How did you get into Dragonball?

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How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Dr. Machismo » Tue Aug 06, 2013 3:48 pm

Discuss what happened that made you become a Dragonball fan!

I'm really not sure. I was a fan when I was 3-4, but I'm not sure how it started.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by PhoenixEX » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:09 pm

Back when I was living in Peru when I was about 3 or 4 it used to show alongside Digimon, in spanish of course. I was immediately hooked to both shows. Needless to say I was very sad when it ended, but to my surprise it was still showing in America when I moved here. It wasn't the same watching it in english because, well, I couldn't understand english at the time aha. The soundtrack was also different (my dad used to point it out because he used to watch it with me back in Peru in spanish) but that didn't really bother me.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Gyt Kaliba » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:10 pm

Oh boy, let me go dust off my life story again.

*smacks the paper against a wall to shake the dirt off*

Ah, there we go. Ahem. It was back when I was in the 5th grade, so somewhere between 1999 and 2000, that I first encountered Dragon Ball Z. I was heavily into Pokemon at the time, and a half Japanese friend of mine would argue back and forth with me about which was cooler, DBZ or Pokemon. At the time, I was pro-Pokemon, but agreed to check out some Dragon Ball Z to see what it was really like. So I tuned in to Toonami on Cartoon Network one day and saw my first episode - ...the Bulma and the crabs episode of the Ocean dub.

'...LAME!'

I wasn't impressed, at all. This wasn't the action-packed show I had been promised! So we kept arguing that one or the other was right, and time went on until the summer vacation between 5th and 6th grade. I didn't get WB at the time, so while channel surfing one day I ended up watching some more Dragon Ball Z. This time around, it was to the re-runs of the Freeza material, and just as I was watching it, Goku transformed into a Super Saiyan in a rage over the death of two friends (or so it seemed). Something about that had me interested, so I quickly began to tape more and more episodes each day, and was soon hooked. The fighting was awesome, it was funny (yeah, yeah, I know, early-FUNi-dub-sucks, I was young okay? :P ), and I soon became a fan - kinda.

The Garlic Jr. stuff after that wasn't as interesting to me, and my interest began to wane. I probably would have dropped the show entirely, but then I caught the next-episode preview saying that Freeza was coming back. Now that I HAD to see. I tuned in, expecting another huge, epic fight with Goku...only to see some purple-haired punk show up, turn Super Saiyan, make short work of Freeza, and warn everyone that there's stuff on the horizon that even he can't deal with. Needless to say, I was hooked ever since. :P
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Dr. Machismo » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:11 pm

One of my earliest memories being a Dragonball fan would be stumbling upon the Ocean dub of the first episode of DBZ on a channel that was probably Cartoon Network and watching the Pioneer releases of the first three DBZ movies on VHS at my cousin's house.

Good times.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Kamiccolo9 » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:21 pm

I was flipping through channels one day in 96(97?)after my parents finally let me have my own TV, and I saw, in rotating foil letters, "Goku vs Vegeta: A Saiyan Duel." I had no idea what was going on, but the fighting was awesome, and I came back and watched more every chance I got. I don't think I saw the series in order until a couple of years later though.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:32 pm

Channel-flipping when I was 11, until I landed on Cartoon Network and saw the Ocean dub scene of where Vegeta kills Cui. That relatively unimportant (in the grand scheme of things, I mean) scene holds a special place in my heart for that reason. I remember watching Vegeta and thinking, ".....I don't know who this guy is........but he's badass. I like him." Watched regularly ever since.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by DynasticHunter » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:36 pm

For me I was a late bloomer. I saw brother watching it a few times and I remember watching mostly the Boo arc and I don't think I really got what was going on but I was entertained. But that was years ago and it wasn't until last year when I asked a friend about borrowing his Dragon Ball manga and he let borrow his Vizbig 3-1 editions of Dragon Ball. I loved it. When got up to the Z era I decided to watch the anime rather than read the manga. So I watched English Dub (uncut) of Z and I loved it, of course I did. It wasn't until May 2013 when I discovered Kanzenshuu, the forums made me open eyes and realize that the English Funimation dub was crap. Now I'm rewatching all Dragon Ball subbed. I'm at the end of the Freeza arc now. I must be the only one who didn't really watch the original Cartoon Network broadcast. I was more into Pokemon and Digimon, but I did watch the One Piece 4kids dub on Cartoon Network. I still remember Sanjis Boston accent.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Gaffer Tape » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:41 pm

It was September of 1998, I had just started 7th grade, and I already usually watched Toonami when I came home from school. But somehow I missed when this show originally started. The first one I caught was fairly early on. It was one of those episodes where Gohan was surviving in the wilderness, and Goku was running down the Serpentine Road. And I don't really know what caught my interest. It just seemed cool. I liked the characters, and I liked the fact that it was a continuing story rather than just episodic. The fact that this guy was apparently dead (with the halo and all) was pretty unique. I was sure that the kid one had to be the older one's son. They looked alike and dressed the same, but then I saw the episode with Princess Snake and that dream mirror that seemed to show a younger kid in a yellow tunic and a tail who was said to be his son, so I guessed I had to be wrong about that.

Now, my best friend at the time lived upstairs, and I'm not sure if I talked to him about it, or if he found it on his own, but, of course, the two of us, and all the rest of the kids in my apartment complex, eventually became hooked on DBZ. And to my surprise, my friend told me that he had seen an earlier series, Dragon Ball, when he was younger, and had seen Goku and Yamucha as kids, and that Piccolo must have been an older version of the villain from that show (yes, he thought Piccolo was an older Pilaf). I asked about Krillin, but he said he'd seen every episode (all 13 of them!), and he wasn't in it. Not too long after, he came over to my house. I had just gotten a really, really slow internet, and we looked up Dragon Ball stuff only to find Curtis Hoffmann's summary for volume 1 of the manga (although I doubt I realized at the time that that's what it was). A lot of it seemed to match up with what he'd seen on TV but with all these other things that surprised us both: like Blooma shooting Goku and offering to let him touch her butt, and Goku taking off her panties in the night. We were floored. I asked him if that had happened on the show, and he assured me it didn't, so we assumed we'd found some overly-embellished porn version of Dragon Ball. :lol:

There really wasn't any defining moment. Just little by little I got into it and began to be able to piece the storylines together, even though I didn't get to see it every single day. I came back a little bit later, for example, only to find some girl I didn't know and some weird-looking genie flying in a spaceship. It didn't really phase me, though, as I remembered having similar experiences trying to watch Robotech on Toonami. Just when I thought I knew all the characters, I'd come back a few weeks later, and there'd be this entirely new cast! :wink:
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by PuppetDoctor » Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:41 pm

I got into DBZ back in 2003 when I rented Legacy of Goku II at my local video store. The first thing that struck me about the game was the music when Gohan was doing his homework and all the different characters you could play as. I wanted to know who the "green guy" was and what was a "saiyan?" Why could certain characters go blond and others couldn't? After I beat the game I wanted to see the series so one evening I caught an episode on YTV of Cell transforming into his second form and have been hooked onto the series since then.

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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Cursed Lemon » Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:52 pm

Like most American kids, with Toonami's endless Ocean dub Saiyan/Namek saga loop.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by ABED » Tue Aug 06, 2013 6:04 pm

Here are the bullet points
- Father was in the military, we lived on a Navy base in Japan between 91 and 93 and got a few Japanese channels. They showed both DB and DBZ. I don't remember watching the show except in fleeting moments, I vaguely remember seeing an episode with Karin.
- My brother talked about the show and names like Goku and Gohan. He had DBZ trading cards from Japan. In 96, I saw Goku jumping from tree to tree then knock one down with a punch, and immediately recognized him from the card, so I kept watching from then on.
- The local blockbuster had a few Dragon Ball VHS's, which my mom got me for Christmas.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Saiyatonian » Tue Aug 06, 2013 7:04 pm

Haven't watched it when I was young, but I saw the beginning of the Namek Saga last year. Ever since then, it's grown on me.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by TheGmGoken » Tue Aug 06, 2013 11:03 pm

My brother got some bootleg tapes with subs. Watched all DB episodes. Then once I finish Dragonball he got me bootleg DBZ Saiyan Arc - Early Freeza arc. He got arrested because you know at that time in Korea. Anti Japan. So I had to wait till Tooniverse showed it. I also watched the Champ dub and get them confused A LOT. So every since I was 2ish when most people watch TOm and Jeryy I was watching anime with my brother Hyun-Ki.

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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Linkthoy » Tue Aug 06, 2013 11:27 pm

When I was a lot younger, I don't remember quite how old I was, I was at my aunt's house, watching Saturday Morning cartoons with my cousins, and Dragon Ball Z came on. It was during the Namek arc, when Goku was battling the Ginyu Force, Jeese and Butta were rushing at Goku and missing him. I was somewhat confused, and I asked my older cousin "Why are they missing him?" And he answered, "He's just moving so fast you can't see him." I thought it was the most awesome thing I ever saw. Years later, when I started watching Toonami, the Buu arc was airing (well it might be the Cell Arc, because it was the Afterlife Tournament) and I was hooked.

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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Hellspawn28 » Tue Aug 06, 2013 11:33 pm

In 1997, my Dad got a VHS tape of Dragon Ball which had the first three episodes on it. He bought it for me for my birthday since he hears it was a popular kids show from Japan, and he knew that I liked Japanese stuff like Godzilla. I watched it when I was six and I found it wired at the time. In 1998 when I was waiting for Beast Wars to be on Toonami and I saw the episode were Goku got wished back. As a kid, I was confused and had no idea what I was watching. In 1999, DBZ took over my school and it was one of the biggest show that kids talked about next to Pokemon and Power Rangers. To see the hype behind the show, I saw the episode of Piccolo fighting Freeza on Namek and I hated it. For a while, I hated DBZ and I would be against it because I thought it was stupid.

What made me a fan was the episode between SSj2 Gohan and Perfect Cell on Toonami's midnight run. I was bored during the middle on a school night and I was unable to sleep. I saw DBZ was on and I almost changed the channel until I saw blood. I was shocked how violent and bloody the show really was a kid. At the time, I was used to blood in cartoons since I was a Spawn fan at the time and I can handle violence in TV shows. As a kid, I knew that DBZ uncut was so different. After that, my friend told me more about Dragon Ball and give me beckett DBZ books for info. It was not enough for me to learn more, so I used the Internet and find DBZ websites with more info. I was able to track down bootlegs with fan subs of DBZ and the DBZ movies on VHS as a kid and I feel like I was in Heaven :) . The rest is history.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Ringworm128 » Wed Aug 07, 2013 1:17 am

Christmas 2008, my brother lent me seasons 1-4 of the orange bricks and gave me Super Sonic Warriors 2 for the DS the rest is history.

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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by RandomGuy96 » Wed Aug 07, 2013 1:53 am

I first got into it by being beast at the video games. The first one I played was Budokai 1, at my cousin's house. I had soooooo much fun. My friends and I always bought and played the newest Budokai and Tenkaichi games together, and we loved every one. That's where I learned the story of DBZ; I didn't actually watch the show until much later. Neither did my cousins, though oddly they owned every movie (I think) but Movie 1 on DVD.
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Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by dbzfan7 » Wed Aug 07, 2013 1:55 am

RandomGuy96 wrote:though oddly they owned every movie but Movie 1 on DVD.
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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Son Edo » Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:03 am

In 2002 it was pretty popular at school but I can't remember how I got into the series. First episode I saw was probably Cell's first appearance or while Goku was recovering in the healing tank on Namek.

Growing up I lost interest in most shows I grew up with, I regained interest in the series in late 2009 and haven't looked back since.

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Re: How did you get into Dragonball?

Post by Mewzard » Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:50 am

Well, I got into Dragon Ball Z when the Ocean Dub was airing on Toonami, where DBZ reaired at least a few times, and it felt like an eternal wait for Season 3. I would imagine it was during 1998 for me then, because I've been watching Toonami for ages (still do).

I'm 25 now, and would have been 10 then, so that makes it 3/5ths of my life that I've been watching/reading some form of Dragon Ball...it's a good feeling.
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