Dragon Ball Z: All sagas ranked

From Z Warrior’s daring adventures on Namek to battling it out in the Cell Games, no one can deny the intensity of Dragon Ball Z’s stories across multiple sagas, so here are our picks for the best Sagas in Dragon Ball Z.

Dragon Ball prides itself on its spectacular fights, inviting fans more than its story. That’s not to say the story of Dragon Ball isn’t good, but it seems to be an afterthought in the modern era when considering fans focus intensely on the battles, more than how they get to the fight.

The story of Dragon Ball Z is collected in “Sagas,” generally named after the location or main antagonist of that segment of the story. Depending on how you divide them, this can make the story seem either rather long or short, as you can render the story of Dragon Ball Z down to just a handful of sagas, all of which we’ll be ranking today.

Every saga in Dragon Ball Z ranked

We’ll be grouping as many episodes as possible into a single saga to appropriately credit the collected story as a whole in that particular saga of Dragon Ball Z. Fair warning: this does include filler.

5. The Buu Saga

Toei Animation

A lot was going for the Buu Saga initially, as our heroes were experiencing peacetime. Goku was out on parole from Other World to visit his friends and participate in the tournament until a sinister plan was unveiled to resurrect an ancient evil. We haven’t experienced peacetime in Dragon Ball Z since the beginning, so seeing what mighty warriors get up to when there’s no great threat to fight is interesting. An action-filled anime could use a little slice of life sometimes.

Majin Buu isn’t exactly a compelling villain until his Evil and Kid forms take over, and even then, there’s a lot of power-scaling whiplash. The fights feel very off-balance, to the degree where Buu can’t be defeated or can be beaten easily. Though Vegito wins points out of the sheer coolness of the character.

Where the Buu Saga falls short is it sets up the pins of a good story but can’t seem to knock them down. The compelling fight between Goku and Majin Vegeta? Turns out Goku was holding back the whole time. The new Super Saiyan 3 form being a result of Goku’s Other World training? It turns out a young Goten and Trunks can do that too, when fused into Gotenks. It’s a saga that’s all over the place with what it’s trying to do.

4. The Saiyan Saga

Toei Animation

The Saiyan Saga sets up the stakes of Dragon Ball Z, how every single fight the Z Warriors participate in now will be an uphill battle. We finally get some information about Goku’s history being a part of a grandiose race of warriors known as the Saiyans, only reassuring his humanity against his brutal brother Raditz. Also, Goku dying as the catalyst to start the series is a shocking moment that expands the world because we learn what happens in the Dragon Ball universe after death.

What helps the Saiyan Saga is that this is the first time in Dragon Ball that multiple stories occur concurrently. Young Gohan needs to learn to adapt as his father did in his youth, living off the fat of the land while being watched over by Piccolo, Goku in Other World training with King Kai, and the remaining Z Warriors training with Kami and Mr Popo.

What is welcome – that unfortunately fades out as Dragon Ball Z goes on – is that each fighter is given a chance to fight over just being a spectator, though ultimately, they can’t come close to facing the Saiyans. Even in the final fight against Vegeta, it took the team effort of Goku, Krillin, Gohan, and Yajirobe of all people to take the proud Saiyan prince down, and we love seeing that teamwork come into play in Dragon Ball.

3. The Android Saga

Kicking off with a time traveler cutting a robot Freiza into pieces and decimating his forces puts everyone in their place. We learn from Trunks that a threat of two Androids will come and destroy the world, leaving the remaining populace living in fear of the pair.

This setup sets the tone perfectly for the gang to resort to intense training for three years, only for it not to amount to much. The theme of fighting in the Android Saga is that brute force won’t work anymore unless the power difference is massive, as seen in the fight between Vegeta and Android 19.

When the real Androids appear, they don’t seem that evil; they just seem like a bunch of delinquent youths who hate being pushed around. The only person they definitively kill in the Saga is Dr. Gero when he threatens them to do his bidding. Perhaps Android 16 was the equalizer; maybe they didn’t want to seem so bad in front of their new friend who loves Earth.

After laying the smackdown on the Z Warriors, they just leave to do whatever they like, making the heroes go into emergency mode, weighing up their options. It’s a lot of firsts for the team to deal with as this is a very fast-moving story once the action gets going, and that’s welcome when the risk of filler is present throughout the series. With that said, the filler arc of Goku and Piccolo learning to drive is priceless.

2. The Cell Saga

Toei Animation

Cell takes center stage as the Androids go running for cover lest they be absorbed. In his base form Cell is a terrifying and cruel insect creature skulking around killing the innocent and he grows more prideful as he achieves his perfect form. Cell becomes a monster who knows nothing can stop him, so he says, “Why not have a little fun?” and throws a tournament to stress-test his newfound power.

You usually look towards the massive fights in Dragon Ball Z. Still, we’ll give the Cell Saga credit for providing some much-needed character development and world-building during moments of calm. Goku gives Cell the business for killing people and going on a side-quest to find the Dragon Balls, seeing old faces along the way, and more notably, spending time with his family and friends before the Cell Games is one of the best times in the series to step back and take a breath.

The Cell Saga features some of Dragon Ball Z’s most iconic moments: Tien getting his last hurrah to buy the surviving Androids time, the fight between the heroes and Cell Jr’s to up the stakes, the outstanding Father-Son Kamehameha, Android 16’s speech to Gohan, and of course, Gohan ascending higher than thought possible. We cannot forget to mention the closure Trunks receives after going back to his own timeline and putting down the evil Androids and an imperfect Cell.

1. The Namek Saga

Crunchyroll

The Namek Saga does one thing that other sagas in Dragon Ball Z severely forget: return to its Dragon Ball roots and go on an adventure, this time on a universal scale. The gang needs to head to Namek to restore their own set of Dragon Balls; otherwise, there is no safety net for the Z Warriors. They don’t go there to fight some bad guy; they’re going on an adventure through space to find a new planet and save their friends.

When the gang arrives, they realize they’re hopelessly outclassed and need to play a deadly game of hide and seek around the planet to avoid Frieza and his forces, another first for the series. As the larger-than-life battles indicate, stealth isn’t their style, so teaming up with their former enemy, Vegeta, and fighting for survival becomes a priority.

In terms of villains, the Ginyu Force leaves a lasting impact with their antics as Goku appears. Still, it’s Frieza who gets your blood boiling with his acts of cruelty, going as far as eliminating the entire Namekian race and killing both Vegeta and Krillin, causing Goku to turn Super Saiyan. Yes, the infamously long fight between Frieza and Goku doesn’t help in terms of story pacing, but seeing the tyrant getting a beatdown is the most satisfying way to end the best saga in Dragon Ball Z.

Those are our picks of all of the sagas in Dragon Ball Z. For more Dragon Ball rankings, why not check our ranking of the strongest characters in Dragon Ball Super, our picks for the best villains in Dragon Ball Z, and all fans of the series will want to keep up to date with everything we know on the upcoming Dragon Ball Daima anime.