There’s nothing more interesting than finding out something new that wasn’t seen before. In Akira Toriyama’s Dragonball Z franchise, transformations had been a staple for many story arcs. However, when the Buu saga began, a new kind of change came about which was in the form of fusion. Fans seeing their favorite main characters come together to become an even more powerful fighter blew many minds. This happened twice with the creation of Gotenks and Vegito. This was in the TV show though. What fans didn’t know was that in this release, the new fusion character of Gogeta was going to appear. So to many, this probably caught many people by surprise but in a good way. But this wasn’t the only thing they would see. This feature is a tad better than a lot of the other features that came before it.
Directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi who headed the first two Broly films, this feature seems to have more going for it than some others have had. The script was written by the usual Takao Koyama who basically penned almost all of the prior features. The story for this is about a new enemy coming into the fray looking to cause problems. However, this enemy is not coming for Earth. While Goku’s (Sean Schemmel) taking his training to new heights fighting all kinds of super fighters in the afterlife, King Yemma’s workers are processing all the souls coming through. Unfortunately, one of the workers was careless and let out all the evil energy being stored away. With that the new danger Janemba (Kent Williams) comes to life. What no one knows is that the rest of the evil has been released onto Earth, which includes past enemies.
What works in this feature is mainly the dialogue between the main characters. Goku is joined by Vegeta (Chris Sabat) and Pikkon (Kyle Herbert) to fight Janemba. Seeing Vegeta try to take on Janemba and watching him squirm at having to work with Goku is quite comical. Even Pikkon who is a pretty serious character has trouble trying to help as he doesn’t know what’ll stop Janemba either. That’s not all though. The other funny thing is watching Gogeta come to be in this feature. There are mistakes made along the way which only frustrate Janemba and is hilarious to watch. Janemba as character also makes sense because he is made up of evil souls so there is no need to purposefully go after Goku other than him just being in the way.
Seeing him being caught off guard by Goku and Vegeta’s moves are interesting to watch. There’s also intentional comedic moments between these characters that make the story feel not so overly serious. This is a good thing. The voice acting in general is good too. The cast of Sean Schemmel, Kyle Herbert, Kara Edwards, Chris Sabat, Laura Bailey, Chris Rager and Kent Williams all perform well. Although Janemba’s a new character and doesn’t have a lot to say, his voice actor definitely has the credits. Kent Williams has voiced Dr. Gero, Supreme Kai and even Mercenary Tao from the original Dragonball series. The only part of the story that wasn’t really needed was including other side characters like Goten, Trunks, Videl and Gohan. At one point these characters confront Frieza (Linda Young) but it is so short lived.
The animation to this movie is good. There’s an ability that Janemba can perform where he breaks apart into small pieces and then reforms back. It is very unique and the move is very smooth. This probably took quite a bit to animate to credits to that. This doesn’t explain why Toshiharu Takei was credited for cinematography if it’s an animated movie. Finally, the music for this feature was again rescored by composer Nathan Johnson. A move that was completely unnecessary since Shunsuke Kikuchi’s musical score did just fine the way it was. It is definitely better than using outdated contemporary rock music from some band but this is just a similar work to that of Bruce Falconer’s work on the show. It is always better to stick with an original if worked fine.
Aside from the usual music being replaced and having supporting characters take part in a story that didn’t really need them, this feature feels better than the past few. There’s a nice blend of action and comedy, thanks to the dialog shared between the voice actors and how they perform. Animation looks decent too.
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