DragonBall: Where we started

[JamesDarcon2007]

[quote="Mika"]I was watching Dexter's Laboratory on Cartoon Network when I saw an advert for some new show called "Dragon Ball Z" I had an interest in anime anyway and anime on TV was scarce at the time so I figured I would watch out for these ads and soon enough they gave us an airing date for the first episode. I've been following it since then. It was the first time DBZ had been aired in the UK so I guess this would have been either 1999 or 2000, I forget when it premiered, but I know I was in my last year of Secondary School at the time I have been obssessed since, haha! XD

Still haven't seen much of the Dragon Ball anime They started to air it when I started University and I could rarely get home in time to see it.[/quote]

This is nearly identcal to how I got into it. I saw a commercial for it while watching other shows on Toonami. Me and my friends were already heavily into anime, I already two PatLabor movies, the Streetfighter Anime, all the Fatal Fury movies, Ninja scroll... and others.. So an ongoing anime series, besides Sailor Moon was a breath of fresh air! Espcecially since I was into martial arts.. So seeing a cartoon where they fought most of the time was really neat to see especially every afternoon after school then go to Tae Kwon Do... You see where I'm going with this? Anyway to make an insanely long story as short as possible, I became an instant fan and got the whole thing on tape, and am now working on the "Uncut" editions being rereleased. I love the series all the way up until the Buu saga at which point you REALLY see the obvious repetivness of the entire series... Pre fight against bad guy(s) then really bad guys, good guy(s), Good guys having trained to an new level kill bad guy(s), mix different scenarios in between fights and talky-talky... Repeat. Repeat. I'm not complaining, but by the Buu series it became blatantly obvious and kind of ridiculous ... Let's have a character that seemingly CAN'T be killed just so Goku can reach new level of Super Saiyan and then kill him... Okay I've went on long enough! In fact I was going into another direction which could be put in another thread... later.

[djkalteraphine]

I love the series all the way up until the Buu saga at which point you REALLY see the obvious repetivness of the entire series... Pre fight against bad guy(s) then really bad guys, good guy(s), Good guys having trained to an new level kill bad guy(s), mix different scenarios in between fights and talky-talky... Repeat. Repeat. I'm not complaining, but by the Buu series it became blatantly obvious and kind of ridiculous ... Let's have a character that seemingly CAN'T be killed just so Goku can reach new level of Super Saiyan and then kill him... Okay I've went on long enough! In fact I was going into another direction which could be put in another thread... later.

I love the Buu stuff to death, but sometimes I wonder. . . What sorta comic would it have become if not for the editors breathing down Toriyama-sensei's neck? "The Adventures of The Great Saiyaman!" Holy crap, best idea ever.

Err. . . Excuse me getting off topic. Resume.

[Rory]

And resume I shall!
I remember the first time I watched Dragonball Z.
I saw an advert for it on Cartoon Network, and it looked hella badass.
I watched the first episode of Z when it aired, and I was instantly hooked. Dispite me not knowing any stuff like why Piccolo seemed to hate Goku, 'cause Z aired before Dragonball, what an annoying way to start things off!

Anyway, yeah, After watching a few episodes, I started telling my friends at primary school about it, who were still hooked on Pokemon. I got a few of them into it slightly, but not on the scale of how much I loved (and still love) it.
I was one'o those fans who didn't want ANY spoilers, I liked the tension of the end of the episode, wondering what was going to happen next, which I why I always switched it over REALLY quick at the " On the next episode of Dragonball Z!! " segment.
Because of this, I enjoyed the series much more, the first time Goku's hair turned golden (I was really attatched to all the characters at this point), I was like " Whoa!! What the hell?! I don't know what just happened, but this shit is AWESOME! ". That feeling will stay with me forever .
I was always super geeky watching Dragonball, always really tense while a dramatic battle, praying that Gohan could hold his own against Cell, or wondering if Goku's strange new golden powers could give him a chance to beat Freeza. I shed a few tears (Hiding it of course) when Vegeta was killed by Freeza , I felt all warm and fuzzy Goku was able to defeat Buu, and give the thumbs up.
And thats what Dragonball is to me, its not just a series, its a great memory.
Of course, thinking the series was finished, forever, I look onto the internet, not caring about spoiling anything. Thats when I found about " GT ", again, I didn't click it, not wanting to spoil anything. Suprisingly, not long after that, an advert for GT aired on Toonami, and I was there on the day the first episode aired.. meh, I wasn't impressed. All I could say was " Well.. this is cute an' all I guess.. but it just doesn't compare to Z.. "

Somwhere in between, I found Daizex . 'Nuff said.

[Swift]

Right before DBZ first aired on Toonami, one of my two older brothers suggested me watching it. It looked cool, so I decided to check it out. Without really having any idea what I was getting into, I started on the second episode (missed the first, I don't remember why) and became hooked. I loved the series, and watched the first two seasons countless times. I somehow managed to pick up all the important plot points along the way, like how the existance of Piccolo, Kami, and the Dragonballs were all linked.

During my first viewing of it, I realized I had actually seen a certain episode once before on Fox with my brothers; it was the one where the two "Namekians" during the Fake Namek saga revealed their true identity. The episode... hadn't impressed us, so we dismissed it, forgot about it, and didn't realize we were watching the same show on Toonami later.

Eventually, tired of waiting for season 3, my older brothers got Anime Labs fansubs of the Freeza saga. We missed out on the rest of the Ginyu saga, though. I thought it was awesome, and preferred the Japanese version from then on. I somehow remained ignorant of how bad the, erm, language was in the subs; I guess I was too young to really know what the words meant.

After we finished the Freeza saga fansubs, I continued to watch the show on Toonami up to the end of the Cell Games to see how the series progressed. I greatly disliked the new dub at this point (especially the music and changed dialogue; the voices were okay sometimes) and would've watched the Japanese version if possible. I also ended up watching the original DB as well during this point, which had a much more tolerable dub with the original Japanese music.

I grew impatient waiting for the Buu saga, so my brothers suggested reading scanlations of it instead. I then watched it all on Toonami after reading the scanlations just to see how it was animated.

Sometime during (or after? I can't remember) all this, I stopped watching the original Dragonball at the beginning of the Daimaô arc. I don't really know why. To this day, I still haven't seen the Daimaô arc, and I look forward to getting the DVDs of it eventually and seeing it in Japanese.

I also collected some of the manga along the way. I had a long period of disinterest in Dragonball, but that ended after one of my brothers introduced me to Daizenshuu EX, which he had just discovered (he had been to the original Vegetto EX's Home Page long ago). I've since started to collect more DVDs and manga (almost have all the Android/Cell arc now on DVD, and almost all the Buu arc manga). And that's where I am now.

[John]

I was jumping on my trampoline in my back yard and my brother starts screaming this crap at me. He yelled, "John!! John!! Goku just turned into a SUPER SAIYAN!" I tilted my head slightly to the left, making my eyebrows do that "confused" thing on my face. I then said, "Who the hell is Goku?!" Boy was I surprised. He dragged me to the TV and showed me. It was the episode where Kuririn got killed by Freeza. A truly moving moment, even with such a cheesy English dub. I quickly socked my brother in the face and told him never to show me that garbage again.

...but I kept thinking about it. The shiny blonde hair, the big muscles, the screaming, the fighting. I needed more.

I went down to Suncoast and bought two tapes worth of uncut English DBZ. I watched them over and over and over again.

I then realized that I punched my stupid brother in the face for no reason. I said, "Billy, I'm sorry. It turns out I love Dragonball Z." Then he showed me Pokemon.

just kidding.

[ect5150]

It was in the summer of 1988 and I was living in Okinawa, Japan with my dad at the time. I was 6 at the time, so I might be the oldest (24) on here.

You're not the oldest then .

I got hooked into it when a buddy of mine had a Japanese exchange student live with him from Japan. I didn't see the show as much as I played the old Super Famicom game Dragon Ball Z - Super Butouden 2. I thought it was cool in the 'fireballs' actually filled up the screen. And thought it was funny as hell when they screamed 'Kamehame-Ha'... it just sounded funny.

A few years down the road, another buddy was reading the manga, and I realized it was the same stuff. I asked him about it and he said he had a few of the movies (we are talking sometime in '94 now I believe)... neither of the movies had subtitles, but I thought they both rocked (they were the Coola movies). Afterwards, I got ahold of several VHS tapes from a few people online back in the day.

Ever since I've watched it roughly on TV, but I only bought the DVDs when they finally released the original Japanese audio with them, as that was how I was first exposed to it.

[MrSatan2099]

Hello guys, this my first post. I've been an avid visitor to Daizenshuu EX for about two years now, and I've been a podcast listener since it started. I'm finally getting around to joining the message board fray.

I first rememebr seeing Dragonball Z in 1998 when it was in syndication on my local FOX affiliate. I had a passing interest, but at the time I didn't really get into it. Later on I would see it playing on Toonami and thats when I really started to watch it. I remember very clearly coming home one afternoon and finding out that all my ususal old school Toonami favorites (Voltron and Robotech) were pushed aside for a week because of a four episode (or maybe just 2.. I don't recall exactly) block of DBZ every day. So I watched it, being somewhat familiar but still knowing next to nothing I was very confused. Looking back now I know that they were from the first american season, during the battle with the Saiyans, to be specific the fight between Piccolo, Son Gohan, Kuririn, and Nappa. I was on the edge my seat despite the confussion. I was very concerned as to when Son Goku, or "This kid's dad that he keeps talking about" as I thought at the time, would arrive.

As a matter of fact, I went along time without seeing what happened when the kid's dad arrived. I somehow didn't catch any episodes on after that, and I didn't watch it agin at all until the summer of 1999. I had just moved to a new state, and one night I saw that my older brother was sitting up watching DBZ. It was on Toonami's old late night Saturday block ( I think it was called midnight run, but if I rememebr correctly this was before the weekday version started.. anyone else remember this?), and it was the episode where Son Goku and Raditz are both killed. Still very confused, my brother had to explain to me what was going on, I was hooked from that moment on.

I remained a pretty die hard dub fan for a couple of years or so after that. I didn't really get to see any of the series in its original form until I was in the 8th grade and a friend of a friend showed me a fansub copy of movie 12. Then when I got into to High school I finnaly started to get some of the DVD releases. Christmas my freshman year, my folks got me and my kid brother Movies 7 (which was the second most recent one out at the time if I remember correctly.) 5,3,2,1, and the two televison specials. From then on (that was 2003 I guess) I was a sub fan all the way. However, despite the dubs failings (and there are quite a few.. even when I was kid my friends and I were shocked to hear the name Hercule, after the name Mr. Satan became sort of infamous as something we couldn't wait to hear after having read about it on planetnamek.com) It still holds a certain place in my heart as a fond childhood memory.

I'm looking forward to posting a lot more, and I'm very happy to be on the team. Thanks guys.

[djkalteraphine]

It was on Toonami's old late night Saturday block ( I think it was called midnight run, but if I rememebr correctly this was before the weekday version started.. anyone else remember this?)

Pretty well, actually. Yeah, it was called Midnight run. Saturdays from 12 to 4 if I remember correctly. I used to watch it for the Ronin Warrior reruns, and 'cause I've always been a night owl.