The Saiyin Saga
AKA The Vegeta Saga
Quick Synopsis
4 years after his last adventure, Goku visits his friends with a surprise... his son Gohan. Much more shy and a bit of a coddled crybaby, Gohan is very different than his father. But suddenly a mysterious and powerful stranger arrives named Raditz... who reveals he is Goku's older brother. Even bigger, he reveals they are aliens from a barbaric warrior race called Saiyins and he was sent to Earth to conquer it as an infant but due to circumstances, never remembered his mission. Raditz takes Gohan hostage in exchange a mountain of human corpses and defeats Goku with ease to drive the point home. Soon after Piccolo arrives, revealing he met the villain and was similarly unable to stop him. The two form an alliance and battle Radtiz, who easily overcomes them. When Goku almost dies, Gohan's sleeping power awakens and surprisingly dwarves everyone else, allowing him to briefly damage Raditz. Goku and Piccolo manage a plan to defeat Raditz, which works at the cost of Goku's life. However, before he dies, Raditz let's the last two surviving Saiyins know... and they'll likely be there in a years time.
The Saiyins, overhearing a message about the Dragonballs, decide to find them to wish for eternal youth and begin heading to Earth. Piccolo, seeing shocking potential in Gohan, decides to train him to stand a chance, while many of Goku's friends train with Kami. Goku, meanwhile, is given his body in the afterlife and before he can be wished back to life by the Dragonballs is to train with Kaio, the King of Worlds. After a long journey on a seemingly endless road, Goku finds his new master on a tiny high-gravity planet and trains new techniques. Everyone is ready as they think they can be by the day the Saiyins arrive, except due to Kaio's miscalculations, he will be late to the battle. Goku is wished to life and rushes to the fight. Meanwhile Piccolo, Gohan, Kuririn, Yamucha, Tienshinhan and Chaotsu arrive to meet the two Saiyins, Nappa and Vegeta. The battle is fierce and despite their best efforts, Yamucha is killed by a Saibaman, one of the synthetic life forms the duo brought along, and Tien and Chaotsu die in valiant efforts to kill Nappa.
Nappa appears nearly invincible and though the surviving trio mostly prove their worth (despite Gohan having feet of clay at a crucial moment), Nappa cannot be stopped and shockingly Piccolo dies to protect Gohan, whom he has grown close to despite his intent. Goku finally arrives and proves to be shockingly powerful, easily defeating Nappa. It is then Vegeta kills Nappa for his weakness and the arrogant "super-elite" Saiyin has a clear advantage. However, one of Goku's newest abilities allows him to temporarily boost his power at risk to his own body, allowing him to keep pace. Vegeta is pushed to his limits like never before and in his anger, he decides to use an artificial moon to transform himself into his Great Ape form. Goku uses his wits to ready his other ability, the Genki Dama, but finds himself thwarted and near death. Gohan and Kuririn, who were earlier asked to return home to recuperate, deduce Goku is in trouble and arrive to help him. Surprisingly, though, it is Yajirobe, who was cowering and watching the fight, who saves the trio by using his sword to chop of Vegeta's tail, returning him to normal. Then Kuririn and Gohan manage to help Goku complete and launch the Genki Dama, albeit at half power. However Vegeta is still alive and though having run out of power is still strong enough to finish our heroes... until Gohan's exposure to the moon transforms HIM into a Great Ape and wrecks Vegeta and even falls on him when Vegeta manages to remove his tail. Vegeta, once proud, is now forced to retreat and while Kuririn had him dead to rights, Goku wanted Vegera alive, by his own admittance for the selfish reason that they may fight again someday. Kuririn reluctantly relents, trusting in his friend.
Story
It's been a long time since I've watched this but revisiting, it actually works pretty well. Like the first Piccolo arc, it doesn't just put the heroes through the wringer, it gets downright brutal, a sort of ragnarok for the series. Granted, starting here, the world is threatened to end with a flick of the wrist from here-on in, but I just mean offing major characters. Now yes, the series comes with a reset button which is dramatically removes (but we all know it will be unremoved eventually) and some of the tension points like killing off characters and waiting for Goku to arrive has been done in the first Piccolo arc (which is almost the first "Z" style arc), it's all really well sold here in terms of drama. I think it helps that from here-on-in, Goku kind of shares lead character status with his son, who is now our entry point character and really has a more noticeable arc than any other character. Yeah, Goku gets stronger but Gohan goes through a LOT and comes out changed. It really does give us the building blocks that lead to the end of his arc in the Cell saga and then a real mixed bag of a continuation in the Buu saga.
It's here where the fights, even more than that last fight with Piccolo at the end of Dragonball, get really drawn out, for better and worse. The thing is, a lot of these epically long fights work best when you are reading through them in manga form, I think. In collections. And I mean that for almost all shounen fight epics. Because when I'm reading them, the tenser they are, the faster I read. I'm controlling the pace. Here, the pacing can suffer and yet the epicness is definitely there. It sells the deaths, the horror of the enemies who just WILL not die, and all that. But watching week to week would make it frustrating, especially when things get drawn out to one plot point to episode. Still, this one moves better than I remember but with Vegeta pushed to the brink early on, then spending the rest of it being delivered finisher after finisher that will not bring him down for good makes it kind of exhausting. I kind of like it thematically though, which I'll get into.
I will use this time to say I think that... I think the filler is largely good? Some of it's bad but most of it does what it needs to. In the original manga, there's little time between the Raditz fight and the Saiyin one and I appreciate things slowing down a bit to make it feel like the year is a bit of a journey for these characters. Heck, when Gohan is first left alone in the wilds, he's sort of clumsily futzing around, bringing home the point of how far he needs to go. And there are lots of great character moments, like a bored Yamucha enjoying a baseball brawl (I like that him being a baseball guy became canonical with Super) and even Goku going to Hell is a fun little time waster. I wish they were this much fun and gave us breathing room in Dragonball instead of being some dull padding.
Animation
Pretty great. It's Toei so it's not like it's doing super amazing stuff, the direction and editing know how to make a sudden turn in the fight or a death feel like it matters.
Themes
For a lot of the series before and after, Goku is the guy who can singlehandedly solve problems. He values his friends and sometimes they pull his fat out of the fire but first and foremost he is the hero saving everyone. And once again, he arrives more powerful than ever. But in some way, in this arc, Vegeta is Goku's Goku. Goku meets powerful foes who underestimate him and Goku keeps getting back up and outlasting them. Now it's Goku's turn and he actually can't do this on his own. Vegeta believes only in his strength but Goku ends up relying on his friends whom are definitely weaker and manage to squeak out a win with the help of weak coward Yajirobe (remember when he first arrived AS STRONG AS GOKU?!). It's friendship and faith and tenacity that get them through. They don't just muscle threw it, staying in an "unwinnable" fight lets them see small opportunities and they need to exploit each one to win. "Never give up" is a cliche but a good shounen fight like this sells it. As good as a lot of the fights are in this series and as much as I like seeing Goku smush arrogant monsters, I really love that Goku doesn't really "win" this fight, the whole gang does bit by bit and it's forging the path to the Cell Saga ending, which, again, really feels like the series natural ending point (again, I'm not trying to knock the Buu saga. I think it's a mess in a lot of ways but it also has a lot of good points and ideas).
The saga also introduces "power levels" which makes sense in this arc and then is over-used as the series goes on. Here, the point is that the saiyins reduce strength to a number but our heroes, while weaker, are more spiritual, in their way. They sense ki and they fight even when the numbers say "don't". The numbers aren't wrong, our heroes are in way over their heads numbers aren't the end all. But then the series keeps doing it. It's great for the arc, bad once we get to Frieza where is just feels like people are trying to acquire bigger numbers (see also Shaman King).
Jokes
Far fewer but there are some good ones.
Characters
So the new major characters are Gohan, Vegeta and Kaio. I guess I could mention Nappa and Raditz but... naw. Despite Raditz being Goku's brother, he and Nappa aren't even thought of again once they are gone. So Kaio is just another in a line of quirky mentors for Goku but I think he works better than Karin. He's not my favourite but I appreciate what he brings (and I love the running gag in Super that Goku just keeps forgetting to bring him back to life). Vegeta is a character who becomes great but I feel like the Dragonball villains don't become great until after they are beaten. After all, though Piccolo isn't new, before he's an arrogant dick but his relationship with Gohan starts here and his death scene is really moving. Vegeta becomes more interesting when he's this weird villain who just happens to hang around and MARRY one of the lead characters despite still being an awful monster and slowly mellows while still having a chip on his shoulder.
I feel like that's one interesting point between evil Piccolo and Vegeta, they are both the kind of arrogant jerks who think they want a challenge until they get one and their pride is damaged. Both mellow somewhat but in different ways; Piccolo puts on an angry show and is curt but he's full of love. Vegeta is, even when he's a better person who the other characters sort of trust, just filled with bitterness about losing his status as "strongest" despite being one of the most powerful being and being INCREASINGLY powerful. But that character hasn't materialized yet. Mostly he's in the same mode as Piccolo when he was bad. The only difference is it's clear that the Saiyins, despite using ki, only think of it as some weapon of brute force. It's clear being able to think in terms beyond that is what allows our heroes to win rather than thinking in numbers.
But again, I feel like it's Gohan's tale and he's the break out. I could get fans not liking him early on; he's a cry baby and at a crucial moment he falters. But the point is he isn't his dad but that's OK. Gohan has value and he ends up contributing and it goes beyond occasionally raging, he makes real choices to help. He's not as flashy and fun as his dad, but I feel like this almost becomes a co-lead with his dad (though they are almost living parallel lives).
Action and Adventure!
Again, the fights go on REALLY long. Taken as individual segments and as an epic it often works but the Nappa fight goes on TOO long. There's good stuff in there and once half the cast is dead, the tension is appropriately racheted to make characters trying to strategize around an unstoppable force interesting. Goku vs. Vegeta is good but surprisingly it's almost a small part and the real meat is the desperation of three hurt heroes (and Yajirobe) desperately trying to finish off this guy. And all the beats work but it could pick up the pace at times. Still, Vegeta gets more than one cathartic beat down, my favourite being one I forgot; just being crushed by a really big Gohan.
