Dragon Ball Arcs With The Highest Stakes

Key Takeaways

• The Dragon Ball franchise evolved from lighthearted adventures to darker storylines with intense battles as Goku aged.
• Future Trunks saga showcased a powerful psychopath and doomed realities, leaving heroes on the losing end.
• Universe Survival saga raised the stakes in an epic tournament where losing meant erasing their universe from existence.

Dragon Ball starts as a fun adventure with Goku joining Bulma in her quest to find the Dragon Balls to wish herself a boyfriend. While its original premise is lighthearted, D ragon Ball became a bit more complex with fights, deaths, and reveals that made the franchise more intense as Goku grew older and expanded.

Throughout the series, the storylines became bleaker despite the existence of Dragon Balls and other elements that lightened the stakes as constant backups in case something went wrong. Yet, the franchise still managed to up the ante in certain arcs by introducing new villains, epic battles and, sometimes, making the Dragon Balls obsolete.

8 Future Trunks Saga

A Powerful Psychopath Dooming Realities

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episodes: 47-76

As one of the darker plots in Dragon Ball Super, the Future Trunks Arc has one of the best shonen villains as it introduces Zamasu’s psychopathic tendencies. Although initially the perfect Supreme Kai candidate, Zamasu’s hatred for mortals quickly escalates to a desire for destruction that is made real by Future Trunks’ doomed reality.

Not only showing the devastation of other realities, fused Zamasu’s power feels too immense as the Z fighters lose again and again in battle. While the enemy is defeated at the end, this arc never truly had the heroes on top, leaving the audience with the reality of doomed timelines.

7 Androids Saga

A Horrible Future Heightens The Stakes

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 119-139

While the Cell saga posed a bigger threat to the world, the Android arc set up all the high stakes in both storylines by starting with Future Trunks talking about the bleak future he comes from. By showing a future with no Goku and where most Z fighters have died, audiences quickly understand all that is at stake if the heroes lose.

With future Trunk’s help, the heroes are able to fight off the many Android threats, but not before a few setbacks, especially as more is uncovered about the horrific events in Trunk’s reality and its high death toll.

6 Cell Arc

Hope And Bleakness Make For An Intense Ending

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 140-194

The Cell Saga is filled with excitement, mixing up the good moments with the villainous threat. The saga has one of the best arc endings in all the anime series, with a long, epic battle that determines Earth’s future. While its tournament-esque nature lightens the load of Cell’s threat, the villain constantly reminds audiences of what he is capable of.

This saga’s stakes are in constant change, making fans feel hopeful with a reveal followed by uncovering the villain’s new abilities. Yet, the very ending is where things look really bleak, as most of the Z fighters are incapacitated, Goku is dead and Cell regenerates once again, relying on an injured teen Gohan to finish off the fight.

5 Majin Buu Arc

An Inconsistent Saga With Heroes Constantly Incapacitated

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 220-227

As one of the most polarizing arcs in the anime, the Buu arc’s quality may not be always at its highest, but it definitely keeps the stakes high. Featuring hopeless moments, as Majin Buu felt like an undefeatable foe and as most characters died or were incapacitated at some point or another.

In the Majin Buu saga, the angels and Gods of destruction were yet to be introduced, which meant that the villain felt like the biggest threat imaginable to the universe, with Goku needing everyone’s help to defeat the enemy at the end.

4 Universe Survival Saga

The Most At Sake In An Epic Tournament Filled With Threats

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episodes: 77-131

In terms of the actual threat, the Tournament of Power has the highest reach, since losing it means having their universe erased from existence. Yet, with so many powerful fighters in one team, along with the tournament setting, makes it easier to ignore the high-stakes threat.

With the existence of a whole universe in play, the battles reflect how devastating a loss would be, resulting in some incredible moments that make this saga so rewatchable. In particular, every enemy in this tournament poses a different threat, but none as big as Jiren, who is so powerful that it has Goku and Frieza teaming up at the end.

3 Frieza Arc

A Saga Filled With Stressful Moments, Intense Battles And A Terrifying Villain

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 39 – 107

Featuring some of the most iconic moments of the franchise, the Frieza Saga is filled with great fights, high stakes, and memorable scenes. This is one of the few arcs that feels like there is an ever-present threat that makes this plot an incredibly terrifying saga.

With the hunt for the Dragon Balls going sideways, an all-powerful tyrant, and an abundance of lackeys, this whole saga is filled to its brim with stressful moments. The stakes feel so high that Goku has to unlock a whole new transformation to defeat the evil antagonist that seeks to dominate the entire universe.

2 King Piccolo Saga

Unprecedented Evil Brings On Major Deaths

• Dragon Ball
• Episodes: 102-122

While the Dragon Ball universe used to be way smaller during the first anime, the King Piccolo arc managed to heighten the stakes without having to threaten everyone in existence. At that point, King Piccolo was the biggest threat introduced, responsible for killing, for the first time, multiple main characters.

Moreover, with the death of Shrenron, the Dragon Balls became obsolete, making every death count and every encounter more intense. As one of the best sagas of the entire franchise, the King Piccolo Saga was a turning point in the series, having a dark, evil, and unbeatable threat for the first time, making most events unprecedented.

1 Saiyan Arc

High Stakes Set For The Entirety Of Dragon Ball Z

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 1-35

After the end of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z made sure to put the stakes all the way up, with its first arc revealing that Goku is part of a warrior race who, allegedly, is way stronger than him. It indeed turned out that the Saiyans were not the biggest threat Goku and the Z fighters would have to face, but they still managed to do a lot of damage and heighten the stakes to unprecedented levels.

The saga was responsible for killing off Goku for the first time to defeat his brother Raditz, one of the weakest Saiyan warriors in the franchise, highlighting that the protagonist was far from invincible. Moreover, the eventual deaths of Piccolo and Kami meant the Dragon Balls could not be used to help, leaving the Z fighters in a hopeless situation that had way fewer safety nets than later sagas.