Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks

As far as entries in the Dragon Ball universe go, this one is kind of unique. Taking place in the alternate future of Trunks, a world torn apart by the merciless Artificial Humans, where almost all the warriors are gone, along with the Dragon Balls, and nearly all hope. Only two warriors remain, Gohan, now a grown man, continuing the legacy of his father, and Trunks, the teenage son of Vegeta and Bulma, who is training in hopes of becoming a Super Saiya-jin.

What makes this movie truly unique in terms of the Dragon Ball franchise, is that death has a lot more meaning here. The majority of the time in the series, when a character dies, it's kind of hard to get emotional about it, because you know as long as the Dragon Balls are around, they will likely be all right in the end. This fantastic TV special shows us what would happen without them. There is also no Goku, save for a small scene of him dying from a heart virus at the start.

With a run time of only about 50 minutes, there is not a whole lot of time to go into too much depth, but it definitely tells you the story that it intends in that time, fitting a fair amount of story into it. We get several of most intense fight scenes of the whole series, which probably owes to the short length, since they wasted no time on time filling power up scenes, as the main series often did.

As usual the voice acting (Japanese) is of a high quality, with Nozawa's voice give adult Gohan a newfound maturity, and Takeshi Kusao plays Trunks well. As far as villains go, Artificial Humans #17 and #18 are brilliantly malicious and evil, treating humans as mere toys for their enjoyment. Being a TV Special, the animation is pretty much at the same standard set by the series, not bad in any sense, but far from groundbreaking.

In the end, the special definitely has a lot to offer, and fans of the series should definitely love it. There is plenty of intensity and emotion, and many memorable scenes. The special portrays Gohan in a new light, very different from his usual timid nature, which has seemed to annoy some fans. Despite being a TV special, it remains one of my favourite parts of the series, which is rare for material that hasn't come from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. I'd call this one Toei Animation's greatest achievements in the Dragon Ball franchise.