Dragon Ball Z Volume 3

And now, we’ve reached the 100 episodes mark with the third season of Dragon Ball Z. Let’s get the technical details out of the way first. This set offers pretty much the same as the previous ones: English 5.1 surround audio, English broadcast stereo audio, and Japanese mono. The menu option to have surround audio with the Japanese songs still doesn’t work on these discs, having the English opening song instead. The extras this time around are quite lacklustre compared to the previous sets, having only the clean opening and closing Japanese songs. Previous criticism from volumes 1 and 2, such as the conversion to widescreen cutting the bottom and top of the video, are still valid and same as before, although I didn’t think it spoiled the enjoyment of the show at all.

So, what is the third season of Dragon Ball Z like?

The 33 episodes of this box set follow the second half of the Namek journey, also referred to as the Freeza saga. The simplistic way to explain what’s in this set is to say that this is ‘Goku vs Freeza Fight.’ What is more difficult to explain is how the creators make such a long fight exciting – and that’s changing the focus of the action all the time to the several support characters, leaving you looking forward to what’s going on in the main action, while at the same time keeping the level of entertainment high.

The first ten episodes of the third season see Kuririn, Gohan, and Vegeta facing Freeza and then getting joined by Piccolo, who’s been resurrected by the Namek Dragon Balls. Both Piccolo and Vegeta are stronger than ever, but once Freeza reveals his overwhelming fighting power of over a million, none of the Z-fighters are any match for him and they are forced to stall for time until Goku is completely healed.

In the next 8 episodes we see Freeza fighting Goku into a corner, until he is forced to use the Spirit Bomb, gathering energy from every living creature in the entire Namek solar system. And while Goku is celebrating what seems to be his victory, Freeza suddenly reappears and shoots a beam at Goku. Piccolo throws himself between them and takes the shot, receiving a serious injury from it. Freeza shoots again and hits Kuririn, killing him.

And them shounen awesomeness weaves its magic and the most iconic figure in anime finally makes his appearance. Son Goku finally transforms into a Super Saiyan! Enraged by Freeza cowardly murdering Kuririn, Goku’s anger reach a point never seen before in the series. His anger is so tangible, that sparks start escaping from his body, building up his fighting powers, until in a golden burst, his powers max out and his hair shines bright golden – the Super Sayan appears!

The only real downside to this volume is that now it becomes quite apparent how the creators are struggling to match the pace, as the anime was catching up with the manga story. Up to this point, there was very little filler material in the series, but at least three episodes on a roll, served as a recap of the arc’s story so far, from different viewpoints. Each recap re-uses animation previously seen. Add that to the recap from the beginning of each episode and that adds up  to several minutes of recycled animation.

Also, during some of the fight sequences, you can notice this recycling going on. How annoying is it? A little. The recap episodes mix part recap, part new material. And Picccolo recaps even bring material from the original Dragon Ball series, such as the World Martial Arts tournament.

To sum up, the show stays strong in its third season and the build-up to the main fight, although it’s done in a somewhat slower fashion than we are used to seeing nowadays. It has some shortcomings, but as long as you take Dragon Ball Z for what it is, a shounen show, you won’t be disappointed.