Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.
This is gonna be a simple topic but I'm sure this is a question asked by many people in regards to Dragon Ball, which is, when did you officially become a fan. I'm not talking about what got into the franchise, I'm talking about when. If possible, keep you answer short and sweet like:
Dragon Ball fan, circa 99
or
Dragon Ball fan since the age of XX or X
But if you want to elaborate more about when specifically you got into Dragon Ball, go right ahead.
I'll get the ball rolling.
Dragon Ball fan, circa 2000 and still going strong.
Last edited by Lord Beerus on Wed May 13, 2015 4:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Spoiler:
Akira Toriyama wrote:My policy is to try and forget things once they’re over. Since if I don’t discard the old and focus on what’s new, I’ll overload my brain capacity. I still haven’t lived down going, “Who the heck is Tao Pai-pai?” that one time I was talking with Ei’ichiro Oda-kun. But the fact that there are still people reading the series after all this time… All I can say is; “thank you.” Really, that’s all.
Akira Toriyama wrote:Drawing Dragon Ball again reminded me of two things--how much I love it, and how much I never want to do it again.
Kunzait_83 wrote:And if you're upset because all this new material completely invalidates the tabletop RPG rulebook-sized statistical system and flowchart for the characters' "canonical Power Levels" that you'd been working on painstakingly for the last bunch of years now... well I don't think there's a kind, non-blunt way of saying this, but that's 100% entirely your own misguided fault for buying so deeply into all this nonsensical garbage in the first place. And that you also have IMMENSELY skewed and comically backwards priorities in what you think is most important and needed to make a good Dragon Ball story.
Zephyr wrote:Goodness, they wrote idiotic drivel in a children's cartoon meant to advertise toys!? Again!? For the ninetieth episode in a row!? Somebody stop the presses! We have to voice our concern over these Super important issues!
Kamiccolo9 wrote:Fair enough, I concede. Sean Schemmel probably has some kind of hidden talent. Maybe he is an expert at Minesweeper. You're right; calling him "talentless" wasn't fair.
Michsi wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:29 amIn Super Piccolo got yelled off the stage by Vegeta in the U6 Tournament arc and lost to Jiminy Cricket in the ToP , he deserved 15 new transformations with his theme song played by Metallica in the background.
Like 2000. Saw it on Toonami's Midnight Run I think. First I saw I became an instant fan because violence to a 5-9 year old is automatic entertainment. Didn't realize it had actual story-writing qualities until I was about 13.
Watched it when it came on Toonami for the first time. but I don't think I was really really hooked until the Freeza saga.
The Dragonboxes are like a middle aged woman who still looks good through simply taking good care of her skin and body with maybe a tiny bit of makeup while the Orange Bricks are like a middle aged woman who get's 50 tons of botox, makeup and plastic surgery in order to look younger and as a result looks even worse. ~ ringworm128 Still recording Toonami broadcasts on VHS after all these years! #1 Paikuhan fan!
I saw some adverts just before it aired in the UK in 2000 and then found my older brother watching an episode of the Saiyan Arc (it had Raditz in so was an early episode), he explained the characters names to me and I was hooked. I can remember it felt like forever until new episodes came out, in the UK Cartoon Network would rerun the same arcs non-stop for months until the next arc was available.
I first saw DB somewhere between 91-93. I can't remember exactly when, but I lived in Japan and caught a glimpse of it. Plus my friend had a DBZ game for Super Nintendo. Technically it was Super Famicon, but you can play Famicon games on the SNES. However, I didn't really become a fan until September 13, 1996 (i.e., the day it first aired on American TV)
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott
Happiness is climate, not weather.
On september 9th 2001, when we were about to head to a restaurant to celebrate my mom's birthday, I turned on the tv, while waiting for the others to get ready and the 3rd episode of the Danish dub of DBZ was showing.
I was hooked.
I'm wanting to say 98-99. Whenever they were first airing the Ocean Dub on Toonami. My first episode was the beginning of the Goku-Vegeta fight, so whenever that episode first aired.
I wanna say 2002-2003-ish, via a video game I played with my cousins.
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote:
Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.
Honestly I was a fan from the first episode I saw on Cartoon Network in 2000 which had Piccolo vs Imperfect Cell (specifically Piccolo getting his arm absorbed). Was the coolest shit I'de ever seen without a doubt.
I remember buying a Goku toy a day or two later and I hadn't even seen him fight yet. I jumped on that bandwagon without a second thought which was the same for a lot of anime I got into back then. I'm far more cynical nowadays than I was as a kid.
Last edited by NitroEX on Mon Dec 15, 2014 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Same here. I remember getting a VHS tape of the original first three episodes from my dad and I had no idea what it was. I didn't became a fan until early 2001. I got DBZ into much later then most people did. When I was growing up, most people became DBZ fans long before it aired in the US due to DBZ's popularity on the imported market or became fans when DBZ first aired on TV back in 1996. For a while, I was scared to tell fans that I just became a fan a few years ago. Now it been 13 years since I've became a DBZ fan and I follow DBZ on the web since then. I did grew up watching the series on bootlegs since I knew ways to watch them early on in Japanese. It's a shame that old school DBZ fans are rare these days.
I was a fan since I saw the first episode of DB in Canal 9 (valencian dub) either on 89 or 90. I can't remember which year it was aired exactly but it was around that time
I'm gonna guess some time between 1997-99.
When I was younger my family would go to Korea every year during summer and we would crash at random relatives' homes during that time. One of my cousins, who back then I thought was the coolest guy in the universe, happened to be a fan of Dragon Ball Z during that time and he would rent Dragon Ball Z VHS tapes from his local video store. So I would watch it along with him during that time whenever I got the chance.
One of my first memories was actually watching the Freeza arc with him. It was the scene where Piccolo was rushing towards Freeza and the rest and when Freeza was undergoing his first transformation. I remember back then thinking that Vegeta and Piccolo were teachers and that Freeza, Gohan, and Kururin were their students. For some reason I believed that Freeza was infected with some disease that transformed him into a giant monster and that Vegeta was spazzing out because he didn't know what to do and that he was waiting for Piccolo to come in and help him. Oh yeah I also remember always getting Yamcha and Goku confused too.
About 2000, I think, I saw the FUNi redub of Boss Rabbit's Magic Touch. I was hooked on the original series from there on. It took me until the later part of the Buu arc to get really into Z, though.
[quote="Brakus"]For all the flack that FUNimation gets on this forum for their quote about DBZ, there's some modicum of truth to it: a 9-year-old is born every day. Or in some cases, "reborn". DBZ may be a kids' show, but it's been so close to so many hearts all over Japan, America, and quite possibly, even the world.[/quote]
Ah, the Alpha and the Omega. As all life was created from Chaos...so shall it be DESTROYED!!!
The wails of machines | Singing cold harmony | Shifting air upward | Entranced by the breeze | Light pours like blood | Into a cosmic sea | Of stars crystallized | In a frozen symphony
Saw an ad for one of The Legacy of Goku games in one of the Nintendo Power Advance magazines way back in 2002 and thought it looked stupid. Hey, I was only 6, and was very pacifist compared to most guys my age.
I then started doing research around Fall of 2012, having gained somewhat of an interest in anime. I started watching Dragon Ball Season 1 on the Blue Brick shortly after Christmas.
Around the year 2000 or so. I remember I had 1 vhs(yes only one)that was at the Goku vs Frieza fight before he went super saiyan. It always ended right before the kaioken x20 so back then I didn't know what happened and kept rewarching it. The budokai games especially the first one really got me familiarized with the story.
