Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Saikyo no Senshi » Tue Dec 25, 2018 6:09 am

Nope. I posted an age demo breakdown of DBS here and guess what most people who watched it were people in their 20s-40s. Same with Kai and the movie that just released now and the previous two films before that. A few kids watch DB, but they never were the main audience. Bandai flat out recognized their target audience in one of their reports and it was again adults in their 20s-40s. Outside of Heroes, nothing in DB is aimed at pre teen kids.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Dec 25, 2018 6:26 am

Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Nope. I posted an age demo breakdown of DBS here and guess what most people who watched it were people in their 20s-40s. Same with Kai and the movie that just released now and the previous two films before that. A few kids watch DB, but they never were the main audience. Bandai flat out recognized their target audience in one of their reports and it was again adults in their 20s-40s. Outside of Heroes, nothing in DB is aimed at pre teen kids.
Wait you mean a revival of a 30+ year old series enmassed a large audience of nostalgia 20-40 somethings really? Wow


That doesn’t stop the original Dragon Ball trilogy for being explicitly a kids series aimed at kids.

Or Dragon Ball Super being a kid series that appeals to the nostalgia of younger gen x’ers/millenials

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Saikyo no Senshi » Tue Dec 25, 2018 6:31 am

Lol the original run was literally at 7pm prime time where most adults tuned into watch TV. It should be enough of an indication of what the target audience was.

I agree about the content thing that it can be watched by kids, but the demo is almost definitely not kids.
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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by emperior » Tue Dec 25, 2018 6:35 am

Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Nope. I posted an age demo breakdown of DBS here and guess what most people who watched it were people in their 20s-40s. Same with Kai and the movie that just released now and the previous two films before that. A few kids watch DB, but they never were the main audience. Bandai flat out recognized their target audience in one of their reports and it was again adults in their 20s-40s. Outside of Heroes, nothing in DB is aimed at pre teen kids.
Which is all the more ironic considering how dumbed down and censored the fights are nowadays, while shows like My Hero Academia, which I guess is aimed to kids and teenagers, get to show lots of blood and broken limbs.
I am not asking for them to make Dragon Ball super edgy or what. I just want the battles to feel and look like the thing I grew up with, and not a dumbed down version of it. I’m not even talking about the tone of Super, which is fine and in line with the previous series (even though it’s obviously less serious than the Saiyan to Cell part of the manga) but about how the battles are depicted.
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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Saikyo no Senshi » Tue Dec 25, 2018 6:58 am

emperior wrote:while shows like My Hero Academia, which I guess is aimed to kids and teenagers, get to show lots of blood and broken limbs.
HeroAca demo is also teens and up like Dragon Ball.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Scavenger » Tue Dec 25, 2018 6:59 am

Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Lol the original run was literally at 7pm fucking prime time where most adults tuned into watch TV. It should be enough of an indication of what the target audience was.

I agree about the content thing that it can be watched by kids, but the demo is almost definitely not kids.
7pm, which is during the so-called Golden Time (from 7pm - 10pm), was at the time a family and children timeslot.

The commercials that aired at the time suggest that Dragon Ball was aimed at young children, unless you're telling me that teenagers want to have their own DBZ themed Koizumi Desk?

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Saikyo no Senshi » Tue Dec 25, 2018 7:29 am

I should have worded that better. Its true. Golden Time shows like Shin Chan and Doraemon are overwhelmingly kids and since we don't have specific demo breakdowns of old shows we have to rely on educated guesses from people who have been following the market.

The biggest indicator why DB is not targeted towards kids is its unusually high home video sales back in the day. GT is like one of the top pre-2000 sellers which is just surprising. That is an extremely adult specific market. That, and demographics don't fluctuate as heavily as being implied.
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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Baggie_Saiyan » Tue Dec 25, 2018 7:30 am

MasenkoHA wrote:
Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Dragon Ball's general demo is 15+ mostly in Japan from all the data I have gathered. .
No it isn’t. It’s targeted at little elementary school kids even in Japan.

They had a fire safety and traffic safety videos produced in Japan. That should tell you who exactly the audience in mind for Dragon Ball is
New movie:
The only thing not part of Heroes cross promotion that kids genuinely got were:
And even on the theatre floor seemed half the stuff kids wouldn't even be interested in. Quite clearly see how little kids matter to them.

It's also why Bandai are trying to target SDBH towards the teen/adult market and it continues to fail they constantly have been shoving SDBH stuff in DBS stuff that didn't work so now they've made Banpresto make SDBH figures along with this promo anime to appeal even more and orders keep dwindling and even then they're playing it safe by giving us non DBH exclusive stuff like SSGSS/ UI and it's still not working.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Dec 25, 2018 8:38 am

Ultimately, it's the parent's decision, so all any of the rest of us can do is provide a point of view, and give a greater context for your decision...

So, with this in mind, know that probably most fans here got into the show before the age of 12. I personally was watching before I was old enough to form long-lasting or clear memories. My brother was quite a bit younger than 9 when it first hit TV here, and was a fan from the very beginning. My sister religiously watched GT, and would have been younger than 9 when that was on TV.
When I seriously watched through the entire DB/Z/GT run for the first time, I was probably about 10 or 11. 12 at the latest.

And ultimately, the question to ask in my opinion is what harm it could do. Long as you're honest with your kid, and talk to them a bit about "Roshi's pervy antics are wrong", violence is bad even if it is unfortunately necessary sometimes, etc., and trust them to trust you, and to take the positive lessons from Dragon Ball instead... Well, I don't think there's any real harm to be done.

But ultimately, it is your decision. I think one thing that may help a lot is, honestly, starting from the very beginning, because of what Roshi teaches Goku and Kuririn at the very beginning, and how that's built up throughout the rest of the run; Goku wouldn't be able to punch a hole in a planet if he hadn't worked on his mind too while training under Roshi, he wouldn't be this force defending earth and stopping monsters like Freeza if it wasn't for Roshi and his grandfather teaching him not just how to have great strength, but that he shouldn't use his strength to be a bully.
And there's stuff like the fact #8 was built to be a ruthless killing machine, but simply says no, and makes the choice to be a pacifist, living a peaceful life in that village. He makes this choice to go entirely against his intended nature, and it works out very well for him in the end. There's a lot of this kind of stuff in the run that you miss out on by skipping it, which I think provides a much greater context for the morals of Dragon Ball, which ultimately does -- I would say -- make it a good show for young kids to watch.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Dec 25, 2018 8:44 am

Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Lol the original run was literally at 7pm prime time where most adults tuned into watch TV. It should be enough of an indication of what the target audience was.

I agree about the content thing that it can be watched by kids, but the demo is almost definitely not kids.
Lmfao.

POKEMON aired at 6:30 PM on Tuesdays in Japan and then 7 pm Thursdays after coming back from its hiatus caused by the seizure incident

http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/compariso ... ep038.html



Are you gonna tell me Pokemon isn’t a kids show now? :roll: :lol:


Dragon Ball IS a kids show. A kids show that has attracted a large adult audience partially due to being around since 1986 but a kid show all the same. Just accept it instead of jumping through hoops

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Saikyo no Senshi » Tue Dec 25, 2018 9:07 am

Thanks for proving my point. Just like Pokémon's core fanbase is still kids as it was in the 90s, DB's core fanbase is still teens/adults like it was in the 90s. TV ratings breakdown, movie ticket sales, merch and literally Bandai admit it.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Doctor. » Tue Dec 25, 2018 10:03 am

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were written and animated for 9-year old boys. There should be no issue letting a child watching a show designed for his demographic. No censoring or tampering with the source material is needed.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Dec 25, 2018 10:12 am

Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Thanks for proving my point. Just like Pokémon's core fanbase is still kids as it was in the 90s, DB's core fanbase is still teens/adults like it was in the 90s. TV ratings breakdown, movie ticket sales, merch and literally Bandai admit it.
How is that your proving your point? You’re really falling hard on the delusions at this point


Take a good look at the commercials in Japan

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v-6_4Fd-C ... Z97Xf&t=0s



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ffom56hFl ... Z97Xf&t=0s

Or its psa’s
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vdkKul3zO ... Z97Xf&t=0s


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uHPdgsaE7qc

Totally not a kids show in Japan

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Saikyo no Senshi » Tue Dec 25, 2018 11:02 am

So, the company's statement that sponsors TV anime and makes merch and stuff don't matter. The demographic breakdown reports that y'know Fuji TV and other producers buy to gauge what the general audiences are don't matter. Movie theatres that have late night shows at fucking 2 am which is totally the time for kids to go watch movies don't matter or the fact that it has better evening/late night sales as opposed to morning shows where actual kid properties do good sales don't matter. None of this matters. Yep.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Tue Dec 25, 2018 11:22 am

Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Thanks for proving my point. Just like Pokémon's core fanbase is still kids as it was in the 90s, DB's core fanbase is still teens/adults like it was in the 90s. TV ratings breakdown, movie ticket sales, merch and literally Bandai admit it.
Your point was that Dragon Ball was an "adult's" show due to being on in a 7:00 PM timeslot. Masenko literally just told you that Pokemon had more or less the EXACT same timeslot, and you respond with "That proves that Pokemon was for kids and DB was for adults."

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

Kids' shows air in primetime also. Batman: The Animated Series originally aired in primetime back in the day when it first debuted (I don't remember the exact time offhand, but it was definitely well after dark), and in NO way was that show aimed at adults. Children still watch television late at night also, not just adults.

As far as Super goes: it is a 20 years later revival of a children's show from the 80s and early 90s. Of course there's going to be a sizable chunk of its audience that are grown adults now who were originally children that grew up with the original run of the series: that's what's called a "periphery demographic". Meaning its a sidebar from the main target audience, which is STILL absolutely and overwhelmingly small children.

Super's adult audience today is absolutely no different in any way from, for example, the throngs of adults in America that watch Star Wars cartoons - such as Rebels and Clone Wars and the like - that are UNQUESTIONABLY and undeniably made for and marketed/aimed at children, because there is literally at least two whole generations of adults in America who grew up ravenously and obsessively living and breathing all things Star Wars (a movie that, itself, was always aimed mainly at children in the first place: yes, that indeed goes for the original trilogy here).

For another example: the original 1980s Transformers cartoon's DVD releases are almost exclusively bought up today by grown adults who had grown up with it as children: that doesn't therefore retroactively make Transformers into a cartoon that was ever at any point aimed at adults. That kind of backwards logic is simply asinine and completely devoid of context.

Let's make this abundantly clear here: just because Japanese broadcast standards and cultural mores allow for things like certain amounts of blood, gore, onscreen death, and sexual content in their children's programming, that in NO way means that those shows aren't still very much written and aimed specifically at children. All it means is that cultural standards of what is perceived as "suitable for children" is in many ways vastly different between America and Japan (with American standards being overall WAY too overly conservative and puritanical and Japan's far more comparatively lax and reasonable).

Shonen LITERALLY translates to "young boy": as in (male) children. The idea that the target demo of of something who's name translates as "young boy" is somehow age 20 to 40+ is downright ludicrous: 20 to 40+ is the average target demographic of Seinen. Shonen has always been roughly 5 to 13.

This whole misunderstanding about the target demo for Shonen was bad enough but still at least somewhat vaguely understandable when the fans who made the misunderstanding were often themselves sheltered suburban 10 year olds in America who were first hearing of Japanese anime through DBZ and Pokemon on Cartoon Network in the late 90s: but this is 2018 now. This misconception that "Hey, DBZ shows people getting bloodily impaled and their arms graphically ripped out of their sockets, so that must mean that its for adults!" being something that some fans STILL cling onto to this very day as grown adults with Google and Wikipedia at their disposal is absolutely, inexcusably, stubbornly stupid in the extreme.

Look at the Japanese marketing, look at the demo breakdowns from the original run (before there was nearly as much of a peripheral demographic of nostalgic adults who simply grew up on the original run of the show as kids like there now is with Super), hell just the fact that there exist action figures and toys for this thing that are clearly marketed at kids.

Dragon Ball and other Shonen anime are the direct Japanese equivalent to shows and properties in America like Transformers, G.I. Joe, Power Rangers (itself taken from a Japanese children's show), etc. Adults or older teens can sometimes get into them as a periphery like with anything else, but the core target demo is and has ALWAYS been little Japanese boys of grade school age: certainly not adults, and hell not even teenagers. Even if you're 15 or 16, you're still well outside of and above DB's target demo.

Just because Japanese cultural mores for kids' shows aren't nearly as strict as America's doesn't mean that when you watch something like Dragon Ball or Naruto or My Hero Academia, you are somehow not a grown adult who is watching a small children's cartoon that simply happens to not be watered down in its content to the nth-most possible degree: because that is what is actually happening here.

Everyone who posts here on this forum, child and adult alike (and on this particular site, its almost overwhelmingly adults or at least older teens) are here because we have an interest in a Japanese children's comic/cartoon. That "edginess" factor that might have dazzled you when you first saw it on Toonami as a child was simply a mistaken byproduct of cultural ignorance on your part (and on the parts of every other Western kid who fell into that same mindset and bandied DBZ about as if it was the Japanese equivalent of the movie Heavy Metal). Accept it for what it is and move on.

And if you have a genuine interest in checking out anime and manga that are actually and for real aimed not at children, but at a demographic of adults aged 20 to 40+, there are certainly indeed LOTS of those out there as well under the demographic label of Seinen: Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Golgo 13, Parasyte, Appleseed, Battle Angel Alita/Gunnm, Vagabond, Lone Wolf and Cub, Gunsmith Cats, Vampire Hunter D, most things directed by Satoshi Kon, and countless others being some immediate go to examples.

Shonen is not, and has not ever, been in or anywhere remotely near that older target demographic: everything you see in Weekly Shonen Jump (Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, MHA, etc. all included) are all across the board and by definition written for and aimed at an audience of children at anywhere from 1st grade to a 6th grade level, and not much higher.
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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Neo-Makaiōshin » Tue Dec 25, 2018 11:33 am

Saikyo no Senshi, just because a majority of its fanbase belongs to a demographic older than 18 years old doesn't mean the franchise itself is intended aimed and made for 18+ demo, unless you want to argue that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic intended and target audience are 18+ grown up boys instead of young and small girls.
Dragon Ball was always a kid series and fans should stop being in denial.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by ssj5 » Tue Dec 25, 2018 11:53 am

emperior wrote:I don’t see why you shouldn’t, if he wants too. I don’t want to debate your parenting, as that’s entirely up to you if you consider these kind of stuffs to be too violent for a 9 years old kid, but I know many people, myself included, who have grown up watching DBZ and we all turned out fine.
You could always make him watch Dragon Ball Kai, especially if your son is going to watch it dubbed (which I assume he is), as it is more censored, faster and true to the manga, and there’s also a very censored version in the USA if I remember correctly which eliminates a lot of the blood and the few cases of extreme violence (such as Freeza piercing through Krillin).

Making your son skip the first serie is your decision. I don’t suggest doing it, and I would suggest buying the manga to read through the first part of the serie if your son wants to go through it faster.
There’s some sexual humor, though, but otherwise it’s generally more light hearted than Z and it’s still half of the story, so it’s needed to understand what happens later on.

Once he gets to Super, you are in safe territory. The violence is really toned down compared to Z, and you can count the instances of someone bleeding on one hand. Watch out for episode 88, though, as that’s a very weird episode for a kid to watch considering Master Roshi almost rapes a girl.

Thanks, yes I thought about Kai, the main problem is as far as I know Kai replaced some or all of the Kikuchi work with I think some of the music that gets used in Super. I have good memories of Kikuchi music and it is instantly connected to DBZ's epic moments, like the genkidama theme which is was pretty emotional and I think those moments are lost without that original music. I wish Kai left the original music then it would be almost perfect. They should do another remaster of DBZ and leave all the original music and perhaps do some tweaking on the scenes to improve some aspects and create the final DBZ revision.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Dec 25, 2018 2:07 pm

Saikyo no Senshi wrote:So, the company's statement that sponsors TV anime and makes merch and stuff don't matter. The demographic breakdown reports that y'know Fuji TV and other producers buy to gauge what the general audiences are don't matter. Movie theatres that have late night shows at fucking 2 am which is totally the time for kids to go watch movies don't matter or the fact that it has better evening/late night sales as opposed to morning shows where actual kid properties do good sales don't matter. None of this matters. Yep.
I’ve literally already explained this to you.

The fact that Dragon Ball is doing more successful with the 20-40 demo NOW when the franchise has existed since 1986 is not indicative of who the target audience was back in 1986-1996 or now. Your evidence that Dragon Ball has always been for an adult crowd is based on its success with adults NOW. Of course the vast majority of Dragon Ball fans and viewers are 20-40 somethings its been in Japan since 1986. And in the US since 1996. The Dragon Ball franchise is older than most of the people here I wager

Companies catering to the grown adults fans they gained from a property that existed for decades is nothing new.
Transformers, Pokemon, TMNT, freakin Power Rangers all of them kid properties that have been around for decades have done this.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Tue Dec 25, 2018 2:23 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:
Saikyo no Senshi wrote:Lol the original run was literally at 7pm prime time where most adults tuned into watch TV. It should be enough of an indication of what the target audience was.

I agree about the content thing that it can be watched by kids, but the demo is almost definitely not kids.
Lmfao.

POKEMON aired at 6:30 PM on Tuesdays in Japan and then 7 pm Thursdays after coming back from its hiatus caused by the seizure incident

http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/compariso ... ep038.html



Are you gonna tell me Pokemon isn’t a kids show now? :roll: :lol:


Dragon Ball IS a kids show. A kids show that has attracted a large adult audience partially due to being around since 1986 but a kid show all the same. Just accept it instead of jumping through hoops
Hm, yeah. This Dragon Ball community tends to think that Dragon Ball Z is intended for adults even though it actually was meant for kids.

Just goes to show why people should form their own opinions than rely on someone else to 'verify' if it's kid-friendly or not.

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Re: Should I let my 9 year old watch DBZ?

Post by Lord Beerus » Tue Dec 25, 2018 5:06 pm

I don't see any reason why you shouldn't let your 9 year old watch Dragon Ball Z. They show can get violent at times, but it's nothing too over the top that would impressionable to a child of that age. And at the end of the day, despite what some people may tell you, Dragon Ball Z is still a children's show, so it is intended for that age to be viewed.

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