Finally all of Dragon Ball is on Crunchyroll in the UK. I was getting annoyed at how they would advertise it on Crunchyroll only to then read the small print and find highly restricted release which included not in Europe. Many people complained about the misleading headlines. But with the beginning of the story up online let’s take a look at how this started.

When Dragon Ball first hit the UK all those years ago, we got Z first. A LOT of bits of information was missing. This meant that some of the filler episodes in the Android Saga that helped explain to people who the hell the Red Ribbon Army was and why a scientist from them apparently hated Goku.  After Z and GT (which was bad) was over we finally got the original Dragon Ball that told the story of how many of these characters journey started and explain why some characters that are completely useless in Z are around… and I’m not just meaning Yamcha.

The Emperor Pilaf Saga consists of the first 13 episodes of Dragon Ball. It is worth mentioning that the titular villain has little to do with the overall plot and is more just called that in reference to later sagas being named after the antagonistic force the leads are facing.

The story is much more about Goku and Bulma upon meeting going on a journey to claim the 7 Dragon Balls for the first time. Pilaf and co are only a threat in the last 4 episodes and the last of those Goku himself is more the threat than Pilaf. Before that it’s more a threat of the episode. The animated version included more scenes of the Pilaf gang while in the manga they only show up at the end. This means those scenes where they show up early have no real impact on the events.

The show has a somewhat coarse humour, we actually see Goku without pants, from the front very early on, as well as Bulma pissing herself and flashing someone by accident.

What we get is a self-contained adventure starring an innocent but very powerful young boy with a tail and a more manipulative teen woman. Had the manga not proved popular that’s all it would have been, this self-contained story. Because of that you don’t get much teases for the future. The Funimation dub has Bulma state Goku can’t be from this planet but I doubt that was foreshadowing, Toriyami didn’t tend to make long term plans and given the series is fairly mystical in tone over sci fi. Aliens were most likely not a thought in his head yet… or the answer to a lot of major characters.

The one bit that could be seen as a tie in to future events is Master Roshi. The idea he could take Goku in and train him. You also get to see why he’s around rather than just be an old man who lives on an island and is apparently important but never got in any fight.

Still it is a fun little story opening and you get much better appearances of the auxiliary cast. And you find out something very important watching these. Yamcha was always a joke.

Rating: 👍👍👍