Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn

In my opinion the best DBZ film out of them all apart from the latest one which I am yet to watch. Story 7/10 The story is slightly better than in some of the other movies as its not just another typical bad guy returning to destroy the world with this movie they have gotten at least a little bit more creative and came up with a new idea for a villain. Art 8/10 The art work is amazing for the year it was released in, the characters were all well animated and the scenery was packed with colour and detail. Sound 8/10 The music in this moviewas really good especially throughout the fight scenes it added epicness to the fights. Characters 8/10 By far one of the best things in this movie with a new bad ass looking bad guy Jenemba, Goku and Vegetas fusion Gogeta, Picon and guests appearances from old villains such as Freeza himself. Enjoyment 9/10 this movie is one of the finer movies of the DBZ collection it has a little bit of everything and the fight scenes were just the best with Goku and Vegeta facing an opponent with abilities they've never seen before. Overall 8/10 This is a really good movie and also has a lot of humour in there as well from Mr Satan himself all the way through to the return of Hitler. With old bad guys appearing from the dead that are no longer a match for the Z fighters and an all new enemy that is the strongest they have ever faced, this is one enjoyable watch.

I've talked about Toriyama Akira's Dragonball and I've talked about the Dragonball Z: Battle of Gods movie. Now it's time to delve into the franchise once more with a look at the twelfth Dragonball Z movie, Fusion Reborn. Will it be on the level of the fourteenth movie or is this one of the weak Dragonball Z films? Story: Our story opens after the Buu saga with an afterlife tournament where Goku faces off against Paikuhan, in spite of the fact that Goku was resurrected by the old Kaio during the Buu saga and the fact that the grand Kaio decided that the prize for the afterlifetournament needed to be withheld for a while so he could get back in shape. Unsurprisingly, this is a Dragonball Z movie that doesn't fit in with the continuity, which is an issue with a lot of them. Moving on, King Yama is busy judging souls while the oni in charge of monitoring the soul cleansing equipment goofs off. This results in an accident which causes the evil to burst out and transform the young oni into Janemba, a being of pure evil that seals Yama's palace, enabling the souls of the dead to break free and roam around on Earth. The tournament is postponed so that Goku and Paikuhan can investigate. To be fair, the concept behind this isn't a bad one. The idea of the dead wreaking havoc could have been very interesting. But this is DBZ so it's used as an excuse for action sequences and that's pretty much it. To be fair, that's pretty much to be expected from the franchise and it's what people are going to be watching the film for. That's why the biggest problem is the final fight itself. It is really anti-climactic. You get some good buildup for it, but the fight itself ends in about thirty seconds. Mr. Satan fought Cell longer than Gogeta fights Janemba. On the positive side, the film does have some funny moments and some stupidly awesome bits, including Trunks and Goten fighting undead nazis. Characters: The film focuses primarily on the saiyajin and half saiyajin characters. Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks and Goten. Videl also plays a somewhat significant role. None of them really develop in any substantial way over the course of the film, but you do get a good sense of their personalities, which is fair enough given that the film isn't even an hour long. Then we have our villain, Janemba. He's basically like Majin Buu right down to starting as an obese man-child and transforming into a meaner, more heavily muscled form. It's like the Frieza and Cooler thing where a film just makes a weaker copy of a villain from the main series. Art: The artwork and animation are pretty decent. The biggest issue is that the action sequences are kind of weak in this one. Given how much the franchise relies on those, that's pretty bad. I will give the film credit for having some really interesting backgrounds during its tour of hell. Sound: The entire vocal cast delivers decent performances. There's some exaggeration, but no more than the usual given the franchise's tendency to have dudes screaming to get stronger. The music is pretty good. Ho-yay: There isn't any homo-eroticism in this movie. Final Thoughts: Dragonball Z: Fusion Reborn is an action movie with some good ideas and funny moments, but that suffers from weak action and a boring antagonist. It isn't a bad movie, nor is it one of the worst DBZ films for what it is, but there are a lot of better Dragonball Z films out there. This one is just kind of dull. My final rating for it is going to be a 5/10. Tomorrow I'll take a look at Spirited Away.

Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn is one of the best movies the franchise has to offer and I shall elaborate my statement in the following. 1. Story Fusion Reborn's story is nothing to write home about. It is by no means a "bad" story for a Dragon Ball movie, but it is obvious that it was not the main focus of the movie, or at least not the parts that don't feature the two protagonists. It is definitely no Dragon Ball Super: Broly in terms of story, but it suffices for the movie's premise. 2. Art Despite my wish to give this category a solid 10, there is oneminor thing that has bugged me in my multiple watching-sessions. The movie adds very thick borderlines on the non-protagonist characters which really are off-putting. Other than that, most of the movie looks like how you would expect a Dragon Ball Z movie to look like, and I personally think that it looks better than the show at some points. 3. Sound The sound design and soundtrack of Fusion Reborn surpass at least the Funimation Dub of the original show. Near the end of the movie the punches and kicks sound like explosions and it really adds a lot to it. The English dub made a good effort in terms of the soundtrack, but it is fair to say that the Japanese dub has the better soundtrack overall. 4. Character The characters in the movie aren't as fleshed out as in the show, but fairly well written for a Dragon Ball Z movie. The most interesting character in the movie is the main villain, because of their uniqueness as a Dragon Ball villain. I felt like it was a refreshing change from "super bad villain that wants to destroy Goku because of reasons" types of villains that were featured in previous movies. 5. Enjoyment While this is mostly subjective, I only have warm feelings whenever I rewatch Fusion Reborn. It definitely is a highly enjoyable movie, especially as a fan of the franchise. Though most of the enjoyment stems from the fight of the main protagonists and the main villain, the side characters have their fun moments as well. Overall: Fusion Reborn is a solid 9 in my book, because it really comes to show what a Dragon Ball movie can be if the people involved really put in effort. With enjoyable characters, good music and mostly good art, I cannot recommend this movie enough to all Dragon Ball fans. People that are new to the franchise will also get a lot of enjoyment out of the movie, but I recommend to watch more of the show or perhaps even other movies beforehand.

Dragon Ball Z Movie 12: Fukkatsu no Fusion!! Gokuu to Vegeta aka. Fusion Reborn is a movie where the death return to life after an accident happened in hell creating a monster known as Janemba. It is up to Goku, Vegeta and Paikuhan (or Pikkon in American) to stop Janemba from destroying the balance of the circle of life pretty much. The movie does a good job in showing the chaos Janemba's existence has to both the afterlife and the living world as the viewers will be able to see both what is going on in these different locations. While Goku, Paikuhan and Vegeta deal with Janembawhile Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Videl do their best to deal with the revived villains amounts which is Frieza. The movie also uses two artstyles for the serious and non serious moments but not necessary for comedic scenes. There are references to famous movies or historical events that get parodied which some countries won't be able to see because of censorships like the infamous dictator scene being removed from the German dub. Speaking of artstyle, the visuals and animations are even holding up today and are the best looking Dragon Ball visuals up to date. Animators took full advantage of the tools they had making Janemba's abilities especially the teleportation a visual spectacle. It is alongside Wrath the Dragon and Path to Power without the doubt the best looking Dragon Ball film. There is a good reason why this alongside Wrath of the Dragon are the only Dragon Ball movies from the original run that had a worldwide theatrical release. As the name of the movie suggests, the selling point is Goku and Vegeta fusing to Gogeta being the first time these two merge to stop a common enemy. And the build up to that moment was done beautifully. We see more about Vegeta's inferiority complex and the hate of the idea to fuse with his rival. And it might even rival Vegeta's development throughout the Boo Saga. While on the topic of Boo Saga, this movie can't fit to the main story timeline and can be seen as a sidestory where the good guys defeated Boo with Goku and Vegeta remaining death. Janemba is a villain that resembles Boo a lot but is created out of pure evil. He starts off as a fatso and later becomes a muscular demonic lizard thingy after one of the creepiest transformation scenes ever. His abilities are also very unique to him but it feels like there are also too much powers of Boo added for no reason like arm extension. But the main appeal obviously is altering objects and teleportation. Not only can he teleport himself but can also create teleportation portals which he cleverly uses to attack opponents without physically appearing or sending back attacks aimed at him. Meaning he can use his abilities as offensive and defensive tools. But personality wise he is inferior to Kid Boo after he turned evil. Since he can't speak, most of his emotions are expressed by emoting with his body. He is also the only character in the series that uses a physical weapon after the Frieza Saga and makes it being dangerous believable as something like a Sword for Future Trunks didn't enhance his fighting abilities and was just visually pleasing. Comedy in this movie is also great as jokes some which had build up in this movie or from the show being viewed. It would be hard to explain some of them without spoiling it. But they aren't the only ones. The environment is another thing notable for the movie as viewers of the anime have had seen hell, but now that Janemba appeared viewers can witness how Janemba's existence altered it. Combining the flying multi-colored giant jelly beans created by Janemba and the unusual color scheme of hell creates one of the most surreal landscapes in the franchise. Simply put, changing an already explored location into a brand knew one. Like always there are some criticism. Of all the villains from the show that returned, only one fights and gets defeated in an underwhelming way. I think you can guess who is it. Someone who just won't stop returning. Pretty much wasting the potential of old villains getting a second chance to get what they want and taking advantage of the secondary cast better like Piccolo, Yamcha, Tien, Chaotzu and Krilllin to beat someone like Bojack, Turles or Lord Slug. Instead most of the living world scenes are wasted for historical jokes and Goten and Trunks. As with most DBZ movie villains who are similar to the current story arc villain that came out around the time, Janemba is basically similar to Boo. While he has some unique abilities and a killer design, he just feels like a watered down version of the last DBZ villain. Both start out fat and at the runtime of the Boo Saga the latest form when this movie came out was Super Boo and Janemba's final form has a similar body structure. And as a character, he is shallow after his transformation who had a childlike innocent personality. And there is the question why he is as strong as he is. Another problem is the transformation from big to small is that in regards to Boo who is made out of magic and bubble gum substance, Janemba's transformation that happens in a similar matter seems unrealistic because it doesn't have a believable excuse like Boo. It also makes it less believable that Janemba can extend his arms, an ability it didn't even need. One other issue is neglect of Paikuhan as a character. While he did appear to help out, most of the time he was just trying to free Enma or King Yama, only appearing to buy time for the fusion briefly. So he was wasted as a character for most of the film. Overall Fusion Reborn is a good movie still well remembered and the movie that made Gogeta the character everyone loves. This movie has the debut of Super Saiyan 3 and might be the best use of the transformation in the franchise. Even the transformation scene of Super Saiyan 3 surpasses the one in the Boo Saga version from the anime version taking advantage of how the environment shifts as well as the tone from the battle from fun to serious. So if you like more development for Vegeta, love fusion especially Gogeta and wants some good Super Saiyan 3 action, you owe yourself to watch Fusion Reborn.