Disclaimer: Rant about DBZ that may or may not contain spoilers
My family and I immigrated to Canada when I was about ten years old; before that I lived in India. The situation is probably different now, but back then there wasn't really a lot of anime on TV over there. I only came across this show when I was about twelve years old. And my God, it was fucking awesome. To go from I Am Weasel to people shooting fucking energy beams out of their hands, you can't even imagine how psyched twelve year old me was. I didn't get to watch the entire show, but I watched enough that it just always stuck with me as an amazing show.
Eventually YTV stopped showing it and I moved on to other things. Years went by and I found myself in university. It was exam time so obviously the most natural thing to do was to start watching Dragon Ball Z again. Watching this show when one is (theoretically more) mature is not the same as watching it as a kid. To be more specific, the show loses a lot of its wow factor and instead makes one yell out "What?! No!!! Don't do that!!!". It has so many frustrating things about it, enough so that they make this once amazing (in my mind) show somewhat less so.
Firstly, why the fuck does it take fucking forever for anything to happen in this show? I don't get it. I may have been trying to procrastinate when I started watching this show, but my God, the amount of time that the show itself wastes in pointless charging up and explanations and flashbacks is enough to make one rage quit. It's such a problem that there's a version of DBZ out there called DBZ Kai that cuts down on the yelling and fillers. Anime in general likes stretching out the plot into as many episodes as they can but DBZ has to got be setting some kind of record.
Next there's the fact that so many of the problems that occur on the show could have been solved if the saiyans weren't so fucking proud. In the Android/Cell Saga, they had multiple opportunities to stop the problem from getting as big as it did (i.e. having the world almost get destroyed). Instead, they let the androids/Cell get strong(er) because they wanted to test their strength against these new foes, because they wanted a challenge; destroying Cell before he absorbed Androids 17 and 18 would have been too easy for Vegeta... Can you imagine a fire fighter waiting for a fire to get bigger because its current size isn't enough of a challenge? No! Because that isn't responsible behaviour!
Speaking of Vegeta, why does the show always make him second best?! It is incredibly frustrating to watch one of the most badass characters constantly get his ass kicked before Goku or Gohan finds the strength to finally take the bad guy down. It isn't that he is portrayed as weak or useless, quite the opposite; often without his help, Goku or Gohan would never have been able to win. However, just once I'd like to see a major battle where he is the sole winner. He may be an arrogant prideful man, but he is still a major character damn it!
Speaking of Goku! He is a terrible husband and father! He constantly abandons his family in order to go train. What kind of "hero of the earth" does that?! In fact, this terrible parenting is a running joke on Dragon Ball Z Abridged. I'm not saying that a show can't have a character who is a bad spouse/parent, but giving these flaws to the main character who is supposed to be the source of inspiration for people, both within the show and without? Heck, Picollo and Vegeta spent more time raising Gohan and Trunks respectively than Goku did Gohan and Goten, and they were both originally the bad guys! What the hell does that say about Goku?!
Overall, I can't hate the show, I really can't. No matter how frustrating or stupid the plot and the show might be, it is still incredibly awesome to see one of them go Super Saiyan and kick ass, not to mention how badass the music becomes when you've got one of these guys yelling at the top of their lungs. Don't believe me? Listen to this and then listen to this and tell me you don't get goosebumps! I will always have something to say about DBZ's shortcomings, but I will also always have a special place for it.