Hello and welcome to a new series of articles from video reviewer extraordinaire Vega Goose. In this series we will be taking a look episode by episode of the series DragonBall a prequel series to the widely popular Dragon Ball Z. With the intro out of the way let’s dive into Episode 1: Secret of the Dragon Balls

The opening narration does a good job of introducing us to the world and it’s main character without feeling like it was just their for exposition.

For the time the animation is really good not exactly Hayao Miyazaki but much better than other animes of it’s time.

As introduced Goku is a very likeable character if a touch naive. His backstory is very simple. His entire life has been spent in this forest far from the rest of the world, in fact up until the start of the show the only human he has ever seen is his grandfather.

The episode begins showing Goku doing his daily training while an unknown visitor drives toward his home.

This is Bulma who is hunting for the mystic relics known as the dragon balls. She wants these because if you gather all seven together you can summon the guardian dragon Shenron (or Shenlong both are technically canon names for the dragon)

Once summoned this dragon will grant you any wish. From something as simple as a sandwich all the way to immortality. Goku believes the dragon ball he has is actually the soul of his grandfather Gohan.

While hunting for food Goku winds up crossing paths with Bulma who runs him over with her car. Goku believes the car is actually a monster who has come to take his fish and so he attacks it.

After throwing her car bulma emerges terrified and opens fire on Goku. However the bullets bounce right off mildly annoying the boy rather than doing any real damage. He readys his own weapon and goes in to attack when Bulma leaps from her car begging him to stop.

Goku realizes his mistake when she tells him shes not a monster but a human. Goku is confused at first seeing as she doesn’t have a tail like he does. She explains that she is a girl which confuses Goku even further as he has no idea what a girl is other than a few stories his grandfather told him so after checking her out to be sure she’s not dangerous he invites her back to his house to eat his fish.

She goes along realizing the dragonball she wants is at his home.

At this point we see the first issue with translation as they go on a two minute jive about Goku making fun of Bulma’s name. See this is because in Japanese her name was bloomers which is a type of underwear however in the English version the joke just kinda falls flat (Not that it was particularly strong in the first place.)

It would of made more sense if they were going to change her name to just drop the joke.

Once they arrive she explains to Goku what the dragon balls are and shows him that she has two others goku however doesn’t care and tells her she can’t have his grandpa.

This is when we meet the big bads of season 1 Emperor Pilaf, a small, blue imp-like creature who craves nothing more than power and dreams of ruling the world. He rules over an empire that consists of a simple castle in a forest of shrooms. His only two subjects seem to be his henchmen Shu and Mai. They are not what you’d call competent villains and basically serve as comic relief. The episode villains are where the threat of the show come from while these three remain in the background

Back with Goku and Bulma she attempts to bribe him with a peak up her skirt for the Dragonball but Goku isn’t interested. Now out of ideas Bulma convinces Goku to go with her on her adventure telling him his grandfather would want him to go with her. She sees Goku as a potential bodyguard seeing as how you know he’s freaking bulletproof. Goku goes along with this reminding her that his grandpa stays with him.

Seeing as Goku trashed her car Bulma take a capsule to summon her back up motorcycle. See in this universe objects can be packed into small handsized capsules which will revert to their original size when activated. Bulma has to then convince Goku she isn’t a witch as all he saw was a motorcycle spring from her hand.

They stop for a “pit stop” when Bulma is attack by a pterodactyl (yeah I should mention dinosaurs are a thing that just exist because shut up it does.It’s japanese anime from the 80’s what do you want) So Goku has to spring into action killing the monster and saving Bulma in what is actually a pretty fun scene.

Overall this episode does a great job of introducing the viewer to exactly what they can expect from the series and as a season opening gives us exactly what we need to know to be invested while keeping enough back to remain interesting

That’s it for now see you next time on VG Spoils Dragon Ball