Dragon Ball: What Makes The Saiyan Saga Work

Dragon Ball as a story, started out with such very humble beginnings. From the very beginning being a comedy battle Shōnen, it started off with the journey for the Dragon Balls, and eventually ended with a strong battle between Goku and Piccolo Jr. in the World Tournament. However, when Dragon Ball Z made its premier and debut, not many were particularly expecting the idea of Goku being essentially an alien, or for the story to take a sudden shift from martial arts to sci-fi. This easily could have been jarring if it were handled any less gracefully, but it has a large amount of narrative techniques packed into the arc that make the Saiyan Saga work as an introductory arc into Dragon Ball Z. If there were any ideas that had been used by Akira Toriyama, it would have to be a selection ranging from the themes of the story, how it begins, versus how it ends and leads into the next arc.