A second Dragon Ball Z boom is upon us.
VTuber Pekora Usada did a let's-play of Dragon Ball Z: KAKAROT, a game that lets you relive the world of Dragon Ball Z, and pulled in over 160,000 concurrent viewers.
Perhaps spurred by this, more and more other VTubers have started playing Dragon Ball Z: KAKAROT as well.
It's proof that, even in this day and age, Dragon Ball Z remains a timeless masterpiece.
Dragon Ball Z is, needless to say, the sequel to Dragon Ball depicting the years of protagonist Son Goku's adulthood, spanning the arrival of the Saiyans, the battle against Frieza on Planet Namek, then the Androids arc where he fights alongside Trunks, another Super Saiyan who comes from the future, before drawing to a close with the Majin Buu arc.
Real-time viewers gave it overwhelming support, even though they'd already read Dragon Ball in collected volumes or in Jump.
How exactly will the transformation into a Super Saiyan be reproduced in animation? How will Trunks's Burning Attack move in the anime?
People were curious about the original reproductions that only animation could deliver.
Dragon Ball Z also packed in all sorts of original developments to avoid catching up to the manga: Garlic Jr., who appeared in a movie, made a return in the TV version; Ginyu, who'd been turned into a frog, got Bulma to give him a voice changer and tried to take over Bulma's body; and there was also an episode, hugely popular among fans, where Goku goes to get his driver's license together with Piccolo.
Sadly, those were cut from Dragon Ball Kai, the re-edited version of Dragon Ball Z, but Kai had its own merits in its own right.
Let me introduce the composer behind the Dragon Ball Z score: Shunsuke Kikuchi.
Sadly, Kikuchi passed away in 2021, but his accomplishments were immense. The Showa-era Kamen Rider series (he also composed "Let's Go!! Rider Kick"), the Nobuyo Oyama era of Doraemon, the original Dr. Slump Arale-chan, G-Men '75, Toyama no Kin-san, Abarenbo Shogun. When you think about what Japanese anime history, the world of tokusatsu, and the world of period dramas would have looked like without this man, you realize just how towering a figure he was.
And this CD includes not only the TV version's BGM but, in small part, the movie versions' BGM as well.
Now, let me introduce some recommended tracks.
First, "Prologue & Subtitle I."
When you think of Dragon Ball's BGM, this is probably the first thing that comes to mind. It's the BGM that plays beneath the tense, ongoing prologue music, carrying King Kai's narration up to where the subtitle is announced.
You've surely heard this one too: "The Saiyans Are Coming."
The amazing thing is how clearly that tension comes through in the BGM, the unprecedented threat of the Saiyans right as Dragon Ball Z gets underway.
Once Dragon Ball Z wraps up the Cell arc and moves into the Majin Buu fight, things brighten up in places. The Prologue & Subtitle also gets rearranged into the new theme song "WE GOTTA POWER," letting you listen a bit more relaxed. Likewise an arrangement of "WE GOTTA POWER," the track "Strongest After All, Son Goku" has, in a good way, so little tension that you can listen to it nice and relaxed. Has Goku gotten just a little too strong?
Original creator Toriyama has passed away, but I'm still eagerly awaiting Dragon Ball DAIMA, the project he himself had been planning.
I hope it doesn't get shelved just because he's gone, and that they carry on his wishes and air it.
