What is your Dragon Ball fandom timeline?

[Ronin]

When did you first hear about it and how/when did you progress through everything DB has to offer?

I first heard about it when I was 7 in 1st grade in 1998, but didn't actually watch until 1999 on Toonami's Midnight Run when I wanted to watch cartoons after a scary movie. It was the episode where Goku was trying to catch Bubbles on Kaio's planet. I came across it on accident and have been a fan ever since.

Around 1999-2003, I would gradually watch through the whole anime (Z, original DB and GT in that order) whenever I could catch an episode. The episodes weren't always in chronological order, but I had a lot of stuff spoiled in about 10 minutes from other people at school anyway when I first started watching (and I surprisingly didn't mind that it was spoiled), but I wanted to watch it firsthand. I had also watched a few of the movies in 2003 and maybe early '04 as they aired on Cartoon Network (the two Cooler movies, Lord Slug, first Broly movie, Bardock and History of Trunks TV special). I never bought any DVDs or anything so I guess that's why my progression through it was so slow, so I had rely on when they had it on TV. I also played a few of the PS2 video games as well during this time.

After I was familiar with all 3 shows and some movies (Funi dub was all I knew existed), I lost interest in DB for a couple of years until I saw an issue of Shonen Jump on the book aisle in a store in (I think) 2006. When I first saw it (had never heard of manga) I thought that it was a comic based off the anime. But after learning what manga was and that it was actually the source material for the anime, I got back into DB again and during 2006-2008, would read some of the manga (and other manga in that issue) in fragments whenever I would see Shonen Jump in the store. I re-watched some of the anime, got caught up on the rest of the movies that I hadn't seen and learned who Akira Toriyama was and played a couple more of the video games as well.

Lost interest for another couple years until 2010 when I heard about Dragon Ball Kai and watched through all of that. In 2011-2013, I decided that I wanted to start from the beginning and read the manga in its entirety. It has since become my favorite way to re-visit DB since it's less time consuming and I've read through the whole thing 3 or 4 times now. During this time, I also watched an assload of Japanese sub episodes and got excited in 2011 when I first heard that a new movie was coming out in 2013 and that Toriyama was gonna be involved.

Since 2013, I've been keeping up with all the movies as they're released starting with Battle of Gods. I will watch the Japanese sub first and then the Funi dub later. I started to watch the Super anime in 2015, but stopped after 5 episodes. Maybe I'll watch the rest of it eventually. But I have been keeping up with the Super manga and will read a chapter each month as it's released. Played a couple more video games as well (think the most recent is Xenoverse which is kinda old now).

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

1999 - 2005 : My Childhood

This was when I first discovered the series. Like a lot of fans of my generation I was introduced to Dragon Ball Z first. My family spent some time in Arizona in late 1999 due to my dad's job, and I watched Dragon Ball Z for the first time on Toonami. My earliest memory I'd seeing the episode Goku defeats Freeza and being captivated by how violent this show was compared to other cartoons but also being intrigued by how unique the art style was, I didn't know what anime or manga was, but I recognized how shows like Pokemon and Sailor Moon looked compared to everything else I watched on Cartoon Network and it opened up a whole new world to me:



Sometime in early 2000 I was back home in Ireland and saw a promo for Dragon Ball Z coming to Cartoon Network in March of that year. Here's a screenshot from the promo with the logo art used in the old Cartoon Network UK promo material:



Naturally I was super excited, and I got to see far more of the show, as I saw very little of the Saiyan and early Namek arcs when I was in America. The next few years watching Z and later GT and original Dragon Ball on Cartoon Network, CNX and Toonami were great times. The weekend marathons, collecting the toys, cards and video games, recording episodes on blank VHS tapes and the chats I had with my cousin and friends about the show are all very fond memories. My mam also bought me the Big Green dub DVD of World's Strongest, which is still one of my most prized posessions as it started my physical collection of the series:



In retrospect I wish I had of known about the dub situation and the fact the English dub I watched for the most part on Irish/UK TV was not the definitive version to be released on home video, as for years high quality rips of the Westwood and Blue Water dubs were highly sought after. I only got to record Westwood Z and Blue Water GT on VHS, and none of Blue Water Dragon Ball, so I had nothing of value to contribute to the trading that went on years after these dubs aired. Like most other kids who watched the show on TV I assumed the dub eventually released on DVD would be what we were familiar with. Sadly that never came to pass.

2005 - 2011 : Teenage Years and Lull

Once the series was taken off Toonami UK I started secondary school (also known as high school) and began to miss my childhood, including Dragon Ball. I read Dragon Ball AF summaries and episode scripts online, because although I knew it wasn't real I liked to fantasise about there being a new series, the high quality fan art also helped to visualize it. A lot of you would remember images like these:





I bonded with a few more friends about the series whom we wrote our own fanfictions that we shared with one another. My hunger for a new anime series never subsided though. I heard of and watched Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return but it didn't help much as I saw it as a one-off. And of course we all know how much of a travesty this movie was.....



As a teenager a lot of people I knew were also gradually "growing out of" Dragon Ball, and started to dismiss it as childish, so I eventually gave up talking about the show in real life as no one else was interested. I also imported the first orange brick from the US but I was disappointed to not hear the dub I remembered from my childhood for the first season. I still feel despite the inhouse season 1 being uncut, the performances are a huge step down from the Ocean cast's work, so watching Schemmel and Sabat for this portion of the show is always going to be disappointing.

2011 - 2014 : College Days and the Resurgence

During these years I became a college student, and much to my surprise people around my age were much more open about discussing Dragon Ball. People no longer dismissed shows they grew up with, but instead thought "that was my jam". I remember not having much to contribute to a conversation about Goku fighting Cell, not because I wasn't interested, but because I was shocked that friends were so into this show I used to love discussing, it was the last thing I expected. And who can forget the pop-ups from the Sky programming guide?





While I was still longing for a new series I saw some of Kai online (yes I know, we've all gone other routes when this stuff wasn't legally available, but I have since purchased the show twice) and enjoyed the faster pace of it, and liked being able to recommend it to friends. I of course heard of Battle of Gods when it was announced and kept up with all the news about the movie until the 2014 Nom Con convention in Dublin where Chris Sabat screened, what I believe was the first showing of Funimation's dub in Europe. Thanks to Manga UK I was also happy to see the series on shelves in Irish HMV stores and Tower Records despite the DVDs not containing the dub I grew up on for the most part. Of course we know they picked.... not the best release to repackage having not gone down the route of acquiring the Canadian dubs because higher-ups wanted a bilingual uncut release:



I also followed the news about the various home releases both in America and the UK as I was now had a job but wasn't working full-time and also had college fees to pay so I was hesitant about committing to any one release. As we all know Funimation didn't make this easy. Here's my collection thus far, it's not all but it's most, I have even more counting the manga editions and Derek Padula's books. Also not pictured here, but i do own is Manga UK's Complete Series Collector's Edition for Super:









2014 - 2019 : Early Adulthood and the Revival Era In Full Swing

After Battle of Gods, Resurrection F and Super quickly came along and my return to the fandom was complete. I caught Kai on Kix whenever I could as it was so nostalgic seeing Dragon Ball on Irish TV even though it wasn't the Ocean cast I remembered for most of the series. I began watching YouTube videos by Blackenfist, Qaaman and Geekdom101, discovered Kanzenshuu and its vast library of material, I got a full time job and collected the various home releases, some of which I kept (all the UK releases because I liked supporting and owning them) and others I sold (the 3 Dragon Boxes I bought because I knew I could never afford all of them) and the manga in various editions (single volumes, 3-in-1s and full colour).

I wish I found Kanzenshuu and the forums earlier as I feel I've contributed a lot to discussions about Dragon Ball and wish I could have done more in the early years of the revival era, but then again I probably wasn't mature enough at the time and wouldn't have been proud of some of the posts a younger, more naive me would have made. I only saw the first episode of Super on Pop, probably because the novelty of seeing the series on linear TV again was gone, and it was never going to be like the old days of Cartoon Network and its sister channels. By the same token I'm also no longer craving a new anime series, I'd like to see one but Super has taught me that would be nice but not something I need. I also had seen it all by then and owned all Manga UK's Blu-Rays.

2019 - Present : Full Adulthood and another Lull?

Now is an interesting time. I feel we are in somewhat of a drought, we've gone a few years without a continuation of Super, but I'm not longing for a new series like I did in my teenage years after I'd seen everything. I believe part of that is because as we've seen with Broly and Super Hero new animated content will come, and if TOEI take their time it will be good. There's also the ongoing manga (which I binge every now and then rather than follow regularly), which will probably be adapted eventually and Super Dragon Ball Heroes on the side, so it feels the series is still very much with us, and we're just not being oversaturated with content. I think that's good, because I like always having new Dragon Ball to look forward to. Dragon Ball has been part and parcel of my life for so long that my live for it is never going to change, and anyone who has seen me walk out of the theatre when a new movie drops knows its magic brings a smile to my face very few things in life do. The most recent example being:



My first child was born recently, and I'm hoping to be able to introduce him to Dragon Ball when he's a bit older, specifically the Canadian dubs. I know that being able to bond with my son over the series and passing on all my belongings to him would be something truly special. I know not all kids like what their parents are into though, so I'll never push it, but I know he'll nonetheless grow up being aware of how much of a cultural phenomenon Dragon Ball is and happy it meant so much to his father.

[PacificOceanDub]

I was 6 years old, and the date was July 8, 1999. My Mom had to stay the night at the hospital with my brand new baby sister. I went home with my Grandma and she let me put Cartoon Network on while I fell asleep. I'm not sure if it was the Arlia episode or possibly one of the 'Fake Namek" episodes. But I distinctly remember taking note of the fact that the sky looked dark and scary. I was intrigued by the art style, and had no clue what I was watching, or what it was called, until later that year when I happened upon it again after school! I thought to myself "THIS was that show!" This time, it was the episode during the Goku vs Freeza fight where Goku has the dream about Bardock, King Vegeta, etc.

Anyway, from 1999-2003 I watched what I could as it aired on Toonami, followed by OG Dragon Ball throughout '04. I would ask for the VHS tapes for birthdays and Christmases, and I continued to play the PS2 games up until Budokai Tenkaichi 2 in 2007. Then I sort of stopped collecting any new Dragon Ball merchandise for a while.

In 2011 I got my first job, and started to fill in the missing spots in my VHS collection. It was either late 2012 or early '13 when I finally finished and had the entirety of DBZ on VHS.

Since then, I've picked up a few new things. I got the 30th Anniversary blu ray box set in 2019 and picked up Kakarot for the Switch in 2021.

I have a pretty small collection compared to a lot of other fans, and I won't say I'm done with it, but I certainly don't wish for anything new DB-related. So I guess I'll just stay on the same trajectory I've been on for the last decade. If I see something new that I really want, I'll get it, but it'll more than likely be pretty far and few between.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

I was part of the second wave of U.S. fans who got introduced to it through the TV Kai dub. I was 10 years old, the perfect age to discover the series, and from there I began to constantly read about the series online, find clips on youtube, whatever I could get my hands on. I didn't watch one consistent release of the series all in one go. I watched Kai through a combo of the CW local broadcast dub, nicktoons dub, then finally the uncensored blu-ray version years later. In between I played a bunch of video games, watched the Boo arc and Cell games through Hulu when they had it for awhile until I finished the story of Z. I eventually checked out GT and the original series. This was all dubbed by the way. Later came the movies which I watched both subbed and dubbed and Super which I only watched in Japanese. As I grew up became a more hardcore fan and began taking some acting classes I left the dub behind completely after realizing how terrible most of the English dubbed DB content is. I still think the Kai dub and first 3 canon movie dubs are fine, (although they have nothing on dubs like Cowboy Bebop or Black Lagoon) but I just don't feel it anymore and have no desire to go back.
I would take sometimes take long breaks from Dragon Ball here and there but I have never truly been able to escape it. It has a hold on me where I can never truly leave it behind for good.

[Y2_O3]

From January 1991 to February 1992, the publishing company in my country (Hainan Photography and Fine Arts Publishing House) released the contents of the first 350 chapters of Dragon Ball in one go, encompassing everything before the appearance of Androids 17 and 18.
The advantage of this was that I could immerse myself in the story all at once, but the downside was that I couldn't afford to buy so many manga books. I had to borrow books from others to read. As a result, I found that the plot was disjointed and inconsistent—one book was still about Namek Arc, while the next one returned to little Goku's era, and the one after that focused on the Androids' story.

From February 1992 to January 1994, within a span of 2 years, only 70 chapters were published, reaching the conclusion of the Cell Arc. Perhaps by the time of Trunks vs Perfect Cell, our local publishing speed had caught up with Japan's, so we had to stop and wait for their progress.

From January 1994 to early 1995, the Majin Boo Arc began, and though the manga set's price increased, it still couldn't dampen the readers' enthusiasm. Dragon Ball's sales were soaring, and that was our happiest moment.

However, too much water drowned the miller... With the nation's increased emphasis on copyright regulations, these pirated publishing cmopanies faced severe crackdowns. The Hainan edition of DB came to an abrupt halt after releasing up to Gotenks vs Majin Boo. The publisher's qualifications were revoked, resulting in an incredibly regrettable outcome.
Later, other pirated publishers continued to release the final volumes of the manga and reissued the entire set of DB in the format of tankōbon. However, none of these editions could match the classic status that the Hainan edition holds in the hearts of fans.

Even today, we still purchase these 30-year-old comics from the second-hand market, and some individuals have maked reprinted versions...

[MrSatan2099]

I've done this before, but I'm always a Mark for any nostalgia posting.

My first exposure to the series came back in the syndication days. My Fox affiliate out of Chattanooga, TN was pretty heavily promoting it during my regular Cartoons (Beast Wars, Gargoyles, Sailor Moon), but I never actually saw it then. It definitely never played in the pre-network cartoon period on Saturday mornings or I would have seen it. Knowing what I know now, having heard a lot of other people's stories, I assume it ran on Sunday Mornings, when I would have been watching the Marvel Action Block on my local UPN.

Like many people I wouldn't catch it until 1998. I don't know the exact date, but I must have caught it pretty early in the Toonami run. First episode I ever saw was the battle with Nappa, and everyone talking about Goku returning. Pretty confusing stuff out of context. Now it's been 25 years, but the best I can remember Toonami actually showed two episodes that day. I just know I never saw "this Goku guy" make it back.

Funny thing about watching TV at this time in my life. We had moved to rural Georgia for.my dad's work, and there was absolutely no cable service available in the area. After about a year he bit the bullet and got an incredibly expensive satellite set up, but it was archaic and only had one receiver. So I never got much of a chance to watch any Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon or anything from 1996 to 1999, because the one TV with access was usually occupied with whatever sport was in season. I saw those couple of episodes, but wouldn't catch any more for months.

That next spring we moved again. For a few weeks we stayed with my Grandmother nearby while the home we were moving into was readied. In, what I believe was late May (already out of school for the year) I was up late watching cartoons and caught the crab egg/fake dragon ball episode on Namek. I was really intrigued at that point, but didn't get a chance to watch more for a few more weeks until we finally got moved into our new home (with cable in every bedroom!) I was intent on seeing more so I stayed up late, caught the tail end of the battle with Raditz and never stopped from there.

I did have to stop staying up late to watch the late night airings once school started back ( the dreaded transition to middle school/junior high) and at the time it was way out of sync with the afternoon broadcasts so that took some adjusting. Actually I had only really been able to see the complete original run just as the new episodes were beginning in fall of 99. So at least I saved myself the excruciating two year wait a lot of people had.

I would note that at this time I was completely offline and had no awareness of the show's broadcast history. It was just something that I had really gotten into in the last few months and then hey, new episodes coming soon! That was pretty great timing.

I was off to the races after that. Watched through all three series on Toonami. I tried my best to pick up the new movies as they came out. What kept the series alive in my heart was actually playing the Score card game with my high school friends. I had a very good friend at the time and we played consistently up until it was relaunched for the Ultimate Uncut era.

One of my favorite memories from that time in my life is actually collecting the VHS releases. Keep in mind that we're taking 2005-2006 so well into the lifespan of DVD, but because of that VHS was starting to get dirt cheap. You could go into a Big Lots or a Dollar General and find Dragon Ball tapes for $1-$3. That was kind of a God send as a poor high school kid doing odd jobs for spending money. By the time I moved into my apartment for Freshman year in college I had a book case of just Dragon Ball on VHS. Many an evening after class I would come home with a couple of McChickens and pop in a Freeza saga tape.

Of course at that point it had been about ten years and I was already feeling something close to nostalgia for Dragon Ball Z. That kept my Interest going. Gave Evolution a shot, watched Kai (On both Cartoon Network and the CW) and I've never really been out of the loop. Followed both the anime and Manga for Super. Been lucky to see all of the modern movies multiple times theatrically. I've been blessed to be able to share Dragon Ball with my children as well.


Some highlights
First commercial home video release - DBZ Movie 4 on VHS
First action figure- Burger King Krillin with trading card!

First video game - Ultimate Battle 22 (don't ask, I was poor)
First Manga- early issues of the Viz comic book releases

It's hard for me to believe it's been 25 years, but here we are. Then again, I just took my son and nephew to see Jurassic Park 3D for the 30th anniversary, and I can vividly remember seeing it in the theater as a kid, so....