Dragon Ball Z Movie 07: Kyokugen Battle!! Sandai Super Saiyajin

Overview:

For those of you reading this that aren't Japanese, do you remember your first time watching an anime in the original Japanese with subs? This was my very first experience ever watching ANYTHING in a foreign language and reading sub-titles. The year was 1999 and I was 11 years old. My local comic store sold bootleg VHS tapes made by the Chinese Triad, including all the DBZ movies. I bought this movie because it had an epic cover art slapped on it that actually had nothing to do with the movie. The Chinese bootleggers just put completely random cover art on all their DBZ VHS ... tapes. For most of you, this was one of the shittiest DBZ movies, but for me it was an epic experience!

The movie starts with Android 17 decapitating Gero with a roundhouse kick, which was completely edited out of the US version. For some reason, the movie actually adds a copious amount of blood that wasn't in the main series version of that scene. Having never watched anime "uncut" my 11 year old mind was blown by the shower of blood when Gero gets his head smashed! I mention in some of my other reviews that I rented and bought a bunch of shitty late 80s and early 90s OVAs to bask in the manly violence. THIS was actually the movie that started that path. I put up with bullshit like Genocyber, MD Geist, and all the others like a drug addict trying to chase down that first "high" that you never quite feel again. This movie has ZERO plot, but the fights are and fast and furious, the animation is good for DBZ standards, and it is quite enjoyable for any DBZ fan.

Even better than the violence was the amazing soundtrack! I had never heard the Shunsuke Kikuchi soundtrack until this movie and only experienced the US soundtrack by good ol' Bruce.
HOLY SHIT! This music was SO much better that it made this shitty movie worth re-watching again and again just to experience it. Youtube didn't exist and bootleg VHS was really the only way to listen to the glorious original soundtrack! I'm not sure if it was ever uploaded to Napster and my computer would have been WAY too slow to download it anyways. The epic music for the battles, the badass character themes for Piccolo and Vegeta, and the absolutely beautiful song that plays when Goku uses the Spirit Bomb (Genki Dama for you fucking Weaboos!) Music plays a massive role in how much we enjoy movies, even though we often don't realize the impact that it has. Imagine Star Wars with a shitty soundtrack! It would be a good film, but the experience simply would NOT be the same! I didn't fully realize would a monumental difference soundtrack could make until watching this movie and hearing the difference between the Japanese and US soundtracks to DBZ. In that regard, this movie actually was an important step in my development as a film critic by opening my eyes to that fact.

Did I rate this film objectively and completely free of nostalgic bias? Hell no I didn't! I'm only human, and we are all susceptible to nostalgia. Knowing this allows me to have empathy and avoid becoming quite as bitter and condescending as some other critics. I may feel a twinge of anger when someone rates Mirai Nikk or Black Lagoon a 10/10, but if that was my first violent anime, my first sub, my first introduction to a Japanese soundtrack, and I watched it at age 12, I would probably have done the same thing. God bless this shitty movie, its bloody violence, and its glorious soundtrack!

Dragon Ball Z Movie 7: Super 13 is by far the most mediocre Dragon Ball Z movie of all time.

It has all the average Dragon Ball Z movie cliches:
- Piccolo comes to save Gohan
- Vegeta comes to save Goku telling "Only I can kill Kakarot."
- Spirit Bomb is used as a trump card
- trying to replicate things from the ongoing story with Android 13 being like Cell who absorbs other Androids to transform
- Krillin gets punished

The selling point of the movie is that 3 Super Saiyan are featured for the first time and are simultaneously fighting 3 Androids of Dr. Gero. Androids 13, 14 and ... 15. That's it.
Apparently Gero's Super Computer makes pretty much all the decisions for him as Gero was killed at the start of the movie after setting 17 and 18 free.
This movie features some interesting things. While 14 and 15 aren't very memorable, we learn quiet a bit about their personality as they look for Goku in the shopping district. Goku and Trunks were pretty much handy capped forced to lure the enemy to a different location.
It's not the first time a battle in an icy area being featured, but it was a nice scenery change since in the previous movies that area wasn't fully taken advantage off. Not that this movie does much with it. But they do make some cool ways for character to enter the battle.

The visuals and overall action was good. I enjoyed Vegeta vs. 14 and Trunks vs 15. While their end in similar ways, it was still enjoyable to see. The music and animation is also very fluid.

Android 13 as a character started ok. But after his transformation he just grunted and said "Son Goku!" like he is Broli from Second Coming or something.
Besides the points mentioned earlier, the main antagonists transformation just isn't believable. He starts of as a slim guy with long white hair. But absorbing 2 cores and 2 chips of his fallen comrades allow him to become a blue Hulk with Vegeta's hairstyle, orange hair and yellow eyes. He also lost his eyebrows. There is no foundation in design that justifies why he looked like that nor why he changed that drastically.

And his power also seems pretty random like all Androids introduced so far, minus Cell. The reason Cell worked is because he was made of the components and knowledge of the strongest fights, capable of draining energy of other beings and transforms by absorbing other androids who stabilize himself. Also his transformation felt more organic. While Android 13 doesn't feel like he deserves to be strong enough to fight a Super Saiyan.

The fight against Android 13 also felt very boring. Every character that tried to fight him did the same thing. Much a few times before being blasted away. Sure, it wasn't all boring since there are some iconic scenes like the finale and the infamous punch in the balls, but these are very minimal and can't make up for the rest.

Btw, what happened to Android 17 and 18? They appeared at the start of the movie and where completely gone. I assume they joined a skater gang or something and enjoy life.

One thing that bothered me since I watched this movie is Android 13's technique. That weird red ball that can apparently destroy half the planet... Is that suppose to be impressive or terrifying after characters beat up several characters that can one shot a planet casually? It's just stupid.

I feel this movie would have better worked as a filler arc. Like instead of a movie, we could have a filler arc between the 3 year time before the Androids arrive in which the weaker group of Z fighters try to locate Gero with the Dragon Balls only to end up fighting weaker Androids that cause already lots of problem. This could be great simply because we didn't see Yamcha, Tien and Chaotzu put their training into work.

Overall the movie is decent. Bombastic finale, some good action, good soundtracks and animation. But the characters are pretty much forgettable like most of the fight against Android 13. And the cliches as well as most of the secondary cast being worthless like Gohan, Krillin and Piccolo.

I'm not sure if this one was an actual improvement or if I'm getting Stockholm Syndrome, but after two fairly dismal Cooler movies, Super Android 13 is a little bit better, with some enjoyable moments despite, as is now solidified as permanent apparently, the exact same plot as all the other movies.

Yadda yadda yadda some bad dudes wanna kill Goku or whatever. What I enjoy is that the first half of the movie takes place in an urban city. The Dragon Ball world shines when it shows off its wacky cartoon world, and I love any time they spend in cities, where tech is ... futuristic and all the buildings are domes, but everyone operates as if it's the early 1990s and our POV characters are always a bunch of weirdos in martial arts costumes that everyone eyes suspiciously. Combined with some better fights than the past couple movies, and it's a good time-waster.

Though... reaaaaaally iffy on that kinda-blackface robot and I feel like it might be a disservice to give this one more than a 4/10 when there's that there. I've also read that the English dub version of this gives the robot more lines (in the Japanese version he only says about five words the whole movie), and they're spoken with a stereotypical African-American accent. If true... that's... not OK.... But I don't want to watch the dub to find out so whatever.

This one comes SO CLOSE to fitting in the series timeline! Weirdly, it would take place BEFORE the previous movie, because of Trunks being there. There's a good gap in the story where Cell has not yet appeared but Androids 16-18 are still on the loose, and three more kinda-weak Androids suddenly appearing and getting the shit kicked out of them could fit, though it'd be a little weird. Sadly, the thing that probably kills it is that Gohan is preparing to enter into summer cram school classes... In a worldwide search for some possibly-genocidal robots, it doesn't seem very likely that the cast would take a break to go shopping at the mall, either. Curse the extremely tight timeline constraints that Akira Toriyama gave his comic books!