The Collapse of DBZ's Animation and Pacing - DBD TV: The Freeza Arc Part 2!
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- Опубликовано: 21 окт 2024
- Dragon Ball Dissection December continues its look at the animated Freeza Arc. This week, we break away a bit from exploring filler content and instead look at the massive downgrade in quality the series suffered in the latter half of this arc. Why did the art and animation get so bad? What happened to the pacing? Five minutes, anyone?
(Patreon version: • The Collapse of DBZ's ... )
As I keep saying, the worst filler is not the completely original content like the giant crab stuff. The worst filler is when they artificially pad out fights with the endless staredowns, recycled footage and repeating similar lines over and over again. And I had the luxury of watching as many episodes as I wanted at a time, I can only imagine how painful it must've been to wait a week to get a new exciting episode of Goku beginning to sightly overpower Freeza in their beam struggle while Chi-chi keeps trying to get to Namek. And the show never really recovered from that, since this was just as prevalent in the Cell and Buu saga.
Well fortunately for us in Canada, if I'm not mistaken, it was a new episode Monday to Thursday or four a week. So if the Freeza battle took the ten episodes, that's still two weeks and some change to get through. I distinctly remember this time specific time in DBZ as my dad, who would half watch the show as my brother and I were glued to the front of the TV, even started complaining and asking what the hell was going on.
atatatatatata!! x1000
And we had the same (or worst) with Super :/
It's not as noticeable when its sparsed out.
olserknam And this is exactly why I prefer Kai
This is one pieces problem. While it has some of the lower percentages of filler, nothing happens per episode
i always found it funny how the animators had no idea how to draw goku's super saiyan hair, so it looked completly inconsistant between animators
People complain about evil eyes and awkward movements, but can I get a moment of silence for what they did to Vegeta's forehead?
Vegeta Calvo Inteligente
He looks like he was just plucked from the ground like a....... vegetable😘
"Big brain Vegeta isn't real he cant hurt you"
7:09
What? It's just an ordinary drawing of--
(clicks time stamp) ..OH MY GOODNESS!
_NAGISAWA!!!_
@@King_Luigi well, vegeta has been called a combat genius, maybe that is why he has such a big brain
@@jrechill1176
Combat genuine until his pride kicks in
King Luigi plankton references
That's some Code Lyoko shit right there.
You know, the ironic thing to me is that if Torishima didn't restructure the staff to bring the anime closer to the manga, then the pacing problem might not have been as pronounced. Because having Takao Koyama keep things as close to the manga as he did is what bit the show in the ass here.
I have no doubt that it would still be there. But the writers for the original Dragon Ball TV series were able to stretch the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai out over several days, complete with minor filler sidestories, and even completely rewrote things like Goku getting the Super Spirit Water into a full-on quest. Those same people probably might have thrown in filler where Krillin would have to go through a hidden sacred ground for warrior Namekians to retrieve some Namekian item before Guru would unlock their potential, then have Krillin save a small pocket of Namekians from some anime-exclusive Freeza elites to show off the power boost. Then Gohan would have either rushed through the trial ASAP or just had Krillin vouch for him to avoid wasting the audience's time with the same trial twice.
Would the pacing problem have still been there? Probably. But I feel as if it would have been a little less obvious until the Super Saiyan transformation hit.
Yeah, that's what I loved abour early DB fillers, it's actually new content adding something to the lore.
Wow... I so wish that any of that could have happened.
Side note, while it would just be more fighting, it's really a shame the anime couldn't have done more to expand on the presentation of Frieza's third form instead of just barreling on into the final form.
@@EmeralBookwise I mean, from where I stood, the third form contributed nothing for the staff to expand on. Unless you want to say that form enhanced speed over power, there wasn't much that form contributed that'd be worth it.
@@Trunks1stApprentice: More so I just meant give it extra screen time. We spend the whole first half of the arc with first form, and of course the arc closes with final form being dragged through the ground as the pacing slows to an absolute crawl. Even second form got a decent showing, but third form is barely more than an abbreviated footnote. It doesn't need any special abilities, just chance to stretch its legs.
Again, it'd still just be more fighting, but if any of final forms exhaustive screen time could have been allocated to third form instead it could have at least given that fighting some more visual variety. Maybe even go so far as to rewrite it so Vegeta gets his healing buff before Frieza's final transformation. Let the Saiyan prince have one last moment of glory before Frieza puts him in his place.
Heck, or maybe Frieza shouldn't even need his final form to beat Vegata, and he could then still be in third form when Goku Shows up. Dividing that fight up into an extra stage with a transformation early on could have really helped stop every episode from looking so samey.
@@Trunks1stApprentice Well, the filler they went for instead, didn't really add much either, might as well make it more "visually" interesting by having some of the fight be against Form 3.
It's actually amazing how everything lined up so perfectly at the time to make that part of the Freeza arc as slow and plodding as it was. The animation teams were just now seeing how close they were getting to the manga, which they could've maybe solved with some filler had they not been in the middle of a long, combat-intensive arc with little breathing room, which MAYBE could've at least been mitigated had the writers been allowed to change a few things, but Toriyama's editor was keeping a tighter leash on everything! There's a reason the "5 minutes" meme came from this arc in particular; it was the perfect storm of events that not even Dragonball Z could replicate in the future.
That said, looking back at it, I'm kinda glad this part of Dragonball Z exists to serve as a warning as to what could happen when adapting an ongoing series.
And then One Piece and Naruto happened and showed us Toei's advanced milking machine
@@cyberninjazero5659 Naruto is not Toei though. But yeah the One Piece Anine has been unwatchable since way before the Timeskip
And the Naruto team did fuck up as well
@@sunwukong5518Shippuden was really trying to follow in Z’s footsteps to an absurd degree.
Even the anime title add-on is ripped straight out of that playbook!
When people tell me dragonball super was the first time the series had iffy/bad animation it shows how strong nostalgia glasses are.
Well, most kids also do not have the sharpest of eyes or are not analytical. I mean I used to like The Amazing Spider-man show in the 90's, but it does not hold up today.
I agree but Super set the bar lower than ever.
@@brettwallace7687 What are you talking about? It hold up really well. Even in terms of animation it's not significantly worse than a lot of DCAU products at the time.
olserknam eh early dcau series like Batman the animated series had some really good animation. Some episodes were outsourced to Japanese studios
Wesley It also is the most comic accurate iteration of spider-man outside of the comics
You want a good example of what Z could’ve been? The final fight of JoJo Part 3 was about 9 chapters long in the manga, about 2-3 months of serialization. In the TV series from 20+ years later: 1.5 episodes!
I’d say the Goku vs Freeza fight could’ve been about 6 episodes if Toei weren’t so pressed to stay behind the manga!
Yeah, and that's a coming from Stardust Crusaders which was long running for a Jojo anime.
I actually kind of liked how Jotaro vs Dio's fight was paced in the manga. Araki made lots of panels for serious tension. The bundled it up in 1.5 episodes perfectly.
It would have been awesome if we could get a new anime adaptation of Dragon Ball Z with the love an care David Productions have put into JoJo. It is never, ever going to happen but a man can dream
This kind of stuff just reminds me of my dissapointment of Kai only being redubbed and not reanimated. Just imagine if db got the hxh treatment.
@@ultradbzfan5255 re animating dbz would take a lot of money
The pacing didn't just die, it was murdered
No one thought the pacing would die ..... until it did
One Piece: They are not so different, your pacing and mine.
I'm not sure if I agree; the death of the pacing could have been an accident.
@@oneheckofabanana2016 Search "Cleanpricegaming It didn't just die it was murdered"
17:08- I will say this- compared to Bleach, at DBZ didn't stop during very vital parts of a major arc just to have a filler arc that's almost equally as long as the actual arc with no warning.
What are you talking about Bleach warned us about filler episodes by breaking the the fourth Wall.
It legitimately felt like we'd get an arc of filler, eleven canon episodes, a gag filled filler episode, and finally one more canon episode before that cycle repeated.
better then mixing filler with eps and randomly doing it every second ep
The Frieza Saga's meaningless King Kai babble and mid-episode recaps give me conniptions to this day.
MF: You can't really do that in the middle of a continuous fight...
Bleach animators: Oh really?
Rudoku1 that must have been aggravating when it first aired but it made binging fun and easy. Just save those filler arcs for a rewatch.
Man, I hate Bleach Filler. I was so confused when suddenly the Amagai arc was put into the story and the shitty Zanpakuto Filler
@@M3rtyville The Zanpakuto arc was one of the better ones and I could actually tolerate the Bount and Amagai arcs. The Reigai arc though, brrr...
Honestly, I hated it at the time... but really, once the annoyance ran off, I think that the Bleach filler stories were actually pretty good. I mean, Amagai is a bit of a snoozefest to be sure, and the Bount arc starts off REALLY slow. But once the latter picks up I thought it was pretty decent (JIn Kariya is actually one of the series' best villains, don't @ me), the Zanpakuto arc was at least fun with it's premise, and the Regai arc genuinely has some of the best fights in the anime's run.
@Rudoku1
Naruto animators seems to have done it too at the tail end of the finale of Shippuden.
If you think this is bad, imagine being a One Piece fan in 2019, it's like I'm seeing Vietnam flashbacks from the anime Freeza arc
Imagine being a Naruto fan sitting through almost 100 episodes of filler before Shippuden....
@@hosep so you don't watch shonen anime?
Oh my god you just reminded me how unbearable those were
@@noneofyourbusiness1998
At least for Naruto and Naruto Shippuden the filler was just in separate episodes from the ones that adapted the manga...
The episodes that adapt the manga are paced decently
@@a.liguria2698 True, but sometimes filler will show up right at the climax of an arc.
Wasting good animators on bringing out two movies a year at cost of the anime's visuals if that isn't proof that the rights owners have desired the milking of db long before super I don't know what does.
And this is why long running adaptations are mistake especially with how lightning fast the db manga could get the difference in pacing of the manga and anime is night and day especially from this point. It's especially painful in sense that a few years after the dbz anime ended one piece came along and essentially inherited it's bad pacing and suffering animation quality but shuiesha, toei and Fuji TV were very happy and people keep watching so the cycle shall continue
Thank Kami for those seasonal long-runners like My Hero Academia and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
@Morph Ball I don't want to say the Japanese have no standards but they religiously watch every new episode every week with ratings never really dropping even with how bad the pacing diminished
@Morph Ball As a matter of fact, we are. Ratings dips were such a common problem that most western shows (up until around 2005 at least) were set up to have a cliff hanger per commercial break.
You know I was thinking of something yesterday so this is perfect timing. The Super Saiyan transformation doesn’t have an insert song, they are everywhere in DB an Z gives one to Gohan when he goes SS 2 but Goku doesn’t have one when he transforms or even while fighting Frieza. This is arguably the most pivotal/iconic moment in the series so it’s weird to think they didn’t make it as impactful as it could have been.
I don't think putting a song there would have worked as well. The original Super Saiyan transformation isn't just supposed to be a moment of beatific victory, it's supposed to be kind of unsettling. The ost from Movie 1 is absolutely iconic and it totally suits that purpose.
Hocolate why isn’t the SS2 transformation supposed to be unsettling? Gohan who up to the point has been this innocent child who doesn’t want anything to do with fighting has finally been consumed by his rage. It’s a total 180 just like Gokus transformation.
@@juliandavidhoffer2022 Eh that's more of an awakening. Not really unsettling.
Funnily enough, not having a song kind of sets it apart from other transformations, and emphasizes the climatic feeling of the fight, just letting the sound of thunder, crumbling soil and their own words take the stage. I feel like the lack of a song worked perfectly fine, just a different approach. Meanwhile Gohan's first ssj2 transformation felt very emotional and more focused on the climax of his own story(finally getting to see Gohan unleash the power we've known about for a long time but only got glimpses of) than that of the arc's main conflict if that makes sense, and both the original and Faulconer soundtracks did a great job transmitting those feelings. Nevertheless, the lack of a theme for ssj Goku is indeed a rather curious fact.
Javier de Prada but they could have put one in for any other scene as well and I don’t think there was one anywhere, it just stood out to me because Kikuchi is often praised for the insert songs.
7:55 is one of my favorite sequences of animation in the entire show, right after Freeza powers up to 50%. IMO it is right up there with the Majin Vegeta vs Goku and Goku vs perfect cell sequences in dynamic fluid high quality animation.
Yep. That is indeed a great-looking episode.
I'm so glad I only watched Kai for this arc of the anime. Sure, the animation quality might've been inconsistent, but there was less of it & the pacing was VASTLY improved. Even though Kai kept the stupid Ginyu as Bulma filler, it's just a small thing I can easily ignore in that version of the anime that it doesn't entirely bother me. The better dub that doesn't have Vegeta break continuity & say Frieza forced him to be how he is by threatening to kill his father, along with better voice acting, is also a MAJOR plus.
I think the writers were completely capable of having something more interesting for Chaiotzu in a fight.
But didn’t care to do so.
Because no one cares about Chaiotzu.
Uploaded 59 seconds ago, that's a personal record.
ThunderJuice I got “59 minutes ago”!! What a co-inky-dink!
"The manga was better."
It seriously was at this point. While the Saiyan Arc greatly benefited from it's filler which enhanced the training and adventures before the Saiyans arived, the Freeza Arc gets a swift kick in the nuts by the filler. This arc is so damn boring in the anime. I already have huge problems with the entire Freeza fight in general, but the padding makes those problems worse. I almost couldn't make it through it when I first binge watched the series. Thank Kaio that Dragon Ball Kai would come along to cut out most of the useless padding and quicken the pace if this arc.
At this point I just read the manga if I want to examine the plot of Dragonball
I just don’t get why Kai kept stuff like Ginyu swapping bodies with Bulma or Goku having that weird vision of Vegeta, Bardock and King Vegeta.
@@adama.7735 I think the reason is that some of them are too intricate to the plot, and they need to fill in the time slot for running tv series.
@@adama.7735 I don't get why Kai didn't add in Zarbon telling Vegeta about Frieza's transformations.
Gardetrace The only thing the anime truly gets better for this arc is the final episode. The manga Freeza Arc rushed through its final chapter so much that the anime had a lot of breathing room to expand on it and actually show what the narration was talking about.
I remember watching an episode of DBZ kai during the ginyu-goku body swap where the exposure in the visuals seemed to change in the middle of an episode (likely since it was the typical situation of multiple eps being spliced together). Cool to know it was likely because of the different camera set
That kinda snuck up on me. I've been watching recordings of the original 16:9 version of Dragon Ball Kai, and I hated how the zoomed-in picture made the linework blatantly blurry. But around episode 34, I noticed the lines were looking crisper and cleaner than ever before, and I wondered if they just got better at remastering their old film transfers.
The only anime with worse pacing than dragonball is one piece with only half a chapter an episode
one reason I just stuck to watching or reading recaps.
This is why I didn't bother watching one piece. Too many damn episodes
@@MultiverseOfInfinity When you get more of the plot from games that abridge the story you know something is up.
And they made by the same animation studio, based on a manga published by the same company and aired on the same channel what a wacky coincidence!
I'd say they are least as bad as one another the db manga esp. the z portion has lightning fast pacing that definitely surpaces the speed of the one piece manga and one piece rarely having multiple chapters dedicated to only a single fight in comparison. It balances out with how toei of today hold back on the amount of content covered per episode in terms of chapter count I.e. lance mentioned a 11 chapter gap for Dbz in this video in comparison to the denser about 42 chapter gap between the current one piece manga and anime
The Penultimate Examiner reading it in a binge is amazing tho
Wouldn't dead Guldo be able to freeze time indefinitely since he's dead and doesn't need to breathe?
The DB(manga) had 61chps(just a little over a years worth of content like you stated) when the anime came out in Feb. If they had waited until the end of year like around Oct, I feel like the RRA arc would've been much better paced in the anime.
A lot of shonen series usually get their adaptation in their 2nd year of publication, which is something that applies to DB, is just that the anime came out early on during year.
Fist Of The North(which was also adapted by Toei) got is anime a year after is manga came out. When the manga had around 50-53 chapters, and the pacing for the series is pretty bad. The voice acting and music is what saves that show. While a series like Yu Yu Hakusho got is anime when the manga was around 8chps away from 100th mark.
"D'you know what a minute is?"
With the ongoing of filler to remain far distance between the manga as possible (The infamous 5 minutes) and the two movies being made pretty downsizing the tv staff, it was pretty inevitable that the later half of this arc was going to take a nose dive in quality. For those who were saying Super had Bad Art/Animation in it's beginning clearly don't remember that this isn't new for the series. It all comes back to quality over quantity.
If you think Freeza's 5 minutes are bad just wait till the Universal Tournament were they become very unclear to time and just say " moments "
Even when i was a kid, we have this discusions in school about how the characters are just looking each other doing nothing and how the transformations just did last very long.
"Previously on Dragon Ball Z, a bunch of complicated stuff happened that would have us recap for 3 minutes straight, despite evidence that that's not the case because Dragon Ball doesn't like overcomplicating stuff. Do not try to claim that we're just trying to fill the slot with whatever we can."
This and One Piece make me very appreciative of seasonal long-runners which take breaks between seasons to take the time to adapt the next chunk of story-telling with mostly consistently good animation quality and little to no tacked-on filler. Such as My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer.
Agreed. Even Fairy Tail as much hate as it gets did the same thing.
I had the same reaction as you in regards to the production quality of "Season 3." I distinctly remember watching the episode where they fight Ginyu in Goku's body(the one with all the recycled animation) and thinking "Wow, this looks CHEAP." The animation only got worse from there, and with the insanely bad pacing, I'm shocked it didn't turn me off from the series entirely. I remember the show getting really popular at this point and I had a quasi-hipster reaction when I heard other kids talking about it..."Uhhh did you know the show used to be a lot better in the Saiyan saga!?!" Didn't make me any friends, lol.
+1 to enjoying the Ginyu's Vs. The B-Team (or C-Team at this point). I'm game for these characters being allowed to do anything, even if it's inconsequential.
Ok, I'm not made of stone.... The "Drag-On Ball" bit was hilarious, lol.
If you don't mind, I'm going to respond to all three of your comments here. It's just simpler. So first off, thank you for watching and for sharing your honest opinions. I'm sorry the translation conventions aren't what you're used to, and that it bothered you. But given that, it's even more impressive you stuck it out and watched all the way through. I appreciate that. And while I'd love for you to stick around and continue sharing your opinion, and I really mean that, I understand that Dragon Ball Dissection is not for everyone.
As you seem to have figured out, Dragon Ball Dissection focuses exclusively on reviewing and analyzing the original Japanese version of Dragon Ball (primarily the manga, in fact... you happened to tune in to one of my side videos that takes a look at the TV series). That's what I watch. That's what I read. That's what I enjoy. That's what I know. That is the segment of fandom I cater to. I could go into detail about every naming convention I use, or tell you that FUNimation didn't understand what most of the names meant in 1996, or remind you that the official manga translation and FUNimation's own subtitles in English use a lot of the same naming conventions I use. However, based on your comments, it's clear that's not what you want to hear in great detail, so I won't. I'm not here to convert you. You're a fan of a different Dragon Ball than I am, and that's fine! I'm glad you enjoy it. This is not some isolationist club where dub fans aren't welcome to watch and use whatever terms they prefer. Everyone is welcome here.
However, I must take issue with your accusation of "pretension" on my part. Fans of Japanese Dragon Ball exist in English-speaking countries. We've been around longer than FUNimation as a company has existed. And just like you have the right to enjoy Dragon Ball as you know it and are used to it, so do we. At this point, we have become the overwhelming minority, and there aren't that many places anymore that celebrate or examine "our" Dragon Ball, if you will. If I may be so bold, me simply existing and creating my content seems much less pretentious than knocking down our clubhouse door and telling us we're having fun wrong, isn't it? I don't say that to be rude or confrontational, only in the hope that maybe you'll be able to see this from our perspective.
Over the years, I have been privileged to bring together a community of Dragon Ball fans from various countries, various translations, and various exposures to the franchise. We don't all say or write things the same way, but we get along all the same. As I said before, you are more than welcome to as well. If the naming schemes are too much for you to tolerate, though, I understand. We all have our pet peeves, and I can't tell you you're wrong for feeling that way. But I did feel you deserved a response. Once again, thanks for watching and for keeping me on my toes. Have a great day!
Yeah, even as a kid, I always thought the series looked a lot better around the time Cell was introduced in comparison to when they were fighting against Frieza or the Androids.
Did you think about adding snow to the intro like when you were reviewing the manga during that year’s Dragon Ball Dissection December?
I have thought about it, yes... :-D
MistareFusion Okay. Why didn’t you, though?
It's a long month, friend...
6:51 Yes. I made a compilation video about this fact. It was fun.
I think part of the reason for younger anime fans (myself included; at least I assume you’re older than me) calling the Freeza arc “unwatchable” might be because of how fast paced modern anime are in comparison. For example, one of my all-time favorite anime is Madoka Magica, which is only 12 episodes (plus a sequel movie that, while I love to death, was not needed). That’s only two episodes longer than the infamous “five minutes” and covers enough plot progression for a full arc of Dragon Ball. Imagining Madoka with that kind of pacing, it’d take nearly the whole season to cover the first episode’s cold opening. That’s a pretty big difference to adjust to.
I'd say, most of the older anime fans also think Freezer fight is way too long. When I was a kid and it was first aired on TV I though Freezer was like Shredder in the TMNT, a villain that will never be beaten and come back each episodes lol... Well, I was quite surprised to see he got one shot later one and started to understand I was watching something different that a kid cartoon.
miel the squid while I’m sure most older fans also agree that it’s too long, what I was specifically responding to was the idea of it being unwatchable, as in people being unwilling to finish it.
Would it be alright if I contributed my own thoughts to contrasting DBZ to Madoka?
Madoka (which is fantastic BTW), is also a good case as for why the major players in a production should be in sync. The quality problems DBZ suffered here were largely the result of Toei and Shueisha not being in sync with the way the series should be adapted, in addition to the 2 films a year thing. The fact that major players were being shuffled so late in the game at Torishima's insistence indicated Shueisha should've been more involved with production from the beginning.
As for Madoka, the major players (IE: Director Shinbo Akiyuki, Scriptwriter Urobuchi Gen, Composer Kajiura Yuki and Producer Iwakami Atsuhiro and Character Designer Aoki Ume) knew what they wanted to do largely from the outset and each had at least some familiarity with the others: Shinbo already worked with Iwakami, Aoki and Kajiura on seperate projects, Urobuchi was well-known by this point for Fate/Zero and felt Shinbo and Kajiura's styles work very well together. In addition to this, Madoka was able to be paced so well because (Magia Record aside) there is no source material. (BTW: The sequel movie was a movie because Urobuchi wanted to avoid pacing issues, and according to him, wouldn't have been possible without the animators taking liberties with the script, like Homura's wings in episode 12's post-credits scene.)
Now to be fair: Madoka also had some production issues. The fact that a big chunk of the show was reanimated for home video is proof of that, and the 2011 Tokyo Earthquake and Tsunami delayed the finale by a month.
Check out the Puella Magi Wiki, it demonstrates that Madoka's production was better documented and better organized compared to DBZ at this point.
Noah Meyer all very interesting points. Not super relevant to what I was talking about (I was addressing the issue brought up in the video about Goku vs Freeza supposedly being unwatchable) but still an interesting look at how different production styles can heavily affect the final product.
One hilarious supercut is having all the footage between Freeza saying five minutes until the planet blowing up and it blowing up sped up to play out as an actual five minutes.
As a kid i remember during the goku and freeza fight they were doing a beam struggle and it lasted like 2 or 3 minutes i think.
I hate when I see people complaining about Super’s “bad” animation. The animation isn’t the issue with DBS. It’s the freaking ART STYLE!
I legit think most people just don't know the difference between animation and art style.
It's both the animation and art style. Just because the show got alot better in terms of animation, doesn't mean we can ignore how horrible the show looked in the first couple of arcs, mostly because of the bad animation.
It also is the result of time. Namely that they didn't have any.
"It's power power power power power power! X5" - The attitudes at Toei when cranking out the Z films.
For some reason I have no audio in this video.
Edit: probles solved, had to restart the pc. Really weird problem.
I have had that problem when I don't take earphones out properly.
@@brettwallace7687 Haha yeah. My problem is, I don't use earphones.
So much time that would be spend on Bluma/Vegeta relationship. Ok, I'm daydreaming again.
Nevermind the fans, I'm sure Toru Furuya, Ryo Horikawa, and Hiromi Tsuru would have really liked to know what those three years entailed for their characters. All three of their characters went over a major change that the narrative just completely skips over. Furuya in particular probably would have appreciated a chance to work some of his own irl problems (he was going through a divorce at the time) into his work. Oh well. Missed oppurunities.
For me...this stretch of DBZ is iconic for all of the good and bad reasons. I think the fight with Freeza is STILL the longest in anime history...and at the time, when DBZ felt like it spent forever building to the Freeza fight...it felt completely appropriate for it to be so long and extended....like...it is the ULTIMATE BATTLE FOR THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE.
For me...it needed an executed that fully extended the concept up to match up to the gravity of the situation.
Also part of the reason DBZ never reached these heights of iconic pomp and circumstance. It never got to be spread and stretched and marinated in to this degree ever again. So for me...this was the grand finale in every sense of the word.
Oh well. At least on first viewing the Buluma/Ginny fuller one got another DB flashback (in this case Goku & Kuririn’s kamesennin training and the General Blue Submarine chase).
As someone who had yet to see most of that content, I did really love that flashback.
Surprisingly I’ve never heard someone refer to it as DRAG-ON Ball before, clever, and true in some instances
I have to assume you're new to Dragon Ball Dissection. So first off, welcome! I hope you find something to enjoy here. But it is worth knowing that Dragon Ball Dissection focuses exclusively on the original, Japanese version of Dragon Ball. In fact, it primarily focuses on the original manga, the unequivocal source of Dragon Ball. DBD TV is an occasional spinoff where I look at anime-exclusive material and topics. So naturally, changes made by FUNimation or any other localizing entity don't really come into play here. That's not a knock or judgment or derisive side-eye towards anyone who experiences or enjoys Dragon Ball that way. It's simply not the Dragon Ball that I experience, know, or have any interest or business analyzing. There's no gatekeeping here. You're free and welcome to use any terminology you're accustomed to. You'll certainly find you're not alone in that regard. But if you're not familiar with the Japanese side of the English-speaking fandom, there are definitely going to be many name and terminology choices that you're not used to. I hope you stick around anyway! We have a lot of fun here!
As for your dad, I guess it just goes to show that even people who've never read or seen Dragon Ball before (see also Al Roker at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last year) are better at pronouncing Dragon Ball terms than FUNimation was in 1996. ;-) In all seriousness, though, at least they seem to have admitted they got Kaio-ken wrong, but I guess they (probably correctly) think Say-yun is too ingrained in the English-speaking fanbase to correct now.
But make no mistake: Japanese is a very unambiguous phonetic language. Not only is it written by its creator to be pronounced like the "eye" in "eyeball," it's also an anagram of an actual Japanese word (yasai, meaning "vegetable"... get it?) that is pronounced the same way.
@James Brincefield I think that would be the natural pronunciation for anyone who hasn't experienced Funimation's DBZ. There was a rather infamous toy commercial that pronounced it that way as well and it was mocked for that reason as well as many others. It's ironic that the terrible toy commercial made by people who were clearly not familiar with the series (they showed "Team Dragon Ball Z" rescuing SS2 Gohan from Raditz and Nappa of all people!) pronounced it correctly by mistake.
It is wild how similar the situation between this and one piece is, and how much it effected the industry in the future and around it for other series, because filler has become so hated now only like...Toei and StudioPierrot do it anymore, but everyone else who also used to do filler are just like "Yeah we're just gonna take like a couple seasons off so we have more material". I...honestly cannot figure out why Toei doesn't do the same considering how many other series they're rotating through and also making anyways. Even back during the 90s.
Studio Junio, of course, nowadays better known for animating the Sonic CD intro and outro.
One of the fillers I despised the most was when Vegeta was acting all threatening when everyone came back to earth. In the original comic, he just kind of kept to himself, and didn’t even know. Goku turned into a super Saiyan until Gohan mentioned it to Piccolo. Imagine how impactful that would have been if that was in the animation.
Dragon Ball Z Kai was a blessing for this arc since it condenses both it and the Saiyan Arc into fifty-four episodes, feeling more gradual than dragging.
"Wow he never puts out two videos so quickly, except for..."
"Ohh fuck yeah!"
So for people who watch the series English dubbed beginning with Dragon Ball and going organically to Dragon Ball Z will notice a change in the dub quality at around the time Goku gets to Namek. Funimation actually got better at dubbing the series after dubbing the original Dragon Ball and understanding the characters a lot better. But then you transition from what was re-dubbed to what was originally dubbed in 1999. Even more jarring is the fact that there is a mix of original dub and re-dubbed voices.
yep you're right about the mix of original and redubbed voices, since only some actors re-recorded they're lines while others didn't. One more reason why I don't like season 3 of the Orange bricks dvds; well the orange bricks suck in general.
when i rewatched the first part of dragonball some years ago and saw how differently they did filler back then, it made me wonder if theyd kept it up whether theyd have introduced freeza in a different way. introduce him really early, on his space throne or whatever, being all mafia godfather like.
WHY isn't this guy bigger on RUclips??
The pacing was the biggest reason why I prefer Kai over the original. It gets right to the point, just like the manga, with enough background for a great story.
frieza’s flashback that stretched all the way to the exact point the flashback started from was really bad example of padding. and it kills all buildup for what frieza does immediately after.
The Frieza Arc may not be unwatchable but for me it's definitely un-rewatchable. Whenever I'm rewatching DBZ for whatever reason, everything after the Ginyu Force fight gets skipped.
For me the late DB early DBZ had by far the best animation, the fights between goku piccolo/ goku tien semi finals and goku and vegeta in the saiyan saga were the best choreographed,
I did like the Goku vs Perfect Cell fight tho
The frieza fight was much easier to watch in kai
Kai was much better paced in general.
@@noneofyourbusiness1998 I think they went too fast through the saiyan arc trying to be close to the magna. But afterwards its much easier to watch than dbz
@@noneofyourbusiness1998 Of course. That is the entire purpose of Kai
@@noneofyourbusiness1998 only really for the Freeza arc though. Maybe Cell too, but I felt that that arc suffered more from animation quality dropping to the show's lowest point, rather than the pacing dragging out masses.
8:15 I got an ad break for Six Flags tickets right as you said this lol
Okay. That's hilarious!
8:11 that statement works even better for dragon ball super.
Yeah and it shows that people only care about the fact it has Dragon Ball in its title and boy do they defend that to kingdom come no matter how bad it is.
@@OneYuDBZSlayers There's more excuse to the anime because there's multiple people writing.
@@leonardofarias8843 true but not everthing I was talking about like for making up a arc for Vegeta when all it is the same arc he had in Z and completely ignored problems it has. In fact I think you are the first to ever say that which is just pathetic.
@@leonardofarias8843 Also is the reason why the Broly movie is the only thing that is good to come out of Super in animated form because one guy wrote it. If the anime ever comes back which I hope not and they just do movies that they have a head written or have one guy write it that can also say no to stuff too.
@@OneYuDBZSlayers There's parts you can see hes development is still there
Many valid points have been made about the limited staff, never ending battles of the arc, and executive mandate to stay more in line with the manga tying the animation studios' hands. Still a simple A/B plot structure shifting from the fights on Namek to Bulma or Otherworld or Earth could certainly have been done. There could have been a much more expanded training arc for Piccolo and the others and it could address the powerscaling issue. Earth is admittedly difficult to do anything else with considering Yajirobe, Chichi. and Muten Roshi are pretty much the only characters left around. I have one idea that I feel was underutilized. The fake Namek arc and Goku's training episodes establishes that getting to Namek is harrowing already, but once they're off planet, neither everyone on Earth nor Bulma make much contact with Goku at all or have to do anything to get his help. There could have been an extended plot of Bulma setting up a distress beacon or stealing a scouter or sneaking into a communications relay from Frieza's forces to make contact with Earth so they can pinpoint the location of Namek better. Later in the arc there's an extended sequence of telephone between Goku, Kaioh, Kami, and Mr. Popo and Earth's Dragonballs are collected off screen for the most part. There's certainly more that could have been done there and maybe that job could have been given to Chichi and Yajirobe. Giving her an active role in saving her son and husband is asking too much I guess.
That’d be a better usage of the Goku saving his ship filler with him having to deal with his greatest foe: technology.
Bulma being captured by Freeza’s forces and trying to escape could have also been a fun mix of hijinks and suspense. Her disguising herself and trying to blend in would be classic.
I love your channel so much thanks for keeping it up!
To be fair, when it comes to Bulma and Ginyu being the only two blown away from the force of Goku and Freeza's battle, they *are* the two least equipped to resist those winds. Bulma's a normal earthling, and Ginyu is stuck in a frog body. It's convenient, but it makes some sense.
That doesn't matter...the forceful wind only happened to get them out of the scene. The convenience of it only serves to make it more noticeable...
@@SonicmaniaVideos It's convenient sure, but perfectly within the realm of believability.
I don't think enough dedicated condemnation is given to that bit where Goku was charging the spirit bomb and freeza stared at him from across a gap with Aqua's water trick in it for 2 entire episodes.
Great video! My friend has mad nostalgia for the anime's interpretation of the arc and I tried explaining to him how ugly the show got halfway in and I couldn't get through to him lol, I'm going to send him this video to open his eyes!
Guess you could say, merry Freeza day.
The biggest shift in animation in the entire series (for me) was the episode when Trunks cuts Freeza in half (and the whole thing looks incredible). Then immediately after that episode, Ebisawa's team opens the next episode with Trunks chopping Freeza into tiny pieces and blasting him with ki and the whole thing looks like complete fucking garbage compared to the previous episode. It was the most jarring thing I had ever seen. Well, until Dragon Ball Super decided to be a thing. LOL
You must be very detail oriented to not only notice that but to also still remember it, because I just looked that scene up to see if I noticed and this is the first time I ever realized I can’t be believe I never have before.
Five minutes 'till planet Namek explodes! (Spends three hours and forty minutes fighting on Namek until it explodes).
Oh yeah! Two movies a year kicked the series production in the face, I never thought about it.
I can see two key factors that could have improved this arc:
1. If Toriyama had a general plan for each arc and knew and when how he wanted to finish it.
2. If the animators actually broke the series into seasons and took month-long breaks of in-between said seasons.
The stretching in the german dub was done well at least. It ended up being one of my facourite parts. The character trashtalk each other in such creative ways, that fans loved it. You can find tons of long compilations of the funniest insults in german dragon ball online.
Any on RUclips dubbed in English?
What's the name of the theme MistareFusion used in the intro of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai Arc
Its known as M 313, the Fan Website Kenisu who lists all the Music and their Placement from each Episode of DB/Z and the Movies gave it the name Turn of the Tide:
* M 313 "Turn of the Tide" ruclips.net/video/Y0P1RZMncfo/видео.html
* Kenisu kenisu.webs.com/
Lance! I absolutely love your writing and analytical acuity! They're exceptional! Very!
I am a simple man.
I hear somebody roast Dragon Ball Super. Ilike
Who's roasting super
This is mainly roasting dbz frieza arc but ok
I can get past the powerscaling issue of the Ginyu on Kaio’s planet, since Kaio described it as like training on Earth for thousands of that planet’s years, and Yamcha and the gang had been training for a good bit.
Reading the comments I’m learning One Piece is having a problem like this right now - YIKES!!
Going back through the anime and I’m enjoying most of the filler like you that extends the element of adventure and builds on character, but I’m of two minds about the fight padding. The Frieza fight is the most egregious example of course but it might be the most justified. This feels like the finale to everything - it’s the peak of the series sense of escalation. It goes a bit too far in some places, but drawing out every last bloody punch does give this a weightiness that nothing before or since quite has. Kai’s pacing is almost too quick for anime by comparison. There’s a middle ground that isn’t quite ever hit again like in the Sayian arc, but I’ll take the excess here over the quick and to the point attitude of Kai that lacks catharsis. The Frieza fight feels like a marathon and while it’s relieving to finish, it’s also weirdly satisfying to have gone through. It’s like a difficult boss fight in a game you’ve finally overcame. This portion of the story in the anime was always iconic for a reason. I agree there’s major animation nosedives in quality, but I’ll gladly take this in its messy over extended form warts and all over anything else. Of course the manga is the best in many way, but that quick pacing works in the context of that medium with Toriyama’s brilliant paneling work that flows organically fast.
For me it is unwatchable. After the first time I have NEVER made it through a full watch of the Namek/Frieza arc.
I recently rewatched Goku vs Freeza in Kai. But something seemed amiss for me, so I decided to watch entire Freeza fight in original Z. And i discovered that I greatly enjoyed the enviroment destruction and also, the drag out fight suited me better to watch. In Kai it was to fast for me, funnily enough. I guess watching it as a kid made me that way.
I wonder how this arc would rate when compared to the Garlic Junior Saga. I have a soft spot for that saga, since it actually tries to be more than..."five minutes".
the garlic jr saga is pretty neat. It also gave pretty good stacks for the characters while Goku was away and Kami actually is a character rather than somebody who exist just to make the Dragon Balls work or Piccolo's power up.
@@M3rtyville Word!
Will you be covering the Super manga someday as well. Curious of you're thoughts of the weird situation of 2 different yet canon portrayals.
" 'Dragon Ball Z ' is brought to you by Kellogg's cereals; the best to you each morning!"
Oooh, that means part 3 should be on Patreon soon! Anyone who's a fan should subscribe it's only $10 and you get every episode a week early :)
I still liked the animation quality of the Freeza Arc, Shiminuki really brought his A-game
Shimanuki, Hisada, Yamamuro, Shida, Sato, Ide and Nakatsuru all brought their A-game to my mind. I think the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai arc and the Saiyan arc have the best overall quality, but I think the Freeza arc is where a lot of the animators I mentioned start to become truly unrivaled in quality.
It's a shame studios like Last House had to let the team down, and all because of the combination of staff leaving and Uchiyama not taking to Toriyama's style very well.
They could’ve absolutely tried harder with the filler storylines. For one, how about this?
Ginyuu inhabits Bulma’s body for the purpose of getting a bipedal body with hands to find some way to locate the Dragon Balls and revive his lost teammates. Sure, it would’ve been ridiculous, but it would’ve at least given that storyline a little more depth and could’ve pushed the show back behind the manga by a week or two. It would’ve probably given the Ginyuu members on Kaio’s planet a bit more substance, and it would’ve certainly justified keeping it in Dragon Ball Kai!
Quality content right here
Frieza and Buu sagas are why Kai is my go to way to watch DBZ. Having occasional moments where the animation looks like a 12 year old tracing DBZ, and Kai TFC's gross green tint are things im willing to compromise on if it means having a lot of the fat trimmed off, having a far better manga-like pacing of the story, and a vastly improved english dub.
Literally in the time it takes to watch Z until the end of the Frieza Saga, Kai will have already wrapped up the Cell Saga.
"Some crappy revival series"...spot on.
how? Super isn't crappy. In fact, in some ways, Super is superior to Z.
@@tylerleach1833 shure
@@matriaxpunk I'm being serious
@@tylerleach1833 and also wrong
@@matriaxpunk care to explain how?
Very informative!
1:28
Wait... back when you were reviewing the Recoome fight didn't you mention you thought the show was cancelled due to how the material right before was ripping off itself? Or did you mean you thought the material was so poorly recieved by the audiences that Funimation cancelled it?
Good catch to a detail from three years ago! But that was when I had literally first been introduced to the series and didn't know there was anything outside of the 53 episodes I had seen. Season 3 was a whole year after that.
@@MistareFusion Ah gotcha!
Also do check out my comment on Part 1 in regards to why Freeza aimed for Goku at the start since you mentioned it didn't really make sense. But I had always had a different interpretation of the scene.
Toei really had their hands tied with what they were given, as far as being able to produce actually tolerable, traditional filler goes instead of a bunch of fight padding. Toriyama placed the story across space from the remaining, alive cast on Earth. He places the dead Earthlings on a tiny planet somewhere in the afterlife with the North Kai with not much for them to do. Then he killed off literally everyone on Namek except for the people in the Freeza fight. I would have preferred some better filler, if they had to pad things out, but what other filler could they have even produced at that point?
Why hasn’t Geekdom covered this?? This is great content
Also I feel like people put too much stock in the Frieza five minutes line. You didn’t, but a lot of people bring it up and honestly it’s just Frieza speculating, we know he’s blown up at least one planet and we could infer he’s blown up more, but I doubt he’s an expert in the field of destroying planets to the point he can reliably time it out especially in the middle of a fight that’s taking all of his focus.
Those were namekian minutes. That's why were so long ;)
He sounds really confident it’s gonna take five minutes though
Federico Armada sure, but he’s still not an expert in the field lol you can be confident your car is gonna start in the morning because everything looks ok but unless you have experience working on or researching the car you wouldn’t be able to tell really. Kaoi/King Kai I believe confers that it will take five minutes but I doubt he’s an expert on destroying planets either. Again the only confirmed planet he’s destroyed at this point is Vegeta. An that was destroyed instantly.
What’s the instrumental in the beginning? I asked the same question in part 1 and got no answer lol
its from movie 2 iirc
M919 bgm.
Moe Sabally good looks nephew
@@dashingdreww1185 What?
I understand your frustration with the dragging, but Toei Animation gets to give their A-game with One Piece's anime. The same long staring, attacks that take forever, not so good looking scenes between the marketable moments, etc. . . Additionally the recap is longer, the openings were longer, and they drag out so much that they put clips from the episode you are about to watch in the opening itself! At times, the anime converted a few pages of manga even though they were a whole year behind the manga.
That being said, I would recommend you read One Piece, it seems very catered to your tastes. My favorite arc in Dragon Ball is also the Red Ribbon Army, and One Piece hit just the spot for me.
Is there a list of what studios worked on what episodes?
Well, they are listed in the end credits of every episode. But if you can't read Japanese, I'd recommend the episode guide and animation guide on kanzenshuu.com.
Boy let me tell you: This was airing in mexico back in around 1997, since around 1994 dragon ball and early dragon ball z aired without much interruption, BUT during the freeza arc the series constantly returned to the first freeza arc apisode at random intervals, this due to the latin american DUB beeign dubbed almost on par with the airing of episodes, so not only this arc was hard to watch for its original country but here due to the popularity the series had the tv station doing the dub coulnt get episodes done in time so they just started over constantly with every time only 1 or 2 new episodes dubbed then back to the start! Those 5 minutes took roughly 2 years over here. So yeah imagine enduring the poor quality, the long intro, the commercial cuts, the recaps...just to endure that again and again.
This is why modern anime has seasonal breaks
I never had an issue with the overall animation of this arc, still don't.
the pacing however, I agree with you on 100%, some of this was hard to get through when I was a kid watching reruns, I still like the saga overall (especially the beginning with Vegeta being a third party faction, as well as Super Saiyan's introduction)
About the 5 minute thing I did the math and since one minute is two 30 secs and their are 10 episodes that means that two episodes were one minute but one was 30 seconds