Newest video from The Cosmonaut Variety Hour. I've only seen a few of his videos before but this popped up in my feed and I felt it was worth sharing especially considering how popular Dragon Ball Z is on here and with our general demographic.
Honestly I think he hits the nail right on the head and nothing he said really stood out to me as something I disagreed with, although he does kind of stretch with the title by merging the Saiyan and Frieza arcs. Really good review of the character development, ongoing storylines, and dramatic moments that made the Saiyan/Frieza saga the absolute peak of the entire series, and a major highlight for the genre it pioneered. Although Dragon Ball has been torn apart critically over the course of the past two decades, I think his criticism of everything that came after is concise and well worded, and covers many of the major storytelling issues Dragon Ball suffered after the end of the Frieza arc without being too nitpicky.
The recap of some of the major story beats and why they worked so well made me really want to go back and experience the story again, but since I don't have the manga unfortunately (and don't want to drop like $100 on it lol) I might actually just go back and watch the first 50 episodes of Kai like the video suggests. Vegeta and Krillin are my two favorite characters (obviously for very different reasons), and the roles the two of them play in the story at this point is one of the best things about early DBZ to me in comparison to what came after. Piccolo is also obviously great, and also gets a lot to do alongside some really great development. Everything up until the death of Frieza is just so well paced, presented, and written and really stands tall among Dragon Ball's other shonen manga contemporaries.
Also I forgot how damn good the art style was back in that arc. Even later Z started straying from that a bit.
Honestly I think he hits the nail right on the head and nothing he said really stood out to me as something I disagreed with, although he does kind of stretch with the title by merging the Saiyan and Frieza arcs. Really good review of the character development, ongoing storylines, and dramatic moments that made the Saiyan/Frieza saga the absolute peak of the entire series, and a major highlight for the genre it pioneered. Although Dragon Ball has been torn apart critically over the course of the past two decades, I think his criticism of everything that came after is concise and well worded, and covers many of the major storytelling issues Dragon Ball suffered after the end of the Frieza arc without being too nitpicky.
The recap of some of the major story beats and why they worked so well made me really want to go back and experience the story again, but since I don't have the manga unfortunately (and don't want to drop like $100 on it lol) I might actually just go back and watch the first 50 episodes of Kai like the video suggests. Vegeta and Krillin are my two favorite characters (obviously for very different reasons), and the roles the two of them play in the story at this point is one of the best things about early DBZ to me in comparison to what came after. Piccolo is also obviously great, and also gets a lot to do alongside some really great development. Everything up until the death of Frieza is just so well paced, presented, and written and really stands tall among Dragon Ball's other shonen manga contemporaries.
Also I forgot how damn good the art style was back in that arc. Even later Z started straying from that a bit.