Even in the USA, Dragon Ball practically needs no introduction. Goku, a naive and kind young boy with a tail, goes on various adventures along with an oddball assortment of characters in this classic series.  Goku is a powerful martial artist, but a real space cadet.  His youthful misunderstandings and Toriyama's lively and colorful character designs and art (faithfully represented in the anime) make this martial arts action comedy light-spirited and fun, except when unfortunate filler and delay cause it to bog down.  It's not nearly as bad as the sequel series Dragon Ball Z in that regard, fortunately. Dragon Ball was when Toryiyama was at the height of his irreverence, and it's filled with as many perverted jokes, anticlimaxes and gag foes as it is serious confrontations. It's not as apparent now as it was when it was first released, but Dragon Ball's breezy nature and positive attitude were a real breath of fresh air in shonen titles, and it's still fun today even though it has more competition from newer shows like One Piece.

Dragon Ball Season Three continues Goku's quest to find the seven dragon balls for a second time.  Initially, he just wanted his grandfather's dragon ball back, but after his new friend Upa's father is killed by Mercenary Tao, his new goal is clear.  He must defeat Tao, the rest of the Red Ribbon army and collect all seven dragon balls to return Upa's father to life.  However, Goku first needs to get some training at the mystical Korin tower to prepare for his rematch with the ruthless Tao.

Highlights

The Dragon Ball season sets are massive boxes, and this one is no different.  The 31 episodes within contain the rest of the Red Ribbon army material, the entire Fortuneteller Baba saga and even about half of the next world martial arts tournament arc.
 

I really enjoyed seeing the rest of Goku's battles with Mercenary Tao.  Aside from his fight with "Jackie Chun" in the last world tournament, no foe makes the little guy work so hard.  Plus he's such a fun parody of a certain type of cold assassin; he wears a pink robe with "Kill you" on the back and once finished a guy off with just his tongue (right through his skull and out the other side.  More comical than it sounds.).  His method of travel where he grabs a huge pillar, tosses it into the air and then jumps on it, riding it through the skies is a perfect example of how inventive Dragon Ball was this early on.  One of my favorite episodes, however, has Roshi's fight with the "manwolf" in the world tournament.  He's pretty mad because Roshi destroyed the moon, and now he can't pick up girls (he turns into a man on the full moon)!
 

This set actually has a number of great battles; in order to find the last Dragon Ball, Goku and his friends Krillin and Yamcha (fellow martial artists) must fight a series of movie monsters including a mummy and an invisible man.  The Invisible Man's defeat is quite possibly one of the funniest parts of the set, but it also clearly demonstrates that Dragon Ball is for a slightly older audience in their teens.  Don't let the colorful characters fool you; there's a weird sense of humor in Dragon Ball and this unedited set has some moments I wouldn't recommend for really young kids if you're concerned about sexual humor.  I laughed out loud a number of times, particularly in the rematch with Pilaf and when they went clothes shopping for Goku.  Even some of the filler episodes are better than usual – certainly a vast improvement over the endless pointless cutaways to secondary characters and pan shots over mountains that are the alternative.

 

The DVD package itself has its pros and cons.  On the good side, it takes up a lot less space than you'd expect.  However, some of the discs can be a little hard to get at.  You have to slide some of the discs out a bit under a plastic lip to remove them and they stack atop each other (which is the reason the set is so compact).  On the cooler end, there's a 24 page color booklet with profiles of the heroes and villains and lots of pictures. It even has an episode guide with summaries of all of them.  It's a pretty sweet little book.  On the discs themselves, my favorite option is Marathon Feature, which lets you conveniently watch every episode back to back with the credits cut out.  Very handy.  It just makes me wish this kind of convenience was added to the loading screen.  You still get the traditional unskippable FUNimation trailer when every disc starts up.  Since most of these discs have about seven episodes, you'll be seeing this more than you should have to.

      

Overall

Dragon Ball Season 3 is almost certainly the best balance between comedy and action the series ever achieves.  Fights such as the one with Mercenary Tao and Tien are intense and action-packed, while encounters such as the one with Pilaf ( a midgety would-be world conquerer) are pure comedy.  The earlier sets focused most on the humor, and starting with the King Piccolo arc in the next set, the series begins to resemble Dragonball Z even more, throwing aside some of the silliness for more hard-hitting fighting.
 

The characters introduced in this set become series staples and fan favorites, especially Tien.  It's also a good thing that the somewhat too-long-for-its-own-good Red Ribbon arc finally wraps up.  None of the stories in this set are as long – in fact, the filler episodes are one offs.  While purists can skip them, I actually recommend seeing them because some of them are quite good.  I particularly liked the episode "Terror and Plague", involving a jar that can suck people inside if you call their name.  However, the extra content is really a mixed bag.  While the stand alone episodes are classic and some of the cutaways involve classic Master Roshi humor, there's too much flashing back and forth between the faces of characters as they square off. There are too many unnecessary reaction shots, and worst of all, they sometimes cut away to these pointless scenes in the middle of more interesting fights.  The most egregious examples of this involve Colonel Violet, a character created exclusively for the anime who managed to accomplish a grand total of nothing except spend screen time and muck up the dynamics of scenes scripted better in the manga.  For every few tightly plotted, edge-of-your-seat episodes, there will be one that makes you think, "Get on with it already!", particularly the last few of Baba's fighters.  Don't even get me started on how they introduced Tien in a filler episode; for new fans, this won't be as grating since it's done smoothly, but it begs the question, "Why do that at all?". This is far from a series breaking issue, but by the time Dragon Ball Z rolls around it might very well be.  It's kind of sad to see a good show heading in that direction.

The audio tracks are another odd duck.  The English language has a surround option, while the original Japanese is only mono.  This might not be as significant if the script wasn't so different between the two.  The narrator in the US version is bombastic and given to hyperbole (if you've ever seen the dub on TV, this is the same wacky guy), while the Japanese version is more serene and dramatic.  In fact, the entire English script seems to use the Japanese one as more of a guideline than anything else; the two versions, while they lead to the same place, are filled with different jokes, sayings and even entire conversations that are barely recognizable.  This isn't to say the US version is bad – it's bold, quirky and has its own merits. However, if you switch between the two, it's surprising how the dynamics change, with the US script often making the characters more confrontational and campy (and Tien becomes weirdly fatherly towards Chiaotzu).  Many names are slightly changed as well – for example, Tenshinhan becomes "Tien Shinhan".  These largely seem to be for ease of pronunciation, but the movie monsters get really stupid changes.  The Invisible Man becomes See Through, for example.  The US voices are the same ones that aired on US television, and you'll probably recognize Chris Sabat doing lots of people (including Assistant Black) if you've ever seen Dragon Ball Z.  As usual, Goku, Bulma and Roshi are excellent and some of the side characters have weird voices.  In the long run however, both English and Japanese have their merits.  I plan to watch it twice so I can see it both ways, as I enjoyed watching both shows on Cartoon Network back in the day.  Note that the English version's changes don't seem to be for censorship purposes, so you won't be getting any "I'm gonna send you to another dimension!" or "It's okay, I can see their parachutes.".  Real purists however, will probably want to stick with the Japanese audio.
 

The art, the sense of fun and the crazy battles really carry this set, despite the problems I mentioned above.  While watching the show requires a bit more patience than reading the manga, there's a reason Dragon Ball set the standard by which comedy action series would follow for decades to come.  It's just that charming; Goku's adorable naivete and desire to do good will stick with you even after you've forgotten some of the parts that drag. 

                           

ComicsOnline gives Dragonball Season Three, 4 out of 5 turtle hermit disciples.