Dragon Ball Z Saiyan Saga: Episodes 1-35

The Saiyan Saga is the first story arc of Dragon Ball Z: thirty-five episodes broadcast on Fuji TV between April 26, 1989 and February 7, 1990, adapted from chapters 195 to 241 of Akira Toriyama's manga. It is the saga that turned Dragon Ball from a comic adventure into an epic of battles.

What the saga is about

Five years after the end of the original series, Goku lives on Mount Paozu with Chi-Chi and their young son Gohan. The peace is shattered when Raditz arrives from space: he is Goku's older brother, and he reveals that both of them are Saiyans, a warrior race that conquers planets and sells them off. Goku was sent to Earth as a baby to wipe out its people, but a blow to the head made him forget his mission.

Raditz kidnaps Gohan to force his brother to join him. To save him, Goku teams up with his old enemy, Piccolo, and when he realizes there is no other way, he sacrifices himself: he pins Raditz and lets Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon pierce them both. Before dying, Raditz announces that two more Saiyans, far stronger than him, will arrive within a year.

A year of training

So begins the long wait that fills half the saga. Goku, taken to the afterlife by Kami, runs the length of Snake Way, a road a million kilometers long, to train under King Kai, the god of the North. On his tiny planet, with ten times Earth's gravity, he learns two techniques that will become legendary: the Kaio-ken, which multiplies his strength for a few moments, and the Spirit Bomb, a sphere of energy gathered from every living thing.

On Earth, meanwhile, Piccolo takes Gohan away. He abandons him in the wilderness for six months, then trains him with a harshness that slowly turns into affection. Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu and Yajirobe train at Kami's palace instead.

Vegeta and Nappa

When the Saiyans land, earlier than expected, Goku has just been revived by Shenron but is still far away. Nappa, a brutal giant, and Vegeta, prince of his race, overwhelm Earth's defenders: Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Tien and finally Piccolo die, the last sacrificing himself to protect Gohan. Kami dies with him, and the Dragon Balls become useless.

Goku arrives at the last moment, defeats Nappa with the Kaio-ken and faces Vegeta in a duel that remains one of the most famous in the series. The Saiyan prince turns into a Great Ape using an artificial moon, and it takes everyone, from Yajirobe to Krillin and Gohan, to bring him down. In the end Goku asks that he be spared, and Vegeta leaves Earth swearing revenge.

Episodes

The titles are those of Funimation's uncut 2005 redub. The original 1996 English dub, produced with Saban, was heavily edited: it merged many episodes, cut scenes and softened every reference to death, so its episode count and titles do not match the Japanese original.

Filler and differences from the manga

While the anime was on the air, Toriyama was drawing the manga week by week, and Toei had to avoid catching up with him. The solution was to stretch the year of waiting with original episodes. Episodes 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 are pure filler, with no counterpart in the comic: the robot in the desert, Gohan's dinosaur friend, Goku's fall into Hell, Princess Snake, the raft and the orphans. Episodes 11 and 17 are almost entirely original: Vegeta and Nappa's stopover on Planet Arlia and the Pendulum Room simulation against two Saiyans. In 18, the artificial moon projected by Goku's old pod is invented, and the first episode adds Gohan's long adventure lost in the woods.

They are among the more respectable filler episodes in the series, but if you are in a hurry, Dragon Ball Kai, the 2009 recut, drops them. For where it fits in your viewing, see our watch order guide.

Our take

The Saiyan Saga is where Dragon Ball sheds its skin. Toriyama takes the characters of the original series and confronts them with a threat on a cosmic scale: for the first time the good guys really die, one after another, and victory comes at a terrible price. Strength becomes a number read off a scouter.

And yet the saga never loses its heart. Gohan's journey from crybaby to little warrior, and Piccolo's from demon to a teacher willing to die for his student, are among the most satisfying arcs in the whole series. And Vegeta, introduced as a ruthless tyrant, leaves Earth with unfinished business that will make him Goku's eternal rival.

It has flaws: the middle stretch, between Snake Way and Gohan's misadventures, drags on for too many weeks. But the finale, from Goku's arrival on the battlefield to the last Spirit Bomb, is Dragon Ball Z at its best, and still the ideal gateway into the series.