DBZ Jumps the Shark

 Dragonball is a series with humble beginnings. The story of a young boy and a group of his friends searching for the Dragonballs, they met many colorful characters and had plenty of memorable adventures along the way. The Dragonballs themselves were a prominent fixture of the series, with each villain wanting to have his own evil dream brought to fruition by the eternal dragon, and Goku and the gang frequently found themselves racing for these precious artifacts against these evildoers. Not taking itself very seriously at all, Goku fought mummies, werewolves, a man with three eyes, ancient martial arts masters and movie stars throughout his journeys, the humor helping to make the more absurd portions of the show easier to digest.

 Somewhere along the way, that all changed.

 If you're unfamiliar with it, jumptheshark.com is a site that chronicles the downfall of television shows. The phrase's origin stems from an incident in the sitcom "Happy Days." At some point during the series' run Fonzie put on water skis and jumped over a shark in an outrageous stunt. That was the turning point in the series when many people began to realize that the show had begun a downward spiral. Since then, the phrase "Jump the Shark" has been used to describe a defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak, and that, from then on...it's all downhill. Almost no TV show, no matter how good, is immune to this, and Dragonball is no exception.

 So when did the series jump? That's simple - with the events following Frieza's death on Planet Namek. Let's take a moment to examine how the series got there before delving into what happens afterwards. Ever since the beginning of the series, Goku's tail, and his subsequent transformations into a massive ape when under the light of the full moon, were very enigmatic. These questions went unanswered in Dragonball, but then, at the beginning of DBZ, we learned that Goku was a member of a nearly extinct alien warrior race known as the "Saiyans."

 This was a very interesting development, giving the series an overall shot in the arm. As DBZ progressed, we learned more of Goku's race. Legendary for their strength and pride, they were akin to "Planet Pirates," extinguishing species as a whole for profit. We also learned that nearly their entire race was exterminated, along with their home planet, in the blink of an eye by the hideous tyrant Frieza, a monster that absolutely nothing in the universe could topple.

 Fast forward about 20 or so years after the series' beginning, and the final battle is about to begin. Only two Saiyans remain alive: Vegeta and Goku. Despite his best efforts, Vegeta, the Saiyan prince, is beaten to death by Frieza. His final words are a plea to Goku, begging him to avenge his people and kill Frieza, so that the tyrant would die by the hand of a Saiyan. Goku buries Vegeta, and then, beginning to finally accept the heritage that he was initially disgusted with, he goes to battle Frieza in the ultimate showdown.

 The battle climaxes when Goku, fueled by an immense mixture of rage and grief, transforms into the mythical figure of Legend: A Super Saiyan. And once transformed, he finally defeats Frieza and ends his rein of terror once and for all. The Saiyans are avenged. Good has triumphed over evil. That's it. Go home. Show's over.

 Wait. Whaddya mean there's more?

 Welcome to the downfall of Dragonball.

 A lot of things happened in the two sagas following Frieza's end. Most of them weren't great, but enough of them were so that one of the sagas, Cell, was actually quite enjoyable, in spite of the slow decline the series had begun. What's more, it offered a great way to end the series. At the "Cell Games," the final stage of the saga, the antagonist Cell reached his full power potential, stronger than anything Goku and friends had ever fought before, and the very embodiment of every major enemy they had ever fought (RRA, Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza...). Goku failed to defeat this monster, and died a noble warrior's death to save the Earth. In his place, his son Gohan stepped forth and crushed Cell, finally realizing his destiny and the inherent power of his mixed blood. He surpassed all to become Earth's new defender, and everyone could rest easy. All was well.

 At least, until the next saga, that is.

 And this is where the series finally began to truly fall apart. Easily the least popular of all of Akira Toriyama's sagas, the sole reason for its existence seemed to be to finally resolve the Goku vs. Vegeta rivalry. Admittedly that story arc was particularly well done, and the best part of the saga. (Although GT would ruin that sometime later.)  The big pink monster known as Buu was another plus, as his ridiculous nature reminded me of some of the antagonists Goku fought in Dragonball. (A mummy, anyone?). Outside of the aforementioned positives, however, the saga was pretty much hopeless, exemplary of everything that had gone wrong with the series since Frieza's death: the humor had begun to dissipate; the power levels had rose to levels higher than the national debt and Bill Gates' bank account combined, and since there is no way visually for the animators to differentiate between an 18,000 blast and an 18,000,000 million one, both of which are capable of destroying Earth, the fights didn't really seem more intense than before, as they were touted be; the cast had become far too crowded, leaving many of the characters just standing around the major scenes of battle, hoping their uber-powerful friend Goku would win, or just not even showing up at all; even the titular dragonballs had been reduced to being cheap 'cure alls" in case a few people just happened to die during and in-between major battles. The overusage of them defeated all the suspense, as you knew that even if one of the heroes died, they'd be brought back good as new shortly thereafter. And the villains no longer cared for them either, preferring instead to kill the heroes well...just because they're the heroes, I guess. And the protagonists' searches from them were just generally skipped over or useless.

 But perhaps time itself was actually the series' greatest enemy. Over time all those minor flaws that had been with the series since nearly the beginning became rapidly more and more apparent. Had the series ended right there with Frieza, would we have noticed all those little foibles that eventually came to bother us so much? I don't think we would have. At the very least, we would have brushed them aside as they minor annoyances that they were, and wouldn't remember them for the glaring flaws that they later became as the series went on. (Ever notice Goku is the only one that matters? That in lieu of a story after Frieza we were just given the same repetitive scenario: super menace shows up, everyone trains, Goku gets new SSJ level, kills super menace?)

 ...And I think I'll stop there. No, time was not kind to DBZ, and it is depressing to think that such a great show's fall from grace was perhaps brought about by something so pitiable as merely this: overstaying its welcome.

 Ten.