The Dragon Ball franchise is perhaps the most interesting one from the Japanese animation industry. Starting way back in 1984, Dragon Ball is way over a quarter of a century old, and in this time, it provided the world a lot of delightful content. Dragon Ball Z has memorable, dramatic and intense fights; Dragon Ball, the first anime, follows the adventures of Goku while he was a goofy child; Dragon Ball Super tries to combine both dramatic and funny elements, and so on.
Most Dragon Ball fans believe that Dragon Ball Z is way better than the first anime of the series (Dragon Ball), and maybe they’re right. But there are certain aspects of the first part of the franchise that made it unique and better in some ways than Dragon Ball Z. Although DBZ may have a lot more interesting aspects, let’s see why DB can be considered better for a part of the fanbase:
More humor
Dragon Ball Z had a much more serious vibe than its predecessor, with a lot more emphasis on fights and struggles for defeating major enemies like Frieza, Cell, or Buu, who wanted to destroy the Earth. In Dragon Ball, the general atmosphere had a more relaxed and light feeling, as the show focused a lot more on humor than its successor. We can remind of Master Roshi and his pervert behavior with women, Goku’s fails when he didn’t know what basic things like getting married are, Krillin’s goofy struggles to become stronger, and so on.
There’s a lot more gore and tough fighting in Dragon Ball Z, although the battle between Goku and Piccolo Jr. from the end of Dragon Ball can hold the title as the bloodiest battle from the franchise. In DBZ, many fighters get their organs blown away by energy waves, their bones crushed, and so on. The first Dragon Ball anime was a show made more for kids rather than for any type of audience.
One of the most iconic moments from DBZ was when Goku sacrificed himself to get Raditz killed by Piccolo. Both Raditz and our beloved hero died, but Goku returned stronger than ever as he’s been revived with the dragon balls.
Lower power levels
As many people wouldn’t agree that this is an advantage, it actually can be a pretty good one. In DBZ, there were tremendous differences in power between Super Saiyan 1, 2, 3, and characters like Tien or Yamcha who got completely obsolete. Not to mention Krillin, who became the subject for many online jokes, although he was once close to Goku in strength. The show couldn’t provide decent explanations for making Tien or Yamcha anywhere near the ‘big boys’ in terms of power, so it just let them down for the count.
Tien, for instance, was a very interesting character back in the old days, as he was the main rival of Goku in the first anime and had some mind-blowing techniques. Tien didn’t deserve to be left aside almost completely in DBZ. Luckily, Dragon Ball Super put him in a more honorable role as he fought for the sake of the whole Universe in Tournament Of Power.
In Dragon Ball, any fighter can cause problems to another, and that’s the best way to decide things when you create a fighting show. In Dragon Ball Z, Tien or Yamcha would never be able to land a single blow to Cell or Super Saiyan Goku. Dragon Ball Z made a mistake when it started to count power levels. With the desire to impress the audience with how strong certain characters and transformations are, the situation couldn’t be handled any more from one point.
It was way harder to find the dragon balls
In Dragon Ball Z, characters are way too fast and powerful, and thus they are able to gather the dragon balls in no-time. Besides, Goku can even teleport himself by using the Instant Transmission technique. That’s boring and it spoils the mystery. When Goku was searching for the dragon balls as a kid, he was running into a lot of trouble, making friends, encountering new foes and challenges, and so on. Those things were left aside almost totally in Dragon Ball Z, and it’s too bad.
These are our main picks for what we believe Dragon Ball did better than its successor. Would you add anything else to the list?
