Sep 14, 2013
First thing I just have to talk about is the art/animation... Seriously, I see a lot of people complain about the animation of the original DBZ series (though I personally love it and find it to be amazing for a 80's/90's show), well watch this and observe some of the best 2D animation in the history of 2D animated movies/tv shows. Seriously, practically every scene is accurately drawn, complexly shaded (as in they have shades, mid-tones, and highlights, whereas most 2D animations only have shades, and mid-tones - oh and One Piece where there's only mid-tones), and basically any other positive thing you can possibly
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say about 2D Animation. Then there's the 3D CGI animation done for backgrounds when there's complex camera motion. Most people hate 3D CGI mixed with Anime, but I mean, it's way too hard to do with hand-drawing and get the accurate details in. In this movie, I found it all to be well done; other than that there isn't much to say about it.
Now, finally, I'll talk about the story. Right before the Super Saiyan God part, it was 100% perfect for me. I wasn't keeping track of time, and so the entire movie before Goku came back to Earth felt like the intro to me. Now, that makes it seem like they spent too long on those parts, but I didn't find it to drag on, I was enjoying it. It just ended up feeling rushed when Goku got there. I don't know, it's like, you don't see Goku, and then suddenly, here he is and in a minute or two becomes Super Saiyan God. So yeah, that was my main problem, but I understand it's a movie (and an anime movie at that - they tend to be just over an hour) and so they have to try and get to the end pretty quick. If the movie was twice as long or even just 40 minutes longer, I feel this problem wouldn't have shown up. But yeah, just Goku's transformation feeling rushed was my main problem here. After that it was pretty much just Bills VS Goku, which was an epic fight with some real badass animation, and then after that was the ending, which I enjoyed and had no problems with.
In terms of sound, I just didn't like King Kai's (Kaio-sama's) voice acting in the beginning of the Anime; everything else was good. Unlike the Anime series, there aren't any "staying-in-your-head" soundtracks except for the theme song that plays during Bills vs Goku, which I didn't think was needed, but it didn't do any harm - made it feel kind of..... "AMV-ish" I guess.
In terms of characters, I love Goku's character in both the original series and in here. Also, Vegeta too; Vegeta's best moments are always when he's avenging his family and the part where he battered Bills after Bulma got hurt was pure badassery - though it didn't feel as serious as the scene in DBZ where he beats up Cell after Cell kills Trunks. And then of course there are the two new characters Bills and Whis. I liked Bills because he brought some comedy with him despite his title of "God of Destruction" and his immense power. And to avoid spoiling it for anyone who reads this without watching the movie first, let's just say the end of the fight is the ending of a fight that you probably haven't seen in DBZ since somewhere in the original Dragon Ball series; this is also something I like, because I preferred Dragon Ball and always wish maybe Akira Toriyama could someday do something with DBZ but takes it back to its original roots where Goku's friends are involved and every enemy isn't 100% pure evil. Oh and Whis is someone who has a lot of power but doesn't care to show it - it's not a new trait of a character within Anime, but I think other than Mr Popo and Master Roshi (in DB), this is a first in DB(Z).
I enjoyed this; best Anime movie I've seen to be honest. Especially considering it's a movie based on an already produced anime series, but then again, this is kind of different from Naruto and Bleach movies in that DBZ ended like 17 years ago. So yeah, I absolutely LOVED it, and hope there's probably more new Dragon Ball content coming in the future!
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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