I've yet to meet someone in real life who's like us

[Plague-Memories]

I've never met anyone who enjoyed the series as much as I do or anyone who prefers the Japanese version without me having showed it to them first.

When I met a Bulma cosplayer who told me she only watches the FUNi dub and hates the Japanese version for a "lack of background music," and Goku sounding like a granny, I lost all hope.

[Kiyza]

I've mostly been lurking on this site for the past year, but I figured I'd chip in a bit because this thread mirrors something that's going on in my life right now.

I actually have a girlfriend right now who's not heavily into Dragon Ball, but she enjoys a lot of anime and manga, and I managed to coax her into reading the manga a while ago. She kind of conked out around the Ginyu stuff and never picked it back up because she felt it was dragging on too long and she doesn't enjoy a lot of long series. She likes a lot of modern "flavor of the month" anime while I generally gravitate toward older series and have little interest in series that were released in the past several years. Still, we chit-chat about things we like that the other doesn't have much interest in often enough that she understands a good bit about the series, like why I bought those Dragon Box releases. She's also familiar with the terminology in Japanese. I don't know anyone offline who's like that -- and actually only know one other offline person who likes the series at all -- but I've met a lot of people online because of Dragon Ball, and they're usually fans of the series in Japanese, so in talking with them, I just use that terminology.

I also have a friend I study with for my college classes who likes Dragon Ball. I mentioned one night that I wasn't really able to get anything for lunch because I purchased Xenoverse and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and had to sacrifice eating out for the next couple of weeks and we had a short conversation about Dragon Ball before picking up our textbooks. Now that he's found out I like it, and this seems to be the only series we mutually enjoy, he brings it up from time to time. But here's the thing. There's a bit of a disconnect when we talk because I use Japanese terminology out of force of habit. It turns into a bit of "you say 'toh-may-to', I say 'toh-mah-to'", just replace it with "you say 'say-in', I say 'sigh-an'". My girlfriend was actually present there when we were talking about that and she outright said, to paraphrase, "'Saiyan' is an anagram of the Japanese word 'yasai', which means 'vegetable', so she's not pronouncing it wrong." (to add a bit more, she's something of a hobbyist linguist and speaks a fair bit of Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish, but I did point that bit out a while ago when she started noticing all of the Saiyans were named after vegetables)

I haven't felt a need to start using the FUNimation terminology because he catches on pretty quickly to what I'm saying after he figures out what the equivalent is. I almost kind of feel like I'm converting him to a religion or something because I've explained once or twice why I prefer the series in Japanese and brought up that I like the actual voice acting more, just in terms of the performance. I got him to sit down and watch a few clips with me and, to my surprise, he actually liked Masako Nozawa's voice for Goku instead of the standard "Why does Goku sound like a little girl?" I was preparing for.

I'm kind of interested to see if I'm going to affect how he views the series, because he seems to like bringing it up often enough. Heck, while we were busy studying for a test on phylogeny, he blurted out, "So, would Cell be classified as an arthropod?" and I used that as a going off point to discuss the chitin shell that arthropods have. It's probably going to be a fun ride.

[Dayspring]

It's the same other franchises too. I know people who like Godzilla but they are not into the movies like I do since they don't know the whole history behind the films and the people who work on them. Most mecha anime fans I know only know about Gundam, Evagelion and recent stuff from the last few years. They don't seem to know about the classics like Mazinger Z and Getter Robo.

Pretty much this. I have a few friends who are nostalgic about the series in the same way people get nostalgic whenever something retro-cool happens and I recently discovered I have a friend who's trying to get back into the pre-Z portion of the manga. Aside from that, nobody I know cares. We're a niche portion of the fandom of an obsolete series which was a niche fandom to begin with. Sucks, but that's life.

[Bardo117]

Great example, last night I saw my friend on Facebook post a picture of DBZ Season 1 On Blu-Ray, and I commented with a picture of my DragonBoxes saying "These are the definitive version', and he said "This is way better cause it's Blu-Ray" , I then continued to laugh my ass off and didn't reply...

[Doctor.]

Neither have I. Most of my friends watched Dragon Ball when they were younger but just know the basics. I haven't really stopped and talked about Dragon Ball with someone besides when I was first getting into it a few years ago, thanks to a friend.

[samuraix123]

I absolutely love everything about Dragonball and learning the differences between all the different releases ect. I was actually just telling a friend this last night but I wish I could actually make some kinda career from the actual series itself.
It can be kinda embarrassing how much I try to learn about the series sometimes haha but with knowledge about it all comes annoying people who belive rumours online about Hoshi ect. I had a guy at Gamestop say ''did you know their making a new series over in japan with 200 new episodes'' So I tell him nicely no they're not and what you're seeing is something called Hoshi were they take clips from a game called Dragonball heroes and the guy flat out said ''you're wrong. i saw it.'' So I just say okay. sooooooo has anyone else seen the new 200 episodes yet? lol

also i'm writing this on a wii u...sorry for any mistakes.

[dougo13]

Being here is an interesting experience. But I used to do a lot of Yahoo Groups as well. Great for serious fans of various stripes. I also check out Tim Eldred's Yamato site from time to time (http://www.ourstarblazers.com/). He's got to be the biggest Yamato fan in North America. With his animation connections he gets to see everyone in Japan including going to Leiji Matsumoto's house for a visit/interview. I missed out on that 5 years ago after my Mom died. Would have capped my anime experience. Doesn't look like I'll be heading to Japan to see anyone anytime soon, nor doing anymore cons. I gave up on them after not being able to enjoy myself much at them anymore. I had been doing them from 1978 to 2000. That was enough...

Checked the Yamato site and came away with this Cosplay site in Japan. Some of this stuff might be of interest to parties here:

http://www.cospa.com/index.php?act=item ... ll&stock=0

[Tennessaiyan]

When I was in... Intermediate school, I think, there were a couple of guys I knew that were really into Dragonball. They brought their action figures to class and everything XD I didn't know anything about the show at the time, and they always argued over which character was the best: Goku or Vegeta. They asked me for my opinion, and I was like, "I don't even know what that is, but since you say Goku is the good guy, then I guess he is the best." Lol.

Kai is actually what got me into the series. Back in 2010, I just randomly started watching it just because I remembered those guys in my class loving it. Started at the namek saga, around the time Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan had just arrived. About three episodes in and I was hooked. Soon I was researching Dragonball lore, and learning everything there was to know. I finally knew why those guys liked Dragonball so much.

But I digress. I had a friend or two in College that liked Dragonball. And the TFS parody. Those were some awesome times.

[tx3]

Wow ..u guys are

Code: Select all

sad

[VegettoEX]

Wow ..u guys are sad

You've signed up for, and have posted several times on, an Internet discussion forum about a Japanese children's comic book and cartoon from 30 years ago.

Those in glass houses should not throw stones. You already have warnings on your account. Please decide what it is you're looking to accomplish here.

[Doctor.]

I'm lucky to find someone who knows that Piccolo's name isn't "Coraçãozinho de Satã", nevermind finding someone who knows as much about Dragon Ball as me.

[Bardo117]

Wow ..u guys are sad

You've signed up for, and have posted several times on, an Internet discussion forum about a Japanese children's comic book and cartoon from 30 years ago.

Those in glass houses should not throw stones. You already have warnings on your account. Please decide what it is you're looking to accomplish here.

But we are sad sad that we can't find anyone :,(

[tx3]

Wow ..u guys are sad

You've signed up for, and have posted several times on, an Internet discussion forum about a Japanese children's comic book and cartoon from 30 years ago.

Those in glass houses should not throw stones. You already have warnings on your account. Please decide what it is you're looking to accomplish here.

u must be the saddest one here, for feeling insulted by that

[MagicBox]

I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't feel insulted by someone entering a thread just to call them (and their discussion) pathetic.

Anyway, there's one guy at my work who went to see "Battle Of Gods," and we had a little chat about the whole "seven universes" thing, but that's about as far as his interest went. The only real-life person I know of who actually talks about all this super-duper nerdy Dragon Ball stuff is my fiancée, who often finds herself trapped in an anime discussion against her will.

[Quebaz]

I'm lucky to find someone who knows that Piccolo's name isn't "Coraçãozinho de Satã", nevermind finding someone who knows as much about Dragon Ball as me.

My experience has been the opposite actually, most of the people I know IRL (besides the older crowd) are more attached to Funimation's or the Brazillian names while I'm the odd one who still uses Space Warriors and "Coraçãozinho de Satã" out of habit . I guess the videogames and the (already re-aired to death) subtitled version of Kai have helped a bit, but damn it if it isn't odd hearing the younger crowd (basically our age and younger) use the Funimation names for both characters and attacks while some of the older crowd are either using the Japanese names or the Portuguese ones. It's defintely wierd and I really hope one day it gets standarized some way or another, until then, I'll still be using "Hércules" while Rukura teases me by saying he doesn't know who that is.

On-topic: I'll just basically say what anyone else has been saiyng at this point, we're a niche inside a niche basically, we'll probably find a lot of people who watched it at some point in their lives and make the most basic reference when you mention it, some others who are kinda more up-to-date with what's going on with the series as a whole but don't know all the details like we and so on. I introduced a friend of mine to the series last year showing him DBZ Movie 2 and for the rest of the year he managed to watch the pre-Z portion of the series and got his dad to watch the Z-era movies with him, said dad actually used to watch the series when he was younger so the Nostalgia blast hit him full force making him want to watch the entirity of Z with my friend. In comparison my best friend only likes seeing the TFS parody while thinking the actual series are kinda dull (still managed to get her to watch some of the Movies with me, so that's a plus).

[Bardo117]

Being perfectly honest, I don't think I'd know much about the series either had I never discovered this place...

[bleed0range]

I know a lot of people who claim to be big DBZ fans but I'm always the bigger geek about it. However, I've met pretty much no one in real life who loves the Japanese version as much as I do. I like both the dub and the Japanese verison as I kind of watched them simultaneously as I got into the series. I watched what was dubbed and then bought a bunch of fan subs to jump ahead in the series. So in a way, I've been exposed to both at the same time so I prefer neither over the other as they're both special to me.

[tx3]

I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't feel insulted by someone entering a thread just to call them (and their discussion) pathetic.

Anyway, there's one guy at my work who went to see "Battle Of Gods," and we had a little chat about the whole "seven universes" thing, but that's about as far as his interest went. The only real-life person I know of who actually talks about all this super-duper nerdy Dragon Ball stuff is my fiancée, who often finds herself trapped in an anime discussion against her will.

i am wrong here, anything which become an obsession is taking away the fun of a beloved thing ..step by step ..i wish i never meet a guy who is as u call it a "super nerd" it's just to much for my taste. I can understand why people love dragonball ..it's the best thing that came out of Japan, i like talking about it on the surface ..things like why the story of Broly is BS or why BoG was just a 6/10 or why Vegeta is the best Character ..something like that .also i would never call somebody pathetic thats to much. i find it only sad.

[KentalSSJ6]

Outside of online, I got 2-3 friends so and we're all into anime but I'm the Dragonball guy among us. They know what it is of course and have a basic understanding so they usually go by whatever I tell them.

That said, I did have a funny encounter at my local Disc Replay when I pointed to a friend that they had the all grey/silver Burger King DBZ figures for 3 bucks each. I pointed to Krillin and this random guy just chirps in "Does it explode on purchase?"

[VegettoEX]

I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't feel insulted by someone entering a thread just to call them (and their discussion) pathetic.

Anyway, there's one guy at my work who went to see "Battle Of Gods," and we had a little chat about the whole "seven universes" thing, but that's about as far as his interest went. The only real-life person I know of who actually talks about all this super-duper nerdy Dragon Ball stuff is my fiancée, who often finds herself trapped in an anime discussion against her will.

i am wrong here, anything which become an obsession is taking away the fun of a beloved thing ..step by step ..i wish i never meet a guy who is as u call it a "super nerd" it's just to much for my taste. I can understand why people love dragonball ..it's the best thing that came out of Japan, i like talking about it on the surface ..things like why the story of Broly is BS or why BoG was just a 6/10 or why Vegeta is the best Character ..something like that .also i would never call somebody pathetic thats to much. i find it only sad.

So... why are you here, exactly?

You're not above anyone else. Writing these kinds of responses, quite frankly, only reinforces the exact opposite. You're clearly threatened and embarrassed, yourself.

Don't come to a forum about a kid's cartoon from 30 years ago, talk about said series, and then go on to pretend you have something over someone else. You don't, and you're not fooling anyone.