The Dragon Ball Z Abridged logo.
Dragon Ball Z Abridged is an unofficial, fan-based series, created by Team Four Star Entertainment, based on the Dragon Ball Z anime that ran from June 6, 2008 to December 25, 2018. The series ran for 60 episodes.[1] The series revolved around parodying the anime. The abridged series also attempted to make fun of the plot, characters, and inconsistencies of the original Dragon Ball Z anime—though the series made light of the Dragon Ball anime, as well as Dragon Ball GT. The characters were all voiced by members of the Team Four Star cast. This parody can be watched on Youtube.
Content[]
Parodied Sagas[]
- Saiyan Saga
- Namek Saga
- Android Saga
- Cell Saga
Parodied Movies[]
- Dragon Ball Z: Return My Gohan!!
- Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest Guy
- Dragon Ball Z: A Super Decisive Battle for Earth
- Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiyan Son Goku
- Dragon Ball Z: The Incredible Strongest versus Strongest
- Dragon Ball Z: Clash!! 10 Billion Powerful Warriors
- Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Battle!! The Three Great Super Saiyans
- Dragon Ball Z: Burn Up!! A Red-Hot, Raging, Super-Fierce Fight
Parodied Specials[]
- Dragon Ball Z: A Lonesome, Final Battle - The Father of Z Warrior Son Gokū, who Challenged Freeza
- Dragon Ball Z: Defiance in the Face of Despair!! The Remaining Super Warriors – Gohan and Trunks
Parodied Shorts[]
Reception[]
Dragon Ball Z Abridged has received overwhelmingly positive reception. The series holds a score of 8.9/10 on IMDb based on 881 reviews.[2] The series has become so widespread that it has gained the notice of several prominent Dragon Ball Z voice actors, notably Sean Schemmel who is the English voice of Son Gokū.[3][4] Despite the popularity of the series, it has run into copyright troubles in the past. In 2013, Toei Animation famously had all of the series taken down from YouTube. This caused a noticeable uproar among many Western Dragon Ball fans and Abridged viewers. The videos were later restored to YouTube that same year.
The series' fame later impacted the actual Dragon Ball franchise, when Curtis Arnott (known as Takahata101) brought to life an Abridged-only character, Ghost Nappa, in Dragon Ball XenoVerse—a feat that was applauded by both fans and voice actors for the Dragon Ball series, such as Christopher Sabat.[5] Sabat himself is an unabashed fan of the series, praising Team Four Star for the accuracy of their voice acting as well as touting them to be producing a "genius parody" in Dragon Ball Z Abridged.[6]
The abridged series was so well received that many fans would clamor for Team Four Star to cover the Majin Boo Arc material. While Team Four Star never would adapt the entire arc, they did create "The Buu Bits", a collection of abridged shorts specifically for TotallyNotMark's series-wide review of Dragon Ball.[7]
Trivia[]
- Notably, the popularity of the Abridged series almost mirrors that of the original Dragon Ball Z series. The original Namek Saga from Dragon Ball Z is by far one of the most popular — as well as one of the most iconic — and the Namek Saga of the Abridged series has some of the best instances of humor out of the series.