Started watching the original dragon ball

[ayumidah]

Dragon Ball was fun, yeah, but I adore Vegeta and DBZ's character progression for Piccolo through the series (not to mention 18/Krillin and Vegeta/Bulma are couples that just make me strangely happy) so I would never be able to fully write off DBZ.

[The Ichi]

To this day, I stand by Goku vs. Jackie Chun being the best anime fight ever.

[HMARK Center]

Both the original and Z have a lot of good going for them, but Z had its big issue, I think, once power levels became something to worry about.

The theme of the show in Z tends to be "inner growth through struggle and adversity", which is fine, but when power levels become a thing it means that the struggle often involves a nebulous concept of "getting stronger". This basically places a hard cap on how far most of the characters can progress, since it means each new villain needs to be x-amount stronger than the last in order to increase the threat level; to maintain the drama you need most of the heroes to plateau while Goku and Vegeta, mostly, get the chance to power up and take them on.

I mean, it's fair to say that guys like Vegeta, Piccolo, and Tien kind of level off at a certain point mostly because their character arcs end and there's nowhere else to go with them, but that doesn't have to be an issue: fights like Piccolo vs. 17 during DBZ shows you can have a villain who's more of a threat because of what they represent, or what technique they bring to the table, or how they otherwise might counter the good guys in ways beyond "I don't take damage easily and my energy blasts are stronger than yours". But when power levels are a consideration, it becomes unavoidable; Piccolo, for example, can't beat second form Cell because, well, Cell's power level is too high. Not because Cell is better at strategy, not because he impacts Piccolo in a mental way by poking at possible vulnerabilities he might have, but because he's simply "stronger".

I'm not saying Z was devoid of any subtlety, mind you, but it did lack in major villains who could present a threat beyond "I'm stronger than the last guy", which means you always have to turn to Goku in the end, whereas a villain who presents a different kind of danger might open the door for someone else to shine.