Dragon Ball Movie 1: Shen Long no Densetsu

If you are a film buff, literary critic, or even a fan of Japanese history you will adore this time-capsule. This is classic DragonBall with the addition of a look at the political and economic concerns of the time this piece was created. Observing the various references to fear of Industrialisation we see the Japanese rural perspective on the changes going through their country post-WW2. To see it in anime form is both surreal and fascinating to an educated person. Don't misunderstand me, it is in no way like Princess Mononoke, but it serves to be a very entertaining way to reintroduce the characters of ... Dragonball.

Also, I highly encourage you to listen to this with headphones, the sound of this anime is surprisingly spot-on, even by DBZ standards.

Another praise I have for this piece is that because of its time restraint it doesn't drag on (no pun intended) like the main series does in many aspects. It gets right to the point and it makes it extremely enjoyable to experience.

This movie is a totally solid one-off. If you wanna introduce someone to Dragon Ball, I think this is a fine way to do it. The animation is beautiful, I do like King Gurumes as a villain, and the action sequences from the martial arts to the dogfights go HARD.

But I understand that this is no one's definitive Dragon Ball. It just retells the origin story with a different bad guy that no one outside of fans of *this* particular movie would give a damn about, integrates him and his henchmen *into* the origin story beats, and it has zero bearing on any other Dragon ... Ball material except the other two theatrical movies which are in continuity with this one.

I like it a lot myself, but I'm not sure I would recommend it beyond "one-off fun little movie". If you're a continuity nut, this is not for you. But if you can enjoy a one-off alternate timeline involving these iconic characters, go right ahead.

The animation while more fluid than the TV anime isn't anything to write home about, none of the movie original characters really matter nor do they do much except for the start and the end. It is the first movie of the franchise so I suppose the overall sort of "clumsy" feeling that it gives you makes sense, as it is very clearly not a movie meant to be watched in the current year or ever again.

The story is a loose "what if?" recap of the very first arc. Instead of the Pilaf gang we are introduced to this weird demon guy and his very ... boring goons, which are more competent that Shu and Mai, this is a negative.

The Pilaf gang was never meant to be seen as actual obstacles and instead existed for what the series was at the start, gags. Their failures and overall pathetic nature was funny and charming, if you take away their fuck ups the goons just become boring tough guys with equally boring scenes. It doesn't help that we don't learn anything about these characters, making it difficult to get invested in the antagonists of the film. It tries to make up for it by giving the audience more action, but just like the animation it looks nice but isn't all that impressive or different from what you would see in the TV anime.

Same goes for the new movie original character who was (sorta) part of the main crew, none of the scenes with her were funny and instead she just existed to drive the plot along, something which Bulma does in the original series but in a more entertaining way. I couldn't even remember her name because she was so forgettable and I can't be bothered to google it right now.

Goku has little to no focus. We get good moments with Bulma and Yamcha, but Goku gets little to no time to shine. The same goes for Puar, Roshi and Oolong, but at the time of the story they were minor characters anyhow.

Goku is the MAIN character, why the fuck does Yamcha get better scenes and more focus in the first movie than the actual main lead? No hate to Yamcha fans, but this decision just does not make sense to me. With Bulma it's fine as she's the main heroine and the second lead, but even in the OG series Yamcha's role becomes incredibly minor. Having him get a bigger role than Goku just...baffles me.

Finally my biggest issue with this movie, the pacing. Everything feels way too fast as they rush from story beat to story beat with little to no time to relax and they redo scenes from the original but in a way more loose and less impactful way. It makes sense as this movie isn't even an hour long so they have to rush it but oh my goodness SLOW DOWN.

Yeah it's just not very good.