How good was the Saiyan Saga as a jumping on point?

[KBABZ]

Personally I've always felt that the idea of having a mini-Tournament just to find out where the last Ball is came off as rather filler-like and a bit of a whiplash considering it's rather different compared to what Goku had to do to get each of the previous Balls, but the reunion with Grandpa Gohan makes it worth it in the end.

Filler isn't limited to non-canon moments. If this is filler, it's damn entertaining filler.

That would make an interesting topic: which parts that are in the manga feel like filler and/or padding for time, outside of the "making things up as we go" reason that explains stuff like the Z-Sword not going anywhere.

Out of any of the points to jump into DB that aren't the beginning, the Saiyan arc is about as natural a start as any since every story thread to that point had been wrapped up.

Well, except Goku's rivalry to Piccolo, and arguably his relationship with Chi-Chi which never saw quite that amount of focus ever again.

[ABED]

I would consider that thread tied up. Even if Piccolo is still alive, Goku had defeated him in decisive fashion TWICE. As for Chichi, I'm not sure what your point is, as even though they never got that amount of focus again, he left to fulfill his promise to marry her that he made in the very first arc of the story. That thread wasn't left dangling.

[Vijay]

No one cares abt Goku or Piccolo's pastor their origin as whatever happening at present is simply outstanding in terms of writing, development, actions & the tonal consistency

But at the time Dragon Ball was the "present". And going by that logic, you shouldn't have been interested in Z either because when FUNi dubbed Z, GT was the latest thing made.

I think you took my quote abit too practically..applyin it in real-life

Lemme clarify it for ya. Present in the sense of the Saiyan Arc having its brilliant moments sprinkled throughout simply engages audiences not letting us to even think abt the past as the Saiyans threats, hyped "God-like" by already beastly Raditz in-coming at future

The anticipation of what might actually do down...
Who's gonna start off the brawl?
Can human race even survive without Goku?
Will Goku finish his running across Snake Pathway, meet King Kai, master some new tricks & even dat be sufficient to avoid Saiyan duos wrath?
Will a child even survive his training with alien Namekian Piccolo?

These many questions all leading-up to dat heated day....doesnt make me think about who is Roshi (I knew he's some kinda Grandfather/Mentor figure to Goku & Krill's 1st view itself), or who is Goku (it was explained in Episode 2 itself by Raditz) or who is Gohan (duh...it was explicitly stated throughout Episode 1)

[ABED]

The story is good but it's so much better if the story is seen in order. Goku's reveal doesn't work as a reveal without what came before. We get Piccolo's past with Goku, but we don't feel the enormity of two rivals working together.

or who is Goku (it was explained in Episode 2 itself by Raditz)

We get the reveal but that's not who Goku is. The writing in that moment isn't good without that much needed context.

[Gaffer Tape]

As another person who was introduced to the series via dub season 1 on Toonami, I can say it really wasn't that hard to jump in. I mean, I remember for certain I didn't even catch it on its first day. But I mean, most shows I first got into as a kid, in these days before streaming and ubiquitous Internet, I always came in somewhere in the middle. It's just the way television worked. You had to do your best to jump in and figure out what was going on. But in all of those cases, when I finally did manage to catch the first episode (if what I was watching was story-heavy enough to have a discernible "first" episode in the narrative sense) I was thrilled. I have no idea how I even figured this out, but when I was a kid, I did find out that "Tommy's First Birthday" was the first episode of Rugrats before I even saw it. And I kept tuning in hoping I'd eventually catch it. I just don't get the mindsets of all the people saying, "Eh, I was a kid. I didn't care about the story. I just wanted to see the action." I always cared about the story.

So as for DBZ specifically, I had seen enough serialized shows to understand that I needed to follow the ongoing story. And while I couldn't catch every episode the first run through, I tried to build up my knowledge piece by piece, figuring out relationships to characters as best I could. And I can't remember which happened first: if I saw some of the flashbacks in DBZ episodes or if my friend told me he had seen Dragon Ball when it had aired a couple of years earlier. Either way, the instant I knew there was story that came before what I was watching, I had to know more about it. It might seem like pointless filler to some, but some of my favorite moments in those first two seasons of DBZ were when Blooma and Popo flashed back to Ma Junior and Shen talking, and later on when Blooma was captured by Freeza's men and flashed back to even earlier episodes. That was just amazing to me. I wanted to know who that guy with the mustache was. I wanted to know more about the story of when Goku transformed like I'd seen Gohan do. I wanted to know about this tournament Goku had said a similar great ape had appeared at. As soon as I got the Internet I was looking stuff up. I was ordering all of FUNimation's Dragon Ball VHS tapes of the first 13 episodes. I had to fill in the gaps because I loved this story and wanted to know what I had missed. Those brief glimpses into the past were like archaeological treasures.

So as I said, I really, really don't understand when people, even as kids, say they didn't care about the story. It's a completely alien concept to me. And it's gotten worse for me lately. Since I do my Dragon Ball Dissection series on YouTube, I get all kinds of feedback, but over the past several months, I started getting a general idea expressed to me multiple times that I'd never seen before. It was a mocking sort of, "Haha, you watch Dragon Ball for the story?" Again, it was just such an alien concept to me that the idea of (presumably) adults not only not caring about the story but actively making fun of people who do... I still can't wrap my head around it. And, you know, I'm not here to judge. However people find joy in the entertainment they consume, that's fine, I guess. If just enough plot to get from fight A to fight B is what they come here for, then I can't tell them they're doing it wrong. But, to be frank, it just gave off this "content to wallow in ignorance" vibe that kinda depressed me.

[KBABZ]

I really, really don't understand when people, even as kids, say they didn't care about the story. It's a completely alien concept to me. And it's gotten worse for me lately. Since I do my Dragon Ball Dissection series on YouTube, I get all kinds of feedback, but over the past several months, I started getting a general idea expressed to me multiple times that I'd never seen before. It was a mocking sort of, "Haha, you watch Dragon Ball for the story?" Again, it was just such an alien concept to me that the idea of (presumably) adults not only not caring about the story but actively making fun of people who do... I still can't wrap my head around it. And, you know, I'm not here to judge. However people find joy in the entertainment they consume, that's fine, I guess. If just enough plot to get from fight A to fight B is what they come here for, then I can't tell them they're doing it wrong. But, to be frank, it just gave off this "content to wallow in ignorance" vibe that kinda depressed me.

For me the story was the entire reason they're doing anything, so it's important to keep track of. When you have a show with over 500 episodes which has developments that have ramifications on later events with characters that have persistent relationships and their own goals, it's hard not to form a story along the way. It's not as super-critically important as a lot of other shows, but it's hardly an excuse plot either. I mean many times the story felt the need to pause and flash back to re-emphasize past events for the audience in case they didn't get it, which is obvious evidence that the show cared about people understanding the tale being told. What do these story-haters do when there ISN'T fighting? Do they switch off with their heads on the backseat and sit there like slackjawed babies until Vegeta raises his voice? Why do they bother buying the Orange and Blu bricks if they really only want the Driving and SS2 Gohan episodes? To them is this a show just about awesome-looking "moments" to them like a Michael Bay Transformers movie where the story IS a complete and total excuse??

[ABED]

When I was a kid, I was hungry for information. I can't remember when I printed off all those Curtis Hoffman DB manga summaries, but I'm sure it was either while the Saiyan arc originally aired or when shortly afterward. I loved serialized storytelling. Granted, it was rare in those days, but I loved multiparters and DB kept me coming back week after week to see what happened next.

Given the realities of TV distribution back then, I doubt most people NEEDED to see DB from the beginning, but now that the beginning is easy to find, I don't see any good excuse for not starting at the very beginning. Even if a show takes time to find its footing, it's still best to start from the beginning. The very first episode of The Office I saw was the one with the bird funeral. It seemed so stupid and it wasn't until my friend let me borrow his season sets that I came to love the show. Now that episode is one of my favorites because I came to love the characters.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Following the story wasn't very hard even as a kid and watching the episodes somewhat out of order.

[Gaffer Tape]

When I was a kid, I was hungry for information. I can't remember when I printed off all those Curtis Hoffman DB manga summaries, but I'm sure it was either while the Saiyan arc originally aired or when shortly afterward. I loved serialized storytelling. Granted, it was rare in those days, but I loved multiparters and DB kept me coming back week after week to see what happened next.

I did the same thing. For me, I don't think it was until early 2000. Prior to that, I'd found bits and pieces, and my overall knowledge of pre-DBZ was sketchy at best. It wasn't until I found the Hoffmann summaries that my knowledge really came together, although I could only imagine what it looked like. That was one of the most exciting moments for me, though. But I printed them out, printed out the covers for each manga volume, and then stapled each volume summary together with its cover like a book and basically treated them like my manga volumes until I actually had the manga. For awhile, the Cell Arc was what I was least familiar with since he didn't cover most of it.

[ShadowBardock89]

Apparently, it worked in the US. The franchise grew on the back of Z and most of the video games from the early 2000s drew from Z then the original Dragon Ball.
Even "Dragon Ball" labeled games today do not explore the Dragon Ball portion of the franchise!

[KBABZ]

Apparently, it worked in the US. The franchise grew on the back of Z and most of the video games from the early 2000s drew from Z then the original Dragon Ball.
Even "Dragon Ball" labeled games today do not explore the Dragon Ball portion of the franchise!

The problem I have with this is that while OG Dragon Ball is only unpopular in Japan, outside of Japan it may as well not even exist, and that's primarily because the show took off when it jumped to the Z portion. Just because it worked at getting fans into the gate doesn't mean it helped get everyone on the same level as in Japan, because that clearly didn't happen.

[ShadowBardock89]

Just because it worked at getting fans into the gate doesn't mean it helped get everyone on the same level as in Japan, because that clearly didn't happen.

I am not sure what you are basing this "level" Japan is on compared to everyone else.
If you are talking about access to content, I would argue the international community had more access to the franchise than its domestic audience at times.
For example, the Dragon Box Collection was the first time the series had a domestic release.
In contrast, other countries already had bilingual, uncut releases of the franchise prior to 2004.

Currently, I would say the situation has evened out.

[KBABZ]

Just because it worked at getting fans into the gate doesn't mean it helped get everyone on the same level as in Japan, because that clearly didn't happen.

I am not sure what you are basing this "level" Japan is on compared to everyone else.

By that I meant comprehension of the plot and the story told thus far. By starting in the middle and sticking with the most popular section for six years, knowledge of the original Dragon Ball anime and how it relates to DBZ's larger story was, for most people who watched DBZ after school, basically nil, and it's fairly close to that level to this day in my opinion. It's not the same as in Japan where the story was told consistently from the actual beginning of the story.

[ShadowBardock89]

Just because it worked at getting fans into the gate doesn't mean it helped get everyone on the same level as in Japan, because that clearly didn't happen.

I am not sure what you are basing this "level" Japan is on compared to everyone else.

By that I meant comprehension of the plot and the story told thus far. By starting in the middle and sticking with the most popular section for six years, knowledge of the original Dragon Ball anime and how it relates to DBZ's larger story was, for most people who watched DBZ after school, basically nil, and it's fairly close to that level to this day in my opinion. It's not the same as in Japan where the story was told consistently from the actual beginning of the story.

There is a lot to unpack here.

knowledge of the original Dragon Ball anime and how it relates to DBZ's larger story was, for most people who watched DBZ after school, basically nil, and it's fairly close to that level to this day in my opinion.

Except the original Dragon Ball did receive a full airing on Toonami while Z was airing at the same time (much like Kai and Super today). So, I call shenanigans on that excuse.

I will give you this, though. The original Dragon Ball anime is probably unfamiliar to fans who joined the fandom during Kai's run on Nicktoons or the video games.
Those fans experienced watching GT (freaking GT) first rather than the original series.

It's not the same as in Japan where the story was told consistently from the actual beginning of the story.

Except for the generation who watched Kai and now Super.
All they received was the overview of the events of Dragon Ball on the first episode of Kai.

[Xeztin]

The fact in many countries the Saiyan arc was able to catch on with major success without prior knowledge of Early DB speaks for itself.

It caught on because little kids liked seeing people kick and punch each other. Not because it’s a good starting point

This certainly was the truth in the early 2000s. The first episode I saw was Goku dieing then talk of wishing him back. I remember thinking what? They can do that?! Batman and series like that never intrigued me. At the time it was running with pokemon generations (i think? Where ash wasn’t the main character) and early one piece. It was so different compared to shows like ed edd and eddy and courage.Yu-Gi-Oh!, DBZ, and Yu-Yu was the big hitters back then. Some liked Pokemon but it was mostly looked at as a babys cartoon similar to Spongebob if I recall. Kids now a days prefer minecraft and iphones.

[KBABZ]

knowledge of the original Dragon Ball anime and how it relates to DBZ's larger story was, for most people who watched DBZ after school, basically nil, and it's fairly close to that level to this day in my opinion.

Except the original Dragon Ball did receive a full airing on Toonami while Z was airing at the same time (much like Kai and Super today). So, I call shenanigans on that excuse.

I will give you this, though. The original Dragon Ball anime is probably unfamiliar to fans who joined the fandom during Kai's run on Nicktoons or the video games.
Those fans experienced watching GT (freaking GT) first rather than the original series.

Note that I also said that Dragon Ball didn't air again until five years after Dragon Ball Z took off, and very few fans of Z in the mainstream were interested by that point because those were "the boring kid years where nothing happened". Which is dumb-speak for "Vegeta isn't in it and the fights are boring and not present". By starting with Z it grew an automatic knee-jerk reaction amongst most mainstream fans against it because of how different it is in comparison. GT got initial interest purely because it had more in common with Z than DB did.

It's not the same as in Japan where the story was told consistently from the actual beginning of the story.

Except for the generation who watched Kai and now Super.
All they received was the overview of the events of Dragon Ball on the first episode of Kai.

That's still more than Z did at the time it aired in the West. Z doesn't start with that recap because it's meant to be a direct continuation of DB, Episode 154 effectively. Kai however is considered a unique product (for better or worse), and includes the recap of Dragon Ball and the Bardock special. Which IMO was a wise choice to include as it introduces crucial plot elements like the various characters Goku has met, and also serves as a semi-advertisement that, hey, you're missing out on the first half of the story, here.

[Yalos]

The fact in many countries the Saiyan arc was able to catch on with major success without prior knowledge of Early DB speaks for itself.

This happened in my country (Israel). DB never aired here because TV channels considered it too inappropriate, so they started with DBZ which led to great success. I never experienced this because I only got introduced to the franchise 3 years ago and started with DB, so I can't speak for others

[matt0044]

I wonder if this would've been a thing period if, say, Toei didn't even conceive of the "Z."

[MasenkoHA]

I wonder if this would've been a thing period if, say, Toei didn't even conceive of the "Z."

Honestly, I don’t think so. Had Toei treated Dragon Ball as a single 444 episode series I can’t imagined Funimation or other licensing companoes would have any reason to skip to episode 154. If anything I imagine Funimation would have given up on the show after 13 or skipped ahead to the Red Ribbon army or Piccolo Daimou saga

On an unrelated note when trying to watch the dub I noticed something even the most accessible and mainstream version of the English dub treats Z as a sequel and not the starting point where some “non-important stuff happened” The first episode of the remastered dub is called “The New Threat” the narrator mentions the 5 years that have passed.

Really only the largely forgotten to time original broadcast dub treats Z as a starting points where Goku and friends may of had adventures but “this was where the story actually begins”