This is what bothers me more than the "outsiders" expressing their disapproval of the series. The anime community in America is extremely "trendy." To but it bluntly (and I mean no offense to anyone here, we are all DB fans afterall^^), it consists of nerds and unaccepted geeks who cling to trends and thrive for acceptance in their niche community. To put it simply: "Other anime fans don't like DBZ, so I don't like it either." They just want to fit in their "group" really, this is the reasoning I have seen in the anime fanbase today in America from my experiences.russ869 wrote:Whenever Dragonball is mentioned in the presence of my other anime-loving friends I usually hear a response like, "Eeeeeeeeeeewwww!" When of course it obvious they've never even really seen the show.
I knew many people in High School who loved Dragonball, and I was close friends with a number of them. Today I rarely see them, their complete 360 turnaround of their opinion on DB and Toriyama is funny really. I hear jokes and groundless complaints about the series from these once "hardcore" fans. I have called one of them out on it in a "group" of anime fans and he was uncomfortable with it from what I could tell.
I am seeing the same thing happening with Naruto in many ways. When it was "cool" and niche the hardcore ate it up, but once it went mainstream these once lovers of the series turn on it. As you can likely already tell, I have a strong dislike for the majority of current anime fans in America.