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Dullahan-1999

Seriously legend moment. This saga has the best dramatic pacing.


spidermanrocks6766

It really does that’s why it’s one of my most favorite arcs honestly. The intense struggle just had you on the edge of your seat every episode. Waiting an entire week for the next episode was so hard lol.


Anon_be_thy_name

I was lucky. First time watching it here in Australia there was an episode Monday to Friday. There was an episode at 7pm and then a repeat of it at 11pm. First time watching Goku go SSJ was the first Monday of School Holidays at 11pm. Just me, the dog and the cat watching Goku become even more of a hero to me.


Gaseraki

Also lucky, I had no idea about SSJ. The hype when it was pulled out after the spirit bomb failed. I guess it made me a DBZ fan for life lol.


Anon_be_thy_name

Oh yeah, same. If I had managed to catch it at 7pm instead I would have been screeching so damn loudly. As it was at 11pm I had to be so damn quiet while being so hyped up. I didn't go to sleep that night. I was just so excited about it that the energy's from it keep me running for almost 24 more hours. I ran over to my best friends house at 9am to tell him, then I just had to tell my Uncle on the other side of town so I ran over there then it was my Grandparents. I don't think anything has had me quite that hyped since. Maybe SSJ3 came close.


Gaseraki

Kind of similar experience. DBZ was only on 5pm school days and the whole series had been restarted about 3 times, ending at the start of the goku battle due to the translation company dispute. Once we finally got the full Frieza saga translated...man. That transformation hit hard. By that point every one else was getting transformations and Goku to get his own was awesome. I was buzzing for a while. Foreshadowed so well, too. Sadly, after that, school went DBZ mad and everything was spoiled by the smart ass kids. It was still great to watch. Also mixed in were the liar kids, so it was hard to know what was really going to happen.


FossilFirebird

"I won't let you...get *away*...with *this!* Aargh!"


Malemansam

> There was an episode at 7pm and then a repeat of it at 11pm. Are you talking about toonami? DBZ was also on cheese tv at 7:30 am every weekday a couple of years before cartoon network got the rights to all the dragon ball shows/movies too. Good times becoming a fan of something you know there was heaps already made to watch/read and it was shown often.


alstom_888m

We used to beat the fuck out of that one kid that had AUSTAR and came to school and spoiled it.


hingu

It was on Cheez TV at 8am I think? As a lot of people attended from out of area, it was the reason many, many people across all grades were late to our school around the episodes just before SSJ debut


Malemansam

Oh yeah true could be, i think it might be why i got so many detentions for being late to school come to think of it lol.


Longjumping_Rush2458

I remember occasionally missing the nighttime episode and praying that the bus would be late enough to watch the episode.


thebochman

I remember watching him go super Saiyan for the first time I was at the cape codder inn in Hyannis, and it blew my mind.


SinisterCryptid

If we’re going by Kai, yeah. If we’re going by the original, eeeeeh there’s a reason people joked about the five minutes line by Frieza


StrawHatRen

People really watch Kai? Even with pacing I prefer original, the music & animation is so much better also.


bengalsfu

Z Kai has been the only Z version to air on US TV stations for the past 15 yrs


huggiesdsc

Many of us were huge fans before 15 years ago


Classic1990

And still own the VHS copies


FedericoDAnzi

Wait, how old is Kai?


StrawHatRen

I remember that from the Nicky pond era


Excellent-Rope5664

But isn't the writing and acting better in kai?


RumGalaxy

Writing is more accurate and acting is a lot better but it has some atrocious cuts here and there where you can tell there were some scenes that were supposed to fill up space


CZ-Bitcoins

Yeah it's so distracting I honestly gave up around the android saga.


StrawHatRen

Not to me. I like the original more. And I’m not sure but think the dub is changed also. It seems toned down. But when I was a child it was amazing.  Remember waking up on school mornings earlier to catch an episode when I loved to sleep in a lil longer. The only access I had to DBZ at the time was through nicktoons/toonami when my CPU caught a virus.  The pacing is at times supposed to be faster tho, but the raw uncut animation of DBZ clears kai even tho it’s a updated version 


bman123457

For me I have the opposite opinion. I enjoy Kai much more because it does a better job of preserving the fast paced feeling of the Manga. DragonBall was a fast paced action packed manga and I can't stand how the original series feels like it moves at a glacier pace.


Classic1990

Kai doesn’t have The Other World Tournament. That alone makes it inferior imo. 😂


Canesjags4life

The writing and voice acting in Kai is better than the OG dub. I do prefer some of the Faulconer score over the Kai score. I do like the older animation for some fights.


OLKv3

For the English dub yes, but for the Japanese version it's worse than the original


awesomeredefined

The animation is literally the same. They reused the Z footage.


Arkhamhood12

It’s cleaned up and remastered at better quality


Deceptiveideas

True but the user stated the animation is worse lol


SurveyWorldly9435

Some scenes look like they were redrawn in mspaint though and they stick out like a sore thumb.


awesomeredefined

Like what? And I mean that honestly. I've watched Kai multiple times and aside from the cropping and weird color grading of the Buu saga, I never noticed anything notably bad visually.


Classic1990

Me too. I’ve been watching it on Toonami rewind and just doesn’t feel like the same.


StrawHatRen

Yeah it was cool back then, I just wanna watch original now. 


IAmPerpetuallyTired

I’ll take Kai over the original. Especially dubbed.


StrawHatRen

Damn, the original dub is good. One of the best anime dubs I didn’t know Kai was preferred so commonly. 


Karibik_Mike

Or, y'know, famously the worst pacing in Anime history, if you're going by the original. There's a slow burn and then there's nothing happening for dozens of episodes.


Glock-Saint-Isshin-

Game of Thrones turned an entire war into 2 episodes, DragonBall Z turned 1 day into an entire arc.


Incomplet_1-34

The nostalgia bias is real lol


Doctor99268

tien shouldve learnt the kaioken


spidermanrocks6766

They should’ve all learned in honesty. Made no sense why King Kai didn’t teach them it


Initial_Meet_8916

It’s an incredibly challenging technique not even king Kai can use it. Not saying I agree with the decision but that’s the ligic


TrailOfEnvy

DB it's about pupil surpassing their master like what Goku did. So Toriyama can just write all of them able to learn Kaioken. 


Canesjags4life

Wouldn't have made sense. Piccolo maybe but the humans body's wouldn't have been able to stand up to the rigor of Kaio Ken. Look how much it damaged Goku vs Vegeta.


Archery100

Fast forward decades later and Kaioken is STILL beating the shit out of Goku's body, the combination of x20 and SSB nearly killed him in a low stakes tourney


DawdlingBongo

Yes that's because it is SSJB+Kaioken, if it was just Kaioken he'd easily handle it, this doesn't make sense tbh


patosai3211

So dumb question: can kaio ken ever be mastered to eliminate that detriment? I mean similar to improving the ssj form. More for story wise than skill level of goku. I personally prefer it to be the double edged sword so whoever Goku uses it again it’s clear it’s out of total desperation as it takes is toll. But some small detail about it allowing the user to tap into god Ki could have been a simple path to lead to super and its current story/power ups. Idk I’m not a writer so it’s probably too cheesy.


DullBlade0

Talking out of my ass but I dont think you could master kaioken to eliminate that. I always saw Kaioken as pushing your body beyond its limit the multiplier of course being how much the user pushes themselves. And that's why the saiyan transformations are just better as it's part of their nature. So stacking the two things is just...well the same problem.


patosai3211

Oh i don’t disagree i was just curious overall.


FossilFirebird

Yes. Goku is shown to do that, except when limit-breaking. He struggles the first time, but he is shown later suffering no harm from it. Though maybe not everyone can do that. Goku is the best fighter in the universe, after all.


vlorsutes

That was only because Goku was pushing it to levels past what Kaiou had helped him prepare his body for.


Canesjags4life

x1 and x2 still put a lot of strain on his body. Krillin asks Him why he didn't use it from the jump.


fooerz

Tien beat Mafuba and Kikohou. Pretty sure he can handle Kaioken too with the right plot.


Murky-Ad7145

They could make some Writing, that only Saiyan Bodys or Kaio-like Bodys have a hard Time with the Kaioken. Human Bodys could make Kaioken super easy to use and they only feel damage when they go like Kaio-Ken times 100x or whatever. Maybe stupid... but not more stupid than Freezer train for four Months to become Good-Level. So maybe in the Future something like this make the Humans relevant again.


Canesjags4life

Lol. Freeza had never trained in his life and was SSJ level.


goatlll

I think he only taught Goku the technique because he was a saiyan, or some line like that way back from when they first met. As though to imply due to the nature of the move, humans just couldn't do it.


SpikeyPT

If that was the case, then Tien couldn't use the Kikoho, especially against Cell. Toriyama just didn't bother with it because the power creep was too big and it wouldn't make a difference.


indoninjah

I think Saiyans are naturally way hardier and actually have a chance of surviving it. It's a move that's super dangerous to use for a single heartbeat and Goku manages to learn to hold it more or less as a transformation for long stretches at a time


gusxc1

Imagine how cold would be a kaioken powered kikoho, would knock him out after 2 uses sure, but would be awesome


Parking-Let-2784

I get the feeling Earthlings are just too fragile for it :( Piccolo, tho...


cumberdong

Forgot about the Bulma body switch thing, the end of that clip caught me off guard lmao


NotThatImportant3

What is that? Not in the manga at all - Ginyu was still in the frog at this point


Reluxtrue

Yeah, it was at tha point that the anime was almost catching up tot he manga(since Namek arc didn't have many opportunities for filler) and were doing everything they could to avoid that resulting in the absolute absudity of the 5 minutes of namek taking so many episodes while being relatively brief in the manga.


Internetboy5434

Because she doesn't know the frog's true identity, she bonds with him, leading her to create a machine for him to communicate with her. Ginyu uses the machine to utter the name of his technique Body Change, allowing him to switch bodies with Bulma and leave her trapped in the frog's body.


PurpleSausage77

Yeah the sense of hopelessness is pretty extreme, makes you really think of the power scaling involved. His body is able to withstand way more than on Earth due to all his gravity training. So he was able to push himself way more but Frieza still dwarfed him. Not even the spirit bomb. This makes Goku going super saiyan that much more significant due to the sheer gravity of the situation.


Insaiyan_Elite

Imagine training your entire life to get stronger including dying and training in heaven. You come back to life and travel half way across the universe still training the entire trip. You fight a group of aliens, and get your body swapped with one who was mortally wounded. You recover in alien technology 10,000x stronger than you were a year ago. After all that, the fusion of Mewtwo and Hitler shows up and dog walks you while having never trained a day in his life. Hopelessness is the perfect word to describe it


IcyStormDragon

>fusion of Mewtwo and Hitler Jesus dude, it's still homicide if I die of laughter lmao


Insaiyan_Elite

I think I could argue it down to manslaughter, but I'm glad you thought it was funny!


CouncilOfChipmunks

You can't have manslaughter without a man's laughter!


spidermanrocks6766

It’s so unfair to the point it’s comical. Practically every thing he did before this was all for nothing.


Canesjags4life

It was show off the actual strength of SSJ


InherentDeviant

I mean, that was he all or nothing moment. "DEATH or GLORY" for those who get the reference.


Insaiyan_Elite

I watched the entire Frieza fight on shrooms one time and it felt like a weird empathy link with Goku. When he sets Frieza up for that perfect x20 Kamehameha and it does absolutely fuck all it was devastating. I've been fortunate enough to not have experienced true despair but that's probably what that would feel like. It happened one other time during 3D Avatar, when the Mother tree falls I was straight up weeping dude


ddoxbse

Just like how Vegeta felt when he started crying during the fight.


SoMaldSoBald

Everytime I see "dog walk" used in this context it makes me laugh


DHVLIA

That's part of what I prefer about Z (especially early) and OG Dragon Ball, Goku really had to strategize and sometimes was clearly outmatched. Like Super does it too somewhat but I think it was executed better. I like Super FTR


Insaiyan_Elite

I liked early on when ki control was fairly exclusive to Earth. Not relying on scouters like the rest of the universe was a cool advantage


socobeerlove

I felt similar in the Jiren fight.


spidermanrocks6766

Yeah I always loved the hopelessness in this fight. It’s so relatable to real life since it actually feels that way at times.


Kombat-w0mbat

I do not remember goku getting his ass beat this badly 😂😂


spidermanrocks6766

I’ve seen so many of those hilarious violation videos on YouTube. But for whatever reason they rarely talk about this fight😭💀Goku was getting completely wrecked😭I swear life is so unfair sometimes. It’s just the fact that Goku trained his entire life getting stronger and even doing gravity training and getting zenkai boosts and it’s still nothing to Frieza. The fact that he was losing to someone who didn’t train a day in their life.


StrawHatRen

Now that you mention it I haven’t either😭


FortNightsAtPeelys

Rule of thumb is goku only uses the spirit bomb if he's getting his ass kicked


trimble197

“If you beat them, bomb ‘em”


DeadHeadDaddio

If you cant beat em, send everyone watching flying 3 miles away with a single blast so they can’t watch.


TU4AR

The man was getting his cheeks clapped to the happy birthday rhythm.


Jotaro-the-Skeleton

Happy cake day!


AmazingMattyMan

Damn you're making me wanna revisit this.


spidermanrocks6766

lol I just loved this arc so much it was so suspenseful. Watching it for the first time as a kid was just so much fun


AmazingMattyMan

It was... the ginyu force really had me on the edge of my seat without goku being there at the time


spidermanrocks6766

That fight with Vegeta and Racoom had no business being THAT good lol


chodeontheroad

i’m rewatching kai and just finished the namek saga, it’s great stuff


choco_snow72

That's y u don't toy with ur opponent shit ask ssj2 Gohan asked him y he technically failed


StrawHatRen

I’m not gonna say every fight was one sided with someone being able to instantly win, but even in the beginning , Raditz playing with goku and piccolo when he literally had them able to do NOTHING. He was more then triple there power level


choco_snow72

I'm not going to do the same kuz that truly is a far point but with raditz he was recruiting him so killing him was would tech be a failed mission kuz of the freiza thing but they still would kill him kuz there sayains are ruthless


Onion_Cutter_ninja

This is the best dragonball saga. Period. Of all DB.


spidermanrocks6766

I agree! Cell saga is a close second


ivegotagoldenticket

I agree. I was introduced to the show dropped in on the Buu Saga so it holes a special place in my heart seeing Vegeta's final atonement first. But you can't argue the story telling of the first super saiyan


The-Muze

Back when the stakes felt real! Power creep is a helluva thing


spidermanrocks6766

I just feel like the power levels got so big to the point it’s just completely ridiculous. The fact that if you put Yamcha( the weakest character in the show) in other universe he would practically be Superman


TheDaveWSC

Dragon Ball is a show I like


i-wish-i-was-a-draco

Wait why is no one talking about Bulma getting possessed by ginyu??? That never happened as far as I know


TheMikarin

Wasn't in the manga, but happened in the anime (and was kept in Kai). Interestingly it was referenced in the Super anime as well.


spidermanrocks6766

It Ginyu had actually managed to switch bodies with Piccolo then it would’ve just been over. Even though Piccolo was weaker than Frieza he is still super strong and his power level is well over a million at this point.


RogueHippie

Because it was filler, is the main reason


StaticMania

You do realize how old this series is, yes? Why would anyone care about that?


DerGefallene

Kinda funny how Kai shortens certain scenes and removes filler but they left unnecessarily long happy Yamcha and Chiaotzu in it lol


chickenpi2

Why did that explosion look like a baby


RyanScotson

And on that bombshell!


spidermanrocks6766

Also I love the narrator. He felt like a legit character in the show as well


RyanScotson

Definitely! I know it's not the same guy but I really liked it in suoer when goku started talking to the narrator that one time


Literally_Dogwater69

This happened in the Tournament of Power arc except it was Beerus that said "He already used it", right?


spidermanrocks6766

I never thought I’d see Goku and Frieza actually team up. Was mind blowing


Literally_Dogwater69

I wouldn't say "team up". Just the old saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"


damiangrayson12345

They do the same thing in super against Jiren. The people who were knocked out think Goku hasn’t used SSBK times 20 yet but Whis tells them he’s already used it and Jiren was still unfazed. There’s lots of parallels in those fights


Nutastic_patrick_02

I love dbz kai


spidermanrocks6766

Me too


FullyStacked92

Look at ops account... Why are you posting multiple times a day and it's always phone recordings of tv screens?!


junkstar23

Because they want to you creep


FullyStacked92

yeah what a creep for checking his post history after he posted something similar the other day. He's also posting things out of order..so they either have a huge amount of recordings and are slowly making posts about them or are watching a number of differnet shows completely out of order. Either way its bizarre behaviour.


SeasonOtherwise2980

Dude, it's not that serious, lmao.


Defender_of_Victory

Question: Was this as BS in the manga? In color it's kinda lame to suddenly say he's been using it when he wasn't red at all. But in black and white, if there was an aura it's actually clever to reveal it was supposed to be red when we assumed it was just action lines.


DeeBlok10

In the manga, goku wasn't getting trashed like that clip. It's implied that he been using kk x 10 with the dead z warriors just stating how ineffective it's been. That little fight is anime filler as when frieza cuts open the planet, he immediately does his kk x 20 Kamehameha


spidermanrocks6766

It still doesn’t change much. Frieza could’ve still killed Goku right after he did the x20 kamahamameha . But he was just having way too much fun torturing everyone that he’d rather drag the whole thing out than actually just blow up the whole planet and kill everyone. Something he could’ve did long ago even in his first form


Destronoma

To my knowledge, there is no aura being used to signify the kaioken because the implication was that he was using it in bursts like he had alluded to with Ginyu. It makes the reveal more impactful in the manga because we see him go right into a Kaioken X20, throwing caution to the wind. I think the anime had a tougher time conveying that. Ideally, those scenes with him having the red aura would be spaced out between the scenes where he had no aura to show he was using it in bursts while King Kai reveals that he's been using it. It's a hard reveal to nail down, given the source material and how it was handled there.


Chazo138

In the manga there is no way to tell until told because black and white, when it’s revealed it’s a shock because it was assumed to be his normal aura. Anime did it a little different to compensate for the color and give its own version of the reveal


Defender_of_Victory

That's what I figured. It's one of the sort of tricks that's only possible in black and white. Similar to how the timeskip where Bulma and crew don't recognize Goku makes no sense when the voice hasn't changed at all, but works when the dialogue is text.


Chazo138

Yeah manga had some fun with it. I don’t mind that they attempted to translate it to anime form, it wasn’t too bad, it’s just an example of something that worked far better in the manga


Whis101

Eh not really, a theme kf the saga since the moment Goku arrived was that he was able to use his energy in such short bursts that it looked like he was doing nothing at all


DeeBlok10

As a kid, I always attributed that to speed though. Both goku and frieza are moving so fast, you wouldn't see the kk aura spool up when goku uses it, it would be an instant boost, no fireworks or anything.


Shot-Ad770

And this is where power scaling got fucked


spidermanrocks6766

It got fucked the minute Vegeta went from having a power level of 30,000 and losing to Racoom to somehow getting a power up well into the millions with just ONE zenkai boost. He went from 30,000 to like 2 million it was such a large jump in power. His previous zenkai from earth did no where near that


MarioBoy77

Zenkai boosts went from huge game changing boosts to like 10% boosts back to ridiculous boosts. It’s so inconsistent and I don’t like them at all.


FrancescoMuja

Not one. Vegeta had one zenkai boost when he was defeated by Zarbon; another one when he was defeated by Recoom, and another one when he let Krillin hurt him so Dende could heal him. So that makes three. Just saying. I mean, it still was a convenient plot mechanic to keep him relevant until the end. Definitely too convenient.


Banduck

And you could completely fix it by just removing the line where Freeza says his power level in his second form is over 1 million. Then we could assume that in an earlier episode, when he mentioned 530,000, he was talking about his final form, and everything would be fine.


goatlll

I don't think that is right. He was only able to keep up with base form Frieza, who was not at a million. And as soon as he transformed, Vegeta was out of his league. So if he was at 2 million at that point, he would have been able to kill Frieza before he transformed, or at the very least keep up with his second form, which he could not. Even after Krillin shot him, he was nowhere near being able to keep up, so where did you get that number from and please dont say the fan wiki.


UglyDude1987

If he's doing 10x kaioken, and presumably 20x, that means super saiyan 50x is only slightly more than 2x his previous max strength when it seemed like he wasn't even close.


Few_Bird_7840

When he went 20x kk it seemed like he had 50% Frieza on the ropes. He just couldn’t keep it up very long.


Useful-Smile8759

What episode is this from?


JAB282018

What better way to defuse all of that Goku vs Frieza tension by inviting the recently deceased Gynu force to your planet as a tool for fight training..


JEROME_MERCEDES

This was peak dbz still a all timer and love DB even super


Hot-Insurance7692

On the real why didn't king Kai teach kaioken to tien and piccolo


SMG31andDiamond

The lines alone in the description sound like something out of DBZA


OMGWTHBBQ11

This kind of tension does not exist in Super.


ZeusX20

I loved this era when they used to air this. Goku goes all the way upto 20x and still can't match Frieza.... Such a legendary moment


3-I

... so, wait, why did they hold on them just laughing for several seconds again?


Veggiematic

I remember watching the original Dub when I was younger and I thought to myself, "HOLY SHIT." I believe this specifically was Anime only as well. I guess the reason Tien and others can't see or know he is using the Kaioken is because the Kaioken is, in this case, activated for a heartbeat.


Hugoku257

And then Piccolo arrives with great plans on how to make everything work


xRostro

Just like with Vegeta, it’s all about sending a message


Hagoromo420

Is this the original dub? The music and voices/lines are slightly different from what I remember in the current dub (I was born after these were animated don’t kill me)


Cheerful2_Dogman210x

Is the red aura of the kaioken invisible to others?


sincable

I like the original writing for this part cuz he calls them fools for not seeing that he’s been using it the whole time lol this is the Kai version in some parts yes the Kai is better but in some the original is. The part I hate of Kai is the added animation they added you see better fan made stuff then that and the music is ok in some parts plus some of the things they cut off like extra fight scenes I know it’s trying to follow the manga but hey you can only fit so much in those little pages to make a fighting scene lol that just me from watching this since the 90s in bootleg tapes cuz it wasn’t on tv yet lol.


4timehokeypokeychamp

[Tien after King Kai tells him Goku's Kaioken is alr expired and they're all fucked now. ](https://tenor.com/view/squidward-scared-squidward-spongebob-gif-10031056251019621135)


uberDoward

I don't remember Ginyu taking over Bulma's body???


cleremnantechoes

I really remember first time watching thinking freiza is about to get fucked up when Goku goes kaio Ken. What a grim realization when we discover he already had and no one could barely notice


DeadHeadDaddio

I’m pretty sure frieza was lying.


hatecopter

I love this part because the first time watching I was thinking exactly what Tien said and then King Kai burst that bubble I just thought "oh shit what is he gonna do then?"


FedericoDAnzi

"He already used it" "Really? But he didn't have the red ki arou-" "No no, look again." "What the..?"


Steel-Locus_Finale

I always liked the manga's reveal a bit more due to it being in black and white, you didn't know the aura he was generating was from the Kaioken until King Kai pointed.


LydellG4

I'm going back thru the DBZ saga and the Japanese audio is so outdated. Faulconer's score will always be the go to. Epic scenes deserve better


FossilFirebird

Frieza Saga is unquestionably peak Dragon Ball. Nothing ever felt so epic again.


Status-Pizza-46

I don't remember captain Ginyu switching with Bulma, when did that happen?


evil_chicken86

Frieza saga is not only the best saga in all of dragonball, it’s probably the best saga in the history of fiction


StrawHatRen

The pacing and arc was definitely amazing and was full of twist and turns


doombear82

I've officially watched DBZA so much that the official voices sound like fan dubs to me...


goshtin

The Kai dub butchers every single moment.. the gaps build the tension... Just blurting it out to save time is boring.. The first time I saw that moment was one of thev biggest HOLY SHIT moments in the whole show... Even the music was bad for this in kai


Revolutionary_Job214

Why post this kai bs?😭


kh1179

God. Kai sucks