AnthonyRS1983

This is the first movie of the Dragon Ball Z TV series released during the series' Japanese TV run. In the debut DBZ movie, it re-tells how Gohan discovered his hidden powers. The movie's premise is about the adult Goku rescuing his four-year old son Gohan, whom has been kidnapped by a demon, who lives on the Makyo Star, named Garlic Jr., in order to obtain the four-star Dragon Ball worn on the boy's head. Garlic Jr. uses the Dragon Balls to wish for immortality. Soon enough, Kami (God) descends to Earth and reveals to Goku that Garlic Jr.'s father was a bitter rival, competing for the Kami throne, whom was sealed up by the preceding Kami after Garlic Sr. and his army of demons attempted to take the throne by force. Kami also reveals that Garlic Jr.'s plans are to seek revenge for his father's exile. Goku, Kami, and Krillin team up with Goku's old enemy, Piccolo, to stop Garlic Jr. from sucking the Earth into his own personally-created black hole known as the "Dead Zone". This movie, mirroring the action-fighting tone of the Dragon Ball Z TV series, is more serious that the trilogy of Dragon Ball movies, which focused on light-hearted comedy. The high points of the movie are the animation and the movie's hilarious inserted musical sequence "Tenka Ichi Gohan". The low points of the movie is that it drags a little from time to time, despite the short 45 minute length of this movie.

GRADE: 2.5 out of 5

This the first movie released during the Japanese TV run of Dragon Ball. Basically, this movie is a re-telling of how the main characters (Goku, Bulma, Oolong, Yamcha, Puar, and Master Roshi) of Dragon Ball meet. In the movie, however, as they meet, they help a farmer's daughter named Penny save her village from its wicked king, Gurumes, who's seeking the Dragon Balls to wish for lots of food to eat to satisfy his hunger. The movie re-creates some rather hilarious sequences from the Pilaf Saga episodes of Dragon Ball, giving it a generally family-friendly atmosphere. In the U.S., this movie, re-titled "Curse Of The Blood Rubies", was released on syndicated TV as a 2-part series pilot, but the editing and dubbing was done well enough that much of the movie mirrors its original Japanese counterpart.

GRADE: 4 out of 5 stars

This was the second Dragon Ball movie released during the series' Japanese TV run. This, like the previous DB movie, is a re-telling of pivotal moments in the Dragon Ball TV series. This time, the story re-tells how Goku met Krillin and how the two boys began their training under the wise "Turtle Hermit", Master Roshi. In the movie, Master Roshi sends Goku and Krillin out to a spooky castle at the Devil's Hand to retrieve a "Sleeping Princess" in return for martial arts training. As they arrive, Goku's friends are captured by the castle's residents, Lucifer, and Igor and both he and Krillin must save Bulma from being used as an involuntary blood donor and prevent Lucifer from blowing up the sun and overrunning the Earth with monsters. This second movie is a bit more serious in tone, but has its share of hilarious moments recreated from the TV series.

GRADE: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This is the third and final Dragon Ball movie released during the series' run on Japanese TV. Like the first two Dragon Ball movies, this movie re-tells pivotal moments that took place during the TV series. This movie re-tells Goku and Krillin's first trip to the World Martial Arts Tournament. In the movie, however, Goku, Krillin, Master Roshi, Turtle, and Launch are off to a small country known as Mifan, where the tournament is held and the winner recieves not only prize money, but is granted an audience with Mifan's emperor, whom is Chiaotzu. However, the heroes discover that the Chiaotzu's right-hand men, Master Shen, General Tao, and Tien, are conspiring to get the Dragon Balls to abdicate Chiaotzu from the throne and rule the kingdom themselves. In this DB movie, the villains and much of the supporting characters are characters from the TV series rather than original one-shots. This DB movie is by far the most martial-arts oriented as the series was beginning to lean towards that more over adventure and comedy. But this DB movie has the best combination of martial arts and comedy and is always filled with high-energy fighting scenes and hilarious comedy re-created from pivotal moments in the TV series. This movie first appeared in the U.S. on syndicated TV in 1989 when it was combined with the first movie into a single TV-movie pilot, which was done by Harmony Gold (creators of Robotech) in the first of two attempts made to get the DB TV series released in America. In this Harmony Gold TV pilot version, the characters had radically different names. When the series finally became a success in the US when aired on Cartoon Network, FUNimation re-dubbed it, making it more faithful to the original Japanese counterpart.

GRADE: 4 out of 5 stars

This is the fifth Dragon Ball Z movie to be released during the series' Japanese TV run. When Cooler finds out that his brother Frieza was defeated by a Saiyan, he and his three henchmen go to Earth to seek revenge and destroy the planet as Piccolo, Gohan, and Krillin attempt to help an injured Goku get his strength back and defend the Earth. This movie was an improvement over the lasr DBZ movie as the plot centered around a villain closely related to a major villain in the DBZ TV series. This DBZ movie attempts to try some new things, such as putting more of a focus on Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan in the battles and spicing the battle sequences with samurai-film-like elements. As DBZ fans will enjoy the battles and the villain, this DBZ movie's plot suffers from being a bit shallow as it only focuses on the villain's plan to destroy Earth. Also, DBZ fans may be a bit disappointed by the movie's short running time of 47 minutes.

GRADE: 2.5 out of 5

This is the fourth Dragon Ball Z movie released during the series Japanese TV run. A planetoid is averted by Goku and Krillin and later explodes and descending upon it is a band of sun-sensitive alien nomads led by an aging Super Namek named Slug, who uses the Dragon Balls to regain his youth and plans to terrafreeze Earth into a starship. Defending the planet are Goku, Krillin, Piccolo, and Gohan. This movie suffers from an extremely shallow and ill-conceived plot. It seems that this movie's screenwriter did this movie's story in a very hurried and half-hearted effort (which made a lot of sense, considering that by this point, Toei Animation called for 2 Dragon Ball Z movies to be released annually in March and July to be screened at Toei's annual anime fairs and in theaters). Nearly ever aspect of this movie looked like it was put together without much thought, including the villains, the plot, the animation (from time to time), and in many of the scenes such as how Slug is stopped. The plot often repeats elements found in the previous DBZ movie, Earth's Ultimate Deciding Battle a.k.a. The Tree Of Might. This DBZ movie, purely seen as a regular movie, is one of the worst. If you are a hardcore Dragon Ball Z fan, I'm sure you will find it at least watchable.

GRADE: 1 out of 5 stars

This is the second Dragon Ball Z movie released during the series' Japanese TV run. This movie's plot, unlike the first DBZ movie, is not a re-telling of a particular moment in the TV series, but more of a side story. While Gohan assists Oolong on a trip up to the Zulmitezubri Mountains to recover Dragon Balls to wish for women's underwear, they stumble upon the Dragon Balls being used by an assistant scientist named Dr. Kochin. He makes a wish to the Eternal Dragon, Shenron, to free his mentor, Dr. Wheelo, from the ice that for fifty years buried him after the heavens punished him and Dr. Kochin for their selfish and inhumane intentions of their scientific endeavors. After the two scientists abduct Piccolo, Master Roshi, and Bulma, Goku sets out to rescue them and save himself from being used as a puppet controlled by Dr. Wheelo's only remains, his brain. This movie's plot is radically different from the usual demons-and-martial-arts affairs. It focuses on science fiction elements, which were actually developed later on into the TV series during the Cell era. The science-fiction story elements often causes the movie to drag inbetween the fight sequences, but the animation continues to be superb and surpasses that of the previous DBZ movie Return My Gohan! a.k.a. Dead Zone.

GRADE: 2.5 out of 5