Many people consider Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball franchise to be one of the most influential series of all time, and there’s very good reason for that. Back in the nineties, Dragon Ball Z played a pivotal role in the popularization of anime in North America, paving the way for the likes of One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach to make their way West.
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Goku has encountered plenty of powerful opponents throughout the history of Dragon Ball, but some of the resulting fights are far better than others.
Since the franchise’s debut back in the mid-eighties, there have been five main Dragon Ball series, as well as a remastered version of the most popular one, Dragon Ball Z. As fans of the franchise will be all too aware of, though, some of the Dragon Ball series boast much better animation than others, particularly when it comes to consistency.
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Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball
- Release Date
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1986 – 1989
- Directors
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Minoru Okazaki, Daisuke Nishio
- Writers
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Akira Toriyama
It’s difficult to compare a series that began airing almost four decades ago to ones that are much more recent, yet looking at them all side by side, Dragon Ball is probably the weakest link. Sure, it has its charm, and the animation quality was fine for the era, but it could be very choppy at times and was also fairly inconsistent.
Things did improve towards the end of the series, with the Tien Shinhan and King Piccolo sagas offering some blistering highs. Even then, though, Dragon Ball‘s animation is incredibly dated by today’s standards and holds up a lot worse than Z‘s despite the latter also having been around for several decades now.
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Dragon Ball Super
Dragon Ball Super
- Release Date
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2015 – 2018
- Showrunner
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Tatsuya Nagamine
- Directors
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Tatsuya Nagamine
- Writers
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Tatsuya Nagamine, Akira Toriyama
Dragon Ball Super is generally considered to be the better of the three Z sequels when it comes to content, but its animation is arguably a huge step back. The production quality of the first few episodes was heavily criticized by the fandom, and although things did improve dramatically after the Beerus Saga, it just never quite looked right.
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The main problem with Super‘s animation stems from its art style, which is a lot sharper than most other Dragon Ball series and uses a much brighter color palette. This could often lead to some scenes looking strange and made the lack of detail in certain parts of the screen stand out that little bit more. All that said, Super‘s highs were pretty amazing.
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Dragon Ball Z
Dragon Ball Z
- Release Date
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1989 – 1996
- Directors
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Daisuke Nishio
- Writers
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Akira Toriyama, Takao Koyama
Considering the tight turnaround time for some of the episodes, the overall quality of Dragon Ball Z is really quite remarkable. Granted, it still has its fair share of lows and likely benefited from a much larger budget than its predecessor on account of the franchise’s growing popularity, but it remains impressive, nonetheless.
Save, perhaps, for the episodes produced by Last House, which often featured stiff animation and substandard detailing, some of the animation in Z is right up there with the very best. Goku’s epic fight against Frieza still holds up reasonably well today, as too do elements of Gohan’s final showdown with Perfect Cell.
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Dragon Ball GT
Dragon Ball GT
- Release Date
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1997 – 1996
- Network
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Fuji TV
- Showrunner
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Akira Toriyama
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Masako Nozawa
Oob (voice)
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Yûko Minaguchi
Uncredited
In stark contrast to its tone, Dragon Ball GT tends to use a lot of dark color palettes, which are great for hiding some of the series’ softer edges. The animation is still pretty smooth, though, and surprisingly consistent, at least up until the final batch of episodes when interest in the series had begun to wane a little.
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If we’re just measuring highs, GT would likely be behind Z and perhaps even Super, but taken as a whole, Dragon Ball GT is undoubtedly one of the most well-animated Dragon Ball series. Unlike its storytelling, Dragon Ball GT‘s visuals were always solid, which hasn’t always been the case with some other Dragon Ball series.
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Dragon Ball Z Kai
Although the Dragon Ball franchise handles it better than most, the pressure of having to put out a new episode each and every week is always going to lead to dips in animation quality. Dragon Ball Z Kai took away those pressures, allowing the team to go back in and touch up some of the existing animations in the places that needed it most.
Save for a new intro and outro, Dragon Ball Z Kai features no new animation, instead offering a remastered version of the original series without any of the filler. The faster pacing makes it much easier to ignore any blemishes that the team was unable to iron out, while the tweaks and touch-ups really help to make the series’ highs pop.
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Dragon Ball Daima
Dragon Ball DAIMA
- Release Date
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October 11, 2024
- Writers
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Akira Toriyama
Together with Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Daima is one of the most divisive Dragon Ball series to date. However, one thing that most seem able to agree on is that Daima has some of the best animation quality in the history of Dragon Ball, thanks both to its all-star team of animators and the two years of production time they were given to get the series ready for broadcast.
Every episode feels like it’s movie quality and some of the fights are truly majestic. Even for some of the smaller skirmishes with the Gendarmerie, the choreography is top-notch and the animation is buttery smooth. If a new season of Dragon Ball Super is ever commissioned, fans will no doubt be hoping that it too is given the extended production time that Daima so clearly benefited from.
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