So, I’m skipping the Garlic Jr. Saga. It’s mostly filler and I have a limited time where I can access Dragon Ball Z and watch it, so I I just went straight into the next set of “canon” episodes. The Android Saga picks up a year after the Frieza Saga, with the team anticipating Goku’s return to Earth from his travels across the galaxy. Unfortunately, Frieza is also coming to Earth, having been saved and re-built as a cyborg by his father King Cold. Complicating things even further is the appearance of a mysterious young man named Trunks, who easily defeats Frieza and King Cold. He then delivers a warning to Goku when he arrives back on Earth: A pair of androids stronger than any previous opponent Goku has faced will soon appear. The Z Fighters set to work training to prepare to face the new threat.
Overall, these episodes are pretty good. Not a ton of action, but they keep good pacing, set up the coming conflict with the Androids pretty well, and introduce a fan favorite new character in Trunks. And boy, what an introduction does Trunks get. It certainly sets him up as an awesome new fighter and it is easy to see how he got so many fans so quickly. He uses a sword, which is super cool. He has a mysterious air about him. He is a super Saiyan when the only Saiyans we know of are Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan. He kills Frieza with one sword stroke and deals with King Cold almost as quickly. It just does everything it needs to in order to make Trunks look cool.
Not much happens in the rest of the episodes. It is a lot of training and preparation for the upcoming battle, but the episodes aren’t terrible. Even the filler episode, where Chi-Chi badgers Goku and Piccolo into going to get drivers licenses isn’t bad. It is a bit out of place in the series, coming right before the androids finally appear, but it does have a little bit of humor in it and isn’t painful to watch.
These episodes aren’t necessarily essential DBZ watching. Trunk’s introduction is good, so I would check those out, but once Trunks is out of the picture most people could probably skip on to the appearance of the Androids (which will be discussed next week!)
Big River Anime Reviews 