Which is better for introducing people: Kai or the Original?

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 10:42 am

Captain Awesome wrote:One thing I will never understand about American fandom is how despite being so heavily into the show, they are quite happy to skip over 154 episodes and four movies.

I can kinda understand Pilaf and Red Ribbon, but once you reach the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai DB is action packed.

Action packed with the characters who die five minutes into Z and never do anything again.

Not saying I agree with that, but that's how it'd go over.

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 11:22 am

The manga. It's the best/purist form of the series.
Suprisingly enough, this was how Iw as planning to get my girlfriend into it, but it ended up being the video games that got her. So you could always try that.

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 2:29 pm

Rory wrote:The manga. It's the best/purist form of the series.
Suprisingly enough, this was how Iw as planning to get my girlfriend into it, but it ended up being the video games that got her. So you could always try that.

That's what got me into the show. Budokai 1 is pretty much the perfect abridging of the story line in my opinion.

vershiris · Post by **vershiris** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 5:48 pm

I DO have a friend who i am introducing to the franchise, he watches other anime's too. He cant find any Dragon Ball fan-subs to watch at the moment so i told him to watch the first 16 episodes of Kai to see if he liked it while he was finding DragonBall episodes, he's watched up to episode 13 of Kai and he loves it.

So yeah, i'd recomend Kai over Z for introducing the series

Metalwario64 · Post by **Metalwario64** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:28 pm

vershiris wrote:I DO have a friend who i am introducing to the franchise, he watches other anime's too. He cant find any Dragon Ball fan-subs to watch at the moment so i told him to watch the first 16 episodes of Kai to see if he liked it while he was finding DragonBall episodes, he's watched up to episode 13 of Kai and he loves it.

So yeah, i'd recomend Kai over Z for introducing the series

Fan-subs?

What ever happened to supporting official releases?

Your friend needs to buy the first season of Dragon Ball, not download it.

Raki · Post by **Raki** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:48 pm

Metalwario64 wrote:
vershiris wrote:I DO have a friend who i am introducing to the franchise, he watches other anime's too. He cant find any Dragon Ball fan-subs to watch at the moment so i told him to watch the first 16 episodes of Kai to see if he liked it while he was finding DragonBall episodes, he's watched up to episode 13 of Kai and he loves it.

So yeah, i'd recomend Kai over Z for introducing the series
Fan-subs?

What ever happened to supporting official releases? Your friend needs to buy the first season of Dragon Ball, not download it.

At this stage in the game, who would want fansubbed Dragonball anyway?

RoarkVegeta · Post by **RoarkVegeta** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:57 pm

I'm waiting for Dragonball Season One to come out so I can show my girlfriend THE REAL BEGINING.

Onikage725 · Post by **Onikage725** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:24 pm

Kendamu wrote:So you gave up right after watching the hardest parts to condense because there wasn't a lot of filler there to begin with but they had to do something to make it seem faster so people wouldn't just say, "This is just DBZ with new music," or something similar, eh?

Try watching maybe episodes 12 through 16. Those are pretty good.

I was thinking of checking those out, but I haven't gotten around to it. But people were saying the same things back when I was watching it, so it's not like I'm complaining about a retro-active position people have newly adopted regarding the series. The nail in the coffin, per se, was when people said back then how excited or curious they were to see how Kai did the Nappa/Vegeta fights. My gaze shifted slightly and I saw my season sets and thought... why waste time and energy waiting to see something I already have with music I realllly don't like? I've been watching my own "Kai" for awhile now, since whenever I get to an extraneous filler scene I don't like, I skip it. Hell, disc 1 of orange brick 2 has never touched my DVD player.

Kunzait_83 · Post by **Kunzait_83** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:44 am

Raki · Post by **Raki** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:21 am

If it's of any meaning, my older brother found the 21st Budokai JUST as interesting as Gohan fighting Recomme. This is coming from a person that outside Yu-gi-oh, watches no anime at all.

Post by **Herms** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:47 am

Rocketman wrote:Action packed with the characters who die five minutes into Z and never do anything again.

Not saying I agree with that, but that's how it'd go over.

Well, why should Z have to be the center of everything? I never hear people say "oh, don't watch Z, it's full of characters who never do anything in GT". Instead, people hold that as a reason to not watch GT, rather than a reason to skip Z. Similiary, I think the fact that so many of the main supporting cast up to that point fall out of importance in Z is a strike against Z, not the original seres. The first part of the series is 194 chapters and 153 episodes long, with 3 movies (4 is you count the 10th ann. one), and contains some of the best story arcs and best fights in all of DB-dom. It's something that can easily be enjoyed as a thing into and of itself, and anyone who treats it as nothing more than a lead-up to Z is missing out on a lot.

Chrome · Post by **Chrome** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:16 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:Starting the series with Z is as stupid as starting a play from act II; absolutely NO context is given and SO much is lost. NOTHING is established for the neophyte viewer, characters with whole relationships are introduced seemingly out of nowhere with no explanation given (cause it's already been given and established prior), major developments for those characters (namely Piccolo) lose any meaning whatsoever.... skipping the entire first half is, without mincing words and rgardless of one's aversion to the early gag manga stuff, fucking idiotic.

Well, while I actually got into Dragonball in the middle of Z, I pretty much agree with this. The wild-paced fights intrigued me, but with no knowledge of who the characters were, I nearly gave up on the series, it was only the basic "Cell Games" plot that was fairly understandable that kept me watching.

If I was introducing a friend to anything else, I would quite logically start at the beginning. As you quite rightly put, you wouldn't start a play or the book from the middle just to get to the "action" bits because you'd have no idea what's going on.

Also, I wouldn't introduce anybody via Kai, because I've lost so much enthusiasm for it I wouldn't be able to make anybody else really care about it.

Kunzait_83 · Post by **Kunzait_83** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 5:49 am

Raki · Post by **Raki** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:26 pm

You would think the "Z" first ideal would have faded away with the advent of DVD by now. But's a shame that the second half of the series seems to be more popular with younger fans, both in Japan and abroad. I don't see this changing in the US until Dragonball comes back to TV and it starts at the fucking beginning.

Amigo Ten · Post by **Amigo Ten** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:28 pm

I do wish I could start from scratch and read DB from the beginning without knowing that Goku was a Saiyan or that Piccolo was an alien or that they'd eventually team up and all that stuff.

Raki · Post by **Raki** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:34 pm

Amigo Ten wrote:I do wish I could start from scratch and read DB from the beginning without knowing that Goku was a Saiyan or that Piccolo was an alien or that they'd eventually team up and all that stuff.

Personally when I'm watching Dragonball I forget all that stuff.

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:37 pm

I'm betting that a lot of the skipping of the original Dragonball comes from how hard it's been to come across Dragonball for most average fans. The first thirteen episode3s were never released uncut and, for the longest time now, most of the series has been out-of-print and a lot of our favorite parts are rare and expensive. Considering that most fans wouldn't go out of their way to educate themselves on foreign releases and import them, that basically leaves people with seeing DBZ first.

Hopefully, with the original Dragonball finally making it's way to DVD proper for the first time in North America, more people will see that first in the long run.

B · Post by B » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:38 pm

I don't think Z's popularity overall has that much to do with it being "Z." As stated, even Japan shows sings of favortism for Goku's adult years, but unlike the U.S., it wasn't shoved in their face as soemthing different in tone nature, something that takes more than a name rebranding to do.

And then there's the factor that manga is just more popular in Japan as a whole. The Dragon Ball manga makes no clear-cut distinction, and yet, Goku VS Freeza is cited as a legendary *manga* epic.

So yeah, it partly has to do with that specific portion of the series(Saiyan/Freeza) being looked upon as the peak in general.

rereboy · Post by **rereboy** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:41 pm

Amigo Ten wrote:I do wish I could start from scratch and read DB from the beginning without knowing that Goku was a Saiyan or that Piccolo was an alien or that they'd eventually team up and all that stuff.

I was lucky enough to experience that.

Amigo Ten · Post by **Amigo Ten** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:05 pm

Raki wrote:
Amigo Ten wrote:I do wish I could start from scratch and read DB from the beginning without knowing that Goku was a Saiyan or that Piccolo was an alien or that they'd eventually team up and all that stuff.
Personally when I'm watching Dragonball I forget all that stuff.

You can't really forget it though can you? Knowing that Goku and Piccolo will eventually become friends doesn't mean I can't enjoy their fight or anything, it just ruins the surprise of him showing up to suggest they fight together. Same with Goku's origins. I can still enjoy him as just a odd little monkey-boy, but there's no twist when his heritage is revealed.

It's like Alien. By the time I actually watched it properly it was basically part of pop-culture. I would love to be able to watch it and not have a clue what was going to happen.