When it all began for you

[G1Ravage]

1995 with the original Dragon Ball in syndication. Flying blue kitty!!!

[Jackal puFF]

I definitely became a fan after seeing it on cartoon network after getting home from school. Not really sure when that was.. It was Goku fighting Piccolo Daimao.

I remember though some time in the 90's seeing some of the Cell arc with Goku fighting Cell. I didn't know it was dragonball at the time but was interested after seeing Goku kamehameha Cell's head off. It played after Sailor Moon.

[Puto]

About 95/96, when the Portuguese dub was originally airing here. First episode I actually watched was the Goku vs Jackie Chun final, but I didn't get hooked on the show then, nor on the sparse few Red Ribbon Army eps I caught. It was the second tournament with Tenshinhan that REALLY got me hooked onto the series.

[ZazamPow]

I don't remember specific years or ages, but it must have been the early 2000s. I was just a kid who liked watching Scooby Doo and Ed Edd n Eddy on Cartoon Network, which of course led me to watch Toonami. I remember loving Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, and of course Dragon Ball Z, but for some reason my father hated me watching the 'stupid chinese shows', which made things very awkward, but the power of anime was stronger and now it's kinda funny when I look back. Of course I also watched Naruto and One Piece when they premiered (I had no idea at the time that I was watching the monstrosity known as the 4kids dub) but of course Dragon Ball Z reigned supreme. I also tried to catch Dragon Ball whenever it was on, it wasn't on Toonami though and only had episodes on other random channels once in awhile, but I was able to get the gist of the story. I have very vivid memories of playing Budokai 2 for the PS2, one day in Kindergarden I was going over a friend's house for the first time, and I REALLY wanted to bring it so we could play together, but my dad wouldn't let me, probably because I might have lost it or got it stolen. He told me that my friend might have the same game, which even then I knew was BS, so I was pretty shocked when I got there and found Budokai 2 sitting on his shelf. I was too embarrassed to ask him if we could play it though, big mistake on my part.

Eventually I stopped watching Toonami, I think it was when Cartoon Network switched over to cable, and I forgot all about DBZ. It's pretty weird when I think about it, there was a time where I could look at a picture of Krillin or something and have this extremely vague sense of nostalgia, but I couldn't remember anything about the character or even his name. I think Piccolo was the only name I ever remembered because, well, he looked like a pickle. One day, I must have been in 7th grade, it was like 3 AM and I saw a post on some random message board referencing DBZ, and it was like those guys from Inception implanted an idea in my head. For no reason at all, I decided I wanted to watch DBZ, so I googled Dragon Ball Z ep 1, and for the first arc I couldn't stop cringing at the awful script and dialogue. I regarded the show as stupid and cheesy and that only kids could enjoy it, but I kept watching any way, and before I knew it my childhood love of the series had been reinvigorated. Nowadays I regard the series as nothing short of brilliant, and no matter what I do I can't get enough of it.

So that's my story. I basically went through two arcs of fandom, so to speak. When I was a little kid, then now. And boy am I glad I eventually decided to watch it again.

[Cure Dragon 255]

1995, I watched the original DB on Magic Kids, which was THE coolest channel this side of Fox Kids!

[Hellspawn28]

I'm glad that I'm the only one who saw Dragon Ball before DBZ.

[ABED]

I'm glad that I'm the only one who saw Dragon Ball before DBZ.

Do you mean the whole way through or just the first thing you saw was from Dragon Ball?

[Valerius Dover]

I'm glad that I'm the only one who saw Dragon Ball before DBZ.

I'm in the same boat as you here, having gotten into it a lot later certainly helps.

[Black Hawk]

I actually discovered the Dr. Slump manga before anything else Toriyama-sensei worked on. Not long after that, I learned that there are Dr. Slump characters in Dragon Ball, so I picked up on the manga. It wasn't until a few years later that I discovered the Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball anime, and even later on that I first heard the term "Dragon Ball Z". In fact, I may have heard about GT before Z.

[Hellspawn28]

I'm glad that I'm the only one who saw Dragon Ball before DBZ.

Do you mean the whole way through or just the first thing you saw was from Dragon Ball?

I mean seeing the first series before DBZ? Most fans in the US that I talked to always say that DBZ was the first DB series that they saw first.

[Kakacarrottop]

I'm glad that I'm the only one who saw Dragon Ball before DBZ.

Do you mean the whole way through or just the first thing you saw was from Dragon Ball?

I mean seeing the first series before DBZ? Most fans in the US that I talked to always say that DBZ was the first DB series that they saw first.

There are presumably people out there who were originally exposed to the franchise first in the form of the 80s Harmony Gold dub and 1995 BLT dub, both of which were low-rating english dubs of Dragon Ball that existed before DBZ had ever been dubbed into english.

[Hellspawn28]

DBZ was more popular, so more people saw it first when it first aired on Toonami back in 1998. I remember Funimation's redub of Dragon Ball didn't happen until 2001 or 2002, I guess most kids at the time didn't know about the original show until much later. I remember a few people thought DBZ came out first and Dragon Ball was a prequel show.

[LordCrumb]

I can't recall the exact year as I was still in school. Pokemon was still the big craze at the time when Dragon Ball Z started to air on TV3 New Zealand. We didn't have SkyTV so no Cartoon Network.

I do vaguely remember the Ocean Dub episodes, but it wasn't until the big change over when I really started to take notice. I would rush home from school to watch it every afternoon, albeit the Edited TV version. No DVD player at the time so I couldn't rent the Uncut episodes (plus the local video store still only carried the VHS episodes anyway).

Much like anything in life at the time, I just watched it on TV and that was it. It wasn't until the Orange Bricks came out that I got my interest back in it. A long long time later, maybe in the last 3 years i've really become quite obsessed with the show.. much much more than when I was younger.

[Dbzlove1993]

It all started for me when they aired it on YTV when I was a young'in. I became absolutely hooked, but over the years I just kinda forgot about it. Until about a year ago when my friend brought it up. I felt the Need to show my little brother how awesome it was, so we watched Kai to get him used to the story. Now here I am years after a childhood me got mesmerized by his soon to be favorite tv show. Currently trying to complete a collection of both dragonball and dragonball z on vhs and dvd

[UpFromTheSkies]

I first started watching Dragon Ball in 94/95 when the original series aired in syndication on UPN, along with Ronin Warriors (Yoroiden Samurai Troopers) and Teknoman (Tekkaman Blade).

[ABED]

The first time I saw the DB dub, I had already started watching DBZ, and I got the first DB volume and the movie on VHS for X-mas 96. Remember the blue VHS tapes?

[Kakacarrottop]

I can't recall exact dates, but i had this recording from 2000 of the episode where Vegeta became an Oozaru (Ocean dub) taped from my local network (Channel Ten) so probably in 2000 or the very late 90s. I was far too young to remember anything back then.

[Blue Three]

For me it must have been late 1999, when Dragon Ball started airing on German TV. The final volumes of the manga and the artbook hadn't been published yet. The release of the Dragon Boxes pretty much coincided with my move to Japan, so that was the first time I properly watched the series from beginning to end.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I don't remember the exact year, (guess it must have been March 2000 judging by that promo) but I do remember I was in primary school and that it used to come on Cartoon Network and air at 5pm, so after school I used to do all my homework after I ate so I can watch DBZ at 5pm lol (back then my folks set 5pm as homework time lol)

As to what got me to watch it aside from everybody in school talking about it, was a promo I saw on Cartoon Network, I saw it and was like "I like the look of that!"

Edit:

Here's the promo if any cares:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lBy3Ht ... ion_686975

[Analytical Delusion]

1998...

Started watching when the 53 episode dub run began. I sat through at least one complete re-run (feels like it was more), so it was a good deal before the new dub. Initially I actually saw ads for the Super Battle Collection figures in an issue of EGM.

Downloaded scanlations of the manga (though I actually put together a complete collection of the Cell and Buu saga tankobon, as well as those for the Piccolo Daimao and 23rd TB arcs), and bought fansubs from Dragons Den that caught my eye (Majin Vegeta Saga, Vegetto Saga, Movies 8 and 12).

Good times.