The Saiyan Saga got Dragon Ball Z off to an incredible start, setting up a new status quo that introduced the Saiyan race, explained where Piccolo came from, and much more.  It started with Raditz coming to Earth for his brother Goku, and wound up taking the Z-Fighters out into space, beyond anything they would have thought they'd see.

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But while so many cool things happened in the show, there are a ton of things that went wrong during the Saiyan Saga.  The main characters were constantly trying to play catch up with the villains, even with all the things they had going in their favor.

10 Goku Found Out His Origins As A Saiyan

Raditz Goku

Up until the beginning of Dragon Ball Z, no one knew Goku’s origins. He was just a kid found by his grandfather and trained in martial arts. But then Dragon Ball Z decided to take this turn into science fiction, where it’s explained that Goku’s actual origins are from a planet of warmongering aliens. The Saiyan race is a group of slaves that in turn destroy and enslave other races, and worse? His planet’s already been destroyed, and Goku’s one of the only remaining members left.

9 Goku Battled His Own Brother Raditz

raditz kicks goku and piccolo in the face

In Dragon Ball, Goku has no family and has to build a group of friends up around him. Then in Dragon Ball Z, he finally gets to meet his brother Raditz, a complete jerk who kidnaps Goku’s son with the intention of forcing him to fight for Freiza. Goku’s left with no other choice than to team up with his enemy Piccolo and get into a battle against Raditz to recover his son. In the end, Goku and Piccolo have to work together to kill the Saiyan.

8 Piccolo Exposed The Secret Of The Dragon Balls

Anime Dragon-Ball-Z-Raditz-Reads-Scouter

This was definitely the dumbest thing anyone could have done. Without realizing it, Piccolo caused the entire Dragon Ball Z storyline to take place. He explained to Raditz that it wasn’t a big deal that Goku had been killed, because Goku could be wished back to life with the Dragon Balls. This discovery is what caused the Saiyans to take notice of Earth in the first place, leading to the events that would cause both the Saiyan and Frieza Sagas.

7 Piccolo Killed Goku & Raditz

Anime Goku vs Raditz Dragon Ball Z

When Goku and Piccolo go up against Raditz, they’re completely outmatched. This is a major deal considering Dragon Ball established them both as the two most powerful people on the planet.

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If they couldn’t get the job done, literally no one could. They come up with a plan to stop Raditz, but Goku's hesitance to kill his brother forces them to go for a completely different option. In the end, Piccolo has to kill both of them to stop Raditz for good.

6 Vegeta Blew Up A Planet

Anime Vegeta destroys Arlia DBZ

This was a filler moment and didn’t actually happen in the manga, but it feels like something that could’ve happened at the time. While the story focused on what was going on in the interim year between Goku and the others training and the Saiyans coming to Earth, the Saiyans stopped off at Planet Arlia. While there, they brought peace to the planet, but this was mostly out of boredom and because the aggressors kept challenging them. Instead of leaving Arlia in peace, Vegeta decides to destroy the planet out of annoyance.

5 Yamcha Suffered A Humiliating Defeat To The Saibamen

Yamcha struggles to escape Saibamen bearhug in Dragon Ball

When Nappa and Vegeta landed on Earth, they fortunately didn’t decide to immediately fight the Z-Fighters. No, instead they decided to let their Saibamen fight for them—tiny beings that each had the power of Raditz. Vegeta and Nappa assumed the humans wouldn’t have the power to overcome them. But as it turns out, even Yamcha was able to defeat a Saibaman. At the same time, he wasn’t vigilant enough to make sure he was down, and he definitely didn’t count on the Saibamen being willing to sacrifice their own life to prove a point. Yamcha was the first Z-Fighter brought down, making the gravity of their situation obvious.

4 Nappa Destroyed The Military As He Waited For Goku's Arrival

nappa evil smirk

When Vegeta and Nappa arrive, the smart move would have been to simply wait it out until Goku got there. But the Z-Warriors aren’t given that option because the moment they arrive, the Saiyans obliterate an entire city. If that isn’t bad enough, even when they give the humans several hours of time, Nappa goes to fight the military and obliterates their forces with zero effort. This was a fight only Goku and his friends could solve.

3 Tien & Chiaotzu Fell To Nappa

Chiaotzu attempts to self-destruct to take out Nappa in Dragon Ball Z

This was one of the worst things to happen in all of Dragon Ball Z. Most of the Saiyan Saga doesn’t actually show Vegeta fighting because Nappa is more than enough to deal with all of the Z-Warriors.

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Not a single one of them is strong enough to beat Nappa, and working together, they fall short as well. Dragon Ball Kai makes this more plain—in the span of only a few episodes, Chiaotzu and Tien and Piccolo are all killed, while Nappa is only lightly singed. From then on, a precedent was set that the Z-Warriors were largely useless outside of select instances.

2 Gohan's Training With Piccolco Ultimately Failed Against Nappa

Nappa from Dragon Ball Z at full power

Gohan fans went through it this Saiyan Saga. He starts out with all this potential, showing himself to be even stronger than Raditz early on. Piccolo promises that he’ll make Gohan into an effective warrior, but Gohan never quite gets to where he should be, and he's nowhere near as strong as Nappa or Vegeta. Gohan’s nerves scare him out of delivering the finishing blow to Nappa, and he’s unable to move out of the way when Nappa tries to finish him off, leading to Piccolo defending him. Of course, the character is basically five and a half years old at that point, so what else did they expect?

1 Vegeta Transformed Into A Great Ape

Great Ape Vegeta terrorizes Goku in Dragon Ball Z

Goku vs. Vegeta is one of the top fights in Dragon Ball Z history in the eyes of most fans. The two of them weren’t evenly matched, but Kaioken allowed Goku to even the odds and eventually even defeat Vegeta in an epic beam struggle battle. But Vegeta wouldn’t be outdone and transformed into a Great Ape, multiplying his power 10 times over and causing him to easily defeat Goku. It’s only thanks to Yajirobe that any of them survived.

NEXT: Dragon Ball: 10 Times Goku Was His Own Worst Enemy