The "peak" of your Dragon Ball fandom

[SPRSYJN]

Honestly, I'd say now is the peak of my fandom. New show, new movies, new games. Or maybe it was that time I tried to go Super Saiyan during elementary school in '98.

[Vegitofaxx]

Honestly, I'd say now is the peak of my fandom. New show, new movies, new games. Or maybe it was that time I tried to go Super Saiyan during elementary school in '98.

Let me guess, you crapped yourself?

[huzaifa_ahmed]

Honestly, I'd say now is the peak of my fandom. New show, new movies, new games. Or maybe it was that time I tried to go Super Saiyan during elementary school in '98.

For sure.

[Hellspawn28]

When I first became a fan back in the early 2000's sometime between 2000 and 2001. I was amazed on how much Dragon Ball stuff was at the time and I wanted to get my hands on anything that I can find. Just seeing all of these cool stuff like DBZ Movies 4-13 and GT before it came out in America was so cool as a kid at the time. Not to mention going to Japanese collector stores near by me and buying Japense toys and magazines was so cool. I would imagine kids these days won't have the same experience since you have the Internet and the 2007-2008 market crash did a big toll on collector stores across the country too. Not to mention everything 1986 - 1997 is pretty much been release here in America expect for a few things.

[Demon of Light]

My first peak was around 2004-2005. At the time I was watching the anime for the first time, so I was really hyped about it all. Though I didn't really participate in the fandom, I bought every Dragon Ball Z thing I could with my limited ability, and played Budokai 3 obsessively.

I think I'm at another peak right now. Strangely, it wasn't spurred by the influx of new movies and Super (though I'm definitely excited about those, even though I think they're all pretty stupid), but because of fan works. First stupidoomdoodles on Tumblr with her excellent artwork and hilarious headcanons, and more recently the abridged series. Leave it to parodies to remind me how much I love this franchise. But I'm the kind of person who considers the Buu Saga a favorite for its character humor, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

[goku the krump dancer]

Every year I like DB more and more so as of now I haven't reached my peak and I doubt I ever will.

Same here… Mind you I hardly ever watch or read it but its still my number one show.

[EXBadguy]

I'm up and down with this series. By the beginning of 2008, I lost interest in the series, but when Z Kai came around 2010, my love for the series has resurfaced. Currently, I'm losing interest again cuz of the new material, it's just stupid IMO(with the exception of Xenoverse). What would really regained my interest is either a rebooted Dragon Ball(if done right) or a series 100 years after Z, a new world.

Even though I'm currently at my peak, this series is the only series I still love, while the rest of the anime series I either stopped liking or are stupid as hell and have the same patterns(cry, person saves the world, fanservice scenes). I stopped liking anime like a year ago. Even One Piece I lost interest a couple weeks ago.

[Quebaz]

First peak was definitely when I got into the series until the big wave of the PS2 games ended, so that would be 2002-2007, back then I still had the series to completely watch, all these video games with tons of new features every installment to play, friends in my school were into it thanks to the sudden wave of DVDs and reruns during prime-time, all was good. From 2007 onwards, I still liked the series of course, but I had pretty much seen all of it and the video games started to get samey by that point as well, me and my friends also moved on to other Anime, so there was less and less occasions for us to geek out about DB stuff.

Come 2013 and I'm old enough to buy merchandise on the Internet and to travel across the country on my own, so there was an interest in doing some of that, not only that, but Battle of Gods appeared out of nowhere, and this wasn't a single special that was included in a video game that only the fans knew about, no, it was fucking everywhere with a lot of hype both pre and post-release so it A) Made me do a full rewatch of the series this time with all the new specials and BoG, B) Ressurged the interest in a lot of friends of mine and/or local people so there was always someone to talk about DB, that's also the period of time when I started to hang out in the forums more.

That's when my second and current peak started, right now I'm "super" hyped for both Fukkatsu no F and Super (specially Super), Xenoverse is doing something new and fresh with the videogames so there's that to be excited as well, and meeting fellow DB fans and being able to go to conventions to geek out more DB stuff is something that I always wanted to do, so on that end, YES! I can say that starting from 2013 until now (and hopefully stays this way until Super ends) has been one of the best times to be a DB fan.

[Shiyonasan]

I'd say my peak was from 1999 (when I became a fan of the series) to probably 2012. Becoming a fan, having the three original anime and their movies and specials air on Toonami, buying the video games from Budokai 1 through Infinite World, and joining this forum were what kept my Dragon Ball fandom at its peak during those years. In 2011, I joined and started being active on another forum, which drew my attention and some of that excitement away from Dragon Ball.

Although I still do love the series, I don't love it as much as I used to. Battle of Gods was great, but not enough to bring that excitement for the series back. Not sure if Resurrection F would do the same. However, Dragon Ball Super sounds very interesting. As for whether it'll bring back that same love for the series in me remains to be seen.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I have always loved Dragon Ball but I do have one major Turning Point.

I watched the final episode of Dragon Ball (Not GT, the First Series Anime) with all my siblings(1 Brother and 2 sisters), we were all major fans. Even the girls lol.(I have always loved my sisters dearly but I love that they dont look down on anime or Western Animation). But that night we all wondered if we would ever get to see Z and beyond. We were very close and very much in love with Dragon Ball but we all lost interest. Sure me and my brother watched Z, GT Kai (My sisters didnt stop watching because it was for boys or that they looked down on anime, they just were really focused on their studies/Work and didnt have time anymore.) but those days of being so into DB were gone.

My sisters still watch some EPs of Sailor Moon with me for old times sake. And One Piece, they adore One Piece. I love them so much.

[Kunzait_83]

Kanzenshuu: The Perfect Dragon Ball Database and Community!

This isn't your sarcastic comment dumping ground. If you're not interested in contributing to the conversation, why are you even bothering to respond? Not everyone entered the series at the same point and with the same context as you.

They asked a valid question and would be incredibly well-served with a great answer, from you or someone else.

I'm batting a hundred this week.

Someone earlier was already kind enough to copy/paste part of the Wikipedia entry on wuxia taking care of your last sentence, so I'll just offer a humble and sincere apology and move right along.

[Dyno]

The "peak" happened when I was watching the whole series. After watching everything I could, the "peak" was decreasing and it came back by the year of 2010, with Dragon Ball Online and Dragon Ball Heroes, it was also the time I first heard of Kanzenshuu. So I could say that year was the peak and my reintegration to the Dragon Ball fandom.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

I started knowing Dragon Ball when Nicktoons aired Dragon Ball Z Kai. The peak of my Dragon Ball fandom was 1 year ago when Dragon Ball Battle of Gods was coming out in America and the Blu-Ray sets were getting released. I was so excited, I bought all of the manga on VizBig (The only way I own the series.) It was so exciting to see new material for Dragon Ball and I was so hyped. It seemed perfect to have Goku getting Super Saiyan God and end Dragon Ball on a high note. I obviously made a Kanzenshuu account during this time and I was browsing the Battle of God forums non-stop. It seemed like Heaven!

In all honesty, I am starting to lose interest in Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball Z Kai 2.0 is a horrible mess and it should have been a lot better even though I am still supporting it. Hopefully Funimation does something about Kai.

Dragon Ball Resurrection of F was kind of boring...Freeza getting revived sounded kind of stupid and they should have never had Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan and some of the choices in that movie are horrible. I rarely go on this forum on Kanzenshuu. Battle of Gods seemed to have a lot more inspiration.

Dragon Ball Super has no information at all and Toei did nothing to make it grand and celebratory . I found out about it by Anime News Network... Seriously Toei

Xenoverse looks good, but I haven't bought it yet because I am still debating if I should buy it on PS4 or Steam and it is really expensive. Usually the lowest price I see for it is usually $50.
Dragon Ball Extreme Budoten looks interesting and I hope it gets released here.

In all honesty, the best thing about Dragon Ball recently which sounds extremely stupid is Dragon Ball Z Kai on Toonami and Jaco The Galactic Patrolman...

[Jackal puFF]

Man I feel like my peak will never stop growing.. Actually I feel like it has reached a peak now with the new movies and Xenoverse out. When I saw an announcement for a new dragonball show. I was just like ok.. Instead of, WHAT?!

It's a lot to take in I guess.

[Hellspawn28]

Some of these post make me feel old. When I first join the DB fandom, a lot of fans on the web where already fans for at least decade or since 1996. I remember you had a lot of fans that where fans during the bootleg VHS days. The dbz fans watching Toonami where just the newbie fans to them. Now those fans hardly exist now.

[Akira]

Some of these post make me feel old. When I first join the DB fandom, a lot of fans on the web where already fans for at least decade or since 1996. I remember you had a lot of fans that where fans during the bootleg VHS days. The dbz fans watching Toonami where just the newbie fans to them. Now those fans hardly exist now.

Yeah, I was a bootleg VHS guy. Saw the first 13 episodes dubbed at the oddball time slot of 2pm on network tv back in 1995 and loved it (I was 14 at the time). I wanted to see what happened next, but they just reran the same 13 episodes 3 times then took it off the air. I wanted to see Goku go train with that old turtle master who powered up and blew up a mountain so bad. The internet wasn't a thing yet really, you had dial up services like prodigy, compuserve and AOL, but it wasn't anything like today. In 1996 I met a friend in high school who had a friend who knew a guy who supposedly had fansubs of what came next. Lots of packs of blank VHS tapes and some bartering and coercing later, and I got to see Goku meet Krillin and their training with Roshi. Those are still some of my favorite episodes because I worked so hard to get my hands on them. You had to go to specialty shops to find some of them, and then everyone traded and copied each other's tapes to expand their own collections. It was rough being a fan back then, as everything was so hard to come by.

You never had complete arcs, just a lot of tapes of key episodes. So there were a lot of messed up assumptions made back then. I remember watching some Cell games stuff with a guy, but his tapes weren't fan subbed, just raw Japanese. He said when Future Trunks was killed, he couldn't be wished back because he was from an alternate timeline. We didn't have anything after the Kamehameha battle between Gohan and Cell, so we didn't know any different that he was pulling that out of his rear. He even thought that Mr. Satan was Nappa wished back to life, but he was too weak to help against Cell. We were so excited to see the Cell games, the guy brought the tape to school and it was all grainy and crap on that little tube tv in the study lounge. He was the first one to have anything past the android arc. I remember pointing out the King noticing Piccolo on TV. Some of them hadn't seen the Piccolo Daimao arc, as I was the one who had those tapes, so they didn't catch the reference there. One guy claimed that there was a new movie out in Japan where Goku and Vegeta go to hell to fight the Devil (Janemba), we were all in awe of such a notion. (That was also around the time those Vegetto is more Vegeta and Gogeta is more Goku myths started. Yes, that stuff didn't start with the internet, it started as fansub fan word of mouth.)

I hadn't thought about that in years, how hard it was to get stuff back then. We had it rough, but that was half the fun, obtaining some part or movie that no one else had seen yet. Then came the dub moving to cartoon network, where it gained traction. A whole new wave of fans came in with the new millennium. I enjoyed that, as I was seen as some sort of Dragonball guru by the newbie fans of the day. That was probably my peak, answering questions of fans who only knew Z. "Why does Kami die if Piccolo dies?" "Does Vegeta ever become a Super Saiyan?" "Who is the guy with the purple hair and sword?" I heard them all, and took my time to answer. Friends and younger cousins all plied me with questions around that time. I enjoyed talking about it, and slowly replacing my VHS with bi-lingual DVDs.

Then the dub ran its course, and many of those fans moved on to other shonen anime. I tried to give those a shot, but I just couldn't get into them like I did with Dragonball. Age was probably a factor by that point. I dwindled a while on some shows geared at my then college age days, like Cowboy Bebop and movies like Vampire Hunter D and Akira (Which is what I chose my screen name after originally, contrary to the popular belief that it is after Mr. Toriyama's first name) After that, my interest in Dragonball declined, but I still visited this site from time to time over the years when interest in various related games and such would catch my attention.

2008's Yo Son Goku and Friends Return sparked my interest, and reminded me of the series I'd loved when I was younger. Then Battle of Gods came along and really invoked a revived fan in me. I'm really excited for Revival of F, and after that, the Dragonball Super series. Will it be like the old days all over again? Probably not, but in a year when the X-files is returning to TV for a revival season, a new Star Wars movie following 30 years after episode VI, and even Lupin III is getting a new series (Blue Jacket this time), it sure feels like so many of the things I loved as a kid and teenager are coming back to the forefront of entertainment.

Now, there will be a whole new generation of fans. Those of you who came into Dragonball with the Z dub and looked to us old fansub viewers of the original DB for backstory will now fill the role I filled then. Like Master Roshi purposely stepping out of the ring at the 22nd Budokai to make room for Tenshinhan and Goku to shine, I hop out of the ring to let you fans who are now in your 20's fill that role. You will be the gurus to the younger fans of Super seeking to know what came before it and how it all ties together. I will become a background fan, watching the new stuff when I can, and watching the younger generation (possibly my young nephew) get into the new series and hopefully enjoy the same characters I did when I was young. You can't go back and relive the early excitement, but you can be there to watch someone else hit their "peak". That's a different type of enjoyment, but yet still a great place to be. With Toriyama at the helm for a change (as opposed to Toei writers for Z movies and GT), I think we'll make out just fine with the new stuff.

[fadeddreams5]

I still have some of those bootleg VHS tapes. The subs on them had so many curse words, me and my sister thought that was really the original script, and things were just censored in the US. I remember buying them and imported Japanese DBZ action figures whenever I went out with my mom to buy clothes. Always the highlight of my day.

Late '90s-2000s was definitely my peak. I was absolutely obsessed. I remember crying one day because they were not airing DBZ, and instead aired a Batman: TAS movie. I enjoyed DB dubbed too, though it was admittedly a bit boring at times. My obsession declined with the Buu saga, but I still always considered SSJ3 Goku the coolest thing ever when I was little.

I still love the franchise, and have been thoroughly enjoying watching Kai dubbed, but these new movies and specials are definitely not what I grew up with or came to love. Too much, idk, fluff, lame transformations, and light-heartedness. I was reminded of that when I watched Kai the other day and saw the scene where Vegeta mercilessly slaughters a Namekian village in cold blood. You will NOT see something like that nowadays. It's completely lost its edge. I don't expect Super to be any different either, unfortunately.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

This damn site back in... 2011, yes. I needed a digital place to go early in college while still finding the friends-I-had-yet-to-make (and I found them, there is a happy ending to this story!), remembered stumbling upon DaizEx a couple times in 2010, found the forum was hospitable as heck, and after a little immersion went from one who watched the three series with the Toonami dub and picked up a couple video games to superfan. I enjoyed Dragon Ball more in recent years than its original run!

The dbz fans watching Toonami where just the newbie fans to them. Now those fans hardly exist now.

And its in era I touched on in places but largely sure-as-hell glad I missed.

[TheGreatness25]

I've had peaks and valleys with the series. When I first discovered it in 1994 I was okay with it. Then in 1998, my fandom was full force. And it just kept going until... I wanna say 2003, when they started airing GT. My interest started to take a bit of a dip (not because of GT, just in general). When they did the Ultimate Uncut I was kind of curious, but again, I was still pretty cold to it. Then in 2007-2008, for some unknown reason, I got really into it again. I guess the release of the "Orange Bricks" has sparked up my interest to get the series "the way it was meant to be seen," and FYI, I don't mean the "Orange Bricks" either.

I'd say probably 1999-2002 was my "OMFGGGG I NEED TO WATCH IT!!!!!!" period.

[tienfan]

Probably 3 years ago. I am not so much into it as I once was, but now mostly because I grew a taste for reading manga (which eventually made me buy all the original Dragon Ball manga) my interest sparked once again.