YMMV / Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Was Kochin always a robot, did he replace his organic body with an artificial one like Gero became Android 20, or is he a purely robotic substitute to replace the one who died in the accident? Given that the reveal of his true nature occurs just seconds before he dies, the movie never gives a solid answer. Bulma recognizing him along with Dr. Wheelo suggests Kochin existed before the accident, lending weight to the latter theories.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Near the beginning of the movie, Gohan sings a cheery song about Piccolo with trippy visuals galore. It serves no purpose to the plot and is never mentioned again. It doesn't help that the song features footage of Piccolo sacrificing himself to protect Gohan from Nappa near the end of it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: For a villain who is hardly ever brought up in the games and with minimal merchandising, Dr. Wheelo has become real popular. He put up a good fight, had a relatively interesting story, wasn't a copy of a past villain like the majority of the movie villains that succeeded him, has a rather unique design for the entire franchise and on top of it had a badass design for his mech. A handful of mods for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 showed off potential he had for the game, now with some fans clamoring for his return.
• Funny Moments: Krillin's response to finding himself caught between Goku and a brainwashed Piccolo as they charge toward each other. After nervously glancing from one to the other, Krillin lets out a mighty scream of defiance... and dives right the fuck out of the way.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In 2005, when the film was redubbed with Funimation's cast, R. Bruce Elliot was the voice of Dr. Wheelo. Five years later when Dragon Ball Z Kai was dubbed in English, Elliot was cast as the new voice actor for Captain Ginyu, who actually does manage to temporarily take over Goku's body.
  • Considering how infamous the later films became for ripping off villains from the series, it's rather funny how one of the first ones was not only fairly original, but ended up having an Expy in the original manga, namely Doctor Gero — they're both evil scientists reduced to brains in exoskeletons whose motivation is to hunt down Goku and use bioengineered warriors and androids to get the job done.
• Moment of Awesome: Despite being unofficially retired, Roshi (initially) acquits himself well against Doctor Kochin's Bio-Warriors. There's a reason a portion of that fight is used in the Funimation dub opening theme, "Rock the Dragon".
• Narm: One of the earliest instances of narm in the AB Group dub (otherwise known as "Big Green Dub":
  • The blue small (totally not Saibamen) minions have a really weird voice. Doesn't help that they sound like they're high on helium.
  • Piccolo's screams in the dub is... odd... It sounds less like screaming and more like he had something in his throat.
  • "Come Magic Cloud!"
  • And then there's this exchange:
    Dr. Wheelo: Who's the strongest man?
    Bulma: What a stupid question! Son Goku, naturally!
    Dr. Kochin: Son Goku!?
    Bulma: Yes, Son Goku!
    Dr.Wheelo: ...Son Goku?
  • Dr. Wheelo has a voice that started as if he's just bored at life to suddenly trying hard to act cool (hence the VA who is known as "The Guy Who Tries Too Hard To Sound Cool").
• Superlative Dubbing: While the Swedish dub for the movie series is for the most part not an example of this trope, ranging from passable at best to downright laughably bad at worst, Per Sandborgh as Dr. Wheelo downright steals the show with the kind of acting that is right at home in the series and where you can just hear Dr. Wheelo's slow decent down the Villainous Breakdown as he starts out as cold and becoming increasingly unhinged as it goes on. The fact that Per voided a character where he didn't have to worry about Lip Lock probably also helped.

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