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The 16 Most Influential Dragon Ball Episodes
Akira Toriyama’s impact can be seen all over the pop culture landscape.
Longtime fans know that, though the franchise will become most famous for its copious battles and blazing power-up sequences, the first bits of the original Dragon Ball are kind of an on-the-road comedy where Goku and Bulma meet an assembly line of weirdos and the easily-provoked. The final tournament of the original Dragon Ball concludes with Goku beating Piccolo, the latter the offspring of a wannabe world conqueror and a character driven to become the strongest fighter out of misplaced dedication to his evil elder and his own inner motivation. And when he does arrive fresh from his training in the afterlife, the main moment that everyone recalls isn’t the glory of Battle Christ risen, but rather DBZ villain Vegeta’s eternally quoted reaction to his power level in the series’ English dub.
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