Knowing whether Dragon Ball was Japanese or not.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

I knew it from the beginning, despite of the fact that it was broadcasted in French (I was 9 years old when I saw the first episode in 1999). I was able to recognize Japanese animation ever since I remember. I suppose that it has something to do with many other shows which I watched before, like: Tōshō Daimosu, Captain Tsubasa, Yattāman, Tiger Mask Nisei, Saint Seiya, Dr. Slump and many others (all with French or Italian dub).

[Hellspawn28]

The oldest memory of anime that I remember was seeing Totoro at three or four. I knew Totoro was from Japan since I remember seeing Japanese writing in the movie and I was like "It's those letters from the Godzilla movies!!".

[soulnova]

I was 10 when I first watched DB, but I knew very well it was Japanese.


The oldest anime I remember is Robotech... I was perhaps 3-4 years old when it aired in Mexico. I knew it was unlike "American" cartoons like Thundercats, He-man or Looney Toons. My parents got to watch Speed Racer and other older anime when growing up, so I guess they told me those cartoons were Japanese and I have been able to tell ever since.

[WittyUsername]

I have never met anyone that mistook Dragon Ball for a Western show. I think it's pretty common knowledge that the series originated in Japan.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

I paid deep attention to the credits when I was young so....yeah lol

[InfernalVegito]

I never spared a thought about it.

[Polyphase Avatron]

I didn't really know or care what country any animated show was from when I was a kid.

Pretty much this.

In fact it wasn't until recently that I learned that several of the cartoons I enjoyed as a kid were Canadian.

[DerekPadula]

My friend thinks it's Chinese cause he thinks the author of Journey of The West made it.

On a related note, I met a Japanese woman in her 20's living in New York who thought that Journey to the West was a Japanese story, and not Chinese. I understand why since the Saiyuki translation is such a big part of Japanese culture, but she had absolutely no idea that it originally comes from Xiyouji in China. I tried to convince her of it a couple times and then felt it was best to stop.

[cpuguy18]

I knew it was Japanese.

[sailorspazz]

I was already a teen and into other anime by the time I started watching Dragon Ball, so I knew it was Japanese before I'd even seen it. Though I believed for quite a while that Sailor Moon was my first anime, thinking back I later realized that a couple of shows I'd watched as a kid were also Japanese: Voltron (which I had a couple episodes of on Betamax ) and The Little Bits.