Tamagon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:48 pm
JulieYBM wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 4:25 pm
MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 4:21 pm
The thing with original Dragon Ball is it does change quite a bit the first few episodes are in no way indicative of what the series actually ends up being. Torishima even directed Toriyama to change the genre because it wasn't selling as a road story. I would never tell someone "you got to sit through 13 episodes before it gets good" I would honestly advised someone who wasn't feeling the first few episodes of Dragon Ball to skip to the second arc and test out a few episodes before deciding if Dragon Ball is for them or not.
This is a good idea, yeah. For all the complaining that people do how the US skipped the beginning of the series, I think that as I have gotten older I have disagreed with that mentality the old I have gotten. I don't think that we should tell fans how to enjoy a series in that regard, because ultimately it's nobody's business, and furthermore, JUMP comics evolve vastly over their runs, so perhaps becoming a fan in a nonliner ways shouldn't be considered lesser.
I imagine that a lot of shonen manga (especially before the internet) are written with the expectation that people would come in and out of the series. That's why plots are generally simple, and the magazine and volumes always have pages explaining who the characters are. I feel the idea that you have to consume every part of a manga series is a bit of a recent thing but I can't really prove that.
I think that it is from our perspective in the US something that is particularly pushed by cinematic universes and such just to sell the entire universe. This is why
Ahsoka, which is currently running, has plot threads from three seasons of
The Mandalorian,
The Book of Boba Fett and even characters from
Andor (the one consistently great series among the batch). I think that works like that and the MCU have sort of trained viewers and readers to think that way about how they get into Japanese comics and anime, although some series kind of are difficult to follow if you don't start from the first chapter or episode. I'd certainly never suggest starting, say,
Oshi no Ko, from the middle of the story—but that's also because
Oshi no Ko has got the best motherfucking opening storyline I've ever seen (Chapters #1-10, collected in Volume #1 of the comic, and adapted entirely as the 82 minute-long Episode #1 of the animated series).
With
Dragon Ball, I don't think that's an issue. Start where you like, don't watch what you don't want to. Not everyone has the finances for this shit, let alone the time of the day, after all. When I got into
Dragon Ball in 1998 what drew me in was the fighting and the character arcs in the Saiyan and early Namek arcs, and I enjoy all that without knowing what the fuck a Chaozu was.