What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

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What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by Psajdak » Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:30 pm

Basically if there was no anime, manga, or even new games after Dragon Ball: GT ended.

...

IMO, people can say whatever they want about Super, or Heroes even, but having no new stuff to talk about, whine about, be happy about is just sad.

I'm also Sailor Moon fan, and I can tell you that so many of us would be happy if there was more to come post Crystal, sequel, spin-off, or whatever.

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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by VegettoEX » Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:37 pm

I’d be perfectly content, and we would have been able to focus on *a lot* more important historical stuff here on the site! 😂

One of the things that attracted to me about anime and manga at the time of my discovery was that they seemed to all have actual beginnings, middles, and ends. You could just watch/read it. All of it. This was in contrast to what I saw in the most popular American comics of the day, which had six variant covers and three sub-series and two annual crossover events with 60 years of history behind them….

…which is one of the complaints we’re very much seeing these days when people try to get into Dragon Ball!
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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by JulieYBM » Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:07 pm

I don't see how one can determine how exactly one would feel one way or the way because all of these things are dependant upon the sum of many different factors that influence our view points.

I recall being happy with the idea of getting new Dragon Ball post-Dragon Ball GT. Even today I'm interested in getting new Dragon Ball. I'm not sure if the fandom would be as loud as it is today but bare in mind these things always have a way of coming around to old, evergreen titles. If the question is "What if Dragon Ball wasn't popular enough to get new content after Dragon Ball GT?" then I don't really know what to say. Who cares about if something is popular so long as you enjoy it and can show it to your friend who you think might like it?

That all being said, I need me a new Dragon Ball animated series written by Tomioka Atsuhiro without any creative restrictions, baby!
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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:34 am

None whatsoever? I imagine active interest in it would’ve stagnated, though plenty of people would still be hugely nostalgic for whatever Dragon Ball meant for them.
VegettoEX wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:37 pm I’d be perfectly content, and we would have been able to focus on *a lot* more important historical stuff here on the site! 😂

One of the things that attracted to me about anime and manga at the time of my discovery was that they seemed to all have actual beginnings, middles, and ends. You could just watch/read it. All of it. This was in contrast to what I saw in the most popular American comics of the day, which had six variant covers and three sub-series and two annual crossover events with 60 years of history behind them….

…which is one of the complaints we’re very much seeing these days when people try to get into Dragon Ball!
I know that you have a sort of scribe mindset when it comes to these topics, I get it to some extent, but I also don’t quite get why the existence of new content has to be treated as such a big roadblock? The flow of new content coming in may be disruptive when you’re trying to catalogue everything, but if it’s such an issue, is there anything stopping you guys from just saying “we’ll focus on documenting all the historical material made up to a certain point for the time being, then finish the rest when the new content eventually has a long enough break to cover it as well”? I think it’s important to maintain a wider perspective that time stops for no one, so a historian’s job is never truly done.

I agree that there’s something inherently pleasing about having a complete story, though it’s not exclusive to Japanese comics. Western comics can have proper endings as well, you just have to stay away from the sprawling shared universes mainly in the superhero genre which unfortunately dominate the entire medium around these here parts. Taking the revival into account, I don’t believe Dragon Ball is anywhere near as impenetrable to newcomers as the Marvel or DC Universes yet (though the likelihood of the series attracting newbies in the first place would be lower without any new content to draw them in, so I guess it’d be a moot issue).

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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by Alruneia » Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:42 am

I mean, you're already aware of Sailor Moon's situation, so... The Dragon Ball fandom would be a lot like the Sailor Moon fandom is now (minus Crystal/Eternal/Cosmos but all that kinda has the same status within the SM fandom as DB Kai has within the DB fandom I think), a mainly dormant fandom where fans would mainly just look back fondly at the old content and maybe wish there was more of it. there is a Sailor Moon fanfic link in my signature for a reason, and in a few months there'll be another, I wish there was more so I'm creating more I think the DB fandom would be way more fanfic-y than the SM fandom though honestly, considering AF and all that. We'd be like 20 years deep into an AF era at this point, and I'm almost curious about what that'd look like. It'd probably have an evil Goku, Broly, the return of Frieza, an evil Supreme Kai... :shifty:
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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by VegettoEX » Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:42 am

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:34 am I know that you have a sort of scribe mindset when it comes to these topics, I get it to some extent, but I also don’t quite get why the existence of new content has to be treated as such a big roadblock? The flow of new content coming in may be disruptive when you’re trying to catalogue everything, but if it’s such an issue, is there anything stopping you guys from just saying “we’ll focus on documenting all the historical material made up to a certain point for the time being, then finish the rest when the new content eventually has a long enough break to cover it as well”? I think it’s important to maintain a wider perspective that time stops for no one, so a historian’s job is never truly done.
There are lots of reasons! But let me go into some specifics:

The primary reason is that it's such much easier to cover, catalog, and archive things when they're new, fresh, and widely available. We've already lost tons of online resources from even just the Dragon Ball Super television series broadcast era, and if we hadn't covered it at the time, we might never be able to do so again.

One particular example that came up somewhat recently was an early interview about the Dragon Ball Room, which we translated in a news post here on the site.

I was asked if we had the original Japanese text for the article, because it turns out the original post is no longer online... and surprise surprise, for once I actually didn't!!! Normally we save all of the original versions (both ourselves locally, as well as through archive.org), but we dropped the ball on that one. I was able to dig up some Korean translations of the original article, but not the original Japanese text itself.

That's just one real-world example of the kind of stuff I'm talking about / referring to, and how critical it is to have done so right in the moment. This was the first candid interview about an initiative that (theoretically/ostensibly) drives all current Dragon Ball productions right here right now in the modern era, and the article's original text -- from a mere seven years ago -- is now lost to time.

This digital stuff is so much more ephemeral than the ancient print stuff. Magazines I can always track down and catch up on. I might have to spend and arm and a leg, but it's physically, tangibly doable!
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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:50 am

VegettoEX wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:42 am
LoganForkHands73 wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:34 am I know that you have a sort of scribe mindset when it comes to these topics, I get it to some extent, but I also don’t quite get why the existence of new content has to be treated as such a big roadblock? The flow of new content coming in may be disruptive when you’re trying to catalogue everything, but if it’s such an issue, is there anything stopping you guys from just saying “we’ll focus on documenting all the historical material made up to a certain point for the time being, then finish the rest when the new content eventually has a long enough break to cover it as well”? I think it’s important to maintain a wider perspective that time stops for no one, so a historian’s job is never truly done.
There are lots of reasons! But let me go into some specifics:

The primary reason is that it's such much easier to cover, catalog, and archive things when they're new, fresh, and widely available. We've already lost tons of online resources from even just the Dragon Ball Super television series broadcast era, and if we hadn't covered it at the time, we might never be able to do so again.

One particular example that came up somewhat recently was an early interview about the Dragon Ball Room, which we translated in a news post here on the site.

I was asked if we had the original Japanese text for the article, because it turns out the original post is no longer online... and surprise surprise, for once I actually didn't!!! Normally we save all of the original versions (both ourselves locally, as well as through archive.org), but we dropped the ball on that one. I was able to dig up some Korean translations of the original article, but not the original Japanese text itself.

That's just one real-world example of the kind of stuff I'm talking about / referring to, and how critical it is to have done so right in the moment. This was the first candid interview about an initiative that (theoretically/ostensibly) drives all current Dragon Ball productions right here right now in the modern era, and the article's original text -- from a mere seven years ago -- is now lost to time.

This digital stuff is so much more ephemeral than the ancient print stuff. Magazines I can always track down and catch up on. I might have to spend and arm and a leg, but it's physically, tangibly doable!
Oh dang, fair enough, I hadn’t considered it can all be lost so quickly!

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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by Koitsukai » Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:26 am

Well, for starters, I'd have much more spare time :lol: I probably would never have registered on this site, or hardly visit it this often.

The fandom would rely solely on videogames and nostalgia, the points of contention would have been gone over one trillion times, that ripper30 dude would still be fighting people over who's stronger: Kid Buu or Buuhan(he still is, but there would be no Koyama interview discrediting him), the Omari battle memes wouldn't exist, so that guy would have his blood pressure under control and not be taking medication for it. Toyotaro would still be part of the fandom, his AF might've gotten more development.
There would be no mod community, I wonder if the next gen consoles would get new videogames, maybe one or two, but definitely not so many as we have today.
Overall, I guess it would be a really stagnated community, with not much to discuss anymore.

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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by OmegaRockman » Thu Mar 23, 2023 1:28 pm

Say what you will about the content itself, but the post-GT content has resulted in an actually GOOD English dub of Z via Kai, the English dub fandom learning who Freeza is thanks to Chris Ayres's fantastic performance, and the English dub fandom finally warming up to the Japanese cast due to the subtitled version being the only way to watch Super for quite a while. If anything, it's helped the broader English-speaking fandom finally get on the same page about a great many things. I don't think we would've made these strides without Kai or Super.

Also, Kai is my favorite series, Battle of Gods and Super Broly are my favorite DB movies (with Super Hero not far behind), and I had tons of fun with Resurrection F and Super TV, so I think I prefer having this content to not having it.
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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by Hellspawn28 » Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:10 pm

Things would be no different. I've been on verious DB fan sites since 2001 and we would talk about the series like we normally would. A big franchise like DB was still able to do well without new content. Just like how Gremlins, Friday the 13th, and Back to the Future are able to have big and active fandoms without a new movie. I do think having new stuff does keep things fresh without us always doing Raditz to Kid Buu in the video games. I'm happy with the stuff that we have now.
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Re: What would DB fandom look like now if there was no post GT content?

Post by Thanos » Sat Apr 01, 2023 1:44 am

I imagine it would look very much like 2008 and prior, that is to say my interest would almost certainly have remained stagnated to always having love for the series and rewatching everything every decade or so but not engaging with it much otherwise… aside from my routine visits here and catching the podcast whenever one dropped as I’ve done since that started a million and two years ago.

As for the broader fandom, surely it would have fallen into relative obscurity, even moreso than back then. Kai and Super brought a couple more generations into the series, of course. Nostalgia culture has been powerful over the past handful of years so I’m sure Dragon Ball would have had a few cultural revisits from those of us that had strong nostalgia for it as kids.

As much as I’m grateful for everything new, I wouldn’t have minded maintaining that quirky niche.
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