Dragon Ball Z Movie 1: Return My Gohan!

Animation - 7.1

Sound - 5.9

Story - 5.5

Character - 6.0

Value - 5.1

Enjoyment - 6.0

Average - 5.9

Reviewed 11 times Statistic

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BallerGamer

(2006-06-23 17:48:41) 2006-06-23 17:47:57

Average	6.3
Animation	8
Sound	4
Story	5
Character	8
Value	6
Enjoyment	7

Piccolo was doing some daily training in order to get revenge on Goku, but was interrupted by a couple of annonymous men. Later, these same men show up at Goku's house, knocking Chi Chi and the Ox King out, while kidnapping Gohan. Goku heads towards Master Roshi's place in order to retrieve a dragon scouter to pin point his son. He finds himself within the mansion of Garlic Jr. Garlic Jr, who found all of the dragon balls, used them to wish for eternal life. Kami also shows up, telling everyone the story of how Garlic, Garlic Jr's father, competed for the throne of Guardian of the Earth, but was too evil, and rebelled. But he was sent to another dimension, and spent all of his time alone.

Goku, who cared less for the man's background history, went ahead to find Gohan. It appears he ate an apple that made him drunk, and keeps on wandering off. There, he meets three of Garlic Jr's strongest warriors, who are all named after food. Krillin shows up to help Goku out, as did Piccolo, but his intention was to get revenge for what they did to him. The three were taken care of, and Piccolo and Goku head to Garlic Jr. He couldn't beat the two, and created a black hole to suck everyone up but himself. However, Gohan unleashed his fury, and sent only Garlic Jr within the hole to live in an eternal hell. When everything was bright and clear, everyone heads home. Gohan doesn't seem to remember a thing.

While this supposed movie (only 40 minutes in length) isn't really great, you can't say it was horrible and a waste of time either. It did enough to keep you interested, but it just didn't do enough to make you really satisfied. Though for me, as long as it kept my interest without blowing it, I'm cool. The story really isn't compelling, but the fighting was pretty entertaining, as most of the fights in the entire anime is. What I really liked about this movie was that unlike in Dragonball Z, there wasn't much talking (which is what DBZ is infamous for), and just mostly action with a subpar story.

Other than that, the sound quality is pretty bad. In fact, it reminded me a lot of those classic 70's movies. Everything from how the music sounds, the quality of it, and just about everything. Plus, Goku was a horrible actor in here. He sounded so unenthusiastic. The animation on the other hand, for a movie that was created the year I was born (89), it really wasn't as bad as I expected. Normally the earliest episodes in an anime series, especially one created in the 80's, generally are mediocre from episode one, but get much better by the end. While the quality of the animation isn't the best, the artwork for it is pretty solid.

In short, like other anime based movies, this really should only be watched by fans of those anime series. This movie wasn't really bad; it was just lacking overall with the exception of fight scenes.