What era of DB were you exposed to?

[Hellspawn28]

I was exposed to the first two episodes of Dragon Ball on VHS back in 1997 when I was 6 years old. I think I may have seen DBZ figures and images before 1997, but I don't 100% remember. DBZ in 1997 was still on syndication and I only knew one or two people that watch it on syndication around that time. I didn't became a fan of DBZ until 2001when I was around 10 and finally give the series another chance. I got into the series late, but better late than never.

[Bruma rabu]

Aww man I remember the very first exposure to the series it's like one my earliest memories. I had to be like 3 years old maybe 4, it was either 1999 or 1998. My mom took me to some party and I was wondering room to room with a Rubik's cube in my hands then I saw a tv nobody was paying attention to. Got closer and sat down and it was an episode with captain ginyu. I was instantly hooked and been hooked ever since.
My first game ever purchased was dragon ball z budokai, got it the month it came out. After that got all the dragon ball ps2 games that came state side. Lol I even remember at very young age being super proud of my collection of dragon ball games, and saying I'll never get rid of them. Still got my original copies to this day.

[supersaiyandoctor]

2000. In Australia it aired on Cartoon Network in the afternoon. On free to air TV it aired in the mornings. I didn't have cable anymore when it first came out. Free to air started with the Ocean dub at 8 A.M and aired until the fake namek episodes. Then it restarted from the beginning. By the time it got to the Namek saga, the voices then switched to funimation. I also saw the first 3 movies around this time from a friend who taped them when they aired on Cartoon Network. The show stopped for a while after the defeat of Freeza and resumed in 2001 with the Garlic jr/Trunks stuff. That year I started getting the specials and movies on VHS as presents. Coolers Revenge was the first FUNimation dubbed movie I saw.

In 2002 I got cable again and was able to watch Dragon Ball, though it was only airing at like 6 A.M on a Sunday. The first episode I saw was the Boss Rabbit. The year after was when Z wrapped and I found a GT dvd at a games shop. The show itself started airing not too long after.

I never lost interest in the show but it wasn't till 2008 when I bought the Madman Dragon Ball Collections and was able to watch the original series. I loved it so much, even though it was so different tone wise from DBZ, it was hilarious and full of adventure. I got the orange bricks and GT sets around this time as well. I remember being dissapointed with the generic intro's they used for the Z episodes, wishing they had of used either Faulconer's music or dubbed the opening and endings like they did for DB and GT.

[dbs fanboy]

You know, i don't quite remember, db is a thing that has always been there.I was first exposed with the dbz chess game that my "step brother"? had given to mean and i used to watch it a little bit to when i was like three, but without understanding anything. I truly got into it in 2005/2006 via a spanish channel.

Edit:

Everything was confusing to me when i was three. I used to think that some events of GT and Z were happening at the same time and that "Pan" was Chi Chi who had also (somehow) been turned back into a little kid.

[Desassina]

I've followed Dragon Ball ever since it aired on TV in Portugal.

[Cipher]

Freeza arc in the early 2000s via its U.S. Toonami airings.

Watched through the end of GT's U.S. release, picking up scattered DVD releases and watching Jen in both English and Japanese. My interest in the series died off for a few years, and the I got back into it at the very end of high school with, funnily enough, the release of Sparking Neo/Budokai Tenkaichi 2 on the Wii, which my parents included with the system as a family Christmas present. The season sets (I know, ugh) getting released shortly afterward allowed me to go back through the entire series in Japanese for the first time.

[TheUltimateNinja]

About a decade ago, I used to watch the series on and off. It wasn't until around 5 years ago that I watched the series in its entirety. Man, what a colossal waste of time, should have just stuck to the manga.

[DevoSlice88]

I got into DBZ first when it was on tv on Cartoon Network and Toonami. I remember first watching the Ocean dubs of the "Saiyan Conflict" and "Namek Saga" and I bought them all on. VHS.

I couldn't wait for Z-day when Toonami released the rest of the Frieza saga and was definitely thrown off by the new voices but I was like 9-10 so I got over it pretty quickly haha. Then kept watching all the way through the Cell saga then kinda fell off a few years before I eventually saw Buu saga and then went back and watched Dragon Ball because I wanted to know the full history of all of the characters. I didn't end up watching GT until later on just because I heard so many negative reviews of it that I wasn't in a hurry to see it but when I finally did, I didn't think it was as bad as people made it out to be. Besides the black star dragon ball saga of course which I think is just trash.

The first games I played were for PS2 like Budokai 1 and 2 and Budokai Tenkaichi. Ahh the good old days...

[Cure Dragon 255]

OG Dragon Ball for me!

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

My earliest Dragon Ball memories go as far back as 2002-2003, watching random episodes from the Saiyan Arc on Cartoon Network.

[Cetra]

Very early 2000s. My brother had manga vol. 1-8 and gave them to me.

[Cure Dragon 255]

It seems like I neglected the era part! 1995! Original Dragon Ball! Good Times!

[Kunzait_83]

Early 90s fansubs all the way for me here.











I first heard of DB/Z around 1990 (from both newsgroup forums and general/overall anime fandom osmosis: DB has ALWAYS been ubiquitous and inescapable in anime circles for literally as long as I can remember), got into it proper in late 1992 (when the guy who first got me into anime in the first place a few years prior had showed me a bunch of his fansub tapes). Have been active in DB fandom ever since then, largely uninterrupted through thick and thin.

Thus game-wise, I mainly grew up on the Butouden series, which were the flagship fighting games for the series all throughout those years. The SNES games, the one Genesis game, the arcade titles, the PC Engine game, the Sega Saturn & PS1 games, and to some extent the NES games, were all the main fixtures for me.

Of those, my top favorites were (and remain) Super Butouden 2 and 3, Hyper Dimension, Super Saiya Densetsu, Buyuu Retsuden, Shin Butouden, Saturn DBZ Legends, DBZ2 Super Battle, and Idainaru Son Goku Densetsu. The only games since then, from the PS2 era and onward, that I put within the same tier as those are Super DBZ, Advance Adventure, Supersonic Warriors 1 and 2, Attack of the Saiyans, Extreme Butouden, Hyper DBZ (fanmade though it may be) and from the looks of it, seems like FighterZ is primed to join that elite bunch.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

The Saiyajin arc, very early Saturday morning on syndication (pre-Toonami one episode a week days!) -- specifically when Nappa had just begun crushing everyone and everything within a ten mile radius. Power beams, stylishly unique characters, and mountains going boom, sign me up. Unlike anything I'd ever been exposed to, and still is. Must have been the tail end of '96 or the start of '97-ish. Stumbled upon it completely by accident, and then took me a few weeks to find it again and learn what the name of the series was (commence recording on VHS!)

As far as video games, my first exposure was with DB Final Bout, probably around '98. I then imported Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle (those character sprites!) and DBZ Legends for the Playstation sometime around '99 or 2000 when I'd seen DBZ stuff in some catalogue. I had no idea how to read those menus, but I got the gist of it over time.

First full episode of Japanese DB that I'd seen was around the time Commander Ginyu showed up, which were on those in-house FUNi DVD's that began release in '99 (and my first exposure to Horikawa and Nakao!). First feature film that I'd watched in JPN was Return My Gohan!, otherwise known as Deadzone sometime in '98, via a PC's DVD player.

[DragonBallKing]

I had heard of the series before but It wasn't until 2004, around the same time I got into star wars. I was introduced through video games rather than the actual show, which were more accurately dubbed than the actual show. My first full exposure was through coolers revenge(disturbed edition) the same year, and even though that movie got me into metal I don't believe it fits the series anymore but it was cool at the time. My only interaction with the fandom at the time was through my brother and 3 close friends, one of which introduced me through the Budokai games.

[Vorige Waffe]

Probably the way most millennials were introduced to it: Toonami. A friend in elementary school told me about the show (sometime in 1998), and it had to be midway through the Namek arc, with the Ocean Group dub. Needless to say I was hooked, and proceeded to plow through the constant re-airings of that Ocean Group dubbed Saiyan and Namek arcs. I was even interested enough to look up synopses of the show online and familiarize myself with some of the later arcs, despite a lot of it going over head (as these were fansites made by people who were more familiar with the Japanese version of the show, and it took me a long time to figure out just how much was changed between the Japanese version and Funimation's heavily localized dub script).

Once Funi's in-house dub premiered in '99, I was a devoted fan.

[DBZAOTA482]

Millennial here... was exposed through Toonami in 2001-2002.

[DrBriefsCat]

I first saw the Z portion on a local WB affiliate before it was on Toonami. Also first saw the original series through the Nippon Golden Network subtitled version in the late 90's.