Your opinion on skipping/not watching Dragon Ball

[Dragon Sponge]

I really hate it when people view pre Z Dragon Ball as an unimportend prequel, when its more than a Quarter of the Dragon Ball story. Skipping it makes Dragon Ball incomplete, and thats why the "so faithfull to Manga" called Dragon Ball Kai remaster is also incomplete, which skips over a Quarter of said Manga. Its like if One Piece for example gets in the future, an filler reduced (with a different soundtrack) remaster that starts after the 2 year time skip and which only covers previous events in form of one flashback in ep1. That practically forces people, that want to watch the entire story in animated form to watch a big chunk of the old version without reduced filler content and switch over to the new version, where then suddenly the soundtrack is complete different. Dragon Ball is practically one series that gets marketed as two in its Anime adaptation, if the Z split never happened and the Anime adaptation kept the name Dragon Ball until the end, then people would know Dragon Ball as one series that changes greatly over time, instead of two different series with one letter difference. And then would Dragon Ball Kai be a complete and faithfull (minus still posseble soundtrack changes) remaster, but sadly its not. I think the franchise suffered greatly from that one marketing stunt and would be better off without it. So in that case skipping pre Z Dragon Ball, just throws you right into a story where the hero is already a hero, who has already allys in his team that you not got know. So its not that good to start there.

[precita]

Yamcha, Tien, Chaiotzu and Piccolo's death in the Saiyan saga has so much more impact when you come from watching Dragonball rather than the start of DBZ.

To see Piccolo the main villain of the previous saga killed off sacrificing himself to save Goku's son, and see all the training Yamcha and Tien did amount to nothing...it feels like such a big deal after watching Dragonball. As a kid I never got that much impact out of it cause I watched DBZ first, but if you go back...man.

[sintzu]

I think the franchise suffered greatly from that one marketing stunt and would be better off without it.

So in that case skipping pre Z Dragon Ball just throws you right into a story where the hero is already a hero, who has already allys in his team that you not got know. So its not that good to start there.

From a financial point of view it made the franchise into a worldwide meag hit but the point you bring up in the 2nd line is a really good one. Kai starting with the original would've done a lot of good for it and new viewers but instead it continued the trend of everyone treating it like it didn't matter.

[ABED]

I think the franchise suffered greatly from that one marketing stunt and would be better off without it.

So in that case skipping pre Z Dragon Ball just throws you right into a story where the hero is already a hero, who has already allys in his team that you not got know. So its not that good to start there.

From a financial point of view it made the franchise into a worldwide meag hit but the point you bring up in the 2nd line is a really good one. Kai starting with the original would've done a lot of good for it and new viewers but instead it continued the trend of everyone treating it like it didn't matter.

Did it really? Wouldn't DBZ still be a big hit even if DB had aired first?

[8000 Saiyan]

Not a good decision. It's always better IMO to start watching the beginning of a long running series rather than ignoring it.

[Ki Breaker]

Skipping Dragonball is fine, but if you need back stories and inspiration behind these random characters who are punching away, you should consider giving it a go..

[sintzu]

Did it really? Wouldn't DBZ still be a big hit even if DB had aired first?

I don't know how it was in the rest of the world but in the US they started with DB but it did so bad that after 13 or so episodes they skipped to Z. That's why something like DB, Naruto, One Piece, etc. wouldn't last today cause people want the big epic events from day one and anything with less is dropped.

[Kamiccolo9]

Did it really? Wouldn't DBZ still be a big hit even if DB had aired first?

I don't know how it was in the rest of the world but in the US they started with DB but it did so bad that after 13 or so episodes they skipped to Z. That's why something like DB, Naruto, One Piece, etc. wouldn't last today cause people want the big epic events from day one and anything with less is dropped.

Dragon Ball aired at 6:30 in the morning on weekdays. It didn't fail because of content, it failed because people were sleeping.

[Forte224]

It's not as important as, say, watching Naruto before Shippuden. Those two don't feel like different shows, they just feel like the same show but with a time skip. DB to DBZ on the other hand is a more dramatic shift, in tone and story. There's no ongoing plot point at the end of Dragon Ball that's immediately continued in Z, outside of Piccolo wanting to muahahaha take over the world. But that just kinda goes away pretty quickly

[FoolsGil]

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the United States in the 90s, we all started with DBZ. We didn't even get Dragonball until after GT completed it's run. So it's disingenuous, at least to me, to harp on anyone who makes a choice to not watch Dragonball first or at all. At least they got a choice, my generation didn't.

[cheddarsword]

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the United States in the 90s, we all started with DBZ. We didn't even get Dragonball until after GT completed it's run. So it's disingenuous, at least to me, to harp on anyone who makes a choice to not watch Dragonball first or at all. At least they got a choice, my generation didn't.

Not watching DB first is understandable. But to totally skip it completely? You're missing out on the rivalry between Piccolo and Goku, so you really don't get a feel for how evil of a character he was and as such, you don't really know what it means for him to give up his pride and work with Goku to take out Raditz.

It even takes quite a bit away from his transition as a truly evil character to the caring master that Gohan knows.

There's so much to Dragon Ball that it's more than worth reading through or watching, weather you start there first or go there after Z.

I for one am glad I read through it. I have a better understanding of the characters now.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

To me, not watching DB is EXACTLY the same as skipping the first 150 episodes of Z, and starting with episode 151. No difference at all. The change of the logo and OP/ED animations/songs has nothing to do with the story.

It's terrifying to acknowledge how decisions of some small group of people influence lives of millions of others...

[sintzu]

To me, not watching DB is EXACTLY the same as skipping the first 150 episodes of Z, and starting with episode 151.

Z's 151st episodes is in the middle of an already ongoing arc. Although the Saiyan arc is the 7th arc of the overall story, it's not continuing any major plotline from the previous arcs but instead is somehwat of a fresh start for new readers/viewers.

I'm not saying you shouldn't watch the original 1st or even 2nd cause it'll make Z better but lets not pretend that you have to in order to understand or enjoy Z.

[Theophrastus]

I feel like it's worth pointing out that even Shueisha helped feed into the narrative of the first anime/volumes 1-16 not being all that important when they decided to start the printed Full Color volumes with the "Z" portion of the series. The "Boyhood" and "Piccolo" arcs didn't get printed until a year and a half after they'd finished releasing the color version of the Buu arc.

[Quebaz]

To me, not watching DB is EXACTLY the same as skipping the first 150 episodes of Z, and starting with episode 151.

Z's 151st episodes is in the middle of an already ongoing arc. Although the Saiyan arc is the 7th arc of the overall story, it's not continuing any major plotline from the previous arcs but instead is somehwat of a fresh start for new readers/viewers.

I'm not saying you shouldn't watch the original 1st or even 2nd cause it'll make Z better but lets not pretend that you have to in order to understand or enjoy Z.

Replace 150 with 200 and it's the same thing, you are starting the story from the middle rather than the beginning.

[Cipher]

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the United States in the 90s, we all started with DBZ. We didn't even get Dragonball until after GT completed it's run. So it's disingenuous, at least to me, to harp on anyone who makes a choice to not watch Dragonball first or at all. At least they got a choice, my generation didn't.

Did you actually start with Raditz, right from Z episode 1 though? Or did you jump on at some other point?

Personally, I jumped on in the late Freeza arc because that's what was airing at the time, so I think it's a little disingenuous to tell people they need to watch anything before that.

[Bansho64]

Skipping it is dumb in my opinion. It's the first half and, if you ask me, the better half of the franchise. It has some of the best arcs the franchise has every released to date and features some of our favorite character at their arguable best. Kame-Sennin's definitely one of these imo.

[ABED]

To me, not watching DB is EXACTLY the same as skipping the first 150 episodes of Z, and starting with episode 151.

Z's 151st episodes is in the middle of an already ongoing arc. Although the Saiyan arc is the 7th arc of the overall story, it's not continuing any major plotline from the previous arcs but instead is somehwat of a fresh start for new readers/viewers.

I'm not saying you shouldn't watch the original 1st or even 2nd cause it'll make Z better but lets not pretend that you have to in order to understand or enjoy Z.

The Buu arc doesn't continue any major plotline. I still wouldn't suggest starting there.

As Cipher points out, many didn't even start watching DBZ from episode 1. They probably went back and watched it from the beginning afterward.

[precita]

The first episode of DBZ I ever saw is the one where Goku is walking toward Nappa right before he defeats him. I remember saying, "Who the hell is this big strong bald guy and why is everyone afraid of him?"

This is on top of the fact that it was the Saban dub, so everything was censored and I had no idea. Most U.S. fans really got the raw deal as our first exposure to the franchise.

[ABED]

The chances of the millions of DBZ fans having seen it from episode 1 back in the 90s is slim.