How you'd break up the different eras of Dragon Ball in the west

[Kakacarrottop]

For me, it would go like this:

1995-1998 = Syndication era
1999-2003 = Cartoon Network era
2004 = Dragon Ball GT era
2005-2006 = Ultimate Uncut era
2007-2009 = Orange Brick era
2010-2012 = Kai era
2013-present = New material era

[Dr. Casey]

There was also a smaller Western fandom prior to the official dub, though I don't know enough about the 1984 to 1994 era to really gauge its different stages. I know that by the beginning of the 90s Dragon Ball was one of the more visible series among Western anime/manga fans, but I don't know anything about the steps it took during the 80s to reach that point. Maybe in 1984 it was a genuinely obscure series that nobody outside its native Japan really knew about, maybe in 1985 it had an existent-but-still-very-small English following, maybe in 1986 it rapidly soared in popularity on Usenet. I don't know whether that part of history is archived in much detail.

[MasenkoHA]

For me, it would go like this:

1995-1998 = Syndication era
1999-2003 = Cartoon Network era
2004 = Dragon Ball GT era
2005-2006 = Ultimate Uncut era
2007-2009 = Orange Brick era
2010-2012 = Kai era
2013-present = New material era

Why would GT and Ultimate Uncut not just fall under “Cartoon Network” era?

[KBABZ]

For me it'd be:

• 199X: Bootleg Era. While Dragon Ball hasn't officially made it to the west, bootleg sub video tapes appeared in the West at this time. Year is unmarked because I've no idea when this first started happening. This era is when the first western fans showed up, and with a much greater knowledge of what the story is supposed to be from Japan as a result.
• 1994: Debut Era. When the series first debuted in the West via the original Dragon Ball dub. Of course it'd REALLY kick off with Raditz in the DBZ dub, but the true start is here with the initial 13 episodes.
• 1999: Toonami Era. Recast time! And when DBZ would really kick off, covering the rest of the story to EoZ on Toonami.
• 2002: Not Z DVD Era. This period of time is when the UUE, Orange Bricks and eventually DBox Zs came out. The name (and year in particular) also refers to the amount of PS2 games released here which are also really important to US fans. And of course, Not Z refers to the dub finally doing OG-DB and GT, to the unfortunate ignorance of western fans.
• 2010: Recast Era. I felt this was much more important than BoG because this is when a large amount of the cast would be swapped out for the Kai dub, which initiated a marked shift towards at least trying to be authentic to the source material (with mixed results). Similar to the Debut Era, this served as the prelude towards modern dubbed content in BoG, RoF and Super.

[Cure Dragon 255]

For me it'd be:

• 199X: Bootleg Era. While Dragon Ball hasn't officially made it to the west, bootleg sub video tapes appeared in the West at this time. Year is unmarked because I've no idea when this first started happening. This era is when the first western fans showed up, and with a much greater knowledge of what the story is supposed to be from Japan as a result.
• 1994: Debut Era. When the series first debuted in the West via the original Dragon Ball dub. Of course it'd REALLY kick off with Raditz in the DBZ dub, but the true start is here with the initial 13 episodes.
• 1999: Toonami Era. Recast time! And when DBZ would really kick off, covering the rest of the story to EoZ on Toonami.
• 2002: Not Z DVD Era. This period of time is when the UUE, Orange Bricks and eventually DBox Zs came out. The name (and year in particular) also refers to the amount of PS2 games released here which are also really important to US fans. And of course, Not Z refers to the dub finally doing OG-DB and GT, to the unfortunate ignorance of western fans.
• 2010: Recast Era. I felt this was much more important than BoG because this is when a large amount of the cast would be swapped out for the Kai dub, which initiated a marked shift towards at least trying to be authentic to the source material (with mixed results). Similar to the Debut Era, this served as the prelude towards modern dubbed content in BoG, RoF and Super.

Um... why is the debut era shown as starting on 1994? The BLT Dub arrived on 95. Not even Latin America had a dub at that point...

[KBABZ]

For me it'd be:

• 199X: Bootleg Era. While Dragon Ball hasn't officially made it to the west, bootleg sub video tapes appeared in the West at this time. Year is unmarked because I've no idea when this first started happening. This era is when the first western fans showed up, and with a much greater knowledge of what the story is supposed to be from Japan as a result.
• 1994: Debut Era. When the series first debuted in the West via the original Dragon Ball dub. Of course it'd REALLY kick off with Raditz in the DBZ dub, but the true start is here with the initial 13 episodes.
• 1999: Toonami Era. Recast time! And when DBZ would really kick off, covering the rest of the story to EoZ on Toonami.
• 2002: Not Z DVD Era. This period of time is when the UUE, Orange Bricks and eventually DBox Zs came out. The name (and year in particular) also refers to the amount of PS2 games released here which are also really important to US fans. And of course, Not Z refers to the dub finally doing OG-DB and GT, to the unfortunate ignorance of western fans.
• 2010: Recast Era. I felt this was much more important than BoG because this is when a large amount of the cast would be swapped out for the Kai dub, which initiated a marked shift towards at least trying to be authentic to the source material (with mixed results). Similar to the Debut Era, this served as the prelude towards modern dubbed content in BoG, RoF and Super.

Um... why is the debut era shown as starting on 1994? The BLT Dub arrived on 95. Not even Latin America had a dub at that point...

DANGIT! Apologies, in my head the OG dub is "one year before DBZ" and in my head while writing that came in as "1995". My bad.

...why's it called the BLT dub again?

[Kinokima]

For me it'd be:

• 199X: Bootleg Era. While Dragon Ball hasn't officially made it to the west, bootleg sub video tapes appeared in the West at this time. Year is unmarked because I've no idea when this first started happening. This era is when the first western fans showed up, and with a much greater knowledge of what the story is supposed to be from Japan as a result.
• 1994: Debut Era. When the series first debuted in the West via the original Dragon Ball dub. Of course it'd REALLY kick off with Raditz in the DBZ dub, but the true start is here with the initial 13 episodes.
• 1999: Toonami Era. Recast time! And when DBZ would really kick off, covering the rest of the story to EoZ on Toonami.
• 2002: Not Z DVD Era. This period of time is when the UUE, Orange Bricks and eventually DBox Zs came out. The name (and year in particular) also refers to the amount of PS2 games released here which are also really important to US fans. And of course, Not Z refers to the dub finally doing OG-DB and GT, to the unfortunate ignorance of western fans.
• 2010: Recast Era. I felt this was much more important than BoG because this is when a large amount of the cast would be swapped out for the Kai dub, which initiated a marked shift towards at least trying to be authentic to the source material (with mixed results). Similar to the Debut Era, this served as the prelude towards modern dubbed content in BoG, RoF and Super.

I am not that great at timing but I kind of feel the Toonami era should be much longer. That’s when I got into the series but more around 2000-2001 than 1999

I remember single DVDs starting to come out around the time I started watching but I don’t recall the Orange Bricks so I don’t consider them as part of the era when I started following the show

In fact I feel I was not really that into the Dragon Ball fandom when the DBZ Boxes and Orange Bricks started to come out.

I do remember watching GT but can’t recall exactly when that was.

[MasenkoHA]

[

...why's it called the BLT dub again?

BLT at the time Joseanne B Lovick Productions was the Canadian based company that assisted Funimation with the 1995 Dragon Ball dub.

[Adamant]

Stop saying "the west" when you mean "this one single country in the west".

[Soppa Saia People]

i mean that's just how it's gonna be colloquially used on a forum that is mostly made up of people in america. i don't know what you can expect.

[DBZAOTA482]

199X - 1994 - Bootleg era

1995 - 1997 - Syndication era

1998 - 2004 - Toonami era

2005 - 2007 - DVD era

2008 - 2013 - Modern era

2014 - Now - Neo-modern era

[Hellspawn28]

I think you mean North America, not the west. This is how I view the eras:

Bootleg era: 1986-early 2000s (Many places still sold VHS fans subs pre-2003).
Syndication era: 1995-1998
Toonami era: 1998-2005
Orange Brick era: 2007-2009
Kai era: 2010-2012
Current era: 2013-now

[MasenkoHA]

Pre-1995: Bootleg era. I’m not sure when Dragon Ball started getting attention in the States but it was definitely before Funimation licensed it

1995-1998: Syndication era

1998-2005: Toonami era.

2007-2009: Remastered season sets era

2010 to present: Modern era. I’m lumping Kai, Super, the modern movies all into the modern era because this is when big changes like Chris Ayres taking over as Freeza, the scripts and tone made a much greater effort to stay closer to the Japanese version, Funimation got a lot better at crediting the Japanese cast and crew etc


Alternatively: pre-Barry Watson, Barry Watson era, post Barry Watson era

[Desassina]

I know three or four eras of Dragon Ball in my country:

Sic
Sic Gold
Sic Radical
Sic Kids

I'm from Portugal and these were channels that ran and reran Dragon Ball through Z and GT.

[Kakacarrottop]

Stop saying "the west" when you mean "this one single country in the west".

Most of the stuff in the original post also applies to Australia/New Zealand and the UK, except for the syndication era which is an exclusively North American experience.

[Adamant]

Stop saying "the west" when you mean "this one single country in the west".

Most of the stuff in the original post also applies to Australia/New Zealand and the UK, except for the syndication era which is an exclusively North American experience.

I know you're American and thus probably struggle a bit with realizing there's a world outside of your back pocket, but there's considerably more than four countries in the west.

[Kunzait_83]

I did a very quick, abbreviated version of this quite awhile back, but here it is again, only fleshed out in more detail:


Circa 1986 or so - 1991: Ground Zero, aka The Post-Slump Era

During this time period, Toriyama was primarily known (both in the West, and in general) for Dr. Slump and as a gag manga guy. The overwhelming majority of his Western fans at that time (such as they were) were people who gravitated to him first and foremost as a silly comedy mangaka and on the strength of Dr. Slump: not as a Fist of the North Star-esque martial arts/Wuxia guy in any which way whatsoever.

Enthusiasm for DB during this period was at its strongest during the bulk of the pre-Z original DB era (Pilaf through Red Ribbon Army or so), but started to wane a bit as Piccolo was introduced and the series took on a much more serious, dramatic, and violent tone. While interest would always remain (and there were certainly those back then who still got more deeply into DB even through its drastic tonal shift), there was certainly a lot of folks during this time who felt "betrayed" somewhat by the non-comedic turns the series was taking from Daimao onward: and by the Saiya-jin and Freeza arcs, there were quite a few of these folks who seemed ready to tap out and who thought that Toriyama was "selling out" his gag manga roots.

Again, I certainly don't mean to imply that there still weren't folks at this time who still liked DB either despite or because of its increasing tone shift (there certainly were, and some of them did indeed stick around well into later eras of the fandom): just that disappointment and letdown at the increasing lack of Dr. Slumpian gag manga silliness and increase in bloody-fisted, face-breaking kung fu action was the more overall paramount mood and tone in the later throes of this era.

Note that the vast bulk of this era was before my time: I wouldn't get into anime in general until 1989, and I wouldn't formally dive deep into Dragon Ball specifically until the latter end of '92 or so. During that time in between ('90 and '91 primarily) I was at least vaguely aware of DB somewhat, and I had some passing experience with this era of its English-speaking fandom at its tail-most end, which is where a lot of my firsthand memories of it come from.

But at the time DB wasn't an anime I had really gotten much into yet, and I was still getting my feet wet on a whole slew of other, different anime (Akira, Fist of the North Star, Vampire Hunter D, Dirty Pair, 3x3 Eyes, Golgo 13, Crying Freeman, and so on).


1992 - 1995: The Great Cell Influx, aka the Fansub Era

This was not only where I started with the series and its Western fandom, but also where DB had REALLY found its original North American audience. I was far from alone in falling down a giant Dragon Ball rabbit hole in 1992: this same year saw a MASSIVE surge in the series popularity and visibility among North American anime and manga fans, primarily via the Cell arc as episodes of the anime during that leg of the series saw an absolutely fucking gargantuan spike in circulation among fansubbers and bootleg tape traders of the time. During the height of the grunge boom of the day, DB was rapidly and starkly spreading through anime and general nerd niches of the time like herpes.

While the Dr. Slump folks technically came first chronologically and were the prehistory of North American DB fandom, to them Dragon Ball was an at first interesting, but increasingly disappointing follow-up to Dr. Slump - which was their true and primary first-love and point of interest - with ever-diminishing returns from the kooky, whimsical, Gatchan-infused high that they were chasing after.

This era right here however were the true "old guard" of proper North American Dragon Ball fans, who glommed onto it first and foremost as an insane, hyper-fast, Hong Kong wuxia-on-meth martial arts saga rather than as a silly follow up to a comedy classic, and who didn't have any of the pre-existing baggage with Toriyama as a comedy author that the prior folks did.

This era birthed folks like Chris Psaros of DBZ Uncensored fame as well as oodles of early 90s video game magazine coverage of its various fighting game releases, and this era of fans really laid down the very foundations of the English-language DB landscape that folks like Mike LaBrie/Vegetto EX and the whole planetnamek.com era of late 90s/early 2000s DB webmasters had walked into later on.

While there was certainly an existing DB fanbase and discourse before this point, a great, GREAT deal of DB's earliest internet footprints that would last well into the dub's run and help shape the fanbase that we know today had all truly began in earnest here.


1995 - 1998: The Next Dimension, aka The Saban Era

First and foremost: here endeth the series' original Japanese run. MASSIVELY crucial milestone in and of itself obviously.

As far as Western fandom is concerned however, this of course was DB's proper North American Television and English Dub debut via syndication and the original Ocean cast, and the entry point for VegettoEX, Castor Troy, Meri, and all the other big internet DB personalities of the late 90s and early-most 2000s. This is the era that most dub fans would deem as "old school", and is where terms like "HFIL", "The Next Dimension", "Rock the Dragon", and "FUNimation" had first regrettably entered the Western DB lexicon.

This is also where Power Level and Power Scaling mania had first truly began and would remain permanently latched onto the North American fanbase like a Facehugger for the ensuing 25 someodd years up to present day.

And for folks like myself, this was also the beginning of the end of anything remotely approaching any kind of cohesive fan community, as completely irreconcilable lines in the sand in terms of just the barebones basic raison d'etre for this series' reason for being (Chinese-influenced Japanese martial arts comedy anime vs Xtreme Hardcore Power Rangers/GI Joe/WWE-inspired ACTION CARTOON!!) would be drawn here that would last and linger forever going forward: even as this specific English dub of this period would increasingly fade and recede into apocrypha.


1999 - 2005: Krillin's In Da Hoooooooouse!, aka The Toonami Era

This era obviously needs little introduction. This is where FUNimation first struck out on their own, where Sabat and Schemmel first put their thespian talents on display for the whole world, where a VAST overwhelming percentage of the mainstream North American fanbase first entered into things, where Bruce Faulconer would become a name forever tied to the series like a millstone, and where the image of Japanese anime in North America officially began its transition from cutting edge challenge to Western cultural boundaries and restrictions on the capabilities of animation as a medium to the biggest children's fad of the 2000s.

Its rather fitting in many ways that the Grunge that dominated the cultural zeitgeist of the early 90s during the Fansub years had given way to Nu Metal in the late 90s/early 2000s just in the nick of time to usher in (and indeed largely contribute to defining) the nonstop cringe-fest that would define this era of DB.

Much of the old Fansub generation would sadly not survive through this era (not at all hard to see why): I'm among the scattered few remaining still actively visible vestiges of it.

Japan would also see the releases of the Dragon Box and Kanzenban (two of the most definitive releases of the original run of DB) towards the end of this period.


2005 - 2007: The Well Runs Dry, aka The Budokai Era

The series had finally ended its nightmarishly grotesque and byzantine North American dub run: and thus for awhile, with no further actual anime or manga content to adapt, DB was largely defined for awhile among us Westerners by its various video game releases. During this time it seemed like DB was much more well known for games like Budokai 3 and its ilk rather than the actual core manga and anime upon which it was based.

This era also saw the rebirth of this very website and forum upon which we're all commiserating here as well as the start of its podcast and so on. The Webmaster Bratpack of the late 90s/early aughts were coming of age into a burgeoning young adulthood during this time and turning into Elder Statesmen of all this absurd nonsense.

A live action film also came out during this time, which we don't really speak of much anymore, yet would have a weirdly important impact going forward.


2008 - 2013: Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return, aka The Refresh Era

The release of the JSAT special (the first truly new piece of DB content since the series ended in the mid 90s) alongside Kai saw the earliest beginnings of a revival of sorts for the series in Japan. Following this was Dragon Ball Online, an MMO that saw some slight hints of some brand new ideas and concepts for the series (set after its end) from Toriyama himself. We also saw the beginning of a full fledged age of streaming for anime in general, which is a pretty big deal here (RIP physical media). We also saw the word "plagiarism" enter the fandom lexicon in a pretty massive way here as well. We also see Toei/Shueisha/Bamco/et al open the floodgates on allowing utterly cringe-inducing Fanfic and Deviantart-caliber DB content become officially produced via the introduction of the Dragon Ball Heroes subfranchise.

Dragon Ball Z Abridged also began during this time, which for some incomprehensible reason is seen as equivalent to "new content" for many folks, and even more incomprehensibly is seen by some as a full-bore "replacement" for the actual series proper.

And with all these things came a whole new wave of American fans... but the newness wouldn't stop here.


2014 - Now: Resurrection of Z, aka The Revival Era

Battle of Gods ushers in Dragon Ball Super, the first true longform continuation of the series proper since its mid 90s conclusion, with Toriyama (kinda-sorta, but not really actually) returning to the helm (spurred on reportedly by his frustrations with the live action fiasco). For the first time ever, the post-dub fanbase gets to follow along with actual new Japanese DB material as its being produced week to week, which is something it had been positively jonzing for seemingly forever. A new manga is also produced, penned by former Doujinshi fanboy plucked from amongst the groundlings by Toriyama himself (as well as a small bit of new manga material from the man himself).

More new fans than ever are brought into the fold, and that about brings us up to speed for where we are now currently. Which is... possibly another dry spell? Who knows where things go from here. Time (and Covid) will tell.

[Soppa Saia People]

I know you're American and thus probably struggle a bit with realizing there's a world outside of your back pocket, but there's considerably more than four countries in the west.

actually considering they have posted before in a thread talking about watching DB in Australia and NZ, i don't think you Know that lmfao.

[KBABZ]

Was really hoping Kunzait would show up as I knew he'd have much better info on the series pre-1995! Very informative stuff there and it's cool to get that insight into how the US fans were thinking about Dragon Ball right when it first debuted. : )

[Kid Buu]

Stop saying "the west" when you mean "this one single country in the west".

Most of the stuff in the original post also applies to Australia/New Zealand and the UK, except for the syndication era which is an exclusively North American experience.

Even then, North America contains Mexico and a few other countries that I imagine have a different timeline to USA.

Kind of miss when things would go down differently per country. Now everything is just digital.