Dragonball Z
Overview
Go out on the street. Ask someone if they've heard of anime, and if they've ever even heard the word, and you ask them what's anime, they'll say Dragonball Z. Not that DBZ is the best anime, it's not, but it's by far the most well known and distrbuted Anime ever. I always like to call DBZ "the gateway drug", it's the anime that gets people into anime, yeah, it got me into it, heh.
Storyline & Narrative
Basically the cut and dry storyline is you follow the main character Goku, who finds out early in the series that he's of the Saiyan (or Saiya-jin) race. He continually, along with the other cast of Z fighters protects the earth (and a few other places) from imininent destruction. The series is mostly dedicated to the fighting, but each new villian has somthing unique about him that drives the story along. The plot however's pretty cut and dry, not alot of twists and turns to be had.
Characters & Dynamics
Goku - Our goofy but soft hearted main character. Goku find's out he's a Saiyan early in the series, and that changes alot of things as he becomes the premier protecter of earth as we know it. For the most part the most powerful character in the series, Goku often is called on to save the day.
Gohan - Goku's first son, and later on in the series the premire character. Gohan grows to be just as strong as his dad and then some, with a mystical power that no one really understands...
Piccolo - An enemy and rival of Goku from the orignal Dragonball series, Piccolo is one of the more reserved characters with an attitude. Gohan recieves Training by piccolo as a kid.
Krillin - A lifelong friend of Gokus, while not the strongest of the fighters, or the bravest either, he often is there to lend the helping hand near the beginning of the series, while later he sorta gets left in the dust power-wise.
Vegeta - The prince of Saiyans and a powerful one at that. Vegeta's got the "no one's better than me attitude" and I won't spoil any details about him, just for those who haven't seen DBZ (I doubt that's anyone).
Animation & Visual Direction
I think the animation is great, and it's some of my favorite. The characters are well done, each of their animations portraying their personality well, and the expressions are done well to boot.
Voice Acting & Soundtrack
I think the voices are done pretty well, although for the english version in about the middle of the Namek saga they decided to change alot of the character voice actors (which I didn't like at first) but they're still good. If you wanna see DBZ the way it was written, you've gotta see the subtitled versions though, that's where they flesh out with the language and blood that DBZ needs occasionally.
