Dragon Ball Movie 1: Shen Long no Densetsu

If you are a film buff, literary critic, or even a fan of Japanese history you will adore this time-capsule. This is classic DragonBall with the addition of a look at the political and economic concerns of the time this piece was created. Observing the various references to fear of Industrialisation we see the Japanese rural perspective on the changes going through their country post-WW2. To see it in anime form is both surreal and fascinating to an educated person. Don't misunderstand me, it is in no way like Princess Mononoke, but it serves to be a very entertaining way to reintroduce the characters of ... Dragonball.

Also, I highly encourage you to listen to this with headphones, the sound of this anime is surprisingly spot-on, even by DBZ standards.

Another praise I have for this piece is that because of its time restraint it doesn't drag on (no pun intended) like the main series does in many aspects. It gets right to the point and it makes it extremely enjoyable to experience.

A pretty charming and inoffensive little adventure, but it movies a such a rapid pace and has so little time devoted to introducing and developing the characters that I imagine anyone without at least some prior Dragon Ball knowledge would be pretty lost, and because of that its probably only enjoyable as a companion piece to the TV show rather than a fully stand alone movie.

Also, while it is pretty entertaining it's hard to rate the movie too highly when it is essentially just a very highly condensed retelling of the first Dragon Ball arc, with a few minor changes and with Pilaf, Mai, and ... Shu replaced a different trio of villains.

The animation while more fluid than the TV anime isn't anything to write home about, none of the movie original characters really matter nor do they do much except for the start and the end. It is the first movie of the franchise so I suppose the overall sort of "clumsy" feeling that it gives you makes sense, as it is very clearly not a movie meant to be watched in the current year or ever again.

The story is a loose "what if?" recap of the very first arc. Instead of the Pilaf gang we are introduced to this weird demon guy and his very ... boring goons, which are more competent that Shu and Mai, this is a negative.

The Pilaf gang was never meant to be seen as actual obstacles and instead existed for what the series was at the start, gags. Their failures and overall pathetic nature was funny and charming, if you take away their fuck ups the goons just become boring tough guys with equally boring scenes. It doesn't help that we don't learn anything about these characters, making it difficult to get invested in the antagonists of the film. It tries to make up for it by giving the audience more action, but just like the animation it looks nice but isn't all that impressive or different from what you would see in the TV anime.

Same goes for the new movie original character who was (sorta) part of the main crew, none of the scenes with her were funny and instead she just existed to drive the plot along, something which Bulma does in the original series but in a more entertaining way. I couldn't even remember her name because she was so forgettable and I can't be bothered to google it right now.

Goku has little to no focus. We get good moments with Bulma and Yamcha, but Goku gets little to no time to shine. The same goes for Puar, Roshi and Oolong, but at the time of the story they were minor characters anyhow.

Goku is the MAIN character, why the fuck does Yamcha get better scenes and more focus in the first movie than the actual main lead? No hate to Yamcha fans, but this decision just does not make sense to me. With Bulma it's fine as she's the main heroine and the second lead, but even in the OG series Yamcha's role becomes incredibly minor. Having him get a bigger role than Goku just...baffles me.

Finally my biggest issue with this movie, the pacing. Everything feels way too fast as they rush from story beat to story beat with little to no time to relax and they redo scenes from the original but in a way more loose and less impactful way. It makes sense as this movie isn't even an hour long so they have to rush it but oh my goodness SLOW DOWN.

Yeah it's just not very good.