My favorite character is Gohan. I'm more partial to when he was a preteen in the Android/Cell arc since he was the most useful at that point, but I like him as a character in general. I think I've always liked his pacifist nature; he only fights when he absolutely must. Also, Gohan and Videl are my favorite couple in the Dragon Ball series.
Goten is a very close second. He's got the silliness of Goku, but he seems a little more sensible than his father. Sure, he's similar in appearance to Kid Goku, but he's his own character. He's just a cute and fun character in general.
I adored Gohan during the Cell saga as well, and it was then that I liked him as a character the best during the whole of the series. Sad to say after that saga when he becomes a teen I grew less of a fan of him
click for spoilerdue to how his character just seemed to shift towards the comical relief (or at least that's how I interpreted it) with his antics as Saiyaman and general goofiness. I was really shocked when I saw those episodes. I didn't mind some of his joking as with his training with the Supreme Kai and the Z sword, but the balance to me seemed off when it came to him and his campy behavior. Goten is so so so cute, I loved him, for all the reasons which you stated.
click for spoilerUnfortunately if I remember rightly his character is in a way treated much like some of the others in GT and the last few episodes of Z where he sort of drops off entirely in importance. I don't mind that it hinted that he really didn't continue with his training after the Buu saga, it would make sense considering all that he went through if he just wanted to live "normally" and adopt even more of a pacifist demeanor than Gohan. But that's just me and what I remember, I could be WAY off. As for couples in the series I'm afraid I really don't have much of an opinion of ANY of them because there really was not a whole lot of focus on them to show how they interacted or their chemistry and much is left up for the audience to make up, which I don't mind.
click for spoilerI think I find Vegeta and Bulma the most interesting considering where each person came from, their dynamics is much like putting out a fire with gasoline. I also like that the two characters that changed the most in the series ended up together! If I had to choose a least favorite character, it would have to be Recoome. I always found his character to be annoying for some reason.
I don't have much of an opinion of Recoome other than I could not take him seriously AT ALL and he was more or less a comic relief character. I couldn't really take him at face value for being as threatening as he was, maybe it was the original dub, but his dialog just didn't seem to fit. I bet if I watched the episodes again though I might like him, I've found in recent years that I tend to like strange characters that others don't (like Alfrid in
The Hobbit movies. Mr. Satan/Hercule is also one of those characters that I actually like where most others do not, but I didn't like him originally. Now he's just too funny and ridiculous for me to really hate and he turned out really important and three dimensional, even if at times I wanted to reach into the screen and strangle him.
I personally like the filler. That's one reason why I very much so prefer DBZ over Kai.
You're right in saying that it endears the characters further. I particularly like the Gohan filler in the Saiyan arc. In the manga, Gohan's training was pretty much nonexistent. The anime does a good job of telling short snippets of what Gohan's training probably was like, at least in my opinion. Most of the filler is fun in both DB and DBZ.
I personally feel that in all series you need to have a balance when it comes to filler and plot centric episodes; the viewer needs a break sometimes and we need to know the character on a more personal and sometimes domestic level. What do they do when they are not constantly fighting or thinking about whatever is the main plot? What is their favorite food? Simple things that give characters more depth. I found that one of my favorite series,
Saint Seiya, had absolutely NO FILLER at all and in the end we find that we know absolutely nothing about the characters beyond how they act when they are fighting, not good. But if a series has too much filler then it gets boring and the series seems pointless and more episodic when it is not supposed to be and that's not good either. So a good balance is always needed.
So in the end I feel that in DBZ just a touch more filler could have been warranted so we get to know what the characters are doing and who they are a little more. What does Vegeta do when he's not training? Surly he isn't brooding all day every day.
I loved the filler episodes when they appeared every so often and I agree with you the ones with Gohan training with Piccolo were golden and are some of my favorite episodes.
click for spoilerI love how Gohan slowly begins to crack Piccolo little by little and Piccolo slowly becomes more of his surrogate father and we see him become more compassionate. I also liked the car filler episode with Goku and Piccolo, which just proved that through all of Piccolo's griping and brooding, he's just a big colossal nerd.
As for Super, the first episode is really good. The animation is great and the character interactions are interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next. The manga for it is pretty good so far as well
I may just watch some of it for nostalgia feels than anything if I get an opportunity to, as I said I may not be a huge fan of the series now but I respect it and care enough for the characters to be curious about what they are doing. I wanted to find a new anime to watch anyway (though I AM looking forward to the new Black Jack anime coming soon).
the Japanese soundtrack is one of my favorite aspects of Dragon Ball for both the anime and the video games. Shunsuke Kikuchi in particular made some excellent tracks for the series.
I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with the original score of DBZ as the only one that I am familiar with is Bruce Falconer's re-score for the Funimation dub, it is these tracks that I am in ownership of and enjoy. I'll have to look up the original score and listen to it sometime to get a true opinion of it.
