What's the best way to introduce DragonBall to kids?

[Lord Beerus]

Make them sit through the original anime of Dragon Ball from first episode until the last without skipping an entry. The manga may be superior, at least in my eyes, but the original Dragon Ball anime is a fantastic adaptation.

[Hellspawn28]

I say the original DB series is a good place to start and do DBZ Kai afterwards. I would do Kai after DB due to better pacing and less filler.

[floofychan333]

If it's for your own kids, buy or dust off your DB Season 1 DVDs and put them on when your kids are 12. If it's for one of your cousins or a family friend's kid, get the 1st season of DB for them and ask their parents at what age they think their kids should be able to watch DB.

[Hellspawn28]

The uncut episodes are TV-PG and I think if kids at 6 or 7 can sit through PG-13 movies, DB would not be that big of a issue to them. I saw the new King Kong movie not too while ago and it did had some pretty blood scenes (The movie had a toyline too). People felt like The Hunger Games really push the PG-13 rating too.

[simtek34]

The uncut episodes are TV-PG and I think if kids at 6 or 7 can sit through PG-13 movies, DB would not be that big of a issue to them. I saw the new King Kong movie not too while ago and it did had some pretty blood scenes (The movie had a toyline too). People felt like The Hunger Games really push the PG-13 rating too.

DBZ, DBGT, DBK, KTFC, and DBS are all PG. OG DB is TV-14 actually.

[SaiyanGod117]

Dragon Ball Z Kai. Not too long, not too short. They get little introduction about Goku in the prologue, the animation mishaps will fly over their head, and there's a nice bit of action in the first episode.

[Danfun64]

The uncut episodes are TV-PG and I think if kids at 6 or 7 can sit through PG-13 movies, DB would not be that big of a issue to them. I saw the new King Kong movie not too while ago and it did had some pretty blood scenes (The movie had a toyline too). People felt like The Hunger Games really push the PG-13 rating too.

DBZ, DBGT, DBK, KTFC, and DBS are all PG. OG DB is TV-14 actually.

Also keep in mind that the main reason original Dragon Ball is TV-14 isn't violence, but sexual content. Granted, there's nothing really graphic, but Master Roshi acting like a pervert appears a lot more often than in other DB media, not to mention Kid Goku's nativity. A couple episodes even had frames of exposed boobs (sure, they go by quickly, but they can be found easily with use of the pause button).

[ABED]

DB. I don't know why a lot of people assume little kids are mainly interested in action.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

I have asked this question in a thread before, & in general, due to the loads of censorship/imperialism/Toei's ignorance & greed, I dont think there's a real ideal way that's kid-friendly honestly. The Dragon Ball "part 1" official dubs are inaccurate, halfway miscast although they did have good translations (which they halfway intentionally ignored), DBZ's dub was like DB's but even worse. Kai has replacement music from the Japanese side, & in the dub they largely just reuse the old miscast actors (although we have golden voices like Freeza's now), & on occasion they are too liberal with scripts, even defaulting to old mistranslations despite overall telling the same story with tone intact. The old dub's a gold mine/cash cow so they're going to change as little as possible of course. The comic translations are generally much more faithful, but they still suffer from issues in part due to the vast influence of said dub. Now, this sort of thing usually happens, but it usually isnt a problem as most dubs dont attempt to bastardize the dialogue & story. I wish I could say how different they are in dialogue, but unfortunately this is one of those things where the only option is third-party/unofficial "fan" translations. Best legal option in this case, truly is official subtitles for the animated version. & I think people will disagree with me here, but as someone who usually just wants "a show" (as most anime is made to be), as opposed to "a foreign show" with dialog that I dont understand...the language barrier is something that is difficult to overcome. I'll listen, & I do generally agree that the language is part of the show, sure, but it's all for Japanese-speakers of course (regardless of actual in-canon language), so it doesnt affect me as deeply as something I actually understand.

* Now, that's not to discourage people from learning the language through listening, obviously, & I would be incredibly impressed by a child who could process & absorb the dialogue beyond just reading subs - or even simply following along without paying much attention to the voices- but I'm not sure it's the easiest thing for every kid. Which is why I generally just recommend reading the comic translations. They're not bad & generally are faithful with a few pointers aside.

The thing with the English dubs is that they have different tiers of accuracy and quality. Note that for Funimation dubs that have been released with the option to choose between both the original Japanese score and American replacement music, I'm only counting the versions with the replacement music, as that's what the dub originally used.Even then the higher stuff trounces the lower stuff (Funi Kai dub trumps Ocean Kai, and it trumps Remastered Funi Z for everything except filler episodes Kai doesn't cover. Likewise Funi Super trumps Bang Zoom Super, Pioneer DBZ Movies 1-3 trump the In-House Funi dubs of those movies...maybe you could say Path to Power trumps the dub of original DB for the Pilaf arc and maybe if you're stretching it the Red Ribbon arc.)

You are vastly overestimating how much these kids are going to care about the quality of a dub. They're kids, they're stupid. You can show them whatever is convenient and it won't make a difference in their enjoyment. Unless you're trying to engineer them into a near-omniscient superfan like us, there's no reason to adhere to these "tiers". Just use your best judgement and show them the best that you conveniently can.

FWIW, Jinzo, I think it'd be useful to talk about your own childhood experience, seeing as until very recently you'd legally be under that distinction & thus I think have a lot of attunement to that. With that said I think there are problems with the stuff being said about kids & dubs. I didnt know that much as a kid, barely followed VAs if at all, but I knew the difference between anime & manga translations through Shonen Jump. I was aware of a few music replacements by 4Kids & Saban etc. I knew that "shadow doppelganger" was better than "shadow clone"...I knew that Hercule was incorrect. etc.

I think most kids'd be confused without a thorough explanation of why there are so many dubs, I guess. & on that note, though, I'm not sure how exactly FUNi's Super trumps Bang Zoom Super when half of FUNi's voices are just imitations of the old Saban dub, & whoever paid for the Bang Zoom dub based theirs off the Japanese/original version. Kaio sounds like Kaio, as a very noticeable & obvious point. Argument for a different thread tho...

[8000 Saiyan]

The thing with the English dubs is that they have different tiers of accuracy and quality. Note that for Funimation dubs that have been released with the option to choose between both the original Japanese score and American replacement music, I'm only counting the versions with the replacement music, as that's what the dub originally used.
[spoiler]-The first tier are dubs that have a good mix of accuracy and voice quality, contain the original music, and have almost no dub errors, if any. In addition, everything in this tier is uncut. These include the Funimation/Ocean/Pioneer dubs of the first three DBZ movies, pretty much any Funimation dub of DB from Kai onwards (meaning Kai 1.0, Kai TFC, BOG, Res 'F', Super) and xXInfinite026Xx's fandub of Bardock Father of Goku.
-Second tier would be dubs that retain the original music and are mostly faithful, but have some fairly noticeable dub errors. Either that or they are censored with no uncut versions available. Sometimes both. These include Funimation's dub of Path to Power, the AB Groupe/Ocean/Blue Water dub of Dragon Ball GT, and the Bang Zoom dub of Super.
-The third tier still retains the original music, but has some fairly big changes. This includes Funi's in house dub of the original Dragon Ball as well as the in house dub of the Dragon Ball movie trilogy.
-The fourth tier is similar to first and second... but replaces the music... which results in things being the direction being less faithful than it could have been. This include Funimation's in-house dubs of DBZ Movie 1 (Dead Zone), DBZ Movie 2 (World's Strongest), and the Broly Trilogy. It is assumed that the Ocean Kai dub is also in this category (though unlike the other dubs in this tier it will most likely be censored), although nobody will know for sure until the dub is released.
-The fifth tier is a combination of inaccurate scripts and replacement music. At the very least though, the inaccuracies are consistent and everything in this tier is available uncut. This includes the In-house Funi Remastered DBZ dub, the In-House Funi dub of DBGT, and most of the In-House Funi DBZ Movie dubs as well as all three of the In-House Funi DB specials.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]-The sixth tier not only contains both inaccurate scripts and replacement music, but are also censored. At the very least, the censorship kept scenes mostly intact. The Funimation/Ocean/BLT dub of DB episodes 1-13 and the first DB movie as well as AB Groupe/Ocean/Westwood's dub of DBZ of episodes 123-291 (episodes 108-276 by cut episode count) go here. Even though it's available in a mostly uncut format, the Original In-House Funi dub of DBZ of episodes 67-291 (episodes 54-276 by cut episode count) also belongs here because it (along with the aformentioned Westwood dub) are chained to the seventh tier dub I'm about to mention.
-The seventh tier heavily edits the episodes, at times removing whole scenes while changing the meaning of others due to what was removed. At the very least, you get a somewhat clear view of what events took place. This tier includes the Funimation/Ocean/Saban dubs of episodes 1-67 (edited down to 53 episodes) and DBZ Movie 3 (Tree of Might, which actually added a couple of scenes)
-The eighth tier is mostly uncut and accurate, but is marred either by horrendous voice acting or only existing in horrendous quality. This includes most of the Speedy dubs as well as the Fillipino English dub of DBZ Movies 5 and 6 (both Cooler films).
-The ninth tier has the original music, but is censored (albeit competently) and has several name changes to major characters, most of which don't stick around for newer dubs (and most of the ones retained only appear in the sixth tier BLT dub of DB Movie 1, and are removed in the fourth tier In-House Funi dub of DB Movie 1.)
-The tenth tier is similar to the second and third, but is marred by the AB Groupe's video edits, some of which make things vague, others are directly contradicted by the recaps. The only reason dubs in this tier aren't any lower is because the script is consistent. The AB Groupe/Ocean/Blue Water dub of the original Dragon Ball goes here. To make matters worse, the way the audio is handled is too smart for its own good, done in such a way that attempting to syncing with uncut footage with Japanese audio filling the blanks will result in audio that either sounds looped or a loss of English audio due to how things are set up. The fact that replacement music covers areas where some Insert songs would have been played doesn't help matters.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]-The eleventh tier is the AB Groupe's in-house dub of most of the pre BOG movies and specials in the DB Franchise (DBZ Movies 1-9 and the two DBZ specials were released on DVD. DB Movies 1-3 as well as the DBGT special are known to exist, but were not released on home video and can't really be found anywhere. It's unclear if AB Groupe dubbed DBZ Movies 10-13, but for other regions the AB Groupe released movies 10-11 and 12-13 as double features in theaters.) The original music is retained, and most of these are uncut, but they are marred by the AB Groupe's horrendous scripts, which tend to avoid naming places and secondary characters (and at times major characters), somewhat bizarre renames for some characters which are named (most famously Piccolo's name is changed to Big Green), strange dub errors which contradict character personalities and various truths ("Blooma" asking "SonGohan" when he plans on training "Trunk" when both the original Japanese and the Funimation dubs specifically have her ask Gohan not to train him, saying "Big Green" perished but Yamcha, "Tenshin", "Vegehta" and "Clearin" "survived", saying the legendary "Space Warrior" (Space Warrior is what the AB Groupe called the Saiyans) was attacking the North Galaxy, only to correctly state that Broly was attacking the South Galaxy later on, and Clearin not remembering who "Big Green" was. At least the voice acting is better than Speedy. Which reminds me...
-The twelfth and worst tier of DB dubs, the Speedy dub of DBZ Movies 9 (Bojack Unbound) and 10 (Broly Second Coming). Not only are names changed (the worst changes being Goku and Gohan swapping their names in Movie 9, and in movie 10 Goten being called Goku and Videl called Kami...which she pronounces as... Cumming), but at least in the case of Movie 9, unlike their earlier dubs, Speedy didn't have access to M/E audio tracks, meaning the audio came from the Cantonese dub with English parts using either looped audio or very conspicuous replacement music that interrupts the regular audio and then disappears once the voice acting is replaced. Ugh.[/spoiler]
Personally, if I were you, I'm sure it wouldn't be a good idea to let the aforementioned kids see anything below tier 5 for a serious dub experience, and that's being generous. Even then the higher stuff trounces the lower stuff (Funi Kai dub trumps Ocean Kai, and it trumps Remastered Funi Z for everything except filler episodes Kai doesn't cover. Likewise Funi Super trumps Bang Zoom Super, Pioneer DBZ Movies 1-3 trump the In-House Funi dubs of those movies...maybe you could say Path to Power trumps the dub of original DB for the Pilaf arc and maybe if you're stretching it the Red Ribbon arc.) Granted, that's if you are willing to let them see DB uncut. If you demand they watch edited versions of things, you'd have to abandon some of the higher tiered dubs (like the aformentioned fandub of Bardock Father of Goku, the Pioneer dub of DBZ Movie 3, and (as of this writing) the Funimation dubs of Kai TFC and Super) and be forced to look at tiers 6, 7, and 10. I highly suggest you don't go any lower than that though. It would also be wise to invent in a vhs player (preferably one that can play both NTSC and PAL tapes) to get things like the old censored in-house DB and DBZ tapes. Granted, the reason why i'm suggestion you look at tier 10 as an option for censored original DB is because there are some censored episodes not available on VHS, while the Blue Water DB dub can be easily found online.

The Funi Kai dub trumps Ocean Kai? We haven't even seen Ocean Kai.

I think most kids'd be confused without a thorough explanation of why there are so many dubs, I guess. & on that note, though, I'm not sure how exactly FUNi's Super trumps Bang Zoom Super when half of FUNi's voices are just imitations of the old Saban dub, & whoever paid for the Bang Zoom dub based theirs off the Japanese/original version. Kaio sounds like Kaio, as a very noticeable & obvious point. Argument for a different thread tho...

Really? Lang's Goku doesn't scream Nozawa to me. And if you're referring to Sabat's Vegeta and Piccolo when you mean half of Funi's voices are just imitations of the old Saban dub, may I remind you that Sabat doesn't imitate Drummond and McNeil anymore? Seems like you're still stuck in 1999. dude.

[Danfun64]

Funi Kai and Super trump Ocean Kai and Bang Zoom Super in the sense that the former are completely uncut, something we know is false with the latter. I admit that there may be some elements of the ladder that are better than the former.

[Robo4900]

DB. I don't know why a lot of people assume little kids are mainly interested in action.

Agreed.

OG Dragon Ball is a fantastic, imaginative world, and is full of the exact type of humour kids enjoy, in my experience(Something a lot of people seem to be hesitant to admit: Kids often have very dirty senses of humour. As a kid, Master Roshi was always one of my favourite characters because of his perverted antics).
Hell, as a kid, OG Dragon Ball was always my favourite of the three series. To this day, I can jump in at any point in OG Dragon Ball, and just have a blast watching it. Z has several places(Namek arc, I'm looking at you!) where the filler gets too intrusive, and while I'm fine to sit through it in a normal re-watch, I find jumping straight into the Garlic Jr. arc to be a little difficult to swallow. Plus, OG Dragon Ball is a much lighter, more easygoing experience overall than Z or GT.

I constantly flip back-and-forth between the view of "You should watch OG Dragon Ball, followed by Kai, then if you want, Super" and "You should watch the three original anime." Either is perfectly valid, although for the dub, following DB up with Kai is probably a better and more consistent experience. I want to recommend GT after that(I'm one of the heathens who prefers GT over Super), although in the Baby arc, it uses the plot device of the pure water from the Garlic Jr. arc in Kami's lookout, so I'm not sure that'd work.

[Kamiccolo9]

* Now, that's not to discourage people from learning the language through listening, obviously, & I would be incredibly impressed by a child who could process & absorb the dialogue beyond just reading subs - or even simply following along without paying much attention to the voices- but I'm not sure it's the easiest thing for every kid. Which is why I generally just recommend reading the comic translations. They're not bad & generally are faithful with a few pointers aside.

Y'know, you say this, but it just makes me think of Adamant's post a while back on how essentially all foreign televised media in northern Europe is subtitled, so I'm not sure I buy that. American's are not inherently capable of grasping the finer points of reading subtitles as children. I was doing it with Godzilla movies at 6.

[mawilex]

Maybe it's just me, but as a kid, in most cases, whenever I was told or "forced" to do something in a specific way, I ended up hating that thing. :p

I think it's more fun for a kid to discover the things they love on his/her own, so I personally wouldn't take the initiative to introduce Dragon Ball to them at all, I'd let them discover the series by themselves, when they want and in whatever way they feel like experiencing it. If they get into it, then I'd gladly sit and re-discover the series with them, if not, that won't bother me at all.

But if you're adamant about introducing Dragon Ball to them, then my suggestion would be to do it in a subtle way. Kids tend to like imitating people they look up to, so if they see you, their father or mother, watching an episode of the anime or reading the manga, they'll probably be interested in what you're doing and join you in, and start asking you questions like: "Who's that grumpy guy with the large forehead?". :p

I also don't think you should bother with how they should experience it. You said so yourself, there's no right or wrong answer. The most important thing is that they enjoy it the way they're the most comfortable with, not that they should enjoy it the way you want them to, or the way a "true fan should".

But this is just me throwing in my two cents. People are different. Kids are different. When you'll get there, you'll get to know your children, their tastes, their personalities, and accordingly introduce the series to them the way you think they might enjoy it.

[Ringworm128]

As a kid (and now) I was fine to be introduced to something as long as it didn't conflict with what I was doing. If I were playing Mario 64 and made to watch DBZ, I wouldn't like that.

As for kids not noticing things like voices; my nephew was instantly able to tell that Sonic The Hedgehog's voice actor changed when he was 5 years old and is overall pretty adept with that sort of stuff. He can read subs even though he prefers dubs, and I was able to do all those things as a kid as well.

[PelicanDynasty]

Maybe it's just me, but as a kid, in most cases, whenever I was told or "forced" to do something in a specific way, I ended up hating that thing. :p

I think it's more fun for a kid to discover the things they love on his/her own, so I personally wouldn't take the initiative to introduce Dragon Ball to them at all, I'd let them discover the series by themselves, when they want and in whatever way they feel like experiencing it. If they get into it, then I'd gladly sit and re-discover the series with them, if not, that won't bother me at all.

But if you're adamant about introducing Dragon Ball to them, then my suggestion would be to do it in a subtle way. Kids tend to like imitating people they look up to, so if they see you, their father or mother, watching an episode of the anime or reading the manga, they'll probably be interested in what you're doing and join you in, and start asking you questions like: "Who's that grumpy guy with the large forehead?". :p

I also don't think you should bother with how they should experience it. You said so yourself, there's no right or wrong answer. The most important thing is that they enjoy it the way they're the most comfortable with, not that they should enjoy it the way you want them to, or the way a "true fan should".

But this is just me throwing in my two cents. People are different. Kids are different. When you'll get there, you'll get to know your children, their tastes, their personalities, and accordingly introduce the series to them the way you think they might enjoy it.

Agree with this 100%
Let them "discover" it own their own, and you merely place it in their path.

[Doctor.]

An argument in favor of watching the Japanese version:

Depending on how young the child is, watching the Japanese version may actually be beneficial. It can allow for the child to grow up as bilingual at best or, at worst, be more capable of learning a new language in his older years than other children not raised in the same environment. Even if the child doesn't learn Japanese as a result, he will, without a doubt, be able to comprehend the language structure.

I was able to speak English fluently (as fluent as I could speak Portuguese, at least) before I even went to school by the time I was 6 all by spending my days watching Cartoon Network.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

An argument in favor of watching the Japanese version:

Depending on how young the child is, watching the Japanese version may actually be beneficial. It can allow for the child to grow up as bilingual at best or, at worst, be more capable of learning a new language in his older years than other children not raised in the same environment. Even if the child doesn't learn Japanese as a result, he will, without a doubt, be able to comprehend the language structure.

I was able to speak English fluently (as fluent as I could speak Portuguese, at least) before I even went to school by the time I was 6 all by spending my days watching Cartoon Network.

There's an argument for it, but is the kid really going to want to watch the foreign version just because it could be an interesting learning tool? I have no doubt that some may not mind, but it's much less likely to stick if we're speaking in generalities.

[Doctor.]

An argument in favor of watching the Japanese version:

Depending on how young the child is, watching the Japanese version may actually be beneficial. It can allow for the child to grow up as bilingual at best or, at worst, be more capable of learning a new language in his older years than other children not raised in the same environment. Even if the child doesn't learn Japanese as a result, he will, without a doubt, be able to comprehend the language structure.

I was able to speak English fluently (as fluent as I could speak Portuguese, at least) before I even went to school by the time I was 6 all by spending my days watching Cartoon Network.

There's an argument for it, but is the kid really going to want to watch the foreign version just because it could be an interesting learning tool? I have no doubt that some may not mind, but it's much less likely to stick if we're speaking in generalities.

No, the child is obviously not going to care if it's going to be useful or not; this is advice for the parent. But I don't see why the child wouldn't be able to enjoy the Japanese version all the same. Is it an American thing? Foreign children are used to watching English movies or TV shows all the time.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Is it an American thing? Foreign children are used to watching English movies or TV shows all the time.

It's totally an American thing. In the poorer areas of the South, there are plenty of people who only communicate well enough to get by. However, even in the areas where that's not a problem, there's not a huge emphasis on language skills. It's just cultural priority, or lack thereof. Experiencing foreign languages just isn't something that happens. Most of the Mexican Immigrants keep to themselves, so those fluent in Spanish aren't even very common.