Deep Thoughts: The Vegeta/Saiyan Saga

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Deep Thoughts: The Vegeta/Saiyan Saga

Post by ABED » Tue Jan 31, 2023 5:45 pm

Rewatch Note: I've rethought the order I'm going to watch all of the series. Instead of watching DBZ, Kai, GT, then Super, I'm going to watch DBZ, GT, Kai, and then Super. I think this will make for the most satisfying viewing experienced.

What do you call it? The Vegeta or Saiyan Arc/Saga? I'm fine with either, but I think I prefer Saiyan Arc.

We've now reached the arc that is Toriyama at the height of his powers. My thoughts on the Ocean dub will be its own separate post, so I'm limiting this to my thoughts on the original and to a limited extent, the redub. Dragon Ball is overall my favorite of at this point the five series, but the Saiyan arc is Toriyama at his absolute best. We begin by introducing two new characters, both related to the hero, his son, Son Gohan, and his long lost brother, Raditz. Oh, and we discover that Goku is an alien. It's a great answer for a question that the audience may not have even had and it ultimately pays dividends beyond the initial revelation. In this arc alone, it's used less as a world building device and much more as a thematic one. Goku's value isn't determined at birth or by blood, but by action. Sadly, Toriyama walks this back as the Saiyans become pretty much the only fighters of value, plot-wise, as the series progresses. Regardless, the value of the reveal isn't world building and lore. Both terms sound grandiose and meaningful, but they are just other names for what they pretty much are – exposition. After the reveal is out of the way, Raditz knocks out the strongest in the world with a single strike. What an introduction. His threat forces Goku to team up with his rival and nemesis, Piccolo. This reluctant team up is made far more meaningful in context. Mortal enemies have to push their differences aside in order to defeat an unimaginably more powerful adversary. I'm immediately taken by how good their chemistry is. The action and their interactions work so well. This eventually leads to one of the best fights in all of Dragon Ball and it's only two episodes! Okay it's two and the tail end of another, but point is that it's short. It leaves a lasting impression. As I'm thinking about this, something I hadn't thought of before is Toriayama didn't pull the whole "Can Goku and Piccolo trust each other?" thing during the battle. It's a logical place to go given their history but he doesn't. They work really well as a team, so much so that I wish they did it more. In the end it takes Gohan's hidden power, Piccolo's new technique, and Goku's death to stop Raditz I like the irony that Piccolo does make good on his threat to kill Goku. However, it was done with Goku's consent and it doesn't give Piccolo the pleasure he thought it would. Last thought on act one of this arc; it's tempting to keep something going if it works so well or to bring it back, but one of the reasons this part is so effective is because it's kept short and sweet.

Act two is the longest part of the arc and like the Piccolo Daimao arc, there's an air of danger that looms over the whole story, and a ticking clock. Stories are about anticipation and usually for the resolution to be effective, the heroes and antagonists have to be kept apart before the third act. I know that's reductive, but it's by and large true. The best stories do so in a way that don't make you say "I know they're being kept apart for the sake of the plot, so I'll just role with it." In this case, the villains have to travel a vast distance to arrive. And even though Vegeta and Nappa have some tangential connection to Goku through Raditz and their race, they don't have a concrete connection, which far too many hacky stories have a tendency to do. It doesn't start as a personal issue, but it becomes one. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The training part is a lot of fun, even the filler. This is by far the most effective use of filler in the whole series. It doesn’t just fill in gaps and explain their new strength, it builds character. Gohan and Piccolo are the greatest benefactors. Gohan is shown maturing and their relationship is allowed to develop. That's it's dramatic purpose, again, it's not exposition. Gohan could've easily been an annoying spoiled crybaby, but I came to love him by the episode where his dinosaur friend was killed. And one of the best filler moments in the series is when he escapes that island and gets home but turns back at the last minute. He's right in eyesight of this goal but realizes he can't. He has to get stronger so there's any chance of surviving so he can go home. If you think hard enough, there's some uncomfortable implications about child soldiers, but the story is enough of a fantasy that one can easily look past that. Another effective filler episode is the pendulum room. The war torn planet Vegeta is how I see it. In other depictions, it's a high tech clean world, but given the Saiyans' savagery, I doubt that's what it would look like. And that brings us to Goku's training. We've satisfied the part of the formula where Goku is taken out early and now he's traveling down an insanely long road to get a chance to train with a new master. The filler drives that point home how damn long it is. When we get to the end, the new master was worth the wait. Kaio-sama is one of my favorite characters. Like Kamesennin, he is the wise old martial arts master, but with a quirk, though in this case, it's far less inappropriate. Instead of playing sexual assault for shits and giggles, he's a catfish looking god who thinks puns are the height of comedy. And if that's not enough, Toriyama undercuts the trope again by having him miscalculate Goku's time to travel back. Goku almost doesn't make it in time because in the 100+ days Goku was there, he forgot to factor in only TWO travel days. So what I'm saying is everyone's death is partially his fault. I'm just kidding, but kinda not.

Now we've come to act three. Wow, this is getting long. That's what she said. Anyway, Nappa and Vegeta live up to the hype and then some. Nappa is a brute and while he shrugs off a lot of the offense, he's fazed by enough of it that it doesn't feel worthless. But what he dishes out is brutal. Probably one of the most brutal moments in all of Dragon Ball is when he punches Tenshinhan's hand right off. The death of Yamcha, Chaozu, and Tenshihan all land. Even after seeing these scenes countless times, they still work. None works better than Piccolo giving his life to save his young friend. I'm not crying, you are. This scene works because the work done earlier built beautifully to this surprising but inevitable moment. It's a moment made all that much more powerful when you experience Piccolo's arc from the beginning. The Demon King died to save an innocent child, the son of his mortal enemy who killed his father, but more than that, he saved his friend. Thankfully Goku arrives in time and when he gets some measure of retribution for the death of his friends, it's one of the most satisfying moments I can think of. My favorite moment being when Goku rushes forward and appears on Nappa's head then when Nappa goes to grab him, Goku appears right in front of him and buries his first deep in Nappa's stomach. Keep in mind that this isn't fat, it's solid muscle. Goku is able to finish off an elite, but it's Vegeta who turns on his comrade and remorselessly kills him, leading us to the best fight in DB history…

It's tempting to do play by play as there's plenty to talk about but I'll try to keep this succinct. This fight is the best in all of Dragon Ball because it follows up all of this set up and action and delivers on a satisfying finale that makes it all feel worth it. Goku vs. Piccolo at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai is the best one on one fight, but this final boss battle is the best overall. It's intense, it's violent, it's clever, it's fun, and it's exhausting. I mean exhausting in a good way. Pretty much everyone by the end is broken and battered and bloody, and I in the audience feels like I've been through it as well. Goku vs. Vegeta alone was incredible but the inclusion of Gohan, Kuririn, and even Yajirobe doesn't detract, it adds. After Goku defeated Piccolo and became the best in the world, where does the story go from there? Well, we start with an alien coming to Earth and conclude with Goku not overcoming the odds, but learning that as far as he came by the end of the arc, he still has further to go. He's living out Muten Roshi's pearl of wisdom that there's always someone out there better than you, so don't get complacent. Everyone plays a vital role in the outcome, even Yajirobe. Gohan's contribution to this fight is the completion of his character arc. Yes, the story can take that further and find other interesting places to go that are organic, but his journey isn't going from Goku's young crybaby son to the hero the story, it's going from crybaby to finding his bravery. What amazes me is sometimes the hero hits what feels like should be the finishing move, the story keeps going and you think "if only it ended there". I don't feel that way after everyone works together and hits Vegeta with the Genki Dama. It could've been the end and felt satisfying. However when the fight continues after Vegeta crash lands, what keeps it from feeling like too much is Goku's request to let Vegeta go because it would feel like a waste. He worked so hard to get so strong and yet he encountered someone who far surpassed him and he finally realized that fighting people such as Vegeta "make his heart leap." Now that Goku has fought Vegeta, knows what he's up against, there's little doubt in my mind that had he gotten that rematch instead of facing Freeza, Goku could've won the one on one fight. Goku's confidence has merit to it. With the enemy finally defeated and the seeds planted for a rematch, and the warning that the "root of evil" isn't gone, this arc has come to a close.

Random Thoughts:
The color of Piccolo's blood is a retcon.
Watching the original DBZ feels like watching The Lord of the Rings extended cut. I'm so used to the Ocean dub version.
When we're introduced to senzu, they're in such great quantity that it may as well be unlimited but as if this arc, the senzu are in such limilted quantity for the sake of the plot, Karin is only able to grow a couple in the one entire year he has even with advanced warning.
Unless I'm missing it, it's not established at this point that Vegeta is a prince.
The recap music changes in DB episode to episode depending on the mood the PTB want to establish, but in DBZ it's the same in every episode. I don't know why but the music works with any mood. I prefer Dragon Ball's approach to DBZ's, but both are fine.

Voice Actors:
Ryo Horikawa is maybe the second best bit of casting in DB. We'll get to his more nuanced performance later, but here he's called upon to play a menacing, arrogant, cerebral villain. Boy does he hit the mark. He's able to play Vegeta as someone who has arrogance seeping out of his pores. He's like HBK in 1997. Sabat at this point in the dub is serviceable and it's clear that he's invested in this role, but his chops haven't caught up to his passion yet. I'd give him a C-. To Horikawa, I'd give an A++.

The redub does something so odd, with few exceptions it mostly keeps the old scripts. Where there was no previous script, it basically gives us dialog of quality commensurate with season 1 and 2. While I would've loved getting a Kai level dub script, I would've taken something in terms of quality halfway between Kai and Dragon Ball. Instead we got season 1 and 2, and it seems like for the sake of consistency. The acting is okay. It's a bit better than DB just due to experience and a larger talent pool, but I'm certain the culprit for the quality was due to script and overall philosophy to keep it close to the Ocean dub.

Filler:
Kuririn trying to tell Chichi and Gyumao is so heartbreaking. How do you break it to someone that their spouse is dead and child is kidnapped? That's bad enough but he also has to say that Goku can come back and Gohan, in order to fight to fight aliens out to murder everyone, will be trained by the demon who tried murder everyone?
The Russian Roulette scene in the Princess Snake episode reminds me of a scene in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.
Kami and Mr. Popo sure love their mystical time rooms.

Home Video:
Singles – I was so excited for this release. Sure I was tired of the low episode count but at least I would get a consistent release of the episode uncut. The biggest pain was they released one volume at a time and only every 6-8 weeks seemingly. Or so I thought. Instead, it ended before the entire arc was finished and we go this…
Season 1 – utter garbage. Just a terrible release. I was happy to get something that took up less space on my shelf, but why such a poor quality? Besides shelf space and higher episode count per disc, the only other good thing about it was we finally got what I and MANY others suggested since FUNi started releasing DBZ on DVD, give us a dub track with the original music. You can keep the dub score, just give us that. And why end on episode 39? That isn't the end of the Saiyan Saga. The only thing I can think of is they chose that episode because of the way the Ocean dub VHS/DVD episodes broke down. Sorry, I'm having trouble finding the words to explain it. The Volume called "Departure" contains the last episode of the battle against Vegeta and ends with the episode where Gohan, Bulma, and Kuririn are captured by the kids on the mirrored space ship. This coincides with episode 39 of the original. Is this just a coincidence or did whoever was in charge of determining which episodes go on the disc they thought that was the end of the Saiyan Saga? Regardless of the reason, it's dumb.
Dragon Box Volume 1 – I gave up hope for getting a good release, but then we got something more than I could've ever hoped for. They are my prized possession. I bought them each day of release because I knew they'd go out of print quickly. When I see what they are selling for, boy was I glad I was able to get them when I did.
Last edited by ABED on Tue Jan 31, 2023 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Deep Thoughts: The Vegeta/Saiyan Saga

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Tue Jan 31, 2023 8:24 pm

Vegeta's durability is something to behold. Survives a Spirit Bomb and getting crushed by Gohan in his Great Ape form.

Also, it's the last time Yajirobe contributes to the plot in some form, with him cutting off Vegeta's tail to revert him back to his normal form.
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Re: Deep Thoughts: The Vegeta/Saiyan Saga

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Feb 01, 2023 5:52 am

ABED wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 5:45 pm What do you call it? The Vegeta or Saiyan Arc/Saga? I'm fine with either, but I think I prefer Saiyan Arc.
I know The Vegeta saga is the official name Funimation went with since the UUE release but I kind of hate it. Vegeta may be the strongest and eventually most prominent of the Saiyans but the arc is about the Saiyans as a whole. It's kicked off with the arrival of a Saiyan, Goku learns he is a Saiyan, and the Z warriors spend a year training for the Saiyans.
. The training part is a lot of fun, even the filler. This is by far the most effective use of filler in the whole series. It doesn’t just fill in gaps and explain their new strength, it builds character.
Absolutely. I think the Saiyan arc has by far the best filler in the anime nearly to the point the manga almost feels Iike a cliff notes version. The anime saw an opportunity with the one year training window and took it, giving us some of the best done in one stories in Dragon Ball and fleshing out Gohan and Piccolo better and giving us more time with the soon to be deceased Z warriors so they don't end up feeling like cannon fodder.
Gohan and Piccolo are the greatest benefactors. Gohan is shown maturing and their relationship is allowed to develop. That's it's dramatic purpose, again, it's not exposition. Gohan could've easily been an annoying spoiled crybaby, but I came to love him by the episode where his dinosaur friend was killed. And one of the best filler moments in the series is when he escapes that island and gets home but turns back at the last minute. He's right in eyesight of this goal but realizes he can't. He has to get stronger so there's any chance of surviving so he can go home. If you think hard enough, there's some uncomfortable implications about child soldiers, but the story is enough of a fantasy that one can easily look past that. Another effective filler episode is the pendulum room. The war torn planet Vegeta is how I see it. In other depictions, it's a high tech clean world, but given the Saiyans' savagery, I doubt that's what it would look like.
And this is why I think, at least for the Saiyan saga, viewers need to watch Dragon Ball Z and not Dragon Ball Kai because yes to all of this.
. Kaio-sama is one of my favorite characters. Like Kamesennin, he is the wise old martial arts master, but with a quirk, though in this case, it's far less inappropriate. Instead of playing sexual assault for shits and giggles, he's a catfish looking god who thinks puns are the height of comedy. And if that's not enough, Toriyama undercuts the trope again by having him miscalculate Goku's time to travel back. Goku almost doesn't make it in time because in the 100+ days Goku was there, he forgot to factor in only TWO travel days. So what I'm saying is everyone's death is partially his fault. I'm just kidding, but kinda not.
Yes to all this but also I love that Joji Yanami uses the same voice for Kaio and the narrator suggesting Kaio is the narrator all along.
This scene works because the work done earlier built beautifully to this surprising but inevitable moment. It's a moment made all that much more powerful when you experience Piccolo's arc from the beginning. The Demon King died to save an innocent child, the son of his mortal enemy who killed his father, but more than that, he saved his friend.
There is something beautifully poetic about it. Piccolo was born to kill Goku and he died saving Goku's son.
. Yes, the story can take that further and find other interesting places to go that are organic, but his journey isn't going from Goku's young crybaby son to the hero the story, it's going from crybaby to finding his bravery.
Yes thank you. Agreed 10,000 percent. To me Gohan's character defining moment isn't unleashing his rage and becoming Super Saiyan 2, it's defying his mother and telling her he is going to Namek to help bring back the man who died for him.


The redub does something so odd, with few exceptions it mostly keeps the old scripts. Where there was no previous script, it basically gives us dialog of quality commensurate with season 1 and 2. While I would've loved getting a Kai level dub script, I would've taken something in terms of quality halfway between Kai and Dragon Ball. Instead we got season 1 and 2, and it seems like for the sake of consistency. The acting is okay. It's a bit better than DB just due to experience and a larger talent pool, but I'm certain the culprit for the quality was due to script and overall philosophy to keep it close to the Ocean dub.
It is odd that Funimation stuck so close to their 1996 scripts only really fixing the most egregious errors and getting rid of all the Saban imposed stuff like other dimension and too bad it's Sunday. I guess since they figured the old dub was still in recent memory that it was best to treat their redub as an extended edition and not a completely new thing. Later on they'll go back and forth between treating the Ocean/Saban days as an illusion or something that had nothing to do with them but I guess in 2005 it just wasn't something Funimation thought they could do when the Pioneer DVDS then only recent went out of print.
.
Home Video:
Singles – I was so excited for this release. Sure I was tired of the low episode count but at least I would get a consistent release of the episode uncut. The biggest pain was they released one volume at a time and only every 6-8 weeks seemingly. Or so I thought. Instead, it ended before the entire arc was finished and we go this…
Honestly, one of the shittiest things Funimation did was cancel this release 9 volumes in and waste the money of fans who would now have to rebuy the same 27 episodes in crappier quality just to own an additional 12. It sucks for sub fans who wanted to finally own the first 67 episodes with legal subs and it sucks for dub fans who wanted to own the series uncut or were more attached to the Texas cast than the Vancouver cast.
it was we finally got what I and MANY others suggested since FUNi started releasing DBZ on DVD, give us a dub track with the original music. You can keep the dub score, just give us that.
God awful cropping aside, one thing I do have to say about the "remastered" dub is that it's a powerful testament to presentation. As it was I really didn't like the way the UUE dub was originally presented. The seizure inducing "hardcore" opening, the Nathan Johnson score, the obsession with the color red (the OPs and ED are both in red, the title cards going through that red filter) but by giving the series it's original Kikuchi score, using the title cards as is, and using the original Japanese opening and ending animation (even if Head Cha la is regretably rejected in favor of that Menza opening) it just makes the dub so much better despite otherwise being the same episodes that aired on Cartoon Network in 2005.

Dragon Box Volume 1 – I gave up hope for getting a good release, but then we got something more than I could've ever hoped for. They are my prized possession. I bought them each day of release because I knew they'd go out of print quickly. When I see what they are selling for, boy was I glad I was able to get them when I did.
One of the Blue Brick disk contains an advertisement for the Dragon Box and everytime I see it(because god forbid Funimation let you skip their opening advertisements) I think damn...if only I knew back then.

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Re: Deep Thoughts: The Vegeta/Saiyan Saga

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Mon Feb 06, 2023 11:56 am

I personally call this arc the "Saiyan Saga", not just out of habit or because its what I know it as, but it's what makes the most sense. Vegeta isn't built up the same way Freeza, Cell and Boo are, were introduced to the concept of Saiyans through one powerful warrior (Raditz) and told stronger ones will come, which ends up being Nappa and Vegeta at the end of the arc.

I guess for the Ultimate Uncut DVDs Funimation wanted to play up the first arc of Dragon Ball being the "Saga of Goku" by having a mirror saga named after his rival, but it doesn't work. We don't see Vegeta growing up, he's already established to be a formidable fighter, and the story doesn't follow him as its lead.

Sadly the only home releases ever made available for this season in my country was Manga UK's repackage of orange brick season 1 and their season 1 Blu-Ray that used Funimation's 30th anniversary discs, and they never released the edited Funimation dub with the Ocean cast, as it aired here on Cartoon Network in March 2000. The head of Manga UK was looking into releasing Rock the Dragon here at one point, but sadly that went nowhere, and I ended up importing the DVD singles from the US instead. I wish that version of this arc was more widely available. The 35 original episode run felt long and a bit slow at times, Kai was too short at 16 episodes, but I think the original US English dub got the right balance by making this arc 26 episodes.

Nonetheless I will rewatch the Saiyan saga from time to time across different versions and it's always a pleasure. The fights are all top notch, gruesome enough without being over the top, the filler is wonderfully woven into the story to where we see not only Gohan and Piccolo's development but also some more training for Goku's friends like Tenshinhan, Yamcha, Kuririn and Chaoitzu, and of course the reveal that Goku was an alien was fantastic.

I'd go as far as to argue Goku being revealed to be a Saiyan, much like Darth Vader being Luke's father is an example of a masterfully written retcon. It works so well because it gives context for his unusual powers, why he had a tail that allowed him to become an Oozaru, we know more about why he was sent to Earth (before Minus ultimately retconned that), and it serves as the launching pad for an even greater storyline involving his heritage and their history with Freeza that begins to unfold when our heroes arrive on Namek.

In terms of voice acting you can't go wrong with Japanese or any of the available English dubs. Funimation's redub is serviceable, and fine for an uncut viewing experience, although you do lose the Ocean cast's more theatrical performances, I'd argue the latter is more enjoyable for pleasure alone. Funimation came close to Ocean when they dubbed Kai, and that version works as a quick breeze through of this material, although if we ever see Ocean Kai they will likely surpass Funimation's work on the show too (in my opinion). There is another English dub from the Phillipinnes by the company Creative Corp Product, although only a few episodes can be found, they're quite accurate and uncut but voice acting leaves a lot to be desired. Japanese is great in both Z and Kai, with the former having an edge as you get Masako Nozawa at her prime and Ryo Horikawa's original lines when it was this new exciting role for him.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

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