B wrote:The underlying question of this thread is what happens when you don't start from the beginning; you get a false sense of what series is supposed to be.
A good point that I'd have to agree with about 75% (and this is coming from someone that
did start with DBZ, the dub no less, first).
That said though...the 'Z' era really does come off drastically different in a lot of ways from the earlier material, even if you watch from the beginning, so a certain 'sense of loss' probably would have helped things come off a little better in retrospect. Yet again though, I have to turn things around though, on that note of 'retrospection'. A lot of the things that seem to have no weight at all are only that way, I feel, because we've known how the story ends for years now. A lot of things probably weren't so cut and dry when they first happened though.
- When Bora is killed by Taopaipai, Goku pretty much immediately decides they'll use the Dragon Balls to bring him back. We know this will work, but at the time it was the first time such a thing had been attempted. For all we as readers/viewers, and the characters in-universe, would have known with that as the latest chapter/episode, it would have been an impossible feat.
- When Kuririn, Roshi, and Chaozu are all killed, Shen Long is also taken out of the picture in the same arc. We know looking back how that's going to work out, but at the time anyone could have thought that the Dragon Balls were gone for good, as were Goku's friends.
- Goku's death against Raditz...that one pretty much does come with a sense of 'this isn't permanent'. He's the main character for crying out loud! But, seeing the main character we've seen do so much finally die, even if only temporarily, is sufficiently shocking enough as is.
- When Yamcha, Chaozu, Tenshinhan, Piccolo, and Kami bite the dust, for all we know that could be for good as well. The characters don't know at first if they can get to Namek. They don't know if the Namekians will actually have Dragon Balls or let them use them at all. Then the whole ordeal with Freeza and his troops (plus Vegeta) comes up, and it's only at the very end (after Kuririn has died again too) that anyone is brought back. That's an entire arc where, anyone following along at the time when this was the new material, would have been unsure if we were ever going to really see certain people again.
- Goku's death in the Cell Games is traumatic enough on it's own since it really
does become permanent. ...Well, temporarily.
- All of the deaths in the Boo arc come at the price of a villain that
nobody seems capable of stopping at the time, and then we get a mood shift from Vegito completely trouncing Boo, to Boo
blowing up the entire planet!. The struggle with Boo is so all over the place, goes to heights of peril that we hadn't yet seen in the series, that there's a sufficient amount of wondering if things are going to be all right as it is.
So yeah, if you sit back and look at a lot of those moments that we, as fans twenty years after the series has been over, chalk up as 'lacking tension', they probably had a lot more tension to them back in the day when everybody and their grandmother didn't know how things ultimately played out.
