What a time to be a Dragonball fan (Long post)

[Hillmor]

It's just incredible, this entire journey... Back when I just started watching Dragon Ball ~13 years ago it was very popular in my country, watching the sagas was an amazing experience and even though the dub was god awful my 6 year old self couldn't give less of a shit. Eventually I lost most interest about it since I finished the series multiple times (once or twice dubbed which I loved for it's soundtrack and voice acting). Watched GT and "Expanded most of the DB content available."

Afterwards, I started watching Naruto (which I dropped at Shippuden) and especially Bleach which is currently my 2nd favorite anime (shame things went the way they did...). After that I started noticing these Dragon Ball channels making videos about various topics like what if's, facts, fan mangas etc. Hell, I remember Geekdom's channel being 5k big then. Dragon Ball had a slowly growing, (niche) community that kept the spirit alive even though we weren't getting much apart from a video game every once in a while. For some time all I did was watch these channels and research the series more.

One day I was browsing Deviantart and I noticed this weird, big eyed, bunny looking creature and mistook it for a fan-made character because up until then, I've only seen fan-made content (AF, New age etc.). Apparently Battle of Gods was announced and I didn't even realize it. I didn't even react, perhaps it was so otherworldly for me to expect a ~20 year old series to be revived? Yes, in 2013 Dragon Ball was being truly revived, to a degree, because it was only a "movie", a canon movie at that. It was thanks to this undying fan base that Dragon Ball was given another chance to truly shine. The movie came out, and many people watched it. Most people liked it, some did not. I personally really loved the new characters especially Beerus (Who was being called Bills at the time.) most people didn't like the SSG transformation because the community was so used to seeing these over the top designs like SS5, Xicor, Absolon etc. during this "hiatus period" but SSG represented Dragon Ball at it's core, a lighthearted anime that can be truly serious when it needs to be but knew it's borders of absurdity, or something like that.

Thanks to the success of this new movie, "soon" after, in 2015 Resurrection of F was released. People were not too excited about Freeza's return though I didn't mind it too much, he is the greatest Dragon Ball villain (although I still prefer Cell) and also one of the most known villains of anime history. I also liked this movie more because of it's superior combat and "brutality" that the first one lacked.

Those two movies were enough (as well as Dragon Ball Evolution sucking) for the great decision to be made... On April 2015 Dragon Ball SUPER was announced. This time, for the first time in years I was shedding tears of joy. A series that was long over was revived thanks to us, WE were the ones that wanted Dragon Ball to return so bad that it actually came true. Unfortunately, we all know what happened with the first two arcs but that was not enough to make me stop watching this series, not even close for I held on to dear hope that this is just the beginning, and it was... It got better with the Universe 6 arc. Watching Goku shift gear into KKx10 against Hit was the first time I felt something I haven't in a long time, adrenaline watching an anime, especially after the English version.

Another example is the future Trunks arc, I remember watching these episodes live with tens of thousands of people on YouTube (Until Toei noticed), seeing the hype around Vegito returning and then finally seeing him in the preview, the reactions were amazing. And here I am... about two years and many mindblowing moments like UI Goku vs Jiren/Kefla later, I'm writing this post. The Tournament of Power is about to be over as well as the series. It went from being a retelling with mediocre animation to a beautiful and entertaining show that I watch every Sunday at 2AM live just to be one of the first to witness history like ep 130.

After finding out the news that tens of thousands of people watched these episodes out in the streets was magical, spectacular. There are no words to explain my disbelief. Thousands of Dragon Ball fans once again reuniting to watch their favorite show not only on their TV screens but also in the streets, singing the opening song despite not knowing Japanese for jack shit and having a great time (Until the government stepped in, but that shows just how big DB now is!). I believe Dragon Ball is now bigger than ever before, and it's an amazing, proud feeling to be a fan of it. This week we'll be seeing the final episode, but with that, Dragon Ball won't be over. It won't die out because it's only getting bigger with a new movie, video games and Goku being an AMBASSADOR in Tokyo Olympics 2020.

All I can say now is that if you're like me, who has a long history watching this show. Be proud, be proud for sticking with it to this day, to this glorious time where we can once again witness the peak of Dragon Ball as an even larger, tighter community.

Thank you Dragon Ball, for being a source of my happiness since the early 2000's.

[sintzu]

All I can say now is that if you're like me, who has a long history watching this show. Be proud, be proud for sticking with it to this day, to this glorious time where we can once again witness the peak of Dragon Ball as an even larger, tighter community.

I'm exactly like you. I got into DB in 2005 and ever since I've been waiting years for Toriyama to come back. this is a great time to be a DB fan as it seems like he's going to stick around for years to come and we'll be able to see DB truly reach its full potential.

Thank you Dragon Ball, for being a source of my happiness since the early 2000's.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Welcome to the site by the way.

[prince212]

Yes it’s a nice time , I made a time skipped 1998-2015 without any dragon ball , I call nowadays a new era , hehehe
The first era was once a week going to the book store to get my dose , in this new era I re-read the whole series in my second language and follow the new content , as we are in the internet era I can get as much as I want .
The first era was hard to me in the anime version , I lost a lot of chapters because I wasn’t able to stay always home at the emission time on tv .....
I hope this new era is here to stay , we should be happy
P.S : I think that time skip without this dragon ball official content made part of the community extremely criticism to the point of looking for a straw in a whole field of flowers

[PFM18]

All I can say now is that if you're like me, who has a long history watching this show. Be proud, be proud for sticking with it to this day, to this glorious time where we can once again witness the peak of Dragon Ball as an even larger, tighter community.

I'm exactly like you. I got into DB in 2005 and ever since I've been waiting years for Toriyama to come back. this is a great time to be a DB fan as it seems like he's going to stick around for years to come and we'll be able to see DB truly reach its full potential.

Thank you Dragon Ball, for being a source of my happiness since the early 2000's.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Welcome to the site by the way.

exactly. Dragon ball started as my guilty pleasure when I was a child and my parents didn't let me watch it because it had blood in it but I snuck my way into watching it anyway. Now as an adult I love it just as much if not more and I think a big part of that is the huge db revolution that came with the first two movies actually written by Toriyama followed by an entire new series that has been such a huge joy for me to watch really ever since the Universe 6 arc started. And now This movie is coming out which could end up being better than anything else in the franchise prior to it.

[sintzu]

Dragon ball started as my guilty pleasure when I was a child and my parents didn't let me watch it because it had blood in it.

Now This movie is coming out which could end up being better than anything else in the franchise prior to it.

Thankfully I never had any issues watching it.

It has a lot going for it, especially its production so hopefully the story is on that same high level we think the production will be on. I think we might get something from it at the end of 131 so hopefully it'll be enough to give us a better idea about it.

[Koitsukai]

I never thought DB would come back, but the best of it all I think, is it came back in this new world of hyperconnectivity and we can watch a new episode an hour or two after it aired in Japan, not in like 2004 when internet wasn't what it is now. It took 6 years for DBZ to get to my country back in the day, it took a while also when I watched Saint Seiya's Hades arc 10 years ago. But fortunately, we don't have to die of desperation nowadays.

[Kanious]

I'm proud to say that i have been a Dragon Ball fun since i was 4 years old, so, these have been 22 years. I ended watching Z back in 2002, and i always have wished for a new series, and when Super began, i was really happy. I really love this anime, even if it had many problems with art and animation in the beginning... The ToP was great and made me cry many times, and also made me feel goosebumps like Z did back in 1999 for me.

These are really great times for those who love Dragon Ball... We've had some movies, great games, and a new series... and now we'll have another movie while getting excited for a potential new series next year... Sugoi!