Dragon Ball Arcs with the highest stakes

Key things

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

Dragon Ball begins as a fun adventure where Goku joins Bulma in her quest to find the Dragon Balls to wish for a boyfriend. While its original premise is hilarious, D dragon balls became a little more complex with combat, death, and revelation, making the franchise more intense as Goku aged and expanded.

Over the course of the series, the stories became more bleak despite the existence of the Dragon Balls and other elements that lightened the stakes as permanent backups in case something went wrong. Yet the franchise still managed to up the ante in certain arcs by introducing new villains, epic battles, and sometimes making the Dragon Balls obsolete.

8 Future Trunks Saga

A powerful reality-destroying psychopath

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episodes: 47-76

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

Not only does it show the devastation of other realities, but Zamasu's fused power is too much as the Z fighters lose the battle time and time again. While the enemy is defeated at the end, this arc never had the heroes on top, leaving viewers with the reality of doomed timelines.

7 Android Saga

A dire future raises the stakes

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 119-139

While the Cell saga presented a bigger threat to the world, the Android arc set all the high stakes in both storylines by having Future Trunks talk about the grim future he hails from. By showing a future without Goku and where most of the Z fighters have died, viewers quickly understand what is at stake if the heroes lose.

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

6 Cell Arc

Hope and bleakness create an intense ending

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 140-194

Cell Saga is full of excitement, mixing good moments with villainous menace. The saga has one of the best arc endings in any anime series with a long, epic battle that determines the future of Earth. While his tournament nature lightens Cell's threat, the villain constantly reminds viewers of what he's capable of.

The stakes of this saga are constantly changing, leaving fans feeling hopeful with reveal followed by reveal of the villain's new powers. However, the very end is where things look really bleak, with most of the Z fighters incapacitated, Goku dead, and Cell regenerating again, relying on an injured teenage Gohan to finish the fight.

5 Majin Buu Arc

An inconsistent saga with constantly incompetent heroes

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 220-227

As one of the most polarizing arcs in anime, the quality of Buu's arc may not always be top-notch, but it certainly keeps the stakes high. They represent hopeless moments where Majin Buu felt like an invincible enemy and most of the characters died or were incapacitated at one point or another.

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 to the universe imaginable, with Goku needing everyone's help in the end to defeat the enemy.

4 Space Survival Saga

Most in Sake in an epic tournament full of threats

• Dragon Ball Super
• Episodes: 77-131

In terms of actual threat, the Tournament of Power has the highest reach, as losing it means wiping their universe out of existence. Still, with so many powerful fighters on one team, along with a tournament environment, it's easier to ignore the threat of high stakes.

With an entire universe in the game, the battles reflect how devastating a loss would be, leading to the incredible moments that make this saga so rewatchable. In particular, each enemy in this tournament poses a different threat, but none is as big as Jiren, who is so powerful that Goku and Frieza team up at the end.

3 Frieza Arc

A saga full of stressful moments, intense battles and a terrifying villain

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 39 – 107

Featuring some of the franchise's most iconic moments, Frieza Saga is full of great 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 saga.

With a hunt for dragon balls, an all-powerful tyrant, and a host of lackeys, this whole saga is filled to the brim with stressful moments. The stakes are so high that Goku must unlock a brand new transformation to defeat an evil adversary who is trying to take over the entire universe.

2 King Piccolo Saga

Unprecedented evil brings grave deaths

• Dragon Ball
• Episodes: 102-122

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

Additionally, with the death of Shrenron, the Dragon Balls have become obsolete, making every death count and every encounter more intense. As one of the best sagas of the entire series, the King Piccolo Saga was a turning point in the series, for the first time with a dark, evil and insurmountable threat, making most of the events unprecedented.

1 Saiyan Arc

High Stakes Set for all of Dragon Ball Z

• Dragon Ball Z
• Episodes: 1-35

After the end Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z he made sure to set the stakes all the way up, with the first arc revealing that Goku is part of a warrior race that is said to be much stronger than him. It really 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 an unprecedented level.

Saga was responsible for first killing Goku to defeat his brother Raditz, one of the weakest Saiyan warriors in the series, emphasizing that the protagonist was far from invincible. Additionally, the eventual death 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.