Dragon Ball Movie 4: Saikyou e no Michi

I've reviewed the first three Dragonball films already. Now, it's time for the fourth and final film before they moved onto Dragonball Z, Saikyou e no Michi. It was released by Toei in '96, seven years after the Dragonball series had ended and the same year Dragonball Z saw its finale. Which seems like odd timing. Like, the non-canon GT had started airing when this came out. In any case, let's take a look and see what they had in store for us. 

Story: 

We open with Goku meeting Bulma for the first time. Yay, another re-telling like the first film. So, they meet Oolong and Yamcha ... and then things surprisingly get switched up and they encounter the Red Ribbon Army. So, instead of a straight up re-telling, it's more an alternative scenario where the group encounters the Red Ribbon Army while first hunting for the dragonballs instead of Pilaf and his minions. 

The biggest issue with the narrative is that some parts of it are overly predictable. Like, the big climax is very much of the "everything is obvious before it happens" variety. Of course, this isn't a franchise that's known for its surprising twists. It's known for its big, over the top action sequences. But it's usually not quite this obvious with every single beat being super telegraphed. The film also repeats some of the gags from the series verbatim and they just don't have the same impact. It doesn't help that they aren't even close to the funniest gags from the series. 

On the positive side, changing things around so that the group's first major conflict is with Red Ribbon, does change things up enough to give the film a sense of uniqueness, in spite of being an alternative re-telling. Which is something of a rarity. It also does mostly capture the sense of fun of the series proper pretty well. 

Characters:

Chances are, most of you are familiar with the major Dragonball characters like Goku, Bulma and Roshi. You also get more minor supporting characters like Oolong & Pu'ar. There's also Yamcha for the one person out there who likes Yamcha. Fortunately for the rest of us, he pretty much just follows the group and gets used as a butt monkey. The somewhat surprising character is Cyborg Eight, or Hat-chan if you prefer. He gets used quite extensively in this one. It's a fun cast, not all that deep but well suited for the film's aesthetic. 

Art:

Mostly, the artwork is pretty well done. There are some cool action moments. The character models look good. Bulma has purple hair instead of her usual teal for some reason and Goku wears a blue gi instead of his usual orange. Probably because the non-canon GT had just come out and he wore blue in that. The only real issue with the art is that they really overdo the shadow effects and there are points where it just looks a bit rubbish. 

Sound:

The acting is well done. They got the usual cast with Nozawa Masako, Tsuru Hiromi, Tatsuta Naoki, Iizuka Shouzou and the others. So, it's a group who know the characters they're voicing really well and are good at them. The music is typical for the franchise. Which isn't a bad thing. Dragonball consistently has some pretty strong music. 

Areas of Improvement:

1. A little surprise to the climax. Yes, this is a formulaic franchise but they could still put in something a bit unpredictable to make things more interesting. 

2. Rework the gags a little. There's a reason Spamalot doesn't use the exact same jokes as Quest for the Holy Grail. Gags are funnier when they're fresh. If you know the punchline, they just don't work as well. 

3. Stop Putting shadows over everything. 

Final Thoughts:

Saikyou e no Michi is a solid Dragonball film, in spite of its late release and fans of the franchise will probably enjoy it once they stop complaining about Goku's wardrobe change and Bulma's hair dye. For myself, the climax was far too obvious and the recycled gags didn't land particularly well, but I still thought it was a solid film. In the end, I'll give it a 7/10. 

Story:
This is a super condensed version of the first 2/3 of Dragon Ball so it feels rushed. I loved the original story so this paled in comparison. A lot of the comedy was lost in favor of DBZ style action. They did manage to keep one of my favourite scenes where Roshi gives Bulma his dragon ball but the non-canon writing was lackluster. Trying to fit such a rich story into 74 mins robbed a lot of the characters of a good backstory (particularly Red and Black). A lot of great characters were left out and some like Yamcha and Oolong really had no reason ... to be in the story.

Art:
Absolutely amazing. More along the angular lines of DBZ than the chubby round originals. It makes me wish the redid the original story like they did DB Kai.

Characters: Not as fleshed out as the manga or anime unfortunatley.

Enjoyment: It wasn't nearly as bad as any of the other DB movies.

Overall: Watch this if you're a fan of DBZ and wish DB could've had more action and better visuals. I would recommend watching DB Recut (A fan edit with a lot less filler) instead!

To preface: I watched the Funimation Dub.

Story:
For starters, Sikyou e no Michi is noncanon and sorta mashes the first bits of Dragon Ball with the Red Ribbon arc. It spends a lot of time on the former and not so much on the latter, ending with an awkward blend of disjointed scenes that aren't all that engaging or interesting. Now, that last comment is extremely relative, I understand that. How engaged someone is depends on, quite literally, their knowledge of the source material. I couldn't find myself enjoying it all that much because the source material was being butchered in favor of telling an alternate ... world Dragon Ball. However, the aspects within this film are just other-worldly enough to make someone keep going back and forth between what we already know about Dragon Ball and what this film is translating.

For instance, the first time Goku uses a Kamehame wave he ends up using far more power than he initially would. In the manga it's big but not DBZ Super Saiyan tier. In this, Goku seems to already be able to make a big enough wave that a fleet of ships are destroyed. It's really strange and sort of off-sets the film especially in the last bit where Goku has some trouble during the last fight. But, things get way out of hand during this scene when almost becomes Super Saiyan? It's weird. It makes the whole thing memorable for all the wrong reasons.


Art:
With story aside, it's a shame to realize that the animation here is pretty solid. I found some set-pieces to be really beautiful and certain combat sequences to be well animated despite their lack of depth or martial arts. That said, I can't say the film doesn't LOOK GOOD.


Sound:
Forgettable music. Can't remember a single song used during the film, neither any prominent sound effects that humbled me, something that should regularly happen when people are shooting lasers from their fingertips or punching the tar out of each other. I want to be wowed by what's going on not just with visuals but with audio. I didn't get this at all.

VA work was good, though.


Character:
Again, not that great. Since Goku's character is spent laughing too much (to the point of utter annoyance) or being horribly unrealistic within the world of Dragon Ball, we're left with the supporting cast being nothing but basic type-casts that don't get very much to go on. Granted, it's not until later on in Dragon Ball when the characters begin to really develop beyond caricatures but it'd still be nice to get some development. I can't tell you one thing about each character when I exclude what I already know from the manga. It's disappointing.


Enjoyment:
Unenjoyable. For me, at least. The fanservice didn't help. I know early Dragon Ball has a couple scenes here and there but some of the additional stuff in this film was a little stupid. Some camera angles were so stupid, like... really stupid.


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