Why do so many Z fans refuse to watch the original Dragon Ball?

[KBABZ]

If the game is focused entirely on story, why make it a game? For the player at its core, it's about gameplay, even continuity heavy games. I love a good story regardless of medium, but I'm far more concerned about taking out the enemy with my sniper rifle than I am in following the narrative. Movies, TV shows, novels are all about narrative. It's not audience participation.

Participating in the world is a big facet of games that no other medium can really capture, and there are games that focus on that rather than abject gameplay hooks. I think Detroit: Beyond Human is a good example of this; the story could be told more than well in a movie or TV series, but the participation of the audience means they get more invested and have to personally fill in the shoes of the characters in the story.

Anyway, back on the topic, I almost think that skeptical Z fans should work backwards; start with the 23rd TB where everyone is a familiar adult, and if they liked that, go back another step to the Daimao Arc. If they were able to connect with Kid Goku, go back to the Red Ribbon Army arc + Baba DLC. If they came to enjoy that then IMO you should then go to the very first episode because there's not a lot left. (also obviously you'd be skipping the filler arcs for this for brevity)

[ulisa]

I've never met anyone that refused to watch the original Dragonball. I've met a lot of people who have seen it and simply find Z more intriguing, for lots of different reasons. I've heard that they prefer more of the sci-fi action, they like the characters introduced in Z (Vegeta, Trunks, Gohan etc.) better and want to see adventures with them, they aren't a big fan of gag-humor, and so on and so forth. In my experience, most people that prefer Z have portions of the original that they like, usually the Piccolo arcs.

Speaking from my own experience, I got into Z first and then went and watched Dragonball second. I still like it and I do think you miss out on a lot of development (especially Piccolo, Tien and Krillin) if you skip the first portion but I have to say that I do prefer Z, mainly because I like seeing Goku interact with a lot of the characters introduced in Z. Plus, as I've mentioned before I am not a huge fan of Toriyama's brand of humor even though I do like it in small doses. The original Dragonball has a bit too much of it for me at times. It's still well written humor but it's just not my cup of tea. I wouldn't recommend skipping the original Dragonball though. Even if Z is more your style, the original is still worth a watch through at least once in its entirety. In my opinion, most people will find pieces of it that they enjoy revisiting more than once and pieces that they will be glad they saw once but aren't in a rush to see again.

[ABED]

If the game is focused entirely on story, why make it a game? For the player at its core, it's about gameplay, even continuity heavy games. I love a good story regardless of medium, but I'm far more concerned about taking out the enemy with my sniper rifle than I am in following the narrative. Movies, TV shows, novels are all about narrative. It's not audience participation.

Participating in the world is a big facet of games that no other medium can really capture, and there are games that focus on that rather than abject gameplay hooks. I think Detroit: Beyond Human is a good example of this; the story could be told more than well in a movie or TV series, but the participation of the audience means they get more invested and have to personally fill in the shoes of the characters in the story.

Anyway, back on the topic, I almost think that skeptical Z fans should work backwards; start with the 23rd TB where everyone is a familiar adult, and if they liked that, go back another step to the Daimao Arc. If they were able to connect with Kid Goku, go back to the Red Ribbon Army arc + Baba DLC. If they came to enjoy that then IMO you should then go to the very first episode because there's not a lot left. (also obviously you'd be skipping the filler arcs for this for brevity)

Okay then I was referring to the participation aspect (i.e. what makes a game a game). I don't know the terminology. I play the games to play the games. I'm not a gamer. The point I was making is video games are inherently different from mediums like film and novels. It's not an apt comparison. The OTH or the Star Trek: TNG example are better.

As for the point Ulisa made about preferring Z, that's fine. It's no different than preferring later seasons of a show or later Harry Potter novels. Regardless of preference, it's still not a great idea to at least read the story from the beginning once.

[DBZAOTA482]

Because it's the 'prequel' so naturally people feel it's unnecessary to watch which, in a way, it is after already watching DBZ.

[Shaddy]

It's only a "prequel" if you have no idea what the word prequel means.

[MajinMan]

Considering 90% of fans online can’t even spell “cannon” correctly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t know what “prequel” really means.

[Vijay]

Who refused? Ignorance is bliss

DBZ's action-packed epic moments overshadowed DB's light-weight tone imo. Which is why DBZ is favored I guess

[Robo4900]

Who refused? Ignorance is bliss

DBZ's action-packed epic moments overshadowed DB's light-weight tone imo. Which is why DBZ is favored I guess

Now, you say that... Have you actually watched DB yourself? And I don't mean "Dipped into a few episodes from the first arc then gave up when you decided it wasn't your thing", I mean actually watched it. Because as anyone who's actually taken the time to watch it completely will tell you, the natural progression of the show and its style eventually results in the end of the Piccolo arc basically not feeling any different to the beginning of the Saiyan arc. If it wasn't for the fact Toei thought the marketing might give them a ratings boost, they likely would have never renamed the show to "Z", and just done 291 more episodes of Dragon Ball.

The idea that OG Dragon Ball has a "Light-weight tone" while Z is completely different, having "Action-packed epic moments" that set it totally apart from its predecessor is a complete fallacy invented by first-impressions of the very early run leading people to believe the entire 153-episode run is exactly like that, and that Toei and Toriyama decided to suddenly do a complete 90-degree turn 194 chapters/154 episodes into the run, completely changing the style, intent, and target audience of this highly-successful and still strong-going series that was still fairly consistently pulling high ratings and massive manga sales.

But really, and most damningly of all to this misconception, Z very pointedly did have a fairly light tone loaded with comedy for much of its run. The driving episode, everything about the Ginyu Force, the premise and setup of who and what the hell Majin Boo is, all of the slice of life material... Both series had serious moments, in particular basically the entire Piccolo arc had an atmosphere of terror about it due to the events that kick it off, and once Cell shows up in his arc, things in that arc take a bit of a turn for the dark and creepy... But it's not like Z was some super-serious hardcore, dark action series with no sense of humour. Hell, even the overly-edgy dubbing work Funimation put into the show that tried to make everything edgy and gritty and whatever preserved some of the original humour, and added a rather large serving of its own...
So the "og db is the optional comedy prequel" nonsense is something I've never understood; it simply doesn't make any sense.

Exactly. And I'm trying to suggest a remedy for that, not just a way to move the problem forward

If the solution doesn't work, all I'm suggesting is they watch something closer to what they are familiar with.

Again, that is one of the things I'm aiming for here. Ultimately, if you have the time to watch all 131 episodes of Super(Which apparently most people here do?), you have the time to at least dig into the first 50 or 60 episodes of DB. You can skip the first 13 or so, but you miss a lot of important context by doing that, and surely one of the incentives here is that if you watch the entirety of OG DB(Or at least half of the run), you'll have a much greater understanding and context for the series as a whole?
Like, even those who consider the early run material to be a bit meh will surely see the worth in watching the first 13-ish episodes so they can get to the stuff they'd likely find more to their liking? And surely watching that early material would familiarise you with the characters as they are in that point in their lives more, so when you get to the later stuff, you aren't bogged down by not really getting what the characters' deals are at this point, and how they really relate to each-other. It's like how season 1 of Community is a bit rough around the edges, but when you go back to it later on with a greater understanding the characters as they are, and as they were in that time, it ends up coming off much better than when you go into it totally cold.

[KBABZ]

Personally I would say that Dragon Ball is light, for the most part... up until Daimao, when the shit hits the fan and we get a global panic scenario where Goku is presumed dead that climaxes with an explosion that the anime directly compares to Hiroshima, AND Goku gets three of his four limbs broken while his friend is tortured. By that point the show is basically Z and just has to change the intro and Turtle School gi.

The evolution of tone and style for both anime is one of its unique qualities, and it spends a lot of time with the various approaches it covers. If you want a grand ol' adventures touring the world on a magical cloud you have the two Dragon Ball hunts on Earth. If you want kung fu tournaments you have four of them! Defeat the big villain with flying and laser blasts? You're pretty well-served there too with most of Z. A parody of those? Buu arc! Chess with Dragon Balls? Namek arc. About the only one it doesn't stick with is the high school stuff with Gohan.

While I like everyone else use the OG-DB and DBZ split to refer to either half of the story, ever since I watched Dragon Ball and then moved on to Kai I consider them both a single story, you just cannot separate the two.

[Robo4900]

Personally I would say that Dragon Ball is light, for the most part... up until Daimao, when the shit hits the fan and we get a global panic scenario where Goku is presumed dead that climaxes with an explosion that the anime directly compares to Hiroshima, AND Goku gets three of his four limbs broken while his friend is tortured. By that point the show is basically Z and just has to change the intro and Turtle School gi.

Ehhhhh...
That is an obvious turning point, but ultimately the show had gone to similar kinds of places in the Red Ribbon arc; Tao Pai-Pai was pretty damn brutal, and completely destroyed Goku in their first encounter, so... While the Piccolo Daimao arc is a turning point, and it leans into the darker side of things more heavily than the previous arcs, it's not like it was totally unprecedented. You'll find this in all of Dragon Ball; find some element you like about any arc, and you can trace its origins back at least as far as Red Ribbon. Often further. That's how its evolution of style feels so natural; new things are always being tried, new spins on old things are attempted, and even when a good status quo is found, the next arc will try something else(Which I think is also a lot of why Dragon Ball was able to run for 11 years without ever really stagnating), but it's always based on something that was at least touched on by a previous arc, so it never feels like a sudden 90-degree tone shift or anything, it all feels like a natural progression. It's pretty damn genius.

The evolution of tone and style for both anime is one of its unique qualities, and it spends a lot of time with the various approaches it covers. If you want a grand ol' adventures touring the world on a magical cloud you have the two Dragon Ball hunts on Earth. If you want kung fu tournaments you have four of them! Defeat the big villain with flying and laser blasts? You're pretty well-served there too with most of Z. A parody of those? Buu arc! Chess with Dragon Balls? Namek arc. About the only one it doesn't stick with is the high school stuff with Gohan.

While I like everyone else use the OG-DB and DBZ split to refer to either half of the story, ever since I watched Dragon Ball and then moved on to Kai I consider them both a single story, you just cannot separate the two.

Yeah. Watching either half in isolation does a massive disservice to the story IMO. It's all just so much stronger when taken as one whole.

I must say, though, I take great issue with characterising the Boo arc as a parody. It kind of deconstructs what the franchise had done before in a lot of ways, and there are definitely elements that take the piss out of earlier stuff(Super Saiyan 3 being a cool-looking but stupid and totally useless transformation, Gotenks vs Super Boo basically being a decontruction/parody of every fight since the Namek arc, etc.), characterising the whole arc as a parody doesn't really do justice to what the arc really is. And... Well... Really, the Boo arc can't really be categorised as any one thing very easily given how long the damn thing is. Not only is it the longest arc in the franchise, but it more than justifies that length by going so many places with it. Light-hearted tournament shenanigans, Goku and Vegeta getting some resolution to their rivalry at the expense of everyone else in the story, giving Vegeta his revenge moment, and giving us a strong character-centric thread that runs through the arc, the aforementioned deconstruction of stupid transformations and being an idiot in a fight, which neatly sets up Gohan for his big moment where he fights Super Boo, but is an idiot in the fight and kind of relies on his stupid transformation, and as a result gets eaten and makes everything worse, which covers the deconstruction/parody element of the arc, Goku and Vegeta come to an ultimate resolution to pretty much their entire story together by setting aside their differences to form Vegetto, and ultimately leading Vegeta to admit Goku is better(GT expands on this somewhat, having him follow up on this with years of soul-searching, and basically just kind of becoming quite chill about the whole thing and just maintaining a healthy lifestyle of continuing to train and get stronger, but not being a complete, obsessed idiot who puts his wife and kid(s) in danger because of his dumb squabble. In other words, he finally learns some humility), which ties up the long-standing character arc of Vegeta, and this is without going into Boo himself and the whole deal Mr. Satan, Gohan and Videl...

I do also take issue with "Defeat the big villain with flying and laser blasts? You're pretty well-served there too with most of Z", since that kind of came into force as early as the 22nd Tenkaichi, they were just more sparing of techniques, so there were no real throwaway ones, every technique was still introduced properly and really bigged up as a big deal, which stopped it all from being routine, but ultimately it's the same kind of thing as you'd see in the Cell arc and such, just done somewhat more sparingly, as is often the case with the hallmarks of any given arc.

[KBABZ]

See above

Got a lot to learn about Dragon Ball...

I agree with the assessment that Buu is a deconstruction (comedic, obviously), parody wasn't the right word. And I also agree that early Dragon Ball had Z-like moments peppered throughout, Tao Pai-Pai being a classic and beloved example, but I still remember watching the Daimao fight in Central City for the first time and seeing him blowing up the city and thinking "WOAH, I know this was approaching the switch from DB to Z but I didn't expect it to start showing up THAT early!".

I know Kunzait will heavily disagree with me here, but I consider the traditional, physical martial arts in a different category as the ki-based stuff as far as fights go (kinda emphasized in that ki attacks are almost always a ranged attack meaning you don't have to get in close, a completely different approach to combat to my eyes). In early Dragon Ball ki attacks were present, but they weren't really the most common approach for attacking an opponent and were more regarded as special moves that heavily drained your ki. Physical hand-to-hand stuff still permeates through Z of course, but ki attacks aren't specialized moves by Namek and we start seeing a lot more of the un-named generic beams and balls getting thrown around all willy-nilly, which is a stark contrast from the early stuff. Combine that with flight (again, a very rare ability in the cast until we get to Namek) and there's a big upheaval in how fights go about.

[Robo4900]

Got a lot to learn about Dragon Ball...

I'm sure we all do.

I know Kunzait will heavily disagree with me here, but I consider the traditional, physical martial arts in a different category as the ki-based stuff as far as fights go (kinda emphasized in that ki attacks are almost always a ranged attack meaning you don't have to get in close, a completely different approach to combat to my eyes). In early Dragon Ball ki attacks were present, but they weren't really the most common approach for attacking an opponent and were more regarded as special moves that heavily drained your ki. Physical hand-to-hand stuff still permeates through Z of course, but ki attacks aren't specialized moves by Namek and we start seeing a lot more of the un-named generic beams and balls getting thrown around all willy-nilly, which is a stark contrast from the early stuff. Combine that with flight (again, a very rare ability in the cast until we get to Namek) and there's a big upheaval in how fights go about.

The fact they throw around unnamed ki attacks seems like a fairly arbitrary way to divvy up the fighting style. The "Z-like", as you say, way of fighting dates back to at least the 22nd Tenkaichi... But really, I don't think this got into full force until the Cell arc. All the way up to Namek, things were still primarily about hand-to-hand martial arts combat, with ki techniques just being flashy extra stuff they can pull out every now and then. You'd get the occasional piece of a fight that was just ki stuff(Such as the beam struggle when Goku and Vegeta were fighting in the Saiyan arc), but the sort of distance ki fighting stuff you're referring to was generally pretty sparingly-used until about Cell, and even then, both Cell and Boo were at most 50/50 between hand-to-hand and ki generally... It's not like the fighting in DB and Z are 100% entirely different, it's that DB began to introduce elements which continued to be brought in as the run went on, culminating in the Cell arc(Arguably, part of all this is that it's cheaper to animate two people standing far away and shooting energy beams than it is to animate two people having an intense hand-to-hand bout, so that's probably also part of it, given the way the animation went downhill around the Namek arc, but that's neither here nor there, really).
At least, that's my take.

I agree with the assessment that Buu is a deconstruction (comedic, obviously), parody wasn't the right word. And I also agree that early Dragon Ball had Z-like moments peppered throughout, Tao Pai-Pai being a classic and beloved example, but I still remember watching the Daimao fight in Central City for the first time and seeing him blowing up the city and thinking "WOAH, I know this was approaching the switch from DB to Z but I didn't expect it to start showing up THAT early!".

I mean, really, the only difference between DB and Z in the terms you're referring to is scale. Piccolo is a good thing to point to since things were really ramping up there, but the thing about Dragon Ball is it's always been a show that gets larger and larger in scale as things go on. I think the reason you identified the city fight as being particularly "Z-like" is because they're destroying a city, you're seeing a lot of collateral damage and the sheer strength level at which they're fighting is just incredibly high, so it tickles the "his power level is high and now lets destroy a city and also i am going to fire a beam at you now" kind of stuff a lot of people associate with the "Z-like" style.
Really, though, "Z-like" is an odd term to use, because Dragon Ball and Z are one story... There's certain things people associate with Z, certain hallmarks of its style, but it's nothing you weren't seeing as early as Red Ribbon or the 22nd Tenkaichi(Especially the 22nd Tenkaichi). I still stand by that at the very least, the 22nd Tenkaichi arc contains all the hallmarks you'd expect to see in Z, just in the structure of a tournament arc. I think it all starts much earlier, with the villain-centric stuff in the Red Ribbon arc being the real beginnings, but the 22nd Tenkaichi is where you see the really intense, crazy fights like in the 21st Tenkaichi along with the villain-centric story that Red Ribbon introduced, the combination of which would characterise most of the run from then on.

It's not a matter of Z having a different style, or even doing its fights particularly differently, it's merely a matter of the cut-off there happening to be in the middle of the style elements that would eventually culminate in the Cell arc being put into force. If the cut-off point had been the 23rd Tenkaichi, or the Namek arc, or even the Piccolo Daimao arc, you'd still say the same things about it, there would just be a different number of episodes in each show, and DBZ episode 1 would be an even worse starting point, though in each of those cases, it would have been at a further end of the transition, and thus the perception of there being a difference in style would make more sense...

[KBABZ]

"Z-like" is an odd term to use, because Dragon Ball and Z are one story...

I know, I guess what I mean by "Z-like" is "of the style associated with the latter and more well-known parts of the story that were in fact in the earlier stuff but hadn't evolved into the later form yet but we all know it was there all along because this is a continuous story". But "Z-like" is easier to remember, and when I refer to Z I'm not just referring to that stuff as "just that latter more popular of the two anime" but more importantly as "the back nine of the story", as it were.

Sidebar: While I can easily associate DB and DBZ as one story (because that's how it was written), does anyone feel that way with DBZ to Super, or back in the day DBZ to GT? Or are they so different that one can't help but treat them as separate entities in the story?

[goku the krump dancer]

I've met so many people who watched Z but never watched the first Dragon Ball series. They even made a joke about this in Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Why do so many Z fans refuse to watch Dragon Ball? Aren't they interested in how Goku, Krillin and the others were as kids and how they met? I grew up with Z too but once I learned about Dragon Ball i instantly started watching it. I just don't understand why Z fans refuse to give it a chance.

That's mostly a casual fan thing.. someone who may or may not have watched all off Z or even GT growing up.. lost interest somewhere along the way and just kinda left the show where it is. Once in a blue moon they might marathon a saga or 2 but thats about it.

Now a days those same folks might be caught up with Super because its the new hotness but because Goku's adventures as a kid dont hit the same thresholds as his adult journeys, it just doesnt seem that cool to most of them.

[ABED]

"Z-like" is an odd term to use, because Dragon Ball and Z are one story...

I know, I guess what I mean by "Z-like" is "of the style associated with the latter and more well-known parts of the story that were in fact in the earlier stuff but hadn't evolved into the later form yet but we all know it was there all along because this is a continuous story". But "Z-like" is easier to remember, and when I refer to Z I'm not just referring to that stuff as "just that latter more popular of the two anime" but more importantly as "the back nine of the story", as it were.

Sidebar: While I can easily associate DB and DBZ as one story (because that's how it was written), does anyone feel that way with DBZ to Super, or back in the day DBZ to GT? Or are they so different that one can't help but treat them as separate entities in the story?

Don't know about Super, but certainly GT since it feels different from what came before. Toriyama just has a style that's hard to capture.

[Robo4900]

"Z-like" is an odd term to use, because Dragon Ball and Z are one story...

I know, I guess what I mean by "Z-like" is "of the style associated with the latter and more well-known parts of the story that were in fact in the earlier stuff but hadn't evolved into the later form yet but we all know it was there all along because this is a continuous story". But "Z-like" is easier to remember, and when I refer to Z I'm not just referring to that stuff as "just that latter more popular of the two anime" but more importantly as "the back nine of the story", as it were.

I do get what you mean, but still, I don't think even the longer descriptor there does justice to exactly what you're getting at. The problem is, with a story that progresses as naturally and fluidly as Dragon Ball does, it's kind of hard to unpick certain aspects of it from individual places, because it's all tied up together... Z is a neat divisor to point to because that's when Toei rebranded the series for a ratings boost, and it was accompanied by a timeskip, but really, trying to unpick this is like trying to unpick a bad plot thread in a movie you like; the more you look at it, analyse how it ties into the story, what it means, and how it's incorporated in, the more you realise that the professional screenwriter who put this together has interwoven this bad plot thread expertly into the movie, and removing it is a far more complex task than some internet guy with a strong opinion can muster very easily. Say what you will about Spider-Man 3, it's an absolute masterpiece compared to any of the various fan rewrites you'll find online.
It's the problem of trying to pull a loose thread out of a blanket; you probably could get the thread out, but it'll probably take about half the blanket with it, it's all too connected up... You'd have to put some work into adjusting the rest of the thing to fit the alteration, perhaps incorporate some new stuff to make it all fit cohesively, but that can often fall apart...

I'm going about this a really roundabout way, but the point is, because of the way things are set up and followed on from in Dragon Ball, trying to pinpoint a specific point when Dragon Ball took on the style you're talking about is just as hard as pinpointing the specific point when Vegeta became a goodguy... It's just too smooth a transition; you can point to some key things that indicate the change happening, but you could make the case for basically any point along the entire transitional period as being the point when it changed.

So... I dunno, I think "Z-like" is a silly term for various reasons, as I've gone into, and yet even describing exactly what the style we're talking about is is difficult, so... I dunno. Easier to point out a problem than to suggest a solution, I suppose.

Sidebar: While I can easily associate DB and DBZ as one story (because that's how it was written), does anyone feel that way with DBZ to Super, or back in the day DBZ to GT? Or are they so different that one can't help but treat them as separate entities in the story?

To this day, GT feels like the natural follow-up to DB and Z to me.
Not as close a link as DB and Z, it feels like there's definitely a significant leap, but it feels less like a totally different show, and more like the difference in style between the 21st Tenkaichi arc and the Namek arc, but with some aesthetic changes layered on top of that.

Meanwhile, I will never see the Super anime as a natural follow-up to DB and Z. It feels too calculated, manufactured, and reliant on evoking the past of the franchise to feel like an authentic direct follow-on from what DB and Z were doing. DB, Z, and GT took pieces from the history of the franchise as seeds for what it would do next, put together some kind of uniqe mix, and usually end up creating a style you hadn't really seen in any of the prior arcs, but Super is much more interested in just being a throwback to places the franchise already went that were quite popular back in the day.
And overall, I've always found Super's tone, storytelling, and the aesthetics(Especially the music, though the visual style plays into this too) to all be distinctly un-Dragon Ball... Really, I would liken the Super anime more to the lesser movies than to DB, Z, or GT.

The manga comes much closer, to the point where I think it absolutely feels like a true sequel to the original story, kind of like GT is to Z, but to a lesser extent; while the storytelling is strong, and very Dragon Ball, the actual stories themselves are very weak, and feel like mediocre fanfiction... But the way it's presented is rather excellent, so the end result is a rather fun, if a bit thinly-plotted, little distraction to enjoy for ten minutes once a month.

[KBABZ]

Stuff and things!

Do you think Harry Potter fans have the same type of discussions?

[ABED]

Stuff and things!

Do you think Harry Potter fans have the same type of discussions?

In terms of what?

[KBABZ]

Stuff and things!

Do you think Harry Potter fans have the same type of discussions?

In terms of what?

Being a long continuous story with evolving elements and a gradual but significant change in style (and amusingly enough a continuation made long after the story was wrapped up).

[ABED]

Perhaps, though I don't think there's as much confusion about the canon of Harry Potter. I don't know if Rowling uses the term, but she says what counts in the world of her story and she is deeply invested in the integrity of the world she created, even in adaptations. Toriyama clearly has an affinity for DB, but I don't think he guards it as much as Rowling does, nor as much as I think he should.