Dragonball Z: Saiyan Saga (Descriptive)

The first ever episode of DBZ starts off with Goku training in the back garden. He is working hard as usual, but then he stops what he is doing, and goes off to find his son, Gohan. After a small bit of searching, he finds him crying, clinging onto a small twig that sticks out of a cliff, after he had obviously fallen somehow. Goku picks his son up, puts him on his nimbus, and off they go.

Goku and Gohan set off for Master Roshi’s house, for a re-union party, after they haven’t see each other in a very long time. Everyone seems to be having a good time, with Goku introducing his very shy son, and talking with all of his friends.

Not too far away, a small pod soars through the Earths atmosphere, and crashes down hard on a farm. A large, muscular being gets out of the pod, with spiky hair, similar to Goku’s. This man is wearing some sort of armour, and he walks through the gigantic crater that was made by the landing of his one-man space pod. A farmer has heard all the commotion, and comes to see what is going on. He sees Raditz, and has his power level rated by a green, glass like thing on Raditz’s eye. It reads 5, and makes the huge man laugh. The farmer starts shooting at him with his gun, but it doesn’t effect Raditz in any way. One short KI blast later, and the farmer is down. A blip on Raditz’s scouter indicates a powerful force, so he flies over to see if it’s what he came looking for.

Back at Roshi’s Gohan is clinging tightly to Goku’s leg, scared of a small crab that is on the beach. Goku laughs, and Gohan sees that it’s not so bad. The kid is wearing a yellow robe, and a large, yellow hat, with a small round ball on top of it.

Raditz arrives on a dusty plain, and sees a green man, later revealed to be Piccolo. He pokes fun at this mans low power level, and is made to pay by a massive ki blast from the green man. Raditz is unphased though, and when the dust clears, we see that the blast didn’t even penetrate his armour. He laughs, and promises to show Piccolo a trick that will impress him no end. Raditz gets a ball of energy in his hand, and is ready to throw it, when his scouter picks up an even bigger power. He charges down the energy in his hand, and tells Piccolo that he will do it another time. Raditz takes off, and Piccolo is in disbelief by his power.

Goku and friends are still having fun, and now Gohan is playing with the crab. All is fine and well…..until Raditz arrives. He floats down onto the island, and starts to laugh. He explains that Goku is his brother, but calls him Kakarot all the way through for some reason. He also explains that seeing as Goku has no tail, he has lost the ability to transform. Although we don’t know what he means by this, we do find out later on. Raditz demands that Goku joins him, but when he refuses, and prepares to fight, the huge guy gets annoyed. Raditz uses his incredible speed, to seemingly disappear, and reappear right in front of Goku. He knees him in the gut, causing the hero of the story to go down onto the floor, holding his stomach.

Raditz is surprised at how weak Goku was compared to him, but he still wants him to join him none-the-less. He tells Goku that he must kill a stupidly large amount of people by the end of the day, or he won’t get his son back. Raditz grabs Gohan, and soars off into the air. Goku extends his hand, trying to plead with him to stop, but to no avail, Raditz is gone.

A fair while after, Goku gets up, and limps into the main room of Roshi’s house. He is determined to get Gohan back, despite everyone telling him that he isn’t strong enough. Bulma comes up with the idea of using the dragon radar to locate Gohan, as the ball on his hat will show up on it. Goku grabs the dragon radar, and is about to be on his way, when everyone wishes him good luck. Before he can take off though, an old enemy lands by him. It’s the green man we saw earlier – Piccolo. He and Goku have been enemies ever since Goku had been a kid, and they had both had countless fights together, as Piccolo tried to achieve world domination. Goku prepares to fight once again, but Piccolo shows that he has no intention of fighting. He makes a proposal, where they both take on Raditz together, and that he should be trusted because he has his own plans to take over the world, and they don’t involve Goku’s brother. Reluctantly, Goku agrees, knowing that he cant beat his brother alone. He calls for his nimbus, hops on, and asks Piccolo if he can keep up. Of course, because of his huge ego, Piccolo says yes, and manages it quite easily.

Meanwhile, Raditz is trying to shut Gohan up, and ends up throwing him inside his pod to shut him up (Yep, he’s gone back to the crash site). Gohan continues to cry, but it can barely be heard through the sides of the pod. Raditz smiles, and sits patiently, waiting for Goku to arrive. He is awoken from a little day dream by a reading on his scouter. It says 700! For this point in the series, it is a truly amazing level. (Goku and Piccolo only have a power level of about 330) Raditz dashes around trying to work out what it is, and his scouter comes to rest on his pod, where Gohan is. HE can’t believe that a kid could hold so much potential,, so he assumes that the thing is broken, and takes it off.

Goku and Piccolo land behind Raditz, after getting there undetected. Raditz jerks round, sees them, and quickly slips his scouter on. The warriors all exchange words, with Raditz informing Goku of his sons location. When they do begin fighting, it is very one-sided. Raditz absolutely destroys Goku and Piccolo without even breaking a sweat. After a short while, the ‘good’ guys realize they must try something else. They both takes off their tops and boots, with them landing with a thud. It appears that the clothes are very heavy. Goku appears to be stunned that Piccolo uses weighted clothes for training too.

There is activity on Raditz’s scouter when the weighted clothes are removed, but he bluffs by claming that their power levels have stayed the same as before. Goku doesn’t believe him, and rightly so. There is a major performance boosts this time round, but Raditz’s still beats up both men relatively easily. After a small bit of fist fighting where Raditz just toys around with them, Goku flies into the air, and launches a KameHameHa attack at Raditz, with a power level of 1,000 on the beam. Raditz detects the power of it with his scouter, and starts to run from it, using his incredible speed. After a short time running, Raditz realizes that he can block the beam, so he stops, turns around, and holds out his arms, making the beam come to a halt, and then gradually disappear. Goku can’t believe it. It is time for a new strategy. Piccolo tells Goku to keep Raditz busy while he charges up a special attack, that he was saving the Goku himself! He agrees, and goes at Raditz, attacking him with all he’s worth. He just isn’t fast enough to cut it though, and ends up getting beat down to the ground. Raditz detects a power level of 1,200 on his scouter, and sees Piccolo, ready to attack with his secret weapon – The Demon Ray. Raditz says out loud “I can’t block that!” and the attack is shot at him. It seems to go right through him though, and blows up a nearby mountain. We see Raditz’s damaged armour, and bleeding shoulder. He is enraged by the injury, but Piccolo can’t believe that he was fast enough to dodge it.

>>> Continue on to page 2 of the Saiyan Saga