"The following is a (non-profit) fan-based parody. Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super are all owned by Funimation, Toei Animation, Shueisha, and Akira Toriyama. Please support the official release." |
DragonBall Z Abridged (abbreviated as DBZA) is the title of Team Four Star's abridged series based on the original Dragon Ball Z anime. Though it is not official, this abridged series is one of, if not the most successful web series created and was featured on That Guy with The Glasses' official website under "Inked Reality".
On February 1, 2020, KaiserNeko announced that the series was officially over, and that Team Four Star's future focus will be on original content such as Dragon ShortZ.[1] A later video by KaiserNeko on Team Four Star's YouTube channel confirmed that all plans to adapt the Majin Buu Saga had been scrapped.[2]
On September 2, 2023, TotallyNotMark released his retrospective of the Buu Saga. In honor of this achievement, and out of genuine friendship, Team Four Star returned to adapt certain segments and moments of the Buu Saga for his video in the form of the Buu Bits.
Background[]
DragonBall Z Abridged is a direct parody with most characters and plot lines remaining relatively unchanged. Origins of concepts and names within the series often alternate between the FUNimation Dub and the original Japanese version. For example, the character Tien is sometimes referred to as "Tenshinhan", which is his name in the original Japanese version. Some original attack names are preserved as well, such as Tien's "Kikōhō," instead of "Tri-beam." Many of the characters have many personality changes (i.e. Goku being an energetic and caring in the original series, he is now a dumb, one-track-minded man-child). Some of the biggest changes are to Mr. Popo, Nappa, Mr. Perfect Cell, Bubbles, etc.
Episodes[]
- Main article: List of DragonBall Z Abridged episodes
Season | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
First aired | Last aired | |||
1 | 10* | June 6, 2008 | June 12, 2009 | |
2 | 20* | January 26, 2010 | June 25, 2012 | |
3 | 30* | December 19, 2012 | December 25, 2018 |
*Seasons 1, 2 and 3 have a total of 12, 22 and 33 episodes respectively if all parts of the final episode are considered separate episodes.
Season 1 (2008-2009)[]
# | Name | Air Date |
---|---|---|
1 | The Return of Raditz! ... Wait... | June 6, 2008 |
2 | And They All Lived Happily Ever... Oh... | July 9, 2008 |
3 | Happily Ever Afterlife | August 7, 2008 |
4 | Snakeway to Heaven | August 21, 2008 |
5 | Vegeta: Kills Bugs Dead | September 3, 2008 |
6 | No One Ever Listens to the Magical Dragon | October 25, 2008 |
7 | Saiyans? On My Planet? (It's More Likely Than You Think) | December 25, 2008 |
8 | Nappa's Best Day Ever | January 15, 2009 |
9 | The Set Up | February 27, 2009 |
10-1 | The Punchline (Part 1) | May 25, 2009 |
10-2 | The Punchline (Part 2) | June 8, 2009 |
10-3 | The Punchline (Part 3) | June 12, 2009 |
Season 2 (2010-2012)[]
Season 3 (2012-2018)[]
# | Name | Air Date |
---|---|---|
31 | There's Something About Maron | December 19, 2012 |
32 | Battlefield Ee-arth | January 28, 2013 |
33 | Cold Cuts | March 23, 2013 |
34 | News of Future Past | April 29, 2013 |
35 | The Island of Dr. Gero | June 9, 2013 |
36 | Super Saiyan Swagger | July 24, 2013 |
37 | Catch Me If You Can-droid | September 9, 2013 |
38 | Dr. Gero or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Androids | December 21, 2013 |
39 | Blood, Sweat, and Gears | January 16, 2014 |
40 | 16, 17, and 18 Things I Hate About You | March 7, 2014 |
41 | The Trouble With Time Travel | April 6, 2014 |
42 | Fear and Loathing in Ginger Town | May 15, 2014 |
43 | Cell Service | August 24, 2014 |
44 | Cell Reception | September 30, 2014 |
45 | Hyperbolic Plot Device | November 24, 2014 |
46 | Percussive Maintenance | December 25, 2014 |
47 | Family Reunion | May 12, 2015 |
48 | Advanced Geometry | May 30, 2015 |
49 | Group Therapy | August 1, 2015 |
50 | A Raging Semi | September 14, 2015 |
51 | The "Perfect" Guy | December 25, 2015 |
52 | Flashpoint | February 16, 2016 |
53 | My Body is a Temple'O'Trunks | June 2, 2016 |
54 | Tiles and Tribulations | August 22, 2016 |
55 | It's Been A Year If It's Been A Day | September 28, 2016 |
56 | Deities, Devils, and Doing the Dirty | November 25, 2016 |
57 | Opening Serumonies* | March 24, 2017 |
58 | Cell Mates | May 12, 2017 |
59 | The Hard Cell | June 23, 2017 |
60-1 | Cell-Out (Part 1: The Lone Warrior) | August 31, 2018 |
60-2 | Cell-Out (Part 2: Raging Storm) | September 7, 2018 |
60-3 | Cell-Out (Part 3: Everlasting Legend) | September 14, 2018 |
60-E | Die, Robot | December 25, 2018 |
Musical Numbers[]
Thumbnail | Name | Release Date |
---|---|---|
Make A Man Out Of You | December 23, 2008 | |
Killing in the Nappof | January 6, 2010 | |
Bald This Way | July 11, 2011 | |
Do You Want to Kill a Planet | March 20, 2014 | |
Moustache | August 23, 2015 | |
Grab a Bowl | September 16, 2016 | |
The Final Flash | September 19, 2016 | |
Super Saiyan | October 26, 2016 | |
Just Give Up | December 7, 2016 | |
Popo The Genie | December 13, 2016 | |
Hey Vegeta Happy Freeza Day | December 23, 2016 | |
Broly Chronicles | January 14, 2017 | |
We Are Number One (But It's Perfect) | May 17, 2017 | |
Day of Fate ~Spirit VS Spirit~ (feat. Paolo Cuevas & Ani Djirdjirian) | September 4, 2018 | |
My Way (Perfect Cell Cover) | September 19, 2018 |
Cancellation[]
At the end of Cell-Out (Part 3), a short teaser was shown of Season 4, revealing that Team Four Star, at the time, was going to adapt the Majin Buu Saga. However, then-CEO Hbi2k revealed on Reddit that Dragon Ball Z Abridged would be on hiatus as they wanted to focus on other projects such as the series finale of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged and Season 3 of Final Fantasy VII Machinabridged. Afterwards, the epilogue was released on Christmas Day 2018, and in 2019, three DBZ Kai Abridged episodes were released.
On February 1st 2020, KaiserNeko announced on Twitter that Dragon Ball Z Abridged was officially over, and that Team Four Star's future focus will be on original content. Although the original plan was to adapt the Majin Buu Saga in the style of Dragon ShortZ, a post on the company's Patreon on February 6th, 2020 later revealed that they would not. The reasons for this are because the main trio was too burned out to abridge any more episodes, that they felt that the Majin Buu Saga was the point where the Dragon Ball franchise jumped the shark, felt that Cell-Out was a perfect finale overall, and Toei was ramping up its crackdown against TFS, going as far as to ban FUNimation from allowing them to participate in any official Dragon Ball material. The post added that the decision to cancel the series was made around October 2019, around the same time Bojack Unbound Abridged's cancellation was announced.
Return (Sort of...)[]
In 2023, as part of Totally Not Mark's review/retrospective series on Dragon Ball, TFS would collaborate with Mark on the video covering the Buu Saga, producing DBZA-style scenes which they called "Buu Bits" interspersed throughout the review. While not a full fourth season, Team Four Star announced that these "Buu Bits" are as close as they're ever going to get to doing one.