A general problem with basically all shonen battle series ever made is that they never know where to place or straight-up remove the mountains of redundant dialogue that helps explain what's happening on a still page, but is usually unnecessary in animation. It can often break the flow of a fight, and combined with the stop-and-go nature of many shonen battles makes the show feel more like watching a very elaborate RPG fight.

I mean, think of like, any fight scene in Fullmetal Alchemist, or hell, Durarara!. In those shows, characters sometimes get a chance to say one sentence in a fight, and it's usually over by the end of the episode. Sometimes, the fight straight-up cuts them off in the middle of a sentence, and rarely do they stop to stare at each other and say "hm, that special ability of yours seems like it might have vulnerabilities when placed up against my something whatever powers". I get that those are different types of shows (DRRR is more of a mystery show, if anything), but FMA isn't much less elaborate in it's power design than Dragon Ball. It still has ki, that's what the alkahestrists use. It still has a huge variety of powers and potential uses for powers, and never have I felt like an encounter in that show was too short. Hell, it takes like 6 episodes with the fight with Wrath to end.

Obviously it's not a fair comparison, since problems in FMA are not universally solved by punching people (hell, the show characterizes that as a philosophy for fascists), but if every Dragon Ball fight were reduced to it's core themes and beats and then played out with bursts of high-intensity visuals, I would not complain at all. There's obviously still a lot more character-building dialogue and themes in those, but it'd be a massive improvement.

[ABED]

A lot of the Boo saga filler was self-contained arcs or segments, and while of course the fights against Boo are longer in the anime than the manga...you can say the same for any anime fight. The problem with Namek is the bulk of the filler in the latter half was just to extend Goku Vs. Freeza, along with the constant cutaways to King Kai's planet, whatever Bulma was doing, and so forth.

Likewise getting to see base form Gotenks fight Fat Boo was great IMO. We got to see that form get some use, same with Vegito fighting for an ep in his base form. I quite liked all these added aspects, as well as SSJ2 Goku fighting Kid Boo a bit before powering up.

What self contained arcs are you referring to? There are BITS I like but the arc is still way too long even in the original manga. In the anime it's well over 90 episodes. That's too damn long. The Buu arc has this odd dichotomy of feeling too long and rushed.

The Boo saga is like 5 different stories in one, of you include the anime:

- Pikkon tournament
- Great Saiyaman/High School eps
- World tournament
- Babidi/Dabura and Goku/Majin Vegeta segment

Then after Boo is hatched

Fat Boo/SSJ3/Mr. Satan
Gotenks and Super Boo
Gohan/Vegito/Super Boo
Final arc with Goku against Kid Boo

It's 90 episodes, but covers a lot of different stories. It's not like one huge never ending fight.

With the exception of the afterworld tournament, none of those are self contained. You can break every arc into those sort of segments, but they lead directly into the next part.

[precita]

Even so, it's still different things happening. Boo himself doesn't even appear till halfway into the saga, so we get a lot of different stories built up to it. I don't see why it matters how long a saga is because we get different things leading up to Boo.

As for the Otherworld tournament, the dub generally treats it as the beginning of "Season 5" and the last episode shows Gohan as a 16 year old so I consider it the lead-in to the Boo arc.

[ABED]

Even so, it's still different things happening. Boo himself doesn't even appear till halfway into the saga, so we get a lot of different stories built up to it. I don't see why it matters how long a saga is because we get different things leading up to Boo.

As for the Otherworld tournament, the dub generally treats it as the beginning of "Season 5" and the last episode shows Gohan as a 16 year old so I consider it the lead-in to the Boo arc.

That doesn't do your point any favors. It takes 2 US network TV seasons just to get to the central antagonist? It matters because it's an exercise in delaying the ending. After a while it just feels like wasting time and beside the point. Instead of forward movement it's just treading water.

And different things happened in all the arcs. What are you getting at?

[MasenkoHA]

As for the Otherworld tournament, the dub generally treats it as the beginning of "Season 5" and the last episode shows Gohan as a 16 year old so I consider it the lead-in to the Boo arc.

And in the Japanese version the Otherworld tournament is the last stretch of episodes to use Head Cha La and Zenkai Power with We Gotta Power and We Were Angels subsequently replacing them. It starting season 5 in the US broadcast matters about as much as Garlic Jr being part of season 3. It’s its own self contained story arc where as you can draw a linear line in the narrative from episode 200-291.

[JulieYBM]

The final arc of Naruto suffers from unkind production conditions that lead to the story being adapted at a small number of chapters per episode as well as clear editorial mandates to include fan service characters in the form of the Edo Tensei shinobi. I wouldn't really judge it as having needed to be as long as it was.

I'm still glad for the war getting FIVE episodes by Yamashita Hiroyuki but it still could have exorcised material, especially at the beginning of the arc.

Suffice it to say, lawd no an arc should not be 90+ episodes. Even 26 is pushing it considering that such is the length of an entire fucking series.

[Dr. Casey]

Suffice it to say, lawd no an arc should not be 90+ episodes. Even 26 is pushing it considering that such is the length of an entire fucking series.

Do you still enjoy Z then? The 23rd Budokai is the last story arc in the series which doesn't reach the 26 episode mark, and the Saiyan arc is the only one of the main four in Z which even comes anywhere close to that number.

I personally enjoy how much longer the story arcs became post-Saiyan, and how battles themselves became massively longer in some cases (like with the Saibamen, Nappa, and Vegeta all combining to form a fight that was twice as long as the lengthiest prior to that point); the fatigue they caused made victory and the resulting peace feel that much more rewarding and satisfying for me than the relatively quick Piccolo Daimao arc. But that's all subjective and I have weird takes on things anyway.

[JulieYBM]

Suffice it to say, lawd no an arc should not be 90+ episodes. Even 26 is pushing it considering that such is the length of an entire fucking series.

Do you still enjoy Z then? The 23rd Budokai is the last story arc in the series which doesn't reach the 26 episode mark, and the Saiyan arc is the only one of the main four in Z which even comes anywhere close to that number.

I personally enjoy how much longer the story arcs became post-Saiyan, and how battles themselves became massively longer in some cases (like with the Saibamen, Nappa, and Vegeta all combining to form a fight that was twice as long as the lengthiest prior to that point); the fatigue they caused made victory and the resulting peace feel that much more rewarding and satisfying for me than the relatively quick Piccolo Daimao arc. But that's all subjective and I have weird takes on things anyway.

I haven't watched Dragon Ball aside from Super in years. Too busy with other things, like working, staring at a wall for six hours a day because autism and depression, re-watching Code Geass six times in two years and re-watching Evangelion nine times in three years. I just can't find time to pencil in actually re-watching Dragon Ball Z in whole.

Like, individual episodes of Dragon Ball Z might be enjoyable but holy shit, even at most you're looking at a 78 episode series, not 291 episodes.

[precita]

Even so, it's still different things happening. Boo himself doesn't even appear till halfway into the saga, so we get a lot of different stories built up to it. I don't see why it matters how long a saga is because we get different things leading up to Boo.

As for the Otherworld tournament, the dub generally treats it as the beginning of "Season 5" and the last episode shows Gohan as a 16 year old so I consider it the lead-in to the Boo arc.

That doesn't do your point any favors. It takes 2 US network TV seasons just to get to the central antagonist? It matters because it's an exercise in delaying the ending. After a while it just feels like wasting time and beside the point. Instead of forward movement it's just treading water.

And different things happened in all the arcs. What are you getting at?

I don't know why you're comparing Dragonball to other shows, much less western TV shows. Most shows have 22-26 ep seasons, Dragonball "sagas" have always been longer than that from the beginning.

[ABED]

Even so, it's still different things happening. Boo himself doesn't even appear till halfway into the saga, so we get a lot of different stories built up to it. I don't see why it matters how long a saga is because we get different things leading up to Boo.

As for the Otherworld tournament, the dub generally treats it as the beginning of "Season 5" and the last episode shows Gohan as a 16 year old so I consider it the lead-in to the Boo arc.

That doesn't do your point any favors. It takes 2 US network TV seasons just to get to the central antagonist? It matters because it's an exercise in delaying the ending. After a while it just feels like wasting time and beside the point. Instead of forward movement it's just treading water.

And different things happened in all the arcs. What are you getting at?

I don't know why you're comparing Dragonball to other shows, much less western TV shows. Most shows have 22-26 ep seasons, Dragonball "sagas" have always been longer than that from the beginning.

No they aren’t. Many of them clock in under 20. To take 2 plus US seasons to get to the damn villain is too much. It is dragging its feet

[JulieYBM]

Many American dramas are also one-hour dramas, too. This means you're looking at something like 44 episodes of story just to get to one enemy, which is ridiculous in my opinion. Stretching things out that much without a resolution is just not great.

[MasenkoHA]

Even so, it's still different things happening. Boo himself doesn't even appear till halfway into the saga, so we get a lot of different stories built up to it. I don't see why it matters how long a saga is because we get different things leading up to Boo.

As for the Otherworld tournament, the dub generally treats it as the beginning of "Season 5" and the last episode shows Gohan as a 16 year old so I consider it the lead-in to the Boo arc.

That doesn't do your point any favors. It takes 2 US network TV seasons just to get to the central antagonist? It matters because it's an exercise in delaying the ending. After a while it just feels like wasting time and beside the point. Instead of forward movement it's just treading water.

And different things happened in all the arcs. What are you getting at?

I don't know why you're comparing Dragonball to other shows, much less western TV shows. Most shows have 22-26 ep seasons, Dragonball "sagas" have always been longer than that from the beginning.

In the original Dragon Ball only the red ribbon arc exceeds 26 episodes (unless you consolidate Piccolo Daimao and Jr into a single arc but why?)

The Boo arc is still the single longest arc in Dragon Ball

[precita]

The Boo arc is many different world building eps and stories into one.

What were you guys expecting, Boo to hatch in episode 10 or something? How on earth would they set the worldbuilding of the 7 year gap with Gohan in High School, Goku coming back, the world tournament, the initial set-up of Babidi/Dabura and Supreme Kai/Kibito, etc?

I'm not even sure what people are expecting here? The Boo saga wasn't in a rush to debut the villain, the whole saga was almost like a fresh start with a time skip and had to establish the current cast and world building. If Boo was "rushed" to introduced 10 eps in, the saga would have been done terribly.

[ABED]

The Boo arc is many different world building eps and stories into one.

What were you guys expecting, Boo to hatch in episode 10 or something? How on earth would they set the worldbuilding of the 7 year gap with Gohan in High School, Goku coming back, the world tournament, the initial set-up of Babidi/Dabura and Supreme Kai/Kibito, etc?

I'm not even sure what people are expecting here? The Boo saga wasn't in a rush to debut the villain, the whole saga was almost like a fresh start with a time skip and had to establish the current cast and world building. If Boo was "rushed" to introduced 10 eps in, the saga would have been done terribly.

I expect stories to not take a year to introduce the villain. No one is saying 10 episodes but it shouldn't take nearly 50 and then take 50 more to resolve it all because the villain keeps transforming.

And screw world building. What an overrated concept. It's boring and it doesn't lead to much. You can easily cut every single DBZ arc in half and not lose anything substantive. I get that a story might want to ease its way into the plot but a years worth of episodes?

[MyVisionity]

The transforming problem I can understand, but I never had a problem with the length of Boo's introduction. I thought that the pacing was just right.

If it takes a year(?) to introduce the main villain then it takes a year. It's not about how much time it takes, it's about how well the time is utilized.