Yeah, making predictions like that doesn’t always work out. I didn’t think I’d see anyone nostalgic for the Prequel trilogy, yet here we are. The generation that grew up with that considers it THEIR Star Wars. Likewise, I never thought Star Trek Voyager had fans that would look on that as the best Trek ever! Fuck TOS! Yet, here we are.Kunzait_83 wrote:Dragon Ball's renaissance period (when it was critically and creatively firing on all cylinders) was roughly 1987 to 1991 or so: its commercial peak (when it was at its all time most popular ever) was 1991 through 1994-ish or so.PFM18 wrote:Dragon Ball is in it's renaissance period and it is the biggest it has ever been.
What we're in today is Dragon Ball's rough equivalent of decades-belated TV revivals like Rosanne and such (albeit without a key member of its staff having a racist Twitter meltdown). Is it doing fantastic numbers? Of course it is. Is it out there in the public zeitgeist again? Most definitely. Is it anywhere near the creative or commercial peaks of its heyday? I would argue no way. Its got MASSIVELY more awareness in the West than it used to in its original day (thanks to the FUNimation dub and the Cartoon Network anime phenomenon it spawned), but beyond that, I wouldn't say that anything we've been seeing from it is some sort of game changing new high water mark for the series.
From what I'm seeing in the Western fanbase, what a lot of the excitement and buzz is coming from is the sheer novelty of "Oh my god, shiny new toy!" If there's one thing that Western DB fandom was positively PRIMED for for YEARS now, its been this burning desire to be present for witnessing a present-day, modern launching of brand new Dragon Ball material.
The reasons for why that is are very bizarre and hard to simplify in a few short words: essentially there is this utterly weird obsession in modern anime fandom (as a broader whole beyond just that of Dragon Ball) of the last decade now with keeping up on being at the forefront of the bleeding-edge pulse of what is freshly brand new and hot out of the oven in Japan right this very second. I personally think that its a combination of that along with the on some level subconscious knowledge most Western DB fandom has had for awhile now that Dragon Ball was NEVER as "new" a thing as it was hyped and presented as in America during the dub's debut on Toonami (obviously 80s and early 90s production, the ever-presence of "spoilers" online of a show that had obviously been LONG ago finished for years by that point).
Look at phenomenon like FUNimation's Orange Brick "remastering" and the Western fandom's embracing of it (in some corners at least): there's always been this weird longing in U.S. fandom for DB to forever be frozen in time as "the new hotness of the moment". The presence of new DB material I think is scratching this LONG heavy and ever-present itch that's been burning away at the Western end of the fanbase for some time now (at least since the mid-2000s or so).
Right now we're still in the honeymoon period of this "Dragon Ball as the shiny new toy" that U.S. fans have always wanted it to forever remain as and that Super and the revival material are finally letting them bask in: I find it VERY doubtful that very much of its material (other than a few core concepts here and there like Beerus and Zamasu perhaps) are going to stand the test of time in much the same ways as most of the original series run has.
But that last part's obviously just a guess on my part: we'll just have to wait and see ultimately.
Finally, bringing it back to Dragon Ball, I recall a time when the FUNi dub was hit with near universal derision and to defend it was the ultimate blasphemy! Along comes Kai and online fans want the glory days of the old voices and the Faulcnor soundtrack.
The lesson here is fans will still love and defend to the death the specific thing that made them fall in love with a franchise. And like it or not, Super (along with Kai) brought in a ton of new young fans. They’ll probably see Jiren or Hit the way us older fans see Paikuhan.
As for you’re point about western anime fans needing to see the latest shiny thing from Japan? I think you’re not looking at the bigger picture. Modern fans want things right this second simply because we can now. It’s not like it was back in the day where we had to wait 5+ years to get a hit series from Japan. The internet and simulcasting have made this miracle a reality. Frankly, it’s a good thing that I can watch a show at the same time as a friend in Japan and chat about it right after.