"Dragon Ball: Sleeping Beauty in Devil's Castle" is Dragon Ball's second movie and continues the tradition of retelling events that happen in the series but with a more self-contained twist. In this one the movie recaps the events of Krillin and Goku first meeting and training with Master Roshi. Or more accurately, getting Master Roshi to accept them as students. In the series they had to find Roshi a girlfriend, which led to them picking up Launch. In the movie, they are tasked with finding the titular "Sleeping Beauty" who is locked away in..."the Devil's Castle". The two rivals go on their adventure and who knows maybe they will become better martial artists and friends along the way.
If you are watching the English Dub of this, most everybody sounds good. Some are reprised by their traditional Funimation counterpart, but Goku always sounds off. He sounds like a kid with a sore throat. Not much to say past that, just weird.
The movie centers around some good parts of the original story. Everybody loves Krillin, he makes a great counterpart to Goku. It is nice when Goku still had a weakness that could be exploited by the villains, it helps make each action scene a bit more intense.
On the negative side, there are two main plots that go on in this story. Goku and Krillin's and then Bulma, Yamcha and the gang. These two stories intertwine but it feels like the two elements were forced together unnaturally. I'm glad to have Bulma and all of them there, truly the conflict doesn't begin until they're there, but it feels tacked on.
The villain isn't all that interesting, just a vampire with sunglasses, and he goes out like a fool. He does have a cool, albeit confusing name, "Count Lucifer". What is frustrating is that too much of the time spent with the heroes is spent wandering around as opposed to making any real story progress. Despite being 45 minutes, this one feels like it drags more than the other Dragon Ball movies.
By no means the worst ever, just not very effective at capturing the magic of the original Dragon Ball.
If you are watching the English Dub of this, most everybody sounds good. Some are reprised by their traditional Funimation counterpart, but Goku always sounds off. He sounds like a kid with a sore throat. Not much to say past that, just weird.
The movie centers around some good parts of the original story. Everybody loves Krillin, he makes a great counterpart to Goku. It is nice when Goku still had a weakness that could be exploited by the villains, it helps make each action scene a bit more intense.
On the negative side, there are two main plots that go on in this story. Goku and Krillin's and then Bulma, Yamcha and the gang. These two stories intertwine but it feels like the two elements were forced together unnaturally. I'm glad to have Bulma and all of them there, truly the conflict doesn't begin until they're there, but it feels tacked on.
The villain isn't all that interesting, just a vampire with sunglasses, and he goes out like a fool. He does have a cool, albeit confusing name, "Count Lucifer". What is frustrating is that too much of the time spent with the heroes is spent wandering around as opposed to making any real story progress. Despite being 45 minutes, this one feels like it drags more than the other Dragon Ball movies.
By no means the worst ever, just not very effective at capturing the magic of the original Dragon Ball.