Highlights
- Dragon Ball Z rarely focuses on holidays or cultural celebrations, with limited emphasis on these events within the series.
- Dragon Ball Z aired a holiday special in 1993, which was a nostalgic recap of the series, but it is now considered lost media.
- The special is no longer available because it does not introduce new plot developments and mostly consists of recycled animation.
With the holidays officially in full swing, it is time for fans to pop on their favorite Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year's specials. This includes anime, in which various series celebrate the holidays. Dragon Ball Z would also dip its toe into the holiday special pool and release something festive of its own.
Unfortunately for fans of the franchise, unlike most specials that were created for the franchise, the chances of being able to view this particular holiday special these days are pretty slim.
Holidays in the Dragon Ball World
In the world of Dragon Ball, the narrative is centered around the adventures of Goku, his friends, and their battles against powerful foes (some of them extremely powerful). The series is primarily driven by action, martial arts tournaments, and the constant pursuit of becoming stronger fighters. As a result, there is limited emphasis on holidays or cultural celebrations within the story.
In essence, Dragon Ball is more focused on its action-packed and adventurous elements, leaving holidays and cultural celebrations as secondary or background elements within the series. The primary themes revolve around friendship, rivalry, personal growth, and the ever-present quest for strength and power. That said, there was one holiday-specific episode that the series did air one year.
The Holiday Special In Question
The Dragon Ball Z Year-End TV Special Zenbu Misemasu Toshi Wasure Doragon Bōru Zetto is a special episode that originally aired on Japanese television on December 31, 1993. Its title can be translated to We’ll Show You Everything: Forget the Year’s Cares with Dragon Ball Z. This special episode is not considered part of the main Dragon Ball Z storyline but rather a lighthearted and fun recap of the series up to that point. It features various clips and highlights from the Dragon Ball Z anime, showcasing some of the most memorable moments, battles, and characters from the series.
The story involves Goku (who is dead at this point in time) teleporting back to Earth to spend New Years with his family. While he is sharing a bath with his family, they remanence about events that had happened in their lives that year (which covered the Cell Saga and the Afterlife Tournament arcs). It's a simple story when you get down to it, yet if you want to watch it, you're out of luck; the episode aired once and is mostly considered lost media now.
Why is it No Longer Available?
The main reason this special is no longer available is that it is, to be blunt, pointless to view in the current day and age. The Year-End TV Special is essentially a nostalgic look back at the adventures of Goku and his friends, making it a perfect way for fans to celebrate the end of the year and reminisce about the series. The special does NOT introduce new plot developments or storylines and is more of a compilation of key scenes and events from Dragon Ball Z's current (at the time) season rather than a special with substantially new material.
Most of the animation is recycled animation from the previous season. Almost all the original animations involved Goku and Gohan taking a bath in the backyard as they discussed their previous adventures. The few who do remember seeing it will tell you that the episode was largely unexciting and uneventful. As a way to celebrate the new year while looking back at the shows' events in the previous year, it was effective and accomplished what it set out to do. Once the new year hit though, with most of the animation being recycled and the celebration of a specific new year, it wasn't much of a priority for Toei to continue circulating it.
While random clips of the special have popped up on YouTube (in poor quality we want to add, so sorry for the fuzzy images), Toei has never re-released the special, and it was never dubbed in America because there was simply no reason to. While there are Dragon Ball Z fans who would love to see it, ultimately, no one is missing much by not viewing it. It is a glorified commercial that serves its purpose and adds little to nothing to the overall Dragon Ball experience. While it would be fun if it managed to pop up somewhere, by all accounts, you can see 85% of the special in the actual show itself.