Taking a break from Dragon Ball.

[Shiyonasan]

Have any of you ever taken a break from doing anything Dragon Ball-related for an extended period of time? By an extended period of time, I mean about a year or more.

For me, I have taken only a month or two months break from doing anything related to the series, like when I go on vacation somewhere. However, I have been frequenting this forum less and less lately. This forum is basically the backbone of my Dragon Ball fandom. Since I've not been checking as much lately, I think my fandom may be taking a backseat for a while. I'm not sure if this will result in me taking a break from the fandom, but I guess I'll see what happens. The next Dragon Box comes out in April, so I might be thrust back into the fandom when that happens. Who knows?

Anyway, enough about myself. Have you guys ever taken a long break from your Dragon Ball fandom?

[Piccolo Daimao]

Yes. Mostly when I've been devoted a lot of my time to other franchises (mostly certain videogame series).

But likewise, this forum is the backbone of my DB fandom.

[Cipher]

I stopped having anything to do with it, whatsoever, from about eighth grade until my junior year of high school. That would have been, what -- about 2004-2007?

I just thought I'd grown out of it. What got me back into it, actually, was my parents giving me Budokai Tenkaichi 2 along with a Wii for Christmas. I had such a blast playing that game that I had to go back and watch the few DVDs I still owned. The orange bricks started coming out slightly after, which provided a great way to get back into the series (I only ended up buying the first three). I started getting the rest of the GT boxsets, etc, and eventually the blue bricks and Dragon Boxes started coming out. It was a really good time to be picking up my interest again.

I think the difference was that coming back to it, I was able to watch it in a completely different way, appreciating the tongue-in-cheek aspect of it over the serious. I also knew a lot more about Japanese language and culture by then, having taken classes and done a summer study abroad. My appreciation of Dragon Ball is entirely different from what it once was, and I enjoy it much more now. Whether this forum exists or not, Dragon Ball will be one of the few properties I'll always be a die-hard fan of. The only other things I can say that about are TMNT and Pokemon. It seems I'm destined to drop all my childhood fads for a time, only to come back to them with a much deeper and more tongue-in-cheek interest.

[CatouttaHell]

I watched Dragon Ball Z when it was on Cartoon Network from the early Saiya-jin Arc to sometime after Fat Boo appeared and got fed up with how annoying Fat Boo and Babidi were and just stopped caring. Then I saw the OVER 9000 vodeo, remembered the characters in it and decided to watch some DBZ for old time's sakes and ended up quickly getting back into the fandom again. Though this time I'm way more into it than I was before.

[Michsi]

I also thought I had grown out of it at one point, got involved in other fathoms and even went so far as believing DB was chilish and bad and that I had matured and moved on to better and smarter things....


...until my little brother decided to take a trip down memory lane a rewatch the DragonBall series. I remember laughing at him "What, that old thing?" and not really planning on watching it with him. I just entered his room after he started with it, he was at the Pilaf Saga, and sat down to look at it a little for old times sake.

In a couple of episodes all my love for this damn series came back full force. The saying with a vengence was never more appropriate.

I actually feel a little embarassed about my so called "I have matured" period. It makes me feel like on of those kids who try to act all grown up by saying "cartoons are for little children" while real grown ups most of the time have no problem with this and sometimes even apreciate it more.

[Chibi Gohan]

I stopped completely from 2003 till around February 2007. There's been a few small breaks since 2007, but never more than a few months.

[AnzuMazaki]

I did take a break from Dragonball before I joined the internet fandom.
From late 2003 up until late 2007, I was into Yugioh and drew regular fanart of the characters.
Then I got back into Dragonball because I was watching the original series, which rekindled my love for the series.

[Son Satan]

I left for a considerable amount of time, from the time GT ended it's Toonami airing to... about the time Budokai Tenkaichi 3 was released. My family knew I liked Dragon Ball, so the year that game came out, (2007) for Christmas, I got it as an "I-didn't-know-what-to-get-you-so-here" present from my Uncle. I thought to myself "DBZ, I remember that," and since I still occasionally played Budokai, I hung onto it.
Then I heard about the Orange Bricks in 2008, checked some stuff out, and realized how sucky the quality of the video was.
So I humored myself with games until I'd realized in 2009 that the VizBigs came out, and realizing how good they were re-ignited the non-gaming aspect of the series. Then I bought the domestic Dragon Box 1 (I'd known of them since their release, they were just really expensive seeming) for my birthday, about five months Kai began airing and that was the 'perfect storm' for bringing me back into the full anime/manga/gaming fandom.

[Raithos]

Hmm I was a fan when I was like.... in grade 2-7 so that's 2000; then I stopped for 11 years and came back last year. Lol.

[Kendamu]

I take short breaks all the time. I tend to devote all my time to a certain franchise for awhile, then move to another. After awhile I just cycle back to Dragonball and start all over again.

One time I did take an extended break from everything I'm normally into for a year or two (which includes Dragonball). I picked it back up around the time the first Budokai game hit PS2.

Out of My short breaks, I'm sort of going back into Dragonball again, but I recently got Netflix so there's a bunch of new stuff getting in my way. Well, that, and I'm playing the No More Heroes frames again right now because they provided me with a recent Epiphany toward why I train in martial arts and my general geekiness. That's something I'll cover in my next Battle Geek video so I won't go into it too much here.

As soon as I get more Kai or DBox, though, I'll be fully back into Dragonball again.

[MetaMoss]

Back when I was a kid, yeah. Though there was other franchises in the mix, it seemed that these three things came up in my obsessiveness again and again: Nintendo, Transformers, and Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball came first in 1997 or '98 (can't remember, was WAY too young), Nintendo in 2000 (though didn't own anything Nintendo personally until 2004), and TF in 2002 (Armada was on Toonami during the great drought of DBZ episodes that year...). Though nowadays, I now have more consistency, so just replace TF with Football (the American Kind, though I like to play more than watch) and you got my three constant things to use up my time on!

[Geisha]

I wouldn't say I "took" a break, I think it just happened naturally. I never lost interest I just continued on watching/reading whatever got my attention next. I was really into the mighty 3 during the late 90's [Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya] and once they were over I knew I'd always love those shows, but I was an anime fan at heart so I had to continue to "educate myself" on the new and old stuff I didn't know.

My "break" lasted for 10 yrs. It wasn't until last year when in a fit of nostalgia I re-watched DB and fell inlove with it all over again and like Michsi said, it DID come back with a vengeance >_<

Now I'm scared of re-watching Sailor Moon or Saint Seiya coz I'm gonna end up homeless. DB is taking all my money~!

[SuperSaiyan3Goku]

When was the last Dragon Box released...? September? Damn, that's longer than I thought!

Yeah the long-ass gap between each Dragon Box release is mostly why I've been turning my attention to other interests.

[Ahiru77]

Took a break of 7 years. *sigh*

[Bura]

I'm currently taking a break. Since the summer really, because I discovered another anime I got really obsessed about and I was really busy with my internship. Anyway, I dislike Cell so I pretty much stopped following Kai, I still need to read the latest volume of the kanzenban I've purchased, my website has received no updates from me since September.

But I'm pretty sure I'm almost at the end of my break. ^^ I still continue to visit this forum and I recently bought myself a wonderful Bulma figure so

[Super Sonic]

Before the Kai premiere at anime convention, I had not watched DB in a long time pretty much aside from watching the first eps of the season 1 box set. Hell, I haven't watched many of the dvds I've gotten since 2007 due to watching other shows like Gundam, Ai Yori Aoshi, etc.

[Zionist]

Before DBZKai was announced a while back....it had been a couple years....months and months later I find myself with all the DBZ movies minus the Broly ones, 3 Season Sets and a Replica sword.....wonder where I'd be without Kai

[.:PoetikaL:.]

I take a break from Dragon Ball when I'm interested in new anime, or when I'm sick and tired of hearing about Dragon Ball (which happens quite a bit). Love the show, and always will, but there are other things to look out for.

[CODii]

I went through a period of several years when I basically forgot about DragonBall. After it stopped being shown on TV and I owned and read all of the DBZ manga I just kind of walked away for a few years. It wasn't that I hated the series, there just wasn't really anything that interested me at the time.
I had always wanted the show on DVD, but the single discs were far too expensive. When the orange bricks came out I finally had the opportunity to own the series. Even though I never actually bought all of them because I just could not stand the poor quality, at least I owe them for once again piquing my interest. Around that time I also stumbled across this site. DaizenshuuEX was the thing that really got me back into the swing of fandom.

[KinoFourpaws]

My interest just kind of fizzled out for the past couple of years. It started trickling back sometime last semester and has now finally hit full-force again in the last couple of weeks.

I'm measuring this by frequency of fanart, among other things. I completely stopped drawing Dragon Ball sometime before or around the time I transferred colleges (outside of maybe some buttons I made at MechaCon). I just decided I wanted to draw something else for a while. My interest in the series kind of quieted down with my interest in drawing the characters.

Now, though, I've been doodling pages' worth of Dragonball stuff. I'm contemplating putting up a thread in the Fan Works section to dump them.