Highest Stakes Dragon Ball Bows

Key insights

• As Goku grew older, the Dragon Ball franchise evolved from light-hearted adventures to darker storylines with intense battles.
• The Future Trunks saga featured a powerful psychopath and a doomed reality, leaving the heroes on the losing side.
• The Universe Survival saga raised the stakes in an epic tournament where defeat meant the extinction of their universe.

Dragon Ball It starts off as a fun adventure where Goku joins Bulma on her search for the Dragon Balls in order to wish for a friend. While the original premise is lighthearted, Dragon Ball became a bit more complex with fights, deaths, and revelations that made the franchise more intense as Goku grew older and expanded.

As the series progressed, the storylines became darker, although there were Dragon Balls and other elements that made it easier to use as constant backups in case something went wrong. Still, the franchise managed to up the ante on certain storylines, introducing new villains and epic battles, sometimes making the Dragon Balls obsolete.

8 Future Trunks Saga

A powerful psychopath who dooms reality

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episodes: 47-76

As one of the darker plots in Dragon Ball Superthe Future Trunks arc has one of the best shonen villains as it introduces Zamasu's psychopathic tendencies. Although he was originally the perfect candidate for Supreme Kai, Zamasu's hatred of mortals quickly escalates into a desire for destruction, made real by Future Trunks' doomed reality.

Not only does the fused Zamasu show the devastation of other realities, but it also feels too massive as the Z Fighters keep losing in battle. Although the enemy is defeated in the end, the heroes in this storyline were never truly at the forefront, leaving the audience with the reality of a doomed timeline.

7 Android's Saga

A terrible future raises the stakes

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 119-139

While the Cell saga presented a greater threat to the world, the Android arc put everything on the line in both storylines by starting with Future Trunks talking about the dark future he comes from. By depicting a future without Goku and where most of the Z Fighters have died, viewers quickly understand what's at stake if the heroes lose.

With future Trunk's help, the heroes are able to fend off the many android threats, but not without some setbacks, especially as more is revealed about the horrific events in Trunk's reality and the high death toll.

6 Cell sheet

Hope and desolation make for an intense ending

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 140-194

The Cell Saga is full of tension and mixes the good moments with the malicious threat. The saga has one of the best arc endings of any anime series, with a long, epic battle that decides the future of Earth. While his jousting nature mitigates Cell's threat, the villain constantly reminds the audience of what he's capable of.

The challenges of this saga are constantly changing, giving fans hope as a reveal follows and the villain's new abilities are revealed. But things look really bleak at the very end, with most of the Z Fighters incapacitated, Goku dead, and Cell regenerating, relying on an injured teenage Gohan to finish the fight.

5 Majin Buu Arc

An inconsistent saga with heroes constantly out of action

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 220-227

As one of the most polarizing arcs in anime, the quality of the Buu arc may not always be at the highest level, but it certainly keeps the stakes high. With hopeless moments where Majin Buu felt like an invincible enemy and most characters eventually died or were incapacitated.

In the Majin Buu saga, the Angels and Gods of Destruction had yet to be introduced, which meant that the villain was introduced as the greatest threat to the universe, as in the end Goku needed everyone's help to defeat the enemy.

4 Universe Survival Saga

The best of an epic tournament full of threats

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episodes: 77-131

As far as actual threat goes, the Tournament of Power has the greatest reach, as its loss means its universe will be erased from existence. But with so many strong fighters on a team and the tournament environment, it's easier to ignore the high-stakes threat.

Given the existence of an entire universe in the game, the battles reflect how devastating defeat would be and lead to some incredible moments that make this saga so replayable. Notably, each enemy in this tournament poses a different threat, but none as big as Jiren, who is so powerful that Goku and Frieza end up teaming up.

3 Frieza bow

A saga full of stressful moments, intense battles and a terrible villain

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 39 – 107

Featuring some of the franchise's most iconic moments, the Frieza Saga is full of great battles, high stakes and unforgettable scenes. This is one of the few storylines where it seems like there is an ever-present threat, making this an incredibly frightening saga.

The hunt for the Dragon Balls goes wrong, an all-powerful tyrant and lots of minions make this whole saga filled to the brim with stressful moments. With so much at stake, Goku must unlock an entirely new transformation to defeat the evil antagonist who wants to dominate the entire universe.

2 King Piccolo Saga

Unprecedented evil leads to grave deaths

• Dragon Ball
• Episodes: 102-122

While the Dragon Ball While the universe was much smaller in the first anime, the King Piccolo arc managed to up the stakes without having to threaten every human in existence. At this point, King Piccolo was the biggest threat, responsible for killing several major characters for the first time.

Additionally, with the death of Shrenron, the Dragon Balls became obsolete, making every death count and every encounter more intense. One of the best sagas in the entire franchise, the King Piccolo Saga marked a turning point in the series, as for the first time there was a dark, evil and unbeatable threat, making most events unprecedented.

1 Saiyan bow

There's a lot at stake for Dragon Ball Z

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 1-35

After the end of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z made sure to set the stakes really high, as the first story arc reveals that Goku is part of a warrior race that is supposedly much stronger than him. It actually turned out that the Saiyans weren't the biggest threat that Goku and the Z Fighters had to face, but they still managed to do a lot of damage and raise the stakes to unprecedented levels.

The saga was responsible for killing Goku for the first time to defeat his brother Raditz, one of the weakest Saiyan warriors in the franchise, underlining that the protagonist was far from invincible. Additionally, Piccolo and Kami's eventual deaths meant that the Dragon Balls could not be used to help, leaving the Z Fighters in a hopeless situation with far fewer safety nets than in later sagas.