Dragon Ball Arcs with the highest stakes

Important takeaways

• The Dragon Ball series evolved from light-hearted adventures to darker stories with intense battles as Goku aged.
• Future Trunks' saga featured a powerful psychopath and doomed realities, leaving heroes on the losing end.
• The Universe Survival saga raised the stakes in an epic tournament where losing meant erasing their universe from existence.

Dragon Ball begins as a fun adventure with Goku joining Bulma in her quest to find the Dragon Balls to wish for a boyfriend. Although its original premise is light-hearted, D dragon ball got a bit more complex with fights, deaths and revelations that made the franchise more intense as Goku got older and expanded.

Throughout the series, the stories turned grim despite the existence of the Dragon Balls and other elements that lightened the stakes as constant backups in case something went wrong. Yet the franchise still managed to up the ante in some arcs by introducing new villains, epic battles and, at times, making Dragon Balls obsolete.

8 Future Trunks Saga

A powerful psychopath who judges reality

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episodes: 47-76

As one of the darker plots in the Dragon Ball SuperThe Future Trunks Arc has one of the best villains when it introduces Zamasu's psychopathic tendencies. Although initially the perfect Supreme Kai candidate, Zamasu's hatred of mortals quickly escalates into a desire for destruction made real by Future Trunks' doomed reality.

Not only showing the devastation of other realities, the fused Zamasu's power feels too immense as the Z-fighters lose over and over again in battle. While the enemy is defeated at the end, this arc never really had the heroes on top, leaving the audience with the reality of doomed timelines.

7 Android's Saga

A dire future raises the stakes

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 119-139

While the Cell saga posed a bigger threat to the world, the Android arc set up all the high stakes in both storylines by starting with Future Trunks talking about the bleak future he comes from. By showing a future without Goku and where most of the Z-fighters have died, the audience quickly understands all that is at stake if the heroes lose.

With future Trunks' help, the heroes are able to fight off the many Android threats, but not before some setbacks, especially as more is revealed about the horrific events of Trunks' reality and its high death toll.

6 Cell arch

Hope and gloom make for an intense ending

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 140-194

Cell Saga is full of suspense and mixes the good times with the villainous threat. The saga has one of the best endings in any anime series, with a long, epic battle that decides the future of Earth. While its tournament-like nature lightens the load of Cell's threat, the villain constantly reminds the audience of what he's capable of.

The stakes of this saga are constantly shifting, leaving fans feeling hopeful with a reveal followed by the reveal of the villain's new abilities. Still, the very end is where it looks really grim, as most of the Z-fighters are incapacitated, Goku is dead, and Cell regenerates again, relying on an injured teenage Gohan to finish the fight.

5 Majin Buu Arc

An inconsistent saga with heroes constantly incapacitated

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episode: 220-227

As one of the most polarizing arcs in anime, the quality of the Buu arc may not always be top notch, but it definitely keeps the stakes high. With hopeless moments, when Majin Buu felt like an undefeated enemy and because most characters died or were incapacitated at some point.

In the Majin Buu saga, the Angels and Gods of Destruction were yet to be introduced, which meant that the villain felt like the biggest threat imaginable to the universe, with Goku needing everyone's help to defeat the enemy in the end.

4 Universe Survival Saga

Mostly for his own sake in an epic tournament filled with threats

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episode: 77-131

As for the actual threat, the Powernament of Power has the highest reach, as losing it means erasing their universe from existence. Still, having so many powerful fighters on one team, along with the tournament setting, makes it easier to ignore the high-stakes threat.

With the existence of an entire universe in play, the battles reflect how devastating a loss would be, resulting in some incredible moments that make this saga so re-discoverable. In particular, every enemy in this tournament poses a different threat, but none as big as Jiren, who is so powerful that Goku and Frieza team up at the end.

3 Frieza Arc

A tale filled with stressful moments, intense battles and a terrifying villain

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 39 – 107

Featuring some of the most iconic moments in the franchise, Frieza Saga is filled with amazing fights, high stakes and memorable scenes. This is one of the few arcs that feels like there is an ever-present threat that makes this plot an incredibly terrifying tale.

With the sideways hunt for the Dragon Balls, an all-powerful tyrant, and an abundance of lackeys, this entire saga is filled to the brim with stressful moments. The stakes feel so high that Goku must unlock an all-new transformation to defeat the evil antagonist who seeks to dominate the entire universe.

2 King Piccolo Saga

Unprecedented evil leads to great deaths

• Dragon Ball
• Episodes: 102-122

While Dragon Ball universe used to be much smaller during the first anime, the King Piccolo arc managed to raise the stakes without having to threaten everyone in existence. At that point, King Piccolo was the biggest threat introduced, responsible for killing several main characters for the first time.

Also, with Shrenron's death, the Dragon Balls became obsolete, making every death count and every encounter more intense. As one of the best sagas in the entire franchise, the King Piccolo Saga was a turning point in the series, introducing a dark, evil and unbeatable threat for the first time, making most events unprecedented.

1 Saiyan bow

High stakes set for all of Dragon Ball Z

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episode: 1-35

After the end of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z made sure to set the stakes all the way up, with its first arc revealing that Goku is part of a race of warriors that are supposedly much stronger than him. It certainly turned out that the Saiyans weren't the biggest threat that Goku and the Z-fighters would have to face, but they still managed to do a lot of damage and raise the stakes to unprecedented levels.

Sagan was responsible for killing Goku for the first time to defeat his brother Raditz, one of the weakest Saiyan warriors in the franchise, emphasizing that the protagonist was far from invincible. Additionally, the eventual deaths of Piccolo and Kami meant that the Dragon Balls could not be used to help, leaving the Z-Fighters in a hopeless situation that had far fewer safety nets than later sagas.