DB Films and Specials

Dragon Ball: The Path to Power Review

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The fourth Dragon Ball film is a real oddity as it was actually created after all 13 Dragon Ball Z films and was released as Dragon Ball GT was airing, meaning there is a noticeable uptick in animation quality; some of the designs were redone, especially Goku as he is literally the Kid Goku from DBGT complete with yellow trousers and pink armbands (at least later in the film), and there are moments of definite Z/GT style “powering up”. Despite all this though it re-adapts the first story arc (again!) but adds in the Red Ribbon Army instead of Pilaf (I’d say “again!” but the RRA here is mostly the characters not used in the previous film) so it definitely fits into the same mould as the three previous DB films, just with higher production values and a longer runtime. Does it work? Let’s take a look!

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Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure Review

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The third Dragon Ball movie is an odd one as it doesn’t feature any new characters at all but instead takes a good chunk of them from the Red Ribbon Army and 22nd Tenkaichi Tournament arcs and mushes them together, then throws in a new location for a bit of set dressing, plus Chiaotzu is some sort of Emperor now for some reason. The weird thing is that I find it really works, this is far and away my favourite of the four original Dragon Ball films, but then again I love the RRA and 22nd TB arcs, so maybe it’s not that big a shock. Well, either way, let’s take a look!

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Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle Review

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Dragon Ball’s second theatrical feature sort of picks up from where the last one left off, in that the previous film adapted the first 13 or so episodes of the show / story arc of the manga and this one riffs on the next one, where Goku meets Krillin and they train under Master Roshi… well, then it sort of stops to tell a mostly original story, though adding in a few missed beats from the previous film and of course favourite side-character Lunch, who gets a much different introduction here! Let’s take a look…

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Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Before we get to the final chunk of original Dragon Ball episodes I thought I’d better cover the four Dragon Ball movies first, as they all feature Goku as a kid, rather than the taller late teen we see in the final story arc, and they generally adapt the stories we’ve already covered via the main series, just with new antagonists and such. “Curse of the Blood Rubies” (known simply as “The Legend of Shenlong” in Japan) adapts the very first story arc of the series but takes out Pilaf and his gang and inserts a new threat in King Gurumes and his men. How much does this change the story? Not as much as it only being 40 minutes does… Still, let’s take a look at the first of many, many Dragon Ball-related 40-odd minute films and specials!

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