Dragon Ball Z was likely the pinnacle of the legendary Dragon Ball franchise, as it brought a lot more action, exciting stories, better animations, and more. But even so, there are some fans who consider the very first Dragon Ball series, when Goku was a little boy, as being better. They have some interesting arguments.
We’re not here to contradict anyone. We’re just here to say that Dragon Ball did some things better than Dragon Ball Z. Of course, maybe Z brought more exciting stuff overall, but let’s look at the criteria showing that Dragon Ball stands out:
More martial arts
In Dragon Ball Z, most fights are showcased by a simple formula: pumping up muscles and charging energy, fighting aggressively and at light-speed mode, and blasting powerful waves at each other. In the first Dragon Ball series, there seems to be more tension to the battles and certainly more martial art elements. Fighters look more at each other and spend more time taking their battle position before starting the confrontation.
Let’s take, for instance, Goku’s battle with Ma Junior (the Piccolo we know from Z and Super). Both of them were at unprecedented power levels for those times, as that was by far the most powerful showdown in the Dragon Ball series. There are barely any power-ups in that fight, and you can just feel the tension at any moment.
The battle between Goku and Master Roshi from the world tournament final is also a good example that shows the high level of martial arts from the first Dragon Ball series. There are no power-ups there and certainly no energy waves capable of destroying an entire planet or a city. For a battle that represented a highly-important moment, that’s surely worth mentioning and taken into account!
More humor
Remember those times when Goku couldn’t tell if somebody was a boy or a girl? Remember when he didn’t know what a wedding is? Those days are almost completely over in Dragon Ball Z, where there’s a much more tensioned and serious vibe revolving around the series. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, a lot of folks miss the significant amount of comedy from Dragon Ball.
Dragon Ball Z was a lot more about training hard to face the next evil foe who’s able to obliterate the entire world in a split-second if he wants to and about reaching new transformations and powers. That formula was considered exciting by many, but some die-hard Dragon Ball fans had seen it as a downside. They prefer things simpler, as in the series that presented the life of Goku when he was a child.
“Decent” power levels
We just have to put this one aside. The power levels in Dragon Ball Z are so insanely high that it’s incredible how the fighters still manage to battle without accidentally blowing up the entire planet multiple times. Some explanations from the writers of the story about this issue would surely be useful, but the fans didn’t seem to be too eager to hear them. The fighters in Z are sometimes even tens or hundreds of millions of times stronger than the ones from the first Dragon Ball series. In the latter anime, the power levels are a lot more “realistic”. Or at least they are high enough not to start asking yourself how those fellows didn’t blow up the whole planet while they land devastating waves at each other.
The problem became even bigger in Dragon Ball Super, where Goku and the gang became even thousands of times more powerful than in Z. They’ve also achieved new transformations.
Far fewer resurrections
Some characters were resurrected by the Eternal Dragon in Dragon Ball as well. We can consider Master Roshi, Chiaodzu, and of course: Krilin. But killing the protagonist two times and resurrecting him is a bit too much, which is what Z did. That’s right, the mighty Goku came back from the dead twice. He sacrificed himself two times for saving the world: one time against his evil brother Raditz and another time against Cell. No other important character managed to escape death and resurrection in Dragon Ball Z, whether we’re talking about Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, Tien, Krillin, and the others.
Of course, each of those characters died because of losing terrible battles, and they were brought back using the dragon balls. Villains such as Frieza, Nappa, or Majin Buu were to blame for their deaths. But that ruined the sense of “power” of the characters, as each of them played a very important role in the Dragon Ball Z storyline.
On the other hand, in the first Dragon Ball series, all of the characters who died had been through that because of one terrible foe: King Piccolo. The fiend also deployed his evil soldiers to take down those considered enemies.
Of course, everybody ultimately has the right to an opinion, as well as saying that Dragon Ball is better than Z or vice versa. What’s for sure is that both animes have their own particularities that make them unique.
Probably the ultimate argument should be that the Dragon Ball anime is better simply because it was the first of the two shows. Dragon Ball is the foundation itself. Dragon Ball Z would have never existed without that anime presenting the life of Goku until he became an adult.
Feel free to bring your own comment on the issue: is Dragon Ball better than Dragon Ball Z or vice versa?