Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans

Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans is a two-part original video animation from 1993, positioned as a side story rather than a chapter of the television continuity. It came out of a card-battle role-playing game for the Family Computer, with the animated parts issued in two instalments connected to strategy guide material. That origin is part of why the work matters: it is an early, unusually direct example of this franchise treating a game-first storyline as a stage for full-scale action and giving it a life beyond the console.

What the OVA offers is a compact, deadline-driven adventure. A survivor of the race the Saiyans once wiped out sets a revenge scheme in motion, forcing the heroes to work against a fixed countdown while a threat aimed at all life on the planet escalates. At roughly half an hour per part, the pacing stays brisk and the tone moves between martial arts spectacle, transformation showpieces and light comedy, with the science fiction machinery doing the heavy lifting behind the conflict.

Approachability is one of its real strengths. Two short parts, a premise explained within the runtime and a small central cast mean viewers can follow it without deep familiarity with the surrounding series, and anyone curious about the franchise's less central corners will find a tidy sample of its 1990s style. Those who prefer long serialized arcs may find it slight, and readers should note that a later remake exists as a separate alternative treatment of the same premise.

Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans is a two-part original video animation side story. Dr. Raichii, a survivor of the Tsufurujin race, seeks revenge against the Saiyans who wiped out his people. His targets are the remaining Saiyans, Goku and Vegeta, along with the other defenders of Earth.

Raichii unleashes machines that spread a deadly gas called Destron, threatening all life on the planet. With the world under siege, Goku, Vegeta, and the Z warriors race to locate Raichii and stop his scheme before time runs out.

Central to the conflict are Goku and Vegeta, whose Saiyan heritage makes them both the focus of Raichii's vengeance and the strongest line of defense. The OVA presents a compact, high-stakes mission built around martial arts action and a planet-wide threat.

This OVA grew out of a 1993 card battle role playing game of the same name. Tose developed the game and Bandai published it for the Family Computer, with play driven by randomly generated playing cards. The title performed well, moving roughly 300,000 copies, and that success led to an animated adaptation released the same year.

The OVA was produced as two episodes of about 30 minutes each and arrived in Japan on July 23, 1993. Its release format was unusual for an anime of its era: the two parts were distributed as strategy guide supplements rather than as a conventional standalone video release, which kept the animated version closely tied to the game and its printed guide materials. Within the Dragon Ball Z lineup, the record classifies the work as a side story.

The production had a longer afterlife than its initial guide bundled release suggests. Footage from the OVA was reused in a 1994 Playdia video game, and the anime was later remade in full in 2010. Those later uses mark the work as a distinct branch of the Dragon Ball Z animated catalogue, one that began as a game tie in and was subsequently rebuilt for a new format.

Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans is a side story entry within the larger Dragon Ball Z franchise rather than a numbered arc of the main television series or one of its theatrical films. It sits alongside the core Goku and Vegeta storyline as a self contained adventure, which is why the catalog records it with a side story relationship to the wider franchise instead of placing it in the main progression of Dragon Ball Z episodes.

The OVA grew out of a video game rather than the manga. Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans began as a 1993 card battle role playing game for the Family Computer, developed by Tose and published by Bandai, and the animated version followed the same year. The two OVA parts were originally distributed as accompaniments to strategy guides, so this entry belongs to a cross media branch of the franchise in which game and animation were produced in tandem. The same branch continued when footage from the OVA was reused in a 1994 Playdia video game, and the animated story was later remade in full in 2010.

For viewers navigating the franchise, this entry functions as an alternate or supplementary version of Dragon Ball Z rather than a starting point or a required continuation. It assumes familiarity with Goku, Vegeta, and the Saiyan backstory, and its events stand apart from the canon of the main series. The broader franchise hub covers the primary Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z works, while this page documents only the 1993 two part OVA and its place among the spin off material.