So I finally managed to watch that new Dragon Ball Z "TV Special" short movie produced recently produced by Toei for this year's Jump Festa.
How was it? Well, I honestly found it rather pleasant, a nice surprise from something I wasn't expecting much to be honest.
[Warning! Might contain slight spoilers!]
First of all, lemme just start by saying I wasn't expecting much from this.
Announced as a ~20 minutes anime adaptation of a fan doujin by Naho Ooishi, not even Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, produced as a tie-in for some obscure Japanese exclusive arcade game.
It looked cheap and simple.
Unlike 2008's original Dragon Ball special, backgrounds looked more simplistic, there was less characters around/animated/voiced, simpler plot....
But Dragon Ball Z: Episode of Bardock's special turned out pretty nice in the end.
The art style Toei took is closer to Toriyama than Ooishi's.
The fights were well choreographed and if the story was pretty paper-thin, it was nice just for this once to get some all-new Dragon Ball material, featuring such different and original content.
Freezer (Frieza as you Americans put it) was pretty creepy in the little instance we saw of him, the "end" of Bardock, Goku's father, was well rendered and the plot continued from that point didn't really ruin the original OVA's ending to me.
Oh, and the new baddie Chilled was a pretty nice addition to Dragon Ball's universe!
He had a pretty neat design all around.
It was quite short so it didn't really go anywhere, but it was a fun story in the end.
Now, to the question Otakus/Nerds all around the world are raging about... Is this "canon" or not?
Well, I guess isn't that clear and even at Toei they wouldn't care less about this question.
I mean if you count this, or any of the anime's original fillers (Son Goku and Picollo learning to drive a car..), or the OVAs (Cooler,..) or even the anime's original continuation Dragon Ball GT is really up to you in the end.. as long as it doesn't detract from the Toriyama's original manga.
You can decide to ignore any of these or accept all of them. It's up to your "nerdiness" to decide what's ok or not, all these are official produced materials.
I find it funny how Bardock becomes the legendary Super Saiyajin in this movie (being the first to gain that form chronologically), creates that legend in the past and fullfils it as well.
Though it turns later Super Saiyajins "not legendaries" (and ignores Broly or renders him "normal").
And I also like the fact it leaves on an open note, leaving many questions to be answered.
(was he the first Saiyain? would he form planet Vegeta as we later know it? did he live on, did he die shortly? what would he do now, living in the past? why didn't he chase the rest of Freezer's family?)
All in all, nice little special.
As M. Ebert would put it "Thumb up!"
