Unraveling the Raditz Saga and Dragon Ball Z vs. Dragon Ball Z Kai

Hello and welcome to the Cyber Dragon Ball. I'm

your host, Steve Kamehameha, and I am excited

to return to the world of Dragon Ball. So I've

been going on a deep dive in all things Dragon

Ball. I've been watching actually for the first

time Dragon Ball itself, which I'll probably

review later on. But for now, I'm going to go

through Dragon Ball Z and Daima. And then Dragon

Ball Super. I may cover GT at some point. I don't

know. I'll probably do the movies as well. I

realize there's a lot of continuity issues throughout

the entirety of Dragon Ball and the entire saga

of it. So without further ado, let's dive back

into the electrifying world of Dragon Ball Z.

Whether you're a seasoned Saiyan or a newbie

just discovering the power of the Dragon Balls,

this podcast is your one -stop shop for everything

Dragon Ball. From iconic battles and character

arcs to the latest news and fan theories, I've

got you covered. So without further ado, let's

get into the Raditz Saga. There's something bad

heading straight for us. What? Are you sure,

Goku? I'm positive. I've never felt a power like

this before. Yeah, I feel it now, too. There's

nothing there, you guys. What is it? I've never

sensed anything like this before. Such an awful

power. Who is that? It's not Piccolo, is it?

This isn't good. I smell death in the air. We

meet again at last. You've grown up. I recognize

you, though, Kakarot. Kakarot? So the Raditz

saga of Dragon Ball Z takes place five years

after the end of the original Dragon Ball series.

So we start with the arrival of Raditz. And of

course, Goku is now an adult, lives. Pretty peaceful

life with his wife, Chi Chi, and their son, Gohan,

who's basically like Goku was at the beginning

of Dragon Ball. Albeit a little bit more wise

on living. And of course, that peace is disrupted

by the arrival of a powerful Saiyan named Raditz.

who later on after his scuffle with Piccolo reveals

that he is Goku's older brother. Dun, dun, dun.

Reddit kind of discloses that, you know, Goku

was originally sent to Earth to conquer it, not

to become its protector. But he lost his memory

after, you know, bumping his head and forgetting

everything. So Raditz, in an effort to get Kakarot

or Goku to join his side, kidnaps Gohan to more

or less force Goku into joining him in destroying

the world. So... We kind of kick the episode

off doing that. And, you know, Raditz is kind

of wreaking havoc and and reveals Goku's, you

know, true Saiyan origins. And, you know, of

course, they discover why the tail was there

in the first place. And Raditz, you know, informs

him of his mission and. It's forced Goku to have

to team up with his old enemy, Piccolo. Which

we get, you know, more or less Piccolo starting

to have this common enemy, common goal with Goku

where they're fighting as a team instead of against

each other, which it just is a further testament

to Goku and his ability to turn his enemies into

friends. So we get to the showdown, of course,

of. Every weird thing, we get the reunion of

of Goku teaming up with with Piccolo to rescue

Gohan and defeat Raditz. And, you know, they're

both terrified of the the Saiyan battle. And.

We get to see Gohan's hidden potential unleashed,

and it's that hybrid of human and insane blood

and. This is a lot of foreshadowing here with

Gohan, which coming into the beginning of Dragon

Ball Z, you have no idea what he's capable of,

which it just continues to expand exponentially

as Dragon Ball Z and Super progress of what Gohan's

capable of when he's upset. So he injures Raditz

by a headshot, pun intended. and gives Goku and

Piccolo a fighting chance to attack. And sadly,

in a desperate move, Goku sacrifices himself

by holding Raditz in place so Piccolo can deliver

the fatal attack of the special beam cannon that

kills both brothers together. And of course,

before dying, Raditz reveals that... There are

two more Saiyans coming, much more powerful than

he. And we don't find out who they are until

later, but they're listening through the scouter

and have all of the data that's been recorded

by Raditz. And of course, they they mentioned

that they'll arrive in one Earth year to avenge

him. And it sets the stage for. the Saiyan saga

or the Vegeta saga or whatever you want to call

it. Um, I, I know that technically Raditz is

the start of the Saiyan saga, but I kind of like

to break it up because you get that, that whole

training, you get King Kai, you get things like

that. So Raditz dies. Goku dies. Piccolo, of

course, kidnaps Gohan. To train him. Seeing that

he has this latent. Hidden potential inside of

him. Which. It pretty much becomes. A year of

training for everyone. And in a lot of ways.

Most of them are not strong enough. To fight

Vegeta and Nappa. But. It doesn't prevent them

from trying. Which is good. So we get. We get

that where Piccolo is training Gohan and then

learns about the moon. And I know that in Dragon

Ball Master Roshi destroys it because of Goku.

And then at some point they wish it back because

Piccolo destroys it again because of Gohan. He

also like rips Gohan's tail off at one point,

I think, too. I'm still going through and rewatching

because I rewatched with Dragon Ball Z Kai recently,

but I'm actually going back fresh into Dragon

Ball Z because it's the first time I've watched

actual like proper Dragon Ball Z since I saw

it in the 90s and early 2000s. So. I'm kind of

going in with a fresh eye looking at all of this

once more and. I also watched it when they had

a lot of the old voice cast before they switched

it up during the freezes saga. So and the cell

saga. So I kind of was used to pre Sean Schemmel

before everyone kind of got unified across the

brand. So so anyways, we have Goku going through

Snake Mountain. Heading to King Kai to train

to prepare for the the same arrival and of course,

you know, it's 10x gravity on his world and King

Kai and his planet kind of become this staple

of all the way through super because they continually

have Goku visit and go to King Kai's world to

train into prep and whatnot. So it's very much

an important stage, you could say, for a lot

of things that come down the pipe later. So as

for the remaining Z fighters, Krillin, Tien,

Yamcha, and Chiaotzu, they're undergoing a rigorous

training to prepare for the same invasion with

Kami and... It's it's funny because there's like

the hyperbolic time chamber. It could have been

highly helpful for them to have used that at

this point, but I realize. It wasn't. Thought

of until the Android and cell saga, but that

would have been highly beneficial for everyone

involved to have trained there because, you know.

uh like a week is a year in there and so they

could have gotten a lot of training in but yeah

it and then you know of course the year later

and i'll get into that in a following episode

but we get we get vegeta and napa arriving on

earth and causing chaos and you know the z fighters

have to of course confront them and Kind of go

from there. So. Again, going into this fresh.

I realize the difference between Dragon Ball

Z and Dragon Ball Z Kai. Dragon Ball Z Kai cuts

out a lot of the filler of like Gohan out scavenging

and his little misadventure where Goku has to

save him and with the Nimbus and Goku. Out in

the wilderness and. Not to mention that Dragon

Ball Z Kai is roughly half the episodes that

Dragon Ball Z proper is Dragon Ball Z proper

is like 200. 291 episodes. And. Dragon Ball Z

Kai has 159 or. At least for the Japanese version,

167 for the international version, so it's still.

Like 130 episodes shorter. Then then Dragon Ball

Z Kai or then Dragon Ball Z proper. So like episodes

one through three of Dragon Ball Z is like episode

one of like Kai more or less like they kind of.

Condensed a lot of the episodes. So like I think

even Z Kai has less episodes than even that.

But yeah, it's it's kind of mind boggling. That

they they did this, plus they they kind of redubbed

it and kind of redid all of it in like two to

three years. And. While I like being able to

blitz through Dragon Ball Z faster. Using Dragon

Ball Z Kai, Dragon Ball Z proper has a lot more

of the character development, a lot more of the

building. You also have a lot more of the like

powering up. And so it kind of it's a slow burn

in some aspects. I remember watching it on Toonami

and it was it was insane how long it would take

to get through episodes and. Yeah, I mean, it.

It was it was fun. But. I also had limited time.

I kind of wanted to get to the point. And, you

know. It is just. Yeah. So anyways, with with

Dragon Ball Z Kai and Dragon Ball Z proper. I'm

going by Dragon Ball Z proper so we can kind

of get the full feel for it. There were, of course,

some some recasts with characters when they did

it. Different different openings, different music.

We had even redubs from. Dragon Ball Z to Dragon

Ball Z Kai. Different actors portraying different.

Some of the same characters or different characters

that we had more more actors kind of portraying.

Yeah, so like Christopher Sabat or Chris Sabat,

who plays Vegeta and Piccolo. He played all kinds

of characters like. Zarbon and, you know, Berder

and Jace and. Kid Vegeta, like and then they

they switched to new voice actors for a lot of

those. You know, of course, you get. Like Sean

Schemmel played other characters as well, and

they recast and then. They're. Yeah, I do like

I do like Z Kai. I do like some of the enhancements

that were done. I do like some of the. Some of

the action sequences and some of the sound effects,

however. I preferred Dragon Ball Z proper because

I liked the music, plus I like when they were

on like Toonami and you had the that, you know,

the rock, the dragon, a lot of the hardcore music.

The teasers for the bumpers, like it's just I

felt like it was a superior product over Kai.

I don't quite understand why they went and did

Kai in general, but. I know that they they had

more consistent translations and. It removed

blood for like Nicktoons and. I know that Nicktoons

had like tighter restrictions and things like

that, and they renamed some of the stuff. Like

Gallic Gun, Gallic Blast, Spirit Bomb, Spirit

Blast, you know, stuff like that. So. What do

you guys think? Like, what are your. What are

your favorite parts of. This reintroduction to

the world of Dragon Ball Z or Dragon Ball, if

you're familiar with Dragon Ball, like what what

are some of the things that you kind of enjoyed

and kind of grab from this? I plan on going into

more detail when we get to the Goku versus Vegeta,

because I I know for one, it takes longer to

go through. But two, you get a lot more stuff

going on with with Nappa and Vegeta. And Nappa

and the Z fighters and a lot of the Z fighters

kind of biting the dust and Goku fighting his

way to come back and learning all these new skills.

It's it's when Dragon Ball Z really starts ramping

up before we get to the Frieza and the Namek

saga. Even the Namek saga is not quite my favorite

until we get to Frieza. So, yeah, it's. It's

going to be interesting to see how well it holds

up and how well I, for one, what my memory was

of it then and then going into it fresh now.

So, of course, let me know what you think about

this episode. Let me know what you want to see

improved or discussed or talked about as I go

through this as I'm I'm just kind of reentering

the world of Dragon Ball Z proper. I used to.

run an actual Dragon Ball Z website way back

when early 2000s when a lot of this was airing

on Toonami and I had you know the different Beckett

books where you have all the resources and things

like that so we can we can dive into some of

those things later but before I fully close it

out the again the highlights for this this part

of the saga You get to learn Goku's Saiyan heritage.

And mission to conquer Earth. You get to have

Goku and Piccolo team up. You get Gohan's hidden

power. Goku's sacrifice. And the Z fighters assembling.

And then of course the lowlights. Raditz's short

stay. And he's pretty much never mentioned again.

I mean Vegeta basically becomes the adoptive

brother. And despite. Raditz being Goku's brother,

he's relatively briefly in this episode or in

this chunk of Dragon Ball Z. Would be nice to

revisit him in the future, but who knows? A lot

of the episodes felt kind of drawn out in Dragon

Ball Z proper compared to Kai, which, again,

is another reason if you're not wanting to watch

a lot of the filler to watch Dragon Ball Z Kai

over Dragon Ball Z proper. And then there's a

lot of underdevelopment, certain characters such

as Raditz and Gohan, you know, could have had

more development and in -depth part of this arc.

And then the animation quality being that it's

a return, you know, from Dragon Ball to the Z.

It's not great compared to later sagas, but,

you know. It does improve gradually as it goes.

I mean, the guy is learning as he goes along.

Overall, the Reddit Sagan Dragon Ball Z Kai pivotal

moment in setting the tone direction of the series.

Despite a few areas that could have been, you

know, enhanced or or brought up with the storyline,

but. Yeah. So. Thank you, as always, for listening

to the Cyber Dragon Ball. I've been your host,

Steve Kamehameha. And you can, of course, interact

with this episode on geekcastradio .com. You

can listen on your favorite podcatcher. We're

going to come back next time with the Saiyan

Saga. Next time on the Cyber Dragon Ball, Steve

Kamehameha will discuss the Saiyan Saga. Will

Goku arrive in time? Find out next time on the

Geekcast Radio Network.