Dragon Ball Z- Bardock: The Father of Goku review

Everyone reading this site regularly probably knows the Dragon Ball saga and its legacy that is, without flattery, equally grand as Sailor Moon, Robotech, and others. Whether people like it or not, it changed the world of animation completely and was probably one of the main factors behind the Western Anime boom we witnessed in the 80s and 90s. It was more than a shonen combat/adventure franchise, it was and is, a true legend of animation.

With this said, it's time to explain the readers what are they doing here in the first place today. We are going to look at one of the most important pieces in the DB saga, a Dragon Ball Z feature film/ TV special, Bardock: The Father of Goku.

We all knew that Goku had a father, because during the Namek saga Freeza is briefly remembering he met someone very alike to Goku in the past. But all of this is rather fast and before we can digest what we just saw, the battle of titans resumes. I'm not sure if this was due to fan pressure (like half of the BDZ) or Toriyama's own idea, but this animation develops Freeza's single memory into a full-fledged animated story of 48 minutes worth.

Bardock is a low-class Saiyan warrior working for Freeza, just like the rest of his race. He is loyal, always giving his best and believing in the Saiyan value for Freeza's cause. He doesn't seem to be a father figure, though, as he barely takes notice of his son being born. However, during the extermination of the planet Kanassa, he is infected with the ability to foresee the future and soon starts to have disturbing vision concerning the fate of his planet. How will he use that knowledge and how everything will turn out for him? Only one way to find out.

Technically speaking, this is a TV special (there are 4 “back after the commercials” screens throughout the projection) and I can't force myself to call it otherwise, it's just to short to fit another term. I must say that I'm always impressed by the animation of DB extras. It's clean, simple and yet you have a lot of fun just watching it, it really runs smooth. OK, I'm not comparing this to such perils like Akira, but it really is fluid, just in a different way...hope you follow me and know what do I mean ^^. The music is there, but you don't really give it too much attention (I remember listening in a lot more in the TV series than here), the only thing you really take notice of is the ever-awesome opening, Head-Cha-La, which is one of the probably coolest openings in the history of anime.

Now it's time to express my thoughts on the content of the plot itself... It's a specific production. The plot of Dragon Ball was never a sophisticated one and here it's not only simple, but 100% predictable and you know exactly how will it end from the very beginning. It's just the way things go in the series, for which this special is an expansion. The only way of preventing this feeling is to be absolutely new to the franchise, but again, then you wouldn't really watch this as it's a side story made for fans that are already deep in the show (Namek saga at least) and know who is who. You know what's going on, but you don't care; you watch this one to get a better look at some characters, not to follow the plot they are all part of, at least that is how I perceive it.

Also, a problem with this animation is that while after watching it it seems like a good prequel story even to the very first Dragon Ball anime, you don't want to watch it as the first thing you'll have contact with in the franchise. It just reveals and moves between too many matters that are steadily revealed throughout the DB sagas, seeing them for the first time here would mean spoiling yourself a major part of the series. And you don't want to do such a thing while watching something that has more that 250 episodes in total.

Finally, it's time to cover what we get from the Funimation.... not much really. No bonus features are present, unless you consider four trailers of other anime (including DBZ itself) such a content.

What is present, however, is an English dub version, which surprisingly has an alternate, English-oriented title screen (the us version is an obvious add-on, you can see the difference in the shades of black used in the original release and the new one added over it). Unfortunately, this is yet another case of the Japanese-imported-to-USA syndrome, where too much silence in the scenes is unacceptable. Result? After watching the movie with original soundtrack first, you suddenly notice that there's almost always someone talking and there is a lot of dialogue and text that is simply non-existent in the Japanese dub. What is worse, it's usually some banter not fitting the scene or that could be easily skipped and one realizes very fast that this is forced into the anime. Especially that to cope with that, the dialogue that actually WAS there before is altered in various, usually large, degrees. Just set the subtitles on and you'll see that characters say something completely different than in the original dub. This is of course a shame, but nothing new, Voltrons and Transformers Cybertron being my favourite examples for this.

If this wasn't bad enough, the choice of actors is pretty bad. Only Bardock was chosen well and his English voice fits him much better than the Japanese one. Others didn't have that much luck (well, maybe Zarbon did a bit) and for the most of the time (I watched first 15 minutes in English the second time before switching back to Japanese again, I still find it a good proof of my level of commitment to the CDX society) the voices are completely misguided. Especially Freeza, who now is dubbed by a women(!) who stylizes herself as an old, wise witch(!!!). Dear God... he had such a cool voice in the original version, why didn't they try to imitate that one, damn it!.

So yes, while there are some anime where listening to English actors is a pleasure itself (GITS Stand Alone Complex or Tezuka's Metropolis) to the point that you prefer it over the original seiyuus, it is by no means the case with this one.

Overall, I like this TV special, I can fully enjoy it as a on-and-off Dragon Ball fan. If you're fresh in the DB business, you might want to wait some time before viewing this, however, do put it on the “things to watch” list and don't forget about it when the right time comes, there's a big chance you'll like it.

I don't like the way Funimation approached this, though. Their dubbing is crap, the dialogue list is expanded/altered in a weird and totally unnecessary way, the extras are missing... Someone really messed up; based only on the quality of US content I would never touch this DVD with a stick.

Is this worth buying, then? Surprisingly, yes. Finding any DB special or movie on the Internet is extremely hard and so, for many people, including myself, buying this release is pretty much the only chance of seeing this animation at all. And believe me, watching is a lot more fun than reading the overview at Wikipedia. Just make sure you'll never touch the English soundtrack, it's for your own good.

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