The Dragon ball manga was revolutionary and great. They did a good job with both of the REAL animes (DB and DBZ none of that GT bullshit). It started a new era pretty much. If you read interviews of most shonen writers now, they'll say that they were heavily influenced by the Dragon ball manga. Luffy, Naruto, Gon, and many others all have very strong resemblances to Goku. Kishimoto (the writer of Naruto) even put a tailed beast in his manga named Son Goku and named the Jinchuriki (the person the beast is inside) named Roshi. Those are both names of characters from Dragon Ball. This is all about the manga of course but the anime was pretty well done and stays true to the manga mostly. I don't really see how DBZ isn't a good anime to be honest. If the manga that it is based off of wasn't ever made, most popular manga and anime nowadays wouldn't exist, at least not in the form that they are currently in.