Was Dragon Ball the first time you heard the word "Saga"?

[PowerPhantom245]

This is going to be vague topic, but was Dragon Ball the first time you heard the word "Saga"?
Before watching Dragon Ball, I never heard the word "saga" in other form of media at the time.
I don't recall other notable long franchise such as Doctor Who or Star Trek.
The term saga was used on earlier Dragon Ball DVDs (Emperor Pilaf Saga, Tournament Saga, Kid Buu saga, etc.), before Season Set DVD (Blue/Orange/Green Brick).
This is just me, but I would rather have DVD/Blu-ray as "Saga Set" than season set, but that's just me.
Robotech (before Dragon Ball) is a rare exception where it was divided into 3 sagas, but I think that's it.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I was only into American cartoons, which were not serialized before I got into Dragon Ball, so yes the word "Saga" was new to me.

I watched the Harry Potter movies at the time but never heard them call a select number of movies "Sagas", every one felt like a big event though.

I got into Star Wars a few years later but don't recall hearing "Saga" being used until more recent years with the three trilogies being collectively branded "The Skywalker Saga".

[jjgp1112]

Echoing Dragon Ball Ireland about how DB was my first experience with serialized cartoons, and indeed was the first time I heard saga and I think because of that pretty much exclusively associate that word with Dragon Ball . Any other story, I use "arc" but Dragon Ball it's SAGAS. I've been Funi-pilled

[Dr. Casey]

Nah, I was 15 when I really got into Dragon Ball in 2002, so I'd heard the word saga before. I could see myself being really intrigued by the word and thinking it had a major air of gravitas if I was a little kid hearing it for the first time.

[nineko]

I don't actually remember, it probably was one of the first times I heard the word "saga" used in an anime context, though I definitely knew about the word itself, since it's also a valid Italian word, used more commonly than you would expect around here.

With that said, I'm ok with Dragon Ball being someone's first, think about all those poor souls whose first is Candy Crush...

[Luso Saiyan]

Definitely not. In fact, I rarely associate the word with Dragon Ball at all. And as far as entertainment media is concerned, Star Wars is probably what I tie the word the most with.

[MasenkoHA]

I dunno if it was the literal first time I heard the word saga. I want to say it was either Power Rangers "Green with Evil" saga or when Phantom Menace was coming out and being marketed out the ass on television the use of something like "the saga continues". But due to sheer proliferation and hyperfixation on Funimation's end and parts of the fandom going even further than they did (Seriously Dragon Ball Wikia what the everlasting fuck is a "Peaceful World" saga?) I do associate the term saga with Dragon Ball more than any other work of fiction.

[90sDBZ]

For me yes it was.

It really stuck with me when Cartoon Network UK used to have day long marathons. They once marathoned the Saiyan, Namek, Ginyu, and Frieza Sagas over the course of half term week. I think that's the first time the word really stayed in my mind.

It's a cool way to break down the story, and feels more unique than just "Season 1 etc..".

The only weird thing is how Funimation decided to label certain small chunks of episodes sagas, but not others. Like the Captain Ginyu and Trunks sagas make sense enough for the episodes they cover, but why is the Otherworld Tournament classed as part of The Saiyaman Saga?

I remember how Buu's Fury for GBA broke the Sagas down really specifically.

On a side note, I like how even after Funimation renamed 'The Saiyan Saga' as 'The Vegeta Saga', literally everyone still calls it the former, as do the videogames. The Season 1 steelbook from a few years back actually calls it 'The Saiyan Saga', so I guess Funimation/Crunchyroll accepted that's what people remember it as.

[MasenkoHA]

The only weird thing is how Funimation decided to label certain small chunks of episodes sagas, but not others. Like the Captain Ginyu and Trunks sagas make sense enough for the episodes they cover, but why is the Otherworld Tournament classed as part of The Saiyaman Saga?

I think its because the Otherworld Tournament arc was only 5 episodes and since they released 3-4 episodes per vhs/dvd single it was just easier to lump it into the Saiyaman Saga release instead of putting doing 3 episodes on one release and 2 episodes on the other

From a narrative perspective the Captain Ginyu saga makes abaolute zero sense to call a saga or an arc especially since it "begins" in the middle of a fight, but since those were the first episodes Funimation had home video distribution rights to and they wanted to release a complete "saga" there you go.
There's really no reason why it shouldn't be lumped into the Namek saga for the Orange Bricks and later release but....Grandfathered in I guess

A lot of Funimation's identification of sagas seemed built around home video release instead of what actually made sense.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Yeah, "Saga" was great for marketing purposes. Funimation saw how well it worked for Cartoon Network and Toonami and overused the term because if it did wonders for broadcasts it would surely do the same for home video just as DVD was ushering in a golden age of physical media.

I think if the responses thus far are anything to go by saga will be imprinted in many of our minds because if we didn't first hear it with Dragon Ball it was the series we heard promoting it the most, the term has effectively become synonymous with the franchise.

[JulieYBM]

The only weird thing is how Funimation decided to label certain small chunks of episodes sagas, but not others. Like the Captain Ginyu and Trunks sagas make sense enough for the episodes they cover, but why is the Otherworld Tournament classed as part of The Saiyaman Saga?

I think its because the Otherworld Tournament arc was only 5 episodes and since they released 3-4 episodes per vhs/dvd single it was just easier to lump it into the Saiyaman Saga release instead of putting doing 3 episodes on one release and 2 episodes on the other

From a narrative perspective the Captain Ginyu saga makes abaolute zero sense to call a saga or an arc especially since it "begins" in the middle of a fight, but since those were the first episodes Funimation had home video distribution rights to and they wanted to release a complete "saga" there you go.
There's really no reason why it shouldn't be lumped into the Namek saga for the Orange Bricks and later release but....Grandfathered in I guess

A lot of Funimation's identification of sagas seemed built around home video release instead of what actually made sense.

Yeah, basically. I don't think those VHS box sets ever grew more than five tapes, anyway, so they were able to keep their little 'sagas' digestable across two or three months of releases.

[MasenkoHA]

Yeah, "Saga" was great for marketing purposes. Funimation saw how well it worked for Cartoon Network and Toonami and overused the term because if it did wonders for broadcasts it would surely do the same for home video just as DVD was ushering in a golden age of physical media.

I'm like 95 percent certain Funimation used the term saga before Cartoon Network/Toonami did (and Funimation got it from the fandom I'm pretty sure)

Like the first use of saga by Funimation was like 1999 when they release Captain Ginyu. I don't think Toonami caught on until 2000

[Chuquita]

It's lost to time, but I know DB is not where I first heard the word "saga" used. Probably in school during Language Arts class. Or if not school, but pop culture, Star Wars.

[Alruneia]

Just the word "saga"? Not at all. I am Norwegian, though, so that certainly helps. But English-speaking Dragon Ball is the first time I've heard "saga" get used in that specific way, to be fair. It caused me a bit of confusion at first, when I was only familiar with the Norwegian "saga" term I learned in school, because it's a very different use of the word. Here, a saga is a story that falls into the literary genre of the same name. Sagas are (mostly) tales from the viking and post-viking ages about either fact or fiction that (typically) follow a set of genre-defining traits. It doesn't exactly match the idea of "the Namek Saga, the Captain Ginyu Saga, the Frieza Saga"!

[90sDBZ]

Like the first use of saga by Funimation was like 1999 when they release Captain Ginyu.

Wasn't the home release of the BLT dub called 'The Saga of Goku'?

And I think the VHS/DVD boxsets for the Saban dub also used it. At least the 2nd was labelled 'The Namek Saga', while the first might have just been 'The Saiyan Conflict'.

[MasenkoHA]

Like the first use of saga by Funimation was like 1999 when they release Captain Ginyu.

Wasn't the home release of the BLT dub called 'The Saga of Goku'?

And I think the VHS/DVD boxsets for the Saban dub also used it. At least the 2nd was labelled 'The Namek Saga', while the first might have just been 'The Saiyan Conflict'.

You're probably right, my mistake.

Which puts it even earlier than Cartoon Network even airing DBZ let alone using the term

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Like the first use of saga by Funimation was like 1999 when they release Captain Ginyu.

Wasn't the home release of the BLT dub called 'The Saga of Goku'?

I forgot about the BLT dub releases, but yes it was. Although in this case it would be Kidmark, not Funimation using the term as the latter didn't have the home video rights to the first 13 episodes until 2009. That would put 1996 as the earliest use of Saga, so I stand corrected on Cartoon Network and Toonami initiating it. Fascinating it dates back that far but wasn't widely used till much later.

[MasenkoHA]

Like the first use of saga by Funimation was like 1999 when they release Captain Ginyu.

Wasn't the home release of the BLT dub called 'The Saga of Goku'?

I forgot about the BLT dub releases, but yes it was. Although in this case it would be Kidmark, not Funimation using the term as the latter didn't have the home video rights to the first 13 episodes until 2009. That would put 1996 as the earliest use of Saga, so I stand corrected on Cartoon Network and Toonami initiating it. Fascinating it dates back that far but wasn't widely used till much later.

Kkdmark distributed it but since the Madman release of the Funi in-house dub used the exact same name and the Pioneer releases of Z also apparently used sagas it was most likely a Funimation name. It was still their product

[TheGreatness25]

What's wrong with calling the different arcs "sagas"? Other than "The Saga of Goku" because Goku's story isn't finished yet.

[JulieYBM]

What's wrong with calling the different arcs "sagas"? Other than "The Saga of Goku" because Goku's story isn't finished yet.

A saga is a collection of stories, while an arc is usually just a single story. Dragon Ball as a whole would qualify as a saga, but the individual story arcs that make it up would be just, y'know, 'arcs'.