Is Dragon Ball the biggest manga/anime series globally?

[MasenkoHA]

You're right. Thats why almost any positive review from their show or article was attached to pretty much any movies trailer or on its VHS (inckuding 90s Disney movies) Because these dudes were so underground

Can you give an example of people buying media solely because of what a critic says? Good on trailers to use praise to hype up their products but if the product is good, it will sell itself.

Not the point I was making at all. Like how do you keep doing that? Nobody is this obtuse, and yet here you are.

How many kids do you know used computers in the early 2000s?

A lot actually. Did you live under a rock?

[DBZAOTA482]

Not the point I was making at all. Like how do you keep doing that? Nobody is this obtuse, and yet here you are.

You seem to think a critic talking about a movie somehow means "SEE?! ANIME WAS ALWAYS MAINSTREAM!!!".

Those old farts never made a movie why should I care what they think?

A lot actually. Did you live under a rock?

Only 50% of households owned a computer at the time. Computer didn't really become commonplace till around 2005.

...and I doubt the average kid knows what Lycos is.

[jjgp1112]

Not the point I was making at all. Like how do you keep doing that? Nobody is this obtuse, and yet here you are.

You seem to think a critic talking about a movie somehow means "SEE?! ANIME WAS ALWAYS MAINSTREAM!!!".

Those old farts never made a movie why should I care what they think?

A lot actually. Did you live under a rock?

Only 50% of households owned a computer at the time. Computer didn't really become commonplace till around 2005.

...and I doubt the average kid knows what Lycos is.

I think you need to stop commenting on things you weren't really around for if you're going to be this obtuse about it

[ATA]

Because Pokemon did not hurt readership. Furthermore, what few people said "all manga and anime are exactly like Pokemon!" is such a comically low number of people thinking an incredibly illogical thing that nothing would have gotten them into manga or anime in the first place, anyway.

I honestly wouldn't call it comically low. As mentioned in my previous post Pokemon was one of few anime that went mainstream. I can't tell you how many people used to say "That Pokemon shit" or "That Pikachu shit" when speaking in a negative tone towards anime. Honestly it was borderline xenophobic at times. Hell as streaming services like Netflix and Hulu made anime more accessible and mainstream, a lot of people admitted they didn't watch anime or they watched it in secret because they thought it was all Pokemon shit. Hell I used to get a lor annoyed when my parents used to call every anime "Goku" "Pokemon" or "Nar-Rew-Do(Naruto)". The negative anime stereotyped we're definitely a thing. I wouldn't call it the vocal minority either. That'd just my experience though. Maybe where you're from it was better received. I'm glad things are way better now. Especially merchandise wise, accessibility wise, and conversation wise.

Well, yeah, that's why I said that that is a them problem, not a Pokemon problem. If you're going to go into any thing you have no prior experience with an assume it's all like one thing I'm not sure what else to say other than "If you think all cartoons from a single nation are all the same you're an idiot."

A lot of that nonsense is based in prior xenophobia and racism and that is a flaw of the individual human, not one cartoon.

I never blamed Pokemon for that. I even mentioned it was xenophobic in my post. I just don't agree that it was comically low. A good amout of people had that mindset until anime became more socially acceptable.

How many kids do you know used computers in the early 2000s?
A lot actually.

I agree with this. Computers were definitely becoming more common in households. Now phones? That's a different story.

[MasenkoHA]

You seem to think a critic talking about a movie somehow means "SEE?! ANIME WAS ALWAYS MAINSTREAM!!!".

The most well known movie critics. With their own show. They're not some nobodies nobody has ever heard of.

Those old farts never made a movie why should I care what they think?

Once again, that is not the point being made.


Here let me spell it out for you


Siskel and Ebert were extremely well known movie critics. This factually correct statement has fuck all to do with trying to convice you or anyone that such and such movie is good because they said so. But the fact that they even talked about anime movies in the 80s and 90s and identified them as animation from Japan should tell you how mainsteam anime was becoming. To use your own words "old farts knew what anime was"

Only 50% of households owned a computer at the time. Computer didn't really become commonplace till around 2005.

I don't know how to tell you this but half of all households is quite a significant amount. Trying to claim most kids didn't use a computer in the early 2000s is so fucking laughable. Like, anyone who was over the age of 6 in 2001 could tell you how ridiculous that statement is.

[DBZAOTA482]

Not the point I was making at all. Like how do you keep doing that? Nobody is this obtuse, and yet here you are.

You seem to think a critic talking about a movie somehow means "SEE?! ANIME WAS ALWAYS MAINSTREAM!!!".

Those old farts never made a movie why should I care what they think?

A lot actually. Did you live under a rock?

Only 50% of households owned a computer at the time. Computer didn't really become commonplace till around 2005.

...and I doubt the average kid knows what Lycos is.

I think you need to stop commenting on things you weren't really around for if you're going to be this obtuse about it

I'm only 3 years younger than you. I was around when both DBZ and Pokemon were everywhere. Pokemon was that highly addictive financial juggernaut and DBZ was that badass anime that had everyone and their uncle copying Kamehameha or Super Saiyan. I remember people playing the Pokemon cards extensively and CN used to air episodes back-to-back.

[Soppa Saia People]

i don't really trust a child's view point who would've been less then 10 years old, on what was and wasn't popular back then, given how much you lack any sort of view point at that age.

[DBZAOTA482]

The most well known movie critics. With their own show. They're not some nobodies nobody has ever heard of.

They're not nobody per say as in nobody has heard of them or they don't have an audience. Just that the average joe isn't really thinking about these things.

People tend to buy on impulse especially when consuming media.

Once again, that is not the point being made.

Your point is lost, dude.

I don't know how to tell you this but half of all households is quite a significant amount. Trying to claim most kids didn't use a computer in the early 2000s is so fucking laughable. Like, anyone who was over the age of 6 in 2001 could tell you how ridiculous that statement is.

I can't speak for everyone, but I mostly used computers as a kid to play games. The only search engine I knew about was Google and Yahoo!.

Lycos was never in their level.

[JulieYBM]

I mean I'm not denying that Pokemon has its place in the industry but it's contributions weren't necessarily benefitable to the image of anime. It was a megahit but like I said, seasoned anime fans don't respect it or take it seriously. It's middling success for the past two decades should make this point abundantly clear. Dragon Ball's sustained popularity and influence within the industry by comparison is a testament of its greatness.

What the fuck is a 'seasoned anime fan'? I've been an anime fan for twenty-five years and people from my generation either like it or would ask why the hell anyone cares whether they like it or not.

'Middling success'? You mean after being so popular that there was Valentine's Day cards in the US? How the animated series was so popular that a Pikachuu Version of the game was made that used Satoshi, Musashi and Kojirou? Or how there are twenty-three theatrical films, all of which include celebrity voice talent in the original cast, the fact that the last third of XY and the majority of Sun & Moon drew in a fresh crop of new animators eager to work on the series' intense battles and comedy scenes? Or how when Sun & Moon aired animators across the industry were tweeting about how much they loved the new character designs for Sun & Moon giving the series more flexible character animation? Or the legendary legacy of Iwane Masaaki having key animated over a hundred episodes of the series while also spending years as the series only regular action animator, doing literally what no other animator on the planet is capable of and being known across the industry for doing?

I give the Pokemon anime this- the first few seasons are alright, but they're nothing compared to the brilliance of the Saiyan and Namek arcs.

Define 'the first few seasons'. Having kept up with the series until today I can tell you the Satoshi series didn't truly begin to creatively shine until (and this is barring the Contest episodes of Advanced Generation) Tomioka Atsuhiro took over series composition for Diamond & Pearl (2006-2010) through Best Wishes and XY (2013-2016) or how Matsui Aya's scripting combined with the expressive animation of Sun & Moon (2016-2019) makes it the overall best series.

I'd put the battles and rivalries of Diamond & Pearl over the Saiyan arc and Namek arc battles any day. I'd put the heart of Sun & Moon over the heart of Dragon Ball any day.

I can piss further than you on the subject all day. Albeit, I've actually seen both Dragon Ball and the franchise you're bullshitting about.

Spoiler:

BTW Pokemon makes most of it's revenue off merchandise. That should tell you what really drives the sales for the franchise.

Dragon Ball does the same thing, it makes the majority of its money through merchandise. That's how these franchises work.

[MasenkoHA]

The most well known movie critics. With their own show. They're not some nobodies nobody has ever heard of.

They're not nobody per say as in nobody has heard of them or they don't have an audience. Just that the average joe isn't really thinking about these things.

People tend to buy on impulse especially when consuming media.

I know I've been going on and on like a broken record but you're still not getting it.

The point I'm making has had nothing to do with "people listen to movie critics to influence their buying decisions"

The point (for the umpteenth time) I'm making is these two very well known journalists were talking about anime before DBZ even made it over.

It's literally no different than when you cited a WSJ article.

I can't speak for everyone, but I mostly used computers as a kid to play games.

A lot of kids played games on the computer, a lot of kids also used the internet to look up their favorite shows. A lot of kids also used the computer to look up things they shouldn't if their parents weren't aroumd. Why the hell do you think SSJ is such a commonly used term by hardcore dub only fans who were kids when the show was airing on Toonami despite that acronym making no sense from the dub? Because they had that shit engrained into from the DBZ websites they visited as kids (which were made pretty much exclusively from fans of the Japanese version)

[MCDaveG]

Not the point I was making at all. Like how do you keep doing that? Nobody is this obtuse, and yet here you are.

You seem to think a critic talking about a movie somehow means "SEE?! ANIME WAS ALWAYS MAINSTREAM!!!".

Those old farts never made a movie why should I care what they think?

A lot actually. Did you live under a rock?

Only 50% of households owned a computer at the time. Computer didn't really become commonplace till around 2005.

...and I doubt the average kid knows what Lycos is.

I did. And stumbled upon Daizex around 2002. No idea what Lycos is, we were fine with Internet Explorer
We were sharing data among ourselves on 3/half floppy discs before 2000s.

[Kunzait_83]

Well, yeah, that's why I said that that is a them problem, not a Pokemon problem. If you're going to go into any thing you have no prior experience with an assume it's all like one thing I'm not sure what else to say other than "If you think all cartoons from a single nation are all the same you're an idiot."

A lot of that nonsense is based in prior xenophobia and racism and that is a flaw of the individual human, not one cartoon.

You're kind of revealing once more a massive blind spot of not just yourself, but this site and community in general.

Most regular, average adults (albeit less so in the past ten years or so, but this still largely holds true even now) aren't primarily interested in children's media. Rightfully so. And the reason I say this is because, certainly at least in the U.S., the anime market and anime fandom had long-since grown MASSIVELY more fixated and focused on highlighting largely if not solely anime aimed at children rather than adults. That wasn't always the case, but it certainly became the case at the turn of the millennium, and has largely remained so up through to this day since.

And Pokemon (and Dragon Ball along with it) was without a doubt Patient Zero in marking this shift.

You're also neglecting another basic truism: first impressions actually DO matter a lot. Especially for most average people and especially when someone isn't already in the know about something. A first impression of something that they beforehand had little to no experience with is going to stick for some time to come, unless its quickly and/or decisively dispelled in some way.

You take a normal, average adult (man or woman) who has almost zero experience with Japanese anime, and you sit them down in front of a TV screen and tell them "here's what anime is"... and what you're largely showing them is just Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, One Piece, Naruto, HxH, MHA, and yes even Dragon Ball/DBZ... then unless this person is already someone who is predisposed to be super into children's media as an adult, here's what's going to happen:

They're going to smile, nod politely, say "Wow, that's really interesting, thanks for showing me... but I'm not interested". And then they're going to walk away and in their heads are likely going to think that the person showing them this stuff is... kind of "off" in some way. And IF they have kids, they might think that maybe SOME of the stuff they showed them might be nice to leave on for their kids to see.

In other words, they're going to think that anime is primarily stuff for small children, and that grown people who are into it are in some vague, nebulous way maybe developmentally stunted. And guess what? They'd be completely reasonable for thinking that.

If you think the reason that a normal person would react this way towards being shown Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, Naruto, One Piece, DB, etc. and being told by most people "this is what anime is" is because they're "racist" or because they're "stupid/ignorant"... then once again, you're revealing that you have a huge, HUGE set of blinders on in regards to how most average people view and separate things that are made for children from... basically everything else. And more importantly what it is that MAKES things aimed squarely at children so different and distinct from things aimed at adults.

They aren't being racist or stupid: they're having a VERY normal reaction to a bunch of hyper-zealous dorks and manchildren waving nothing but Japanese childrens' schlock in their face and telling them "this is what anime is" and "this is the height of artistic expression". They're going to - again VERY rightly, correctly, and justifiably - write this stuff off as being nonsense for small kids, and the people who are super into it as adults as being "not right in the head" in some manner. If anything, this sort of reaction would be a sign of intelligence on that hypothetical average person's end rather than a lack of.

That DOESN'T mean that this stuff defines what anime is: I personally know for a fact that it doesn't. But I also had the fortune and luxury of having gotten into anime well long before stuff like Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, DB, etc. took over most American's/Westerner's perceptions of what anime is and came to define it for the next 20+ years after.

Anyone who isn't exposed to actual adult oriented anime and is instead being shown nothing but children's toy anime and having anime fans insist to them "This is Capital A Art!"... I have NOTHING but the purest understanding towards them for backing away slowly and thinking this stuff is the height of asinine stupidity and the people who are into it being mildly deranged weirdos.

And if your go-to reasoning for that reaction is "They must just be racist or stupid"... then I don't have a nicer way of telling you that you are approaching this ENTIRE topic from a monumentally skewed angle.

*Lots of asinine, counter-factual, easily disprovable nonsense throughout this thread*

Even from just my own more limited experiences with you on here, you seem to go out of your way lots of times to completely miss people's points left and right, totally (seemingly even willfully) ignore blatant and heavily cited facts that people point you directly towards, and just generally contribute points to discussions that are laughably counterfactual and misinformed and that are easily and continuously debunked. Which doesn't seem to deter you much from going on to continue pushing them as if they're fact regardless.

You seem to care less about actual history or accuracy to reality and more about reaffirming made-up narratives that you have some weird, inexplicable kind of emotional investment in. And you seem very adverse to doing any kind of reading or research on anything and seem to be content to just continuously shoot from the hip and say whatever "feel" in your gut is correct to you personally (and often times, it isn't), rather than actually bother to take a few moments to go look it up and confirm it.

I'm only 3 years younger than you. I was around when both DBZ and Pokemon were everywhere. Pokemon was that highly addictive financial juggernaut and DBZ was that badass anime that had everyone and their uncle copying Kamehameha or Super Saiyan. I remember people playing the Pokemon cards extensively and CN used to air episodes back-to-back.

I'm older than both of you then. So as someone with living, fully cognizant memories of the 1990s (and I mean ALL of the 1990s from front to back, not just 1997 through 1999 like so many "90s kids" hyper-focus on) and of the broader popular culture in America at that time, take my utmost word for it: you (DBZAOTA) simply don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

What you're doing here is this incredibly frustrating thing that not just you, but that a LOT of people in this community (a significant majority even I would say, at least a significant majority of it at one time or other in this community's very recent history) have often done: you're taking your incredibly limited and narrow... dare I even say, sheltered?... view of the world around you when you were a small child and misapplying it to the rest of society more broadly outside of it.

I'll simplify what I mean by that even further. Your thought process seems to be going something like this:

"This is what I see around me in my gradeschool schoolyard, in my small little hometown or neighborhood, in just my small little slice of the world that I inhabit, and primarily just among other small kids like myself: ergo, without checking or looking too far outside of this, I'm going to just blanket assume that this is what the whole rest of the world also thinks and knows is true. I'm going to base my entire perception of what the world thinks based on what just me and my handful of child-aged friends and schoolmates, and my/their parents perhaps, all happen to see and think is true, and just blanket apply that onto the rest of the planet/country as if its iron-clad fact.

And NO evidence anyone shows me to the contrary can EVER disprove or supersede that, because I was never there to see it myself firsthand. Only what I see and experience firsthand is valid and fact, anything I wasn't around for and didn't see or experience for myself is not valid and not factual."

What you're basically telling us throughout this entire asinine convo is: YOU (and your friends at school) didn't know other kids who used the internet. YOU (and your friends at school) didn't know what anime was before Pokemon and DBZ in the late 90s/early 2000s. YOU (and your friends at school) thought that Pokemon and DBZ were the most original things ever because YOU never experienced anything else like it beforehand.

But here's the part you're not getting here: what YOU (and your school friends) know and experience DOES NOT encompass what the rest of the world (and the rest of history before you guys came along) has known and experienced for long many years before you got there.

The world and history go on and HAVE gone on spinning long before you first arrived and became cognizant, and will continue to long after you're not here anymore.

What you're doing (like SO frustratingly many other people on this site and in this community have done for SO long now) is basically act like "anything that I didn't see or experience as a kid was never there and never happened because I didn't see and experience it". Its failing to understand the basic concept of "object permanence", but on a mass cultural level basically.

You're not remotely close to the only person on this site/in this community to fall victim to this mental blindspot... but you are being ESPECIALLY obstinate right now in refusing to understand this when people are literally going out of their way to spoonfeed it to you.

[MasenkoHA]

What the fuck is a 'seasoned anime fan'? I've been an anime fan for twenty-five years and people from my generation either like it or would ask why the hell anyone cares whether they like it or not.

There was a time in the early 2000s when Pokemon was definitely a punching bag for anime fans who were already out of the intended demo or grew out of it and did that thing kids tend to do where they make fun of something they used to like.

But that hasn't been a thing for good couple of decade. Certainly not from anime fans who got into anime from their childhood in the late 90s and are now pushing 30

Define 'the first few seasons'. Having kept up with the series until today I can tell you the Satoshi series didn't truly begin to creatively shine until (and this is barring the Contest episodes of Advanced Generation)

The Johto seasons were definitely terrible (and they're part of the first few years) I think most kids checked out of the show because of how awful they were.

I did give Diamond and Pearl the old college try and could not get into it.

Dragon Ball does the same thing, it makes the majority of its money through merchandise. That's how these franchises work.

Most mass marketed franchises do.

Want to know why Iron Man got a movie before Captain America despite it making way more sense to start with "the first Avenger"? It's because marketing focus groups found out kids were more likely to buy Iron Man toys than Captain America toys.

[Kunzait_83]

Anime was already 'cool' and had been for decades at that point, it was just 'cool' in the sense that it stuck mainly to the sci-fi convention market. Dragon Ball Z was part of a one-two punch in combination with Pokemon and Toonami in making Japanese animation into mainstream brick-and-mortar fodder.

I don't know how to break this to you... but anime's popularity had moved well outside and beyond the Sci Fi convention halls by the late 80s and early 90s (i.e. long before Pokemon and Toonami). And also it had become "mainstream brick and mortar fodder" by then as well.

Either that, or I spent the entire 90s decade (including the very early years of it) completely hallucinating going into mainstream, national chain shopping centers and buying plenty of anime tapes and merch while hanging out with and discussing the stuff with not just friends I knew, but even random customers shopping those aisles and the store clerks who worked at those places.

The time period you're thinking of - when anime was largely relegated to Sci Fi convention halls in the West - was more the 1970s and early to mid 1980s. By the time I was getting into anime (which would've been the tail end of the 80s), anime had already started moving WELL beyond that realm and was quickly seeping its way into the broader culture.

[DBZAOTA482]

What the fuck is a 'seasoned anime fan'? I've been an anime fan for twenty-five years and people from my generation either like it or would ask why the hell anyone cares whether they like it or not.

I know tons if people had fond memories of the first few seasons and that's understandable. It was actually enjoyable back then and not the boring, repetitive garbage it later became.

Even a writer for the first season complained about the anime.

'Middling success'? You mean after being so popular that there was Valentine's Day cards in the US? How the animated series was so popular that a Pikachuu Version of the game was made that used Satoshi, Musashi and Kojirou? Or how there are twenty-three theatrical films, all of which include celebrity voice talent in the original cast, the fact that the last third of XY and the majority of Sun & Moon drew in a fresh crop of new animators eager to work on the series' intense battles and comedy scenes? Or how when Sun & Moon aired animators across the industry were tweeting about how much they loved the new character designs for Sun & Moon giving the series more flexible character animation? Or the legendary legacy of Iwane Masaaki having key animated over a hundred episodes of the series while also spending years as the series only regular action animator, doing literally what no other animator on the planet is capable of and being known across the industry for doing?

Cute.

Meanwhile, Dragon Ball Super was neck-and-neck with One Piece in ratings and revenue, once broke the internet, Goku vs. Jiren was a grand event in Latin America, and the recent movie surpassed Pokemon's first movie's opening week ticket sales despite having little advertisement.

Dragon Ball also inspired a bunch of animators, including a Castlevania animator:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/intere ... on/.187568

It also inspired a Superman movie:

https://comicbook.com/anime/amp/news/dr ... man-anime/

It's influence is even felt with video games:

https://www.theloadout.com/midnight-sun ... nspiration

Define 'the first few seasons'. Having kept up with the series until today I can tell you the Satoshi series didn't truly begin to creatively shine until (and this is barring the Contest episodes of Advanced Generation) Tomioka Atsuhiro took over series composition for Diamond & Pearl (2006-2010) through Best Wishes and XY (2013-2016) or how Matsui Aya's scripting combined with the expressive animation of Sun & Moon (2016-2019) makes it the overall best series.

I'd put the battles and rivalries of Diamond & Pearl over the Saiyan arc and Namek arc battles any day. I'd put the heart of Sun & Moon over the heart of Dragon Ball any day.

I can piss further than you on the subject all day. Albeit, I've actually seen both Dragon Ball and the franchise you're bullshitting about.

....okay.

Dragon Ball does the same thing, it makes the majority of its money through merchandise. That's how these franchises work.

Less than half of Dragon Ball's income comes from merch (and if that $30 billion statistic is true, it's not even a third). At least 76% of Pokemon's revenue is merch.

[MCDaveG]

The sentiment for anime being basically all Pokémon for kids, was prevalent in Czech Republic as well. The ''mainstream'' anime, if we will call it like that were in CZ and around, like Germany, basically Pokémon, Digimon and Monster Rancher.
I even remember, watching Dragon Ball GT on TV in living room when dad came from work with his friend and he looked on the TV and said: ''Oh, you are watching Pokémon.''
Wasn't even meant as an insult, but all anime was basically Pokémon, because that was the flagship for the ''genre''.

Adults at that time had a same perception about comic books in general, as a garbage literature for kids.
This was prevalent, until Big Bang Theory became masively popular and made life for us nerds kinda easier.
But before that, Batman was a fantasy/hero movie first, comic book somewhere at the back of a head, second.

But in the niche otaku community, Dragon Ball was thrown somewhere with Pokémon and anime fans were like a cult, watching series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Slayers, Hunter X Hunter with claiming ''Dragon Ball looks and feels outdated, we are interested in better animation''.
Also, Gundam Wing had kind of a breakout on Cartoon Network later.
I wonder how many fans of anime were there before outside of Japan, compared to today, but it was a subculture for sure. We got to know each other through chat forums, lot of the people were styling and even adopting a certain looks, using Japanese words in sentences. A term Weaboo was corned in english language, them proudly calling themselves Otaku. If you were a fan of anime past your ''Pokémon age'' you were treated as weird and childish.

But Dragon Ball was part of the ''mainstream'' anime slate next to Pokémon, Digimon and other series... Sailor Moon was massively popular in Germany as well and was perceived better. But lot of the otakus somehow hated everything mainstream.
Interesting time and really basically was:
1. kid's cartoons with Japanese (Pokémon) look first - popular among children demographic that usually grew out of it or went Otaku.
2. Otaku subculture with niche preferences - from kids up to teens.

And then you have stuff like Ghibli movies, Princess Mononoke being shown here as a pinacle of Japanese animation and not labeled as anime, because anime was basically a 20 minute TV show format for kids and OAVs.

Early piracy went later with faster internet (around 256 kpbs back then and more) though peer to peer, Kazaa was really popular here.

It was completely different time and internet was an abstract place. Rumors were based per word of mouth with concept of checking facts (sometimes not really able to) being something unheard of. Dragon Ball AF says hello.

But Dragon Ball was huge in early 2000s, Dragon Ball Z was advertised as a step up from your Pokémon like anime and ran on prime time after evening news block in Germany, aimed mostly at teens. Then it fell back as One Piece, Naruto, Bleach and other anime were introduced and finally, around 2005, anime became part of mainstream media, with Naruto dethroning Pokémon.

[DBZAOTA482]

I know I've been going on and on like a broken record but you're still not getting it.

I get what you're saying. You're just mad that I don't agree with you.

Take your lick like a man.

The point I'm making has had nothing to do with "people listen to movie critics to influence their buying decisions"

But movie critics don't speak for the everyman. For all intents and purposes, they're opinions are every bit as valid as ours.

There are a lot of movies that got high acclaim but aren't very successful.

The point (for the umpteenth time) I'm making is these two very well known journalists were talking about anime before DBZ even made it over.

Doesn't mean anime was mainstream. Just that people knew about it.

It's literally no different than when you cited a WSJ article.

It's content is different. The Akira review points out Japanese animation being more adult-oriented (which isn't even true) and that's it while the DBZ article actually explains (not too well) the difference of Japanese animation and how different the standards for Japanese television is.

Also considering what's more successful between Akira and Dragon Ball... you should know the gap.

A lot of kids played games on the computer, a lot of kids also used the internet to look up their favorite shows. A lot of kids also used the computer to look up things they shouldn't if their parents weren't aroumd. Why the hell do you think SSJ is such a commonly used term by hardcore dub only fans who were kids when the show was airing on Toonami despite that acronym making no sense from the dub? Because they had that shit engrained into from the DBZ websites they visited as kids (which were made pretty much exclusively from fans of the Japanese version)

Okay, I definitely fell into this category but I had no idea what Lycos was till I got older and that was through DBZ.

[MasenkoHA]

I know I've been going on and on like a broken record but you're still not getting it.

I get what you're saying. You're just mad that I don't agree with you.

Take your lick like a man.

I just nearly broke a rib from laughing so hard.

No, no you don't. You have continuously proven you don't get what I'm saying. Hell in this very some post

As seen here:

But movie critics don't speak for the everyman. For all intents and purposes, they're opinions are every bit as valid as ours.

There are a lot of movies that got high acclaim but aren't very successful.

...shows you're still not getting it! Holy shit.

Doesn't mean anime was mainstream. Just that people knew about it.

What the fuck do you think mainstream means?

Besides stuff that you like

Also considering what's more successful between Akira and Dragon Ball... you should know the gap.

It's a good thing the argument isn't about which is more succesful. The whole argument being made to you is that anime was breaking into the mainstream well before DBZ made it big on Toonami, hell before DBZ became a top rated boys action cartoon in syndication.

[DBZAOTA482]

I just nearly broke a rib from laughing so hard.

Once you get so high on your own ego, it causes you to act crazy so I see why.

...shows you're still not getting it! Holy shit.

You're not getting your own point. Keep contradicting yourself.

What the fuck do you think mainstream means?

Things that are considered "cool" or "trendy" by society.

It's a good thing the argument isn't about which is more succesful. The whole argument being made to you is that anime was breaking into the mainstream well before DBZ made it big on Toonami, hell before DBZ became a top rated boys action cartoon in syndication.

I know you

I know anime was rising in popularity before DBZ. The point is DBZ played a big role in it eventually being accepted into the mainstream because it was different from its contemporaries while you keep fighting reality and say it did nothing for anime in the west.

[ATA]

I will like to add that how "mainstream" anime was in the 80s,90s, 2000s, etc is based off where you live. Even in America, it's a big country. Some communities might've been more anime friendly than others. That plays a role too. Factor in race, ethnicity, accessibility to anime, and other factors that can lead to how popular anime was when you was growing up. Now in modern times thanks to technology it's easier to gauge popularity.

This isn't a one shoe fits all situation.