Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock

Overview: Almost every huge franchise has a few spinoffs that are REALLY bad and enrage the fandom. Star Wars had the Christmas Special. Superman had Superman 4: Quest for Peace and the 2006 Superman Returns. Dragonball has a fair number of bad spinoffs, but Bardock 2 released in 2011, may be the worst of the worst. Although GT is still pretty god damn horrible and in close competition. SPOILERS! although, honestly you shouldn't bother seeing this shit anyways. Plot and characters: 1/10 I have literally seen DBZ fanfiction that was better written than this piece of shit! Bardock is blasted by Freeza's giant death ball and for absolutelyno reason is sent back in time instead of disintegrated like the other several million individuals hit with the same death ball at that time. Bardock discovers a bunch of odd purple aliens that make the juice used in Freeza's healing tanks in the future. Bardock quickly learns that he was sent back in time, but seems entirely unphased by this. I guess he has come to expect terrible plot points from this writer, who also made Yo! Son Goku Returns. Freeza's ancestor appropriately named Chilled happens to attack the planet at the same moment Bardock arrives. Chilled kills some villagers and Bardock goes SSJ and beats Chilled in under 3 minutes. Really thrilling fight! (sarcasm). Chilled is blown back into space, but is able to board his ship, which BTW was on the ground at the time he got blasted up into space, and lives long enough to inform his children that there is a thing called a Super Saiyan. Here are a few problems. Firstly, the action in this movie is terrible and there is barely any at all. DBZ is a fighting anime! That is the entire reason we watch it! It is also odd the Chilled resembles Freeza's first form, which is not his natural form, but rather a form created to contain his massive power. This would indicate that Chilled can transform like literally every other member of his race, but he never even attempts to do so. I also disliked that in the first Bardock Special, Bardock gives a speech against Freeza's tyranny and has realized he was wrong for serving Freeza, but in Bardock 2, the scene is remade so Bardock says, "we were working together so well, why did you betray us?" This makes Bardock a LOT less likeable and goes against the canon of the first special. Neither are actually canon, but Bardock 2 exists in a canon completely by itself. Music: 5/10 The music lacks any of the memorable tracks from DBZ original or Kai. It is simply lackluster all around. No epic transformation music for the first Super Saiyan, no awesome battle music. This OST sucked! Art: 6/10 The art uses the same animation from Kai and actually looks pretty decent. That is the ONLY good thing about this special. The art looks "ok". Enjoyment: 2/10 If you enjoy having your childhood ruined, then this is the TV special for you! Overall: 3/10 The music was mediocre and the art was decent, but the writing, plot, characters, action, and everything else was fucking horrible! I am convinced that the plot was chosen by lottery from a bunch of bad fanfictions written in a contest for children 12 and under. That is the only thing that could explain how shitty Bardock 2 is. I understand that the severe time limitation made it difficult to have an epic fight in the usual DBZ style, but it is possible to have good anime fights that are short. That is no excuse, just as there is no excuse for this special to exist!

Episode of Bardock is a spin-off that doesn’t need to exist. Breaking pre-established rules from the Dragon Ball canon while ruining the point of the superior Bardock Special, this OVA is essentially a fanfiction with next to no merit. The original Bardock special emphasized how ordinary and insignificant Bardock is. Although granted the power to see the future, he dies while having no impact whatsoever. He wasn't the hope to save the Saiyan race from Friezaa but merely an ordinary individual who strived to make a change but accomplished nothing. In a franchise of extraordinary individuals, Bardock is effectively special by not being special.Episode of Bardock completely strips this tragic tale that the original Bardock special established. Rather than die by the hands of Frieza, Bardock is transported to the past, without explanation, to the origin planet of the Saiyans where Frieza’s ancestor, Lord Chilled, rules. The whole scenario comes off as contrived with no basis for how the time travel occurred or why exactly Bardock landed on that particular planet. The OVA attempts to build a relationship between Bardock and some child inhabitant of the planet, but this relationship involves nothing more than the child providing Bardock with food. That the child’s injury results in Bardock’s transformation into a Super Saiyan is downright ludicrous. While Goku and Vegeta required utmost training and psychological pressure to transform, Bardock achieves this with no training, talent, or potent stimulus. The weight of the Super Saiyan transformation is lost completely in this special, becoming merely a convenient tool for Bardock to overcome Lord Chilled. There are no impressive fight tactics or meaningful plot developments in the entirety of this special. Given no meaningful characterization, Bardock becomes nothing but a generic hero in a franchise where vapid overpowered characters are the norm. The entire OVA comes off as an attempt to make Bardock special for the mere fact that he’s Goku’s father in the most uninspired fashion possible while stripping away the tragedy of the original Bardock special. To make matters worse, the special heavily contradicts the Dragon Ball canon. At the end of the special, an attempt to tie to the canon is made when Lord Chilled is determined to warn his successors about Bardock the Super Saiyan. However, this idea fails both in regards to Dragon Ball’s time travel mechanics and the clues about the origin of the Super Saiyan provided in the series. Firstly, Dragon Ball’s time travel operates under parallel universes, by which travelling to the past doesn’t affect the present an individual came from but instead forms a new timeline. Any changes made to the past affects the new timeline, but the original is left unchanged. Consequently, Episode of Bardock makes no sense as the reason Frieza feared the Super Saiyans. The current timeline would be unaffected and thus the time travel could not serve as the reason for Frieza’s destroying of the Saiyan race and fear of the potential Saiyans could have. Furthermore, the term Super Saiyan wasn’t mentioned in the special at all, so it would be implausible for Chilled to spread this term to his ancestors. As Saiyans hadn’t existed at the time, there would be no way for Chilled’s descendants to recognize them, and the Saiyans wouldn’t be aware of this legend if it arose from Chilled. This goes against not only Frieza but also the Saiyans themselves holding notions about the legendary Super Saiyan. The special also makes it appear that Bardock is the actual original Super Saiyan, but this fails as it was said the Saiyan in legend was said to have become a Super Saiyan in his transformed state (as a Great Ape/ Oozaru). Episode of Bardock is possibly one of the worst official fan-fiction works in the anime medium. It is a vapid work that fails at nearly everything it does and merely breaks that which the Dragon Ball franchise had established. There’s nothing of interest here. In terms of even entertainment value and action, the original Bardock Special completely overshadows this disappointing OVA.

Well, if Dragonball Kai disappointed you, then I would suggest turning your sights an something else, something actually new, but as long as your fan glasses aren't on, then this would be a must watch for any dragonball fan. STORY: Long, long ago, Frieza blew some shit up, killed Goku's father (And every other saiyan on their home planet) and became a major asshole, but what if, what if Goku's father, Bardock, actually survived and instead was sent back so-and-so years ago and became the first of the legendary super saiyans of legend to exist or something along those lines. That is pretty much the premiseof this short OVA, and I'll be blunt, put aside my fanboy eyeglasses for a sec, and outright say: that's dumb, really dumb. Dumb, yet very cool in a sense that if you don't think about it to much, and just go along with it. This ova isn't the pinnacle of DBZ's story potential (Blasting shit to kingdom come is), and honestly feels more like a tribute to Dragon ball than anything else. For starters, Bardock's personality is very similar to how Piccolo was when he was training Gohan after Goku's death back in the beginning of Dragonball Z, cold, antisocial, and does nothing but train, but slowly opens up to a youngster, in this case, a member of an alien species who are practicably existing for the purpose of hinting clues to the viewer where Bardock actually ended up. And where he ended up is and where the story goes from there is practicably a homage to the original Goku Frieza conflict, where eventually, Bardock ends up becoming a super saiyan (Almost exactly how Goku did). But, the simple story and meh build up isn't what the problem of this ova is, it's what any DBZ fan can point out, heck anyone for that matter. It's almost impossible for anyone to actually fall for this set up, Frieza "kills" Bardock, not some how blasts him through time, that's preposterous. What about every other person "killed" by Frieza for that matter, where'd they end up if could Bardock survive that blast and why just Bardock? Though it really isn't important, because this is nothing more than a nice pat on the head for dragon ball fans, despite how head scratching the premise. And personally, I enjoyed this a lot, it's interesting from a canon point (If it's place in dragon ball's continuity isn't in question) and is just a nice treat for the fans of Bardock (All ten of them ha ha). ANIMATION: Because this is where it makes up for the stories shortcomings, this is probably the best the dragon ball series has ever looked, bright and very colorful, nice and smooth animation, and a very well animated fight at the end (This also does a small loud out to the most popular of the dbz movie villains). If I'm going to complain, it would be the character designs, where everyone, but Bardock and other original dragon ball characters, look odd, and just silly (Even for dragon ball standards). SOUND: Well, just your generic dragon ball japanese sound track playing, and the voice acting does a fair job, except Bardock himself, sounds very screechy, almost irritating, but makes it clear where Goku got his high pitched voice from. OVERALL: The Good: + A fun new dragon ball story. + Great animation, with an impressive fight at the end. The Bad: - If it mattered, there's a good amount of continuity problems that would bug any dragon ball fan. - Premise is too far fetched to believe, db fan or not. Maybe it's canon, maybe it's not (And it's definitely not), it's just entertaining and probably be best to be treated as one of those what if scenarios the games throw out, which at least it's a better crafted story than Spike the Devilman defeating Cyborg Frieza and his father.

Forget about the Dragonball manga and forget about the Dragonball/Z anime - view this as a stand alone story... Following the above steps only makes this special worst! The reason why? The story has little substance - a higly basic and short plot dependent entirely on the well known franchise. Now, I'll delve further... Story... Goku's dad, Bardock, in his last special, faced off against Friezer. Within this special, instead of dying within the blast theat blew up his planet, he was somehow teleported into a past time period.Bardock develops a soft side for a cutsie young, kind alien who just wants to help him. Not too long later,he comes across a new antogonist, an ancestor(?) of Freizer. Bardock becomes a super saiyan (quickly and stress free). Art... Good art - can't fault it. DB/Z artwork back in the past was good - especially concidering it's age - this is pretty much the same. Character... Mary Sue galore - Bardock comes across as a fanfiction writers highly zealous creation - not too 'hardened' and prone to power-up's that aren't consistant to the original story. We have the cute, highly friendly aliens who only scum of the universe would hurt. We have a goofy villian who, in a 20 minute special, couldn't possibly be more then laughable. If these characters were applied to a new anime - it would automatically get labled 'generic' ad I doubt a manga pilot would go any further? Enjoyment... Very, very little! Aproaching this from a neutral perspective - seeing this as nothing more then a loose adapation and forgeting that I had skimmed threw the manga of this (I can filter stuff out of my head, which I'll do after this review). Seeing the positive - DBZ attention is a good thing? The above atitudes fail to brighten up a highly dull, unlikely (if you follow the series) fanwork that makes you question what extent the author of this actually followed/enjoyed this series? Overall... It's a fail - the most attractive thing about this is it's length. It's nothing more then fanfiction - and there's better fanfiction out there, trust me!