Descending order:
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Dragon Ball: I’m currently watching this and I agree! It’s so fun.
- Yu Yu Hakusho
- JoJo
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
- Haikyu
- Attack on Titan
- Gintama
- Hunter x Hunter (2011)
- The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
Descending order:
I like Classic better than Z and later. The power differentials between Goku and his opponents are much smaller here, so it has room to be a true adventure anime. Let’s say that it was good enough to be a cult classic in Japan such that Z was greenlighted and made its way to the West. The rest is history. Don’t expect the OG to be a clone of DBZ.
Oh, no, I’m aware that DBZ jumped the shark from the word “go”, and also vaguely aware of the original Dragon Ball being a retelling of Journey to the West. Truthfully, I expect I will actually enjoy Dragon Ball more than DBZ because while I hold a lot of nostalgia for DBZ, in rewatching it I realized how much it’s very much like a modern mythology story, where you already know the outcome (Goku wins) so there’s not the same kind of narrative weight we’re used to (not to mention some absolute bullshit maneuvers from time to time), but a lot of the fun is just getting to see the big, unbelievable battles and how they keep getting bigger and unbelievable-er. Dragon Ball being just an adventure story is probably going to be closer to my tastes nowadays.