16 Reasons Dragon Ball Z Doesn't Hold Up No Matter How Much You Love It

The story arc of Goku’s son, Gohan, was originally one of the best things about Dragon Ball Z. Gohan was the Carl Grimes of his day, transforming from annoying whiner to hardcore badass with his literally one-handed destruction of Cell. Gohan followed up all of this character development by quickly turning into one of the show’s lamest characters. When he wasn’t nerding it up in school, Gohan could be found patrolling the streets as the Great Saiyaman, a vigilante with a practiced dance routine and one of the worst costumes in superhero history. 

Even among the characters that can fight - unimaginatively dubbed "Z Fighters" - only a few characters truly matter. Goku and the other Saiyans quickly outclass all of their former allies and rivals, with the possible exception of the Namekian Piccolo. A show set on Earth soon had essentially zero useful Earthling characters. The Z Fighters were the equivalent of an unbalanced football team, where only a few key players matter and everyone else just tries not to get in the way. In the case of Krillin, they couldn’t even do that.

Characters do frequently die in Dragon Ball Z. The series’ first story arc concludes with the death of Goku, countless characters sacrifice themselves, and Krillin explodes, like, a dozen times. The show doesn’t even bother with funeral scenes, however, because of the existence of the titular dragon balls. These wish-granting orbs summon the dragon Shenron, who can bring the dead back to life.

There are two limitations to this loophole: the dragon cannot grant the same wish twice and the dragon or the dragon balls themselves can be destroyed. The show completely avoided these limitations with the introduction of a second dragon, who could grant the same wish twice, thus rendering everyone effectively immortal. Even Krillin.

For all of its faults, Dragon Ball Z definitely provided fans with several moments of dynamic plot and tense drama. Unfortunately, one of those major faults was the fact that great moments were surrounded by insane amounts of filler material. Every event seemed stretched far beyond its natural limits by endless build-up and countless diversions to the main plot. Even worse were the episodes that were completely meaningless filler, like the time Goku got a driver’s license or the time everybody just went fishing. Not exactly what you tune in for when watching a battle-orientated anime.

Dragon Ball Z opens with the arrival of Raditz, Goku’s long-lost and incredibly powerful Saiyan brother. Despite it taking both Goku and Piccolo defeat Raditz (a feat they just barely managed), the next major antagonists to attack Earth carry with them plantable Saibamen that are each as powerful as one Raditz and the Z Fighters take them down with ease. The villainous Frieza has an awe-inspiring power level of one million, but by the next story arc, he is easily dismantled by a brand-new character from the future. Eventually, young children are able to beat once all-powerful foes like Cell and Frieza with one arm tied behind their backs. Each new phase of the story renders the threats of the past laughable, which makes it hard for the show to gain any sense of history.

Dragon Ball Z made an admirable attempt to carry over the majority of the characters that were established in its precursor series, Dragon Ball. However, it didn’t really make an effort to find anything meaningful for all those characters to do. DBZ involves fighters with the power to destroy worlds, yet tries to shoehorn in plots involving talking turtles, shapeshifting pigs, and Krillin. Totally-normal human Bulma even accompanies the team to alien planet Namek, where she provides the essential service of annoying Vegeta and getting into mortal danger. Most of these side characters’ screentime revolves around them watching the more important characters do stuff on television.