It's actually amazing that DBZ was successful on Japanese TV

[mfwlegend3]

The Japanese person EX was referring to was kei17.

[ABED]

Why did you ignore Kunzait? He FINALLY gave you the answer you wanted... and you just ignore him. Are you really looking for an answer in good faith or just an echo chamber?

Indeed. Please read the posts that are written, including and especially in this case, a Japanese fan explaining to you what's being asked about about Japan.

Um, I did read it? Because I didn't reply to it, that means I didn't read it? I read every post made in every thread I've made here over the past ten years. What exactly is there to reply to in his post? Multiple people in this thread have already stated the facts about the manga and that it was running simultaneously with the anime, making the filler and very slow pacing easier to cope with. He didn't answer anything that was already answered. I still maintain the belief that if DBZ aired in North America, once a week, with no filler cut, it would not have been as successful and would've turned fans off. That's what I believe and nothing in Kunzait's post even argues against that. I didn't even know Kunzait was from Japan.

As for the second part of his post about DBZ being released directly to DVD if a company like Pioneer had gotten the rights to it, instead of Funimation....I really don't know what that has to do with my OP. But to reply to it, I'd say DBZ would've been far less successful. The mainstream exposure on Cartoon Network and YTV here in Canada was a big part of why the show enjoyed the success it did in North America.

But how come the long wait between seasons isn't enough to turn people off?

[MetaMoss]

Metamoss, I'm not going to take it point by point as it's a massive waste of both our times. We're never going to agree, especially if you claim someone pointing out a misuse of a word is "appeal to authority". That's not a logical fallacy. If you point out why someone is wrong, that's not a fallacious argument, it's just an argument.

But I'm not claiming that an appeal to authority is a fallacy in this case. It certainly can be one, but that doesn't mean it has absolutely no place in an argument (after all, there's such a thing as the fallacy fallacy). For me, it comes down to this: you can't claim someone is wrong without having some source about what is right. And when you're arguing that a definition is wrong, while said definition is actually being used, you're gonna need something backing you that's real damn authoritative to have any chance at convincing anyone.

If, say, the most well-respected English dictionary had a definition of retcon that said continuity must be broken for it to count, I think you'd have a much stronger argument here. But, as I've already shown, the Oxford English Dictionary does not have that as their definition.

Of course you think you have demonstrated a good reason to say it is, but here's where you go wrong, what you've explained is just a REVEAL. Reveals change the audience's understanding of a character or events. Goku's age doesn't fit the bill of a retcon because it doesn't change anything. What understanding was changed by making Goku two years younger? The definition you linked to is god awful because there's no discernible difference between a retcon and a reveal.

Yeah, Goku's age change is a reveal. What makes it also a retcon is that it specifically contradicted something that was established before. Not all reveals contradict what was shown before, what they do is show something that was unknown. It was unknown up to that point that Goku couldn't count right and was actually 12, making it a reveal, but this reveal also contradicted the time previously Goku said he was 14, making it a retcon. Sure, in-universe it changes nothing, but it does change the audience's understanding of how old Goku is. Like I said before, this change in understanding is absolutely trivial, and I would go as far to say that the age change barely even counts as a retcon. But as far as I can tell, I have plenty right to say that it does count as a retcon.

I do agree with you on one thing: I don't think we'll be agreeing on this. From what you're saying, I'm getting the impression that you have a fundamental misunderstanding on how words develop. Sure, a word may have started out with a specific meaning for a specific purpose, but there's often times where new purposes for a word are found. For example, there's fact that the first known usage of "retroactive continuity" was in a theological context about a decade prior to Roy Thomas introducing it to the comic world. I'm sorry that you can't seem to accept that words may sometimes shift in their meanings, because that just seems like setting yourself up for a bad time.

[MasenkoHA]

I still maintain the belief that if DBZ aired in North America, once a week, with no filler cut, it would not have been as successful and would've turned fans off.

Being on an endless loop for a good year (year and half for fans following the show in syndication) of the show being stuck from Raditz arrival to Goku showing up on Namek to fight the Ginyu Force (right in the middle of a story arc!) didn’t turn fans off.

Having to wait 10 months to see what happens next after Vegeta sacrificed himself to stop Buu didn’t turn fans off.

But somehow airing just one new episode a week with no break in between would have turned fans off?!

Just how does that make even a single ounce of sense?

That's what I believe and nothing in Kunzait's post even argues against that.

Kunzait’s point was Japanese fans had the manga and the anime was supplementary so the stalls in the story would ‘t really bother them.
.

As for the second part of his post about DBZ being released directly to DVD if a company like Pioneer had gotten the rights to it, instead of Funimation....I really don't know what that has to do with my OP. But to reply to it, I'd say DBZ would've been far less successful. The mainstream exposure on Cartoon Network and YTV here in Canada was a big part of why the show enjoyed the success it did in North America.

If Dragon Ball had been picked up by a company like Pioneer for the VHS market it almost certainly would have been picked to air by Toonami later on in edited format the same way Tenchi Muyo and Outlaw Star were and would have been a breakout hit then.

[ABED]

Nowhere in your entire argument have you once shown you have a fundamental understanding of the difference between a reveal and a retcon. That definition fits a reveal perfectly. How do you not see that?

[Cure Dragon 255]

This thread is going absolutely no where. Mods should close it.

[ABED]

This thread is going absolutely no where. Mods should close it.

What constitutes going somewhere?

[Cure Dragon 255]

Generating a discussion based on the premise the thread started with. After a while it has become obvious that the topic creator isnt actually looking for any answers and or that the answers have already been found.

[Gaffer Tape]

Nowhere in your entire argument have you once shown you have a fundamental understanding of the difference between a reveal and a retcon. That definition fits a reveal perfectly. How do you not see that?

Reveal: Goku was always 12. The story chose not to tell you/mislead you. Later it gave you the information.
Retcon: Goku was 14. The story changed it. You agree to believe that he was always 12.

That's the difference.

[ABED]

Nowhere in your entire argument have you once shown you have a fundamental understanding of the difference between a reveal and a retcon. That definition fits a reveal perfectly. How do you not see that?

Reveal: Goku was always 12. The story chose not to tell you/mislead you. Later it gave you the information.
Retcon: Goku was 14. The story changed it. You agree to believe that he was always 12.

That's the difference.

Except many stories don't give you information upfront and leave room for changes in things like identity. For instance, one character on Justified was thought to be X, but turned out to be someone else. It didn't contradict anything and other than some BTS material by the writers, there's no reason to think that couldn't have been planned from the beginning. For it to be only a reveal, would they have to have foreshadowed the reveal?

I think your example isn't a good one. It's not like a changed origin story, the story gives a good reason why the change occurred. It's not asking you to completely disregard a blatant contradiction. It gives a logical in story reason for said contradiction. It didn't contradict the facts of the world, just the statements of a character. A better example of a retcon in DB is 19 and 20 becoming 17 and 18. No explanation at all.

[MasenkoHA]

I do feel like a retcon has to be a bit more impactful and contradictory than “kid who aint too bright said he was 14 then revealed he was actually 12 because he can’t count and thought 14 came after 11”

If Bulma revealed she was actually 14 and not 16 that would feel like a retcon because she has no reason to lie about her age or give the wrong info.

[foxfang4]

When I do a run of “Z”, I usually do an episode a day (so, 5-6 episodes a week). The pacing of the original Z series to me is fine up until the fight vs. Freeza begins. At that point, it gets very tedious with the conflict constantly being interrupted by meaningless filler. I’m honestly surprised that the show survived this run of episodes when it first aired because it’s nearly unwatchable. Thankfully Kai’s cut of the series fixes this.

I think TOEI had to have realized this because for the rest of the series the pacing is solid IMO (except for a few instances in the Buu arc).

[coola]

While nowadays it is indeed rare, there are still long running series like One Piece or Naruto/Boruto, and GeGeGe no Kitaro is slowly approaching 100 episodes mark. Tokusatsu series like Super Sentai with 50 or so episodes per year are still on air after 40+ years

[ABED]

While nowadays it is indeed rare, there are still long running series like One Piece or Naruto/Boruto, and GeGeGe no Kitaro is slowly approaching 100 episodes mark. Tokusatsu series like Super Sentai with 50 or so episodes per year are still on air after 40+ years

Super Sentai isn't the same thing. It might be in continuous production, but each "season" is a different series. It's 40+ separate series. It's able to remain popular because the kids who start watching it now, don't have to start with an episode from 40+ years ago to see the whole story.

[KBABZ]

I think TOEI had to have realized this because for the rest of the series the pacing is solid IMO (except for a few instances in the Buu arc).

I believe so. When I did the "manga vs anime" line graph, I included gaps for when the manga or anime took the week off, and what I noticed is that after Frieza, the anime was MUCH more willing to take a week or three off, presumably to give more time for the manga to accelerate away. It would often do this around the release of one of the movies, which by that point were coming out at a rate of two a year. I'm sure the Garlic Jr. and Other World Tournaments helped with this too.

[TVfan721]

I still maintain the belief that if DBZ aired in North America, once a week, with no filler cut, it would not have been as successful and would've turned fans off.

Being on an endless loop for a good year (year and half for fans following the show in syndication) of the show being stuck from Raditz arrival to Goku showing up on Namek to fight the Ginyu Force (right in the middle of a story arc!) didn’t turn fans off.

Having to wait 10 months to see what happens next after Vegeta sacrificed himself to stop Buu didn’t turn fans off.

But somehow airing just one new episode a week with no break in between would have turned fans off?!

Just how does that make even a single ounce of sense?

Japan airing DBZ once a week took 7 years to complete. Cartoon Network, with the daily approach, took just over 4.5 years. They picked up the Saban version around Sept 1998 I believe and aired DBZ in it's entirety until April 2003. The daily approach still meant significantly more episodes per year.

The syndicated version was cancelled. There was nothing to "wait" for after "Goku, Super Saiyan?" Cartoon Network continuing the series in 1999 was because of the new found success and the new, huge audience the show obtained after getting a second chance on Cartoon Network and finally being exposed to everyone in the US. Most of the audience watching the Saban version on CN from Sept 98 to Sept 99 were new fans and had never watched it in syndication.

[MasenkoHA]

The syndicated version was cancelled.

No it wasn’t. Funimation and Saban’s partnership ended but the show wasn’t cancelled.

There was nothing to "wait" for after "Goku, Super Saiyan?"

Except the fact that the episode very clearly ended on a cliffhanger with a next time preview? Your average viewer would in fact expect there to be a continuation? The show didn’t announce it was over after “Goku Super Saiyan”

Cartoon Network continuing the series in 1999 was because of the new found success and the new, huge audience the show obtained after getting a second chance on Cartoon Network and finally being exposed to everyone in the US.

Sabat said they were hired in 1997 to dub Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle, which was a test dub to see if Funimation could dub the show locally. Considering the last episode of the syndicated episodes aired in spring 1998 that puts Funimation hiring local talent around the same time they were wrapping up season 2. Why would they bother if the show was cancelled? Add to the fact that the in-house dub of season 3 started getting released on home video a good 5 months before the episodes “premiered” on Toonami and the only thing the show’s success on Toonami guaranteed was all future episodes would be airing on Toonami.

This is all of course irrelevant, because Dragon Ball Z being “cancelled” or not cancelled doesn’t change the fact that Toonami played the first 53 episode a good handful of times before finally airing new episodes and this did nothing to negatively impact ratings.