At which point did Dragon Ball Z jump the shark?

When it was revealed that there were a new set of Dragonballs that could grant up to 3 wishes and the same wish could be made twice. It robbed a lot of the dramatic tension as death became meaningless because you knew that if a "good" character died, they would just be brought back, unless that character was an idiot and was perfectly willing to leave their friends and family behind.

The Second it went on the air....

Buu Saga entirely, especially the Fusion Dance.

I don't know, so many moments I can choose from. For me it was the introduction of zenkai power ups, it just lessened any of goku's accomplishments from the past.

I don't think there was anything too bad, for the most part I think it is fine. There are a few things that I wish didn't happen the way they did though. Like Goten and Trunks becoming Super Saiyans at such a young age.

When Gohan, Trunks, Goten all reached power levels either at or above their fathers. How is it that when they only have half the sayien blood, they can become as or even more powerful than their fathers?

@humanrocket: Yeah. Gohan was understandable because he trained with them ever since he was four but Trunks and Goten was unforgivable.

The entire second half of the Cell saga and beyond.

When Super Saiyan 2 was revealed. However, it hopped, skipped, and pole-vaulted over the shark when Goten and Trunks went SS....actually....just everything after Frieza lol

I wouldn't say it jumped the shark per se, but it was one power wank after another. I enjoyed the whole series, but I could have done without them needing to get ridiculously more powerful over and over again.

@buttersdaman000: Yeah, Goten and Trunks took away from the appeal of the Super Saiyan. It also jumped when the only two that weren't Saiyans(Piccolo and Krillin) became useless.

Trunks and Goten going SSJ

Goten had 1/4 Sayien blood...how the heck does he reach Super Sayien in such a short amount of time compared to a full blooded one like Vegeta or a half blooded one like Gohan.

I'd say Namek.

Nothing in Dragon Ball involved space, and the second it went there, the series felt different.

I mean sure, the Saiyans came from space, but that's not really different than King Piccolo allegedly coming from Hell (originally the Demon King, not a Namekian).

@humanrocket: Yeah. Wasn't funny. Just maddening.

Aye, I felt that Yamcha being useless the whole series was a mistake as well, he was a main character and a staple of older Dragon Ball comics/episodes. I would have loved to have seen the non Saiyans keep up, but Toriyama wrote it in a way that it made no sense for them to be able to.

@greatcaesarsghost: Yeah. Take the fight with Vegeta and Nappa for instance. Or even the battle with Frieza. Krillin was the smartest fighter despite his physical inadequacy. The Super Saiyan killed it though. As for Yamcha, Krillin became closer to Goku in Dragon Ball so it'd make sense he stayed around but Tien and Yamcha weren't done justice. Chiaoutzu was always lame though.

Jmarshmallow

You're right. At the end of Dragon Ball it was believable for the likes of Yamcha, Tien, and Krillin to have just been training really hard to have caught up with Son Goku and Piccolo Jr. This was something that kept it interesting in my opinion.

The Boo Saga, it had good things, but it lasted for too damn long and was the worst executed saga of all.

Cell Saga had the same problem, but Cell save his part and also is better all around.

Goten was just Gohan's younger brother. How did he have 1/4Saiyan blood?

BB

When it added the Z

It was never as good as people remember it, but the point where it definitely felt like it was phoning it in more than usual was the Buu Saga.

@uncanny_doom: What do you mean by "phoning it in"?

My bad I was thinking about Pan. So OBVIOUS I haven't been re watching the series to remember. But I still feel that fact the Goten and Trunks were able to go into Super Sayien at a young age, after watching the struggles that Vegeta had to go through to reach that level, and the trauma that future Trunks had to witness (future Gohan being killed by the androids) for him to reach the level as well. It kinda feels as the show went a long that the Super Sayien transformation lost a lot of it's luster.

1. Piccalo and Vegeta being worthless. Always getting their asses handed to them by every damn villian.

2. Gotenks and Trunks easily becoming super sayien as kids like it wasnt anything special.

I liked the majin buu saga but it was a complete step down from the previous stories. also have to say it GT sucked big time.

Buu Saga.

Though you could argue that it jumped the shark when it added the Z (though I do like Z alot)

LPersonally, I liked DBZ and don`t really it jump the shark. But the original Dragon Ball was way better.

This is explained, dunno if it was in the Cartoon, or the manga, but essentially Human + Saiyan = uber hybrid offspring.

Mix the two races together and it unlocks higher potential, the human aspect doesn't water it down at all, it adds other strengths.

Because of this Nappa said something about him and Vegeta going to Earth and having a ton of children, to which Vegeta replied that it would be a dumb idea to have a bunch of children who are far more powerful than they are etc etc.

Sounds like the manga to me. Don't remember the convo between Nappa and Vegeta, but it has been a while since I watched the series. I might have to rewatch the entire series all over again :D

Might be better to read the Manga, that way you don't have to put up with all the filler. Sometimes a 20 second-to-read scene in the Manga takes like 20 minutes to watch in the Anime LOL

Other than that they actually released a heavily edited version of the Anime a little while back which removes all the filler scenes and tries to bring it more in line with the original Manga, its called "Dragonball Kai"

The whole series is full of "jump the shark moments".

But i still love it.

Beata

Yah I've seen some of Kai. Don't really like it. Doesn't have the Bruce Faulconer's music to it, which is big for me.

Vegeta's sacrifice was the perfect place to end the series but no goku and his " lol i have ssj3 i can defeat fat buu but i'm not going to because i think my 7 year old son and 8 year old trunks should"

Dubbing is a pain in regards to Dragonball, I like different aspects of the different dubs

Hate that music though, horrible, horrible stuff LOL, I used to switch it to Japanese audio mostly, the music there was a bit old-school in style but I thought it hit the themes better, Kai doesn't seem to have the music from either of the originals unfortunately.

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After re-watching some scenes with all versions of dubbing I think I like the original Japanese best, its a shame it has such obnoxious levels of filler, I like the Ocean dub for Vegeta but most of the other bad guys sound ridiculous in that version.

If I remember corretly, Kai changed the music TWICE. The first time they showed it on for Nick they had decent music, but the second time around it was horrible. I also really really REALLY disliked how they changed Mr. Popo from being black skin to blue skin? also how when chiaotzu blew himself up they censored it using sparkling dust -__-.

I enjoyed the Ocean dub battle between Vegeta and Goku during their first encounter.

So many choices....

They changed Popo just for the US TV version of Kai I think, and censored other aspects.

Soooo many different versions, LOL

I originally watched Ocean BitD and then moved to the original Japanese dub, but that isn't really perfect either, Japanese Goku was always a bit screechy for my liking, but at least Japanese Frieza didn't sound as much like a creepy woman like in the US dub.

For me it was when the legendary power that came once in a milennia became a child's plaything.

Goten and Trunks as super saiyan gradeschoolers really hurt my love for the franchise. Toriyama just rubbed salt in my wound by making the kids stronger than Piccolo, my favorite character, and reducing him to super nanny status.

@metaljimmor: God, I loved Piccolo. Toriyama did him and Vegeta no justice after the Androids whatsoever. Ha. "Super Nanny Status".

You mean when it stop being a boring ecchi adventure series.

I thought it was pretty clear why goten an trunks could go ssj

Their fathers were ssj before they were born(also explains why they don't have tails IMO the ssj gene made the tail gene obsolete basically)

Way back at the very beginning of the series, Goku sees Master Roshi perform the Kamehameha once and figures it out; Krillin and Yamcha have similarly easy times mastering the technique, not to mention Tenshinhan, and within a few arcs, it's old news. And yet when it was introduced, it was an amazing technique that took many years and tons of skill to learn, only for Goku to show up and do it like it was nothing. Sound familiar?

Or Toriyama was just a lazy writer who wanted more super saiyans and just ignored the whole saiyans have tails thing.

For me DBZ jumped the shark when Trunks came back in time. Not because of the story per se, but because it turned the series into a game of one-ups-manship.

Remember Freeza? The most powerful villain in the universe? Yeah he's a total pansy now. Here are 2 androids a million times stronger than him.

Now here are 2 more Androids a million times stronger than the other androids.

Now here's Cell, who is a million times stronger than the new androids.

And now here's Buu, and Super Buu, etc. etc. etc.

It just made it too hard to take seriously anymore when everyone's power levels sky rocketed to ridiculous proportion.

I never really minded the changes in DBZ, although I didn't like it when they made Piccolo, Tien, Yamcha and Krillin into background characters during the Buu Saga. I guess if I have to say when DBZ jumped the shark, it was during the Buu Saga since I think that DBZ could have ended after the Cell Saga and we would have still gotten a good ending to the show regardless. The Buu Saga did felt like an extra storyline that didn't need to be there and the fact that Goku went Super Saiyan 3 just felt a bit ridiculous at that point.

@mchotcakes: he stated why they didn't have tails in an interview (it was because of genetics basically)

May not make sense but that's how it is I guess

I think most of us agree that Boo was the point, it was ridiculous how long his saga was and how much they have to put in it.

It goes from being a villain with a personality to this pointless character without a personality, it was Broly but in a bunch of episodes.

Bump.