Akira Toriyama is the manga artist of Dragon Ball and has also had a say in some side projects. He is particularly fond of a anime special that does not come from his pen.
What kind of special is it? In Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku, the story revolves around Son Goku’s father, Bardock. It was released in 1990 and lasts a full 48 minutes.
The special shows Son Goku being born on the planet Vegeta, the home of the Saiyans. He is supposed to be sent to Earth to destroy all life there. Meanwhile, Bardock is on another planet, destroying all living things there.
He learns through a vision that his home planet is being destroyed by Freeza. He sees the Saiyans as a great threat and instructs his subordinates to eliminate all Saiyans. Bardock tries to warn his home planet in time, but no one believes him.
As fate would have it, the planet is destroyed by Freeza. Bardock also loses his life. The special was not created by Akira Toriyama himself, but by Mitsuo Hashimoto. However, the special episode is so good that it brought Toriyama to tears.
Toriyama finds a special better than his manga
Why did Toriyama cry? At the end of the special, there is an emotional scene. After Bardock’s death, Son Goku’s life on Earth is shown and how he eventually starts the fight with Freeza.
In an interview in Jump Gold Selection: Dragon Ball Z Anime Special II, he revealed that he even found this special episode better than his own manga (via Kazenshuu):
The special was good. I cried. How come you can make a story so much better than the original manga? (laughs) But I really thought: “So that’s how it was.” That last scene was really sad.
With the second-to-last sentence, Toriyama presumably means that the special fits well with his own story. In the manga itself, Son Goku only learns in the Granolah Arc that Bardock was his father and is long dead.
How do others find it? Among the other fans, the special is received fairly well. On MyAnimeList, the special has a rating of 7.58 out of 10 possible points. On IMDb, it is even 7.8 points.
This makes the special rated slightly worse than Dragon Ball Z. The entire anime lies in the 8 range on both rating platforms. However, there is one film that will always be rated worse than anything else that has ever been produced for Dragon Ball: “As bad as Dragonball Evolution” – Hollywood has certainly messed up the next anime adaptation.
