Your Fandom X Years Later

[VegettoEX]

I was a teenager at the time. Get off my lawn, etc...

Don't play the age game with me...!

So my fandom has gone in phases. When I first got into it in 1996, everything was just: discover -> consume -> repeat. It was everything from the show to the manga to the games to the music to the merchandise and everything in between. I didn't know what anything was, and I didn't know what I didn't know, so the goal was just to GET. IT. ALL.

That changed when I started my website in 1998. It was the beginning of... I guess we'll call the the "catagorization" of my fandom. OK, the music fits into this pocket. The anime fits over here. Oh, and the manga is like this. Putting things into categories/sections/compartments helped me understand how it all fit together. It wasn't just a series anymore; it was something bigger.

FUNimation's transition in 1999 really sidelined all of that for me. It was an awful time for the production of the franchise here in North America, and it was an awful time for those of us online. No-one was happy with anything or each other. The unhappiness took a toll on all of us and sidelined any progress that was being made. Everything was bad. Our attitudes were bad. The production of the show itself was bad. Our own output was bad. Everything was just bad.

It took the Z dub ending for it to recover for myself, but I truly believe everyone else. It was at that point that I really started seeing who else wanted to be in it for the long haul and how we could change our attitudes. It still took me some time to come around myself, but the amount of work Julian and I really started doing from scratch (having just abolished pretty much all the garbage from the site before that time) gave us a fresh start.

And for a while I was kinda interested in doing in-universe stuff. There was the transformation guide, which was one of the first guides we put up with the relaunch in 2003. I loved that thing. It was pretty decently researched and exhaustively-comprehensive (for the time; little did we know what was on the horizon!).

But as Julian became more interested in the production side of things, so did I. Started with song lyric retranslations, and the music database, and onward from there. I had seen the show. I had read the manga. I had consumed it all. It was over. So what was left? That behind-the-scenes stuff. The stuff that gives you a better understanding of what you're consuming, and gives you a reason to go back to it again with a fresh set of eyes.

And that's how I operate now. I'm in the discover -> consume -> repeat cycle all over again, but it's with the historical material behind the show. All these old interviews, Q&As, write-ups... that's the stuff I love right now, and it really does give me a reason to re-read/re-watch and see where these people were coming from.

So I dunno. The more things change, the more they stay the same...?

[z_cherub]

I was a teenager at the time. Get off my lawn, etc...

Don't play the age game with me...!

So my fandom has gone in phases. When I first got into it in 1996, everything was just: discover -> consume -> repeat. It was everything from the show to the manga to the games to the music to the merchandise and everything in between. I didn't know what anything was, and I didn't know what I didn't know, so the goal was just to GET. IT. ALL.

That changed when I started my website in 1998. It was the beginning of... I guess we'll call the the "catagorization" of my fandom. OK, the music fits into this pocket. The anime fits over here. Oh, and the manga is like this. Putting things into categories/sections/compartments helped me understand how it all fit together. It wasn't just a series anymore; it was something bigger.

FUNimation's transition in 1999 really sidelined all of that for me. It was an awful time for the production of the franchise here in North America, and it was an awful time for those of us online. No-one was happy with anything or each other. The unhappiness took a toll on all of us and sidelined any progress that was being made. Everything was bad. Our attitudes were bad. The production of the show itself was bad. Our own output was bad. Everything was just bad.

It took the Z dub ending for it to recover for myself, but I truly believe everyone else. It was at that point that I really started seeing who else wanted to be in it for the long haul and how we could change our attitudes. It still took me some time to come around myself, but the amount of work Julian and I really started doing from scratch (having just abolished pretty much all the garbage from the site before that time) gave us a fresh start.

And for a while I was kinda interested in doing in-universe stuff. There was the transformation guide, which was one of the first guides we put up with the relaunch in 2003. I loved that thing. It was pretty decently researched and exhaustively-comprehensive (for the time; little did we know what was on the horizon!).

But as Julian became more interested in the production side of things, so did I. Started with song lyric retranslations, and the music database, and onward from there. I had seen the show. I had read the manga. I had consumed it all. It was over. So what was left? That behind-the-scenes stuff. The stuff that gives you a better understanding of what you're consuming, and gives you a reason to go back to it again with a fresh set of eyes.

And that's how I operate now. I'm in the discover -> consume -> repeat cycle all over again, but it's with the historical material behind the show. All these old interviews, Q&As, write-ups... that's the stuff I love right now, and it really does give me a reason to re-read/re-watch and see where these people were coming from.

So I dunno. The more things change, the more they stay the same...?

Nice - i recall the consume EVERYTHING stage. I have DBZ stickers and decks of playing cards from China from that phase, lol.

I missed the whole dub phase as I never got past the Ocean dub and was fan-sub only by that point.

I do recall being disgusted every time I saw a 5 minute clip of the Funi dub on TV, though. In retrospect, I can now see that, while objectively awful as a dub, it served the purpose of broadening the fan base, and gave us an opportunity to enjoy more games and now Super.

[Hellspawn28]

Seems like most of you weren't old enough to actually recall watching the events of 9/11 as you were toddlers

People who are born in 2000-2003 are now old enough to post on this forum . So a 10 year old who saw Kai on Nick Toons in 2010 or 2011 can now become a member of this forum and is now in High School. Funny how fast life can go now these days.

[Dbzfan94]

Fan since 2002, when i was 7.
Ultra super hardcore fan since august 2015, when i was 19, and watched it ALL in japanese and read the manga.
Everything in between doesn't matter, only the fact that i ascended to the top does.

You're not higher than everyone else. Quit it with the holier than thou attitude

Anyway on topic I started in 2002/2003 with the early Buu Saga. Around 2005 I kinda dropped off for a bit but like others have said when the Orange/Blue Bricks came out and I was finally able to see the series in order from the beginning I got into it more than before. Now here I am almost 13 years later

I'm joking, man, holy shit.
You like the dub, i get it, do you feel the need to attack me every time?

My bad then.
But do you have to feel the need to bash the dub in every single conversation? Joking or not.

In all seriousness, I know I'm known as the dub fan on here but I don't blindly defend it. I know it's pretty bad (Season 3) but it's mainly a nostalgia attachment now. I've been trying to buy Kai recently. And with Super I've grown to really like and appreciate the sub too

[z_cherub]

Seems like most of you weren't old enough to actually recall watching the events of 9/11 as you were toddlers

People who are born in 2000-2003 are now old enough to post on this forum . So a 10 year old who saw Kai on Nick Toons in 2010 or 2011 can now become a member of this forum and is now in High School. Funny how fast life can go now these days.

No kidding. I saw a sign in a bar the other day that said that you must have been born on this date in 1995 to drink. Gut reaction was "people under 10 can drink?!", then a quick math check made me sad, lol

[Gyt Kaliba]

I was a teenager at the time. Get off my lawn, etc...

Don't play the age game with me...!

Not gonna lie, it's you guys who pre-date and out-age me that keeps me from feeling too old. (Though seriously though, I'm already too close to 30 for my own liking...quick, someone tell me how to more properly adult!)

Things have definitely changed for me as a fan since first getting into the franchise. When I first got into the series, we were only just starting to get into the Androids material on Toonami. And while I certainly didn't have access to actually seeing beyond that with my own eyes at the time (living in the absolute middle of nowhere didn't work in my favor for actual fansubs, and the only internet available at the time was dial-up, so yeah), I did look for and consume absolutely every piece of information on the series that I could. My main website of choice back then was Planet Namek, since it seemed to have synopses for like everything I could have ever wanted, including the movies, which at the time seemed unlikely we were going to get any more beyond the third film. I probably also hit up Daizenshuu EX a few times back in the day too, but I honestly can't remember for sure. I must have at least once, surely, but I just don't have any memories of it at any rate.

Granted, this would have also been back when I was pretty much purely a dub fan, and my interest in the Japanese version was chiefly in the vein of 'it's material we don't have here yet', so...yeah. But eh, we live, we learn!

My other main source of information back in the day was easily one of Pojo's unauthorized guides to the franchise. I literally read that thing so many times that it fell apart. I know this for a fact because I still have it, somewhere, in storage, literally each page separate at this point. It was a nice handy guide for me to check in with when I didn't have access to a computer at a moment, and with it, I managed to know all about how GT ended even while Trunks was first showing up on TV here. It was a great time to be a fan learning anything and everything I could, even if it wasn't always 100% right.

Beyond that though, I eventually learned to appreciate the original Japanese version as well, and even then came to love it all the more through both versions. Getting into that mind set allowed me to check out sources and people with a more authoritative knowledge than my own, which really helped me check my ego at the door. There was a time in my youth, I'm ashamed to say, where I did sort of consider myself to be one of the most knowledgeable fans around. And, as far as the local places I'd talk to people in person about it, like at school, I sort of was. But going outside my little po-dunk town, I was sorely outclassed...and nowadays, I actually kind of like that fact, if that makes any sense. Not only does it allow me to still learn from others, it allows me to just relax on the sidelines and enjoy the series for what it is too. I think I'm in the best mindset possible for this new wave of material we've been getting in the past so many years, that I could possibly be. And I'm loving every minute of it as a result, both the good and the bad of said new material.

[Kunzait_83]

I was a teenager at the time. Get off my lawn, etc...

Don't play the age game with me...!

Nor me for that matter. Dragon Ball's been with me since 1992. Anime since 1989. Every single Toonami brat on here who hails from the late 90s/early 2000s and continues bellyaching constantly about how "old" they're feeling are all lucky I'm not actually there in person next to them to slap them upside the head.

Most people here, on average, are still only in their 20s and have only known about and been invested in anime for a little over 15 years at most. I'm now well over 27 years into it with all this (putting me at least a solid decade ahead of the lot of you) and am also now in my 30s: most of you are all still babies so far as I'm concerned.

And there's plenty of people out there also who came WAY the hell long before even ME as well, because I'm DAMN sure not a part of the oldest or first ever generation of U.S. anime fans by any remote stretch of the imagination. If you people all qualify as "old", then what the fuck are people like Robert Woodhead or Fred Patton supposed to say? Or the now late, dearly departed Toren Smith?

Threads like this remind me that I still should probably actually finish that "history/deconstruction" of anime/DB fandom across the last 25+ years or so. Most of what I would probably say in a thread like this probably belongs more in there.

But suffice to say that my time just on this site alone has made me think about and realize a TON about my own fandom for Dragon Ball and anime as a whole, and about the nature of my relationship with all this stuff. There's a FUCKLOAD there for me to unpack, but it's gonna require my opening up on a LOT of personal details about myself as well as really yanking the leash off of my overall unflattering views towards and criticisms about the late 90s/early 2000s generation that largely populate this fanbase still. It ain't gonna be pretty (and lord only knows I've been trying my damnedest to keep it from delving too far into "get off my lawn" territory), but it'll hopefully open up an entirely different perspective on a lot of this stuff that I've largely stopped seeing represented in many corners anymore since at least a decade ago or thereabouts.

[Bansho64]

Geez, you guys are really commited to be fans of the series longer than 20 years. 10 years is an accomplishment itself let alone 20! Crap, y'all got me beat by a mile. I actually kinda wanna hear your views about the 2000s and 2010s generation and fanbase Kunzait. We're not all bad

[Gyt Kaliba]

Most people here, on average, are still only in their 20s and have only known about and been invested in anime for a little over 15 years at most. I'm now well over 27 years into it with all this (putting me at least a solid decade ahead of the lot of you) and am also now in my 30s: most of you are all still babies so far as I'm concerned.

I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but in a certain light, you do realize that can come off as pretty condescending, right? Sure, those of us from the "Toonami brat" generation as you call it, might not have been around nearly as long as a lot of other fans, but that's still a pretty good long time with the franchise. Certainly long enough for one to have come quite a long way with the franchise if they've stuck with it all the way through, since as VegettoEX highlighted in his own post, that was a pretty tempestuous time for the franchise in the US - we were both finally getting a lot of the material here, legally, for the first time, while also dealing with material that wasn't nearly as faithful to the original version as it could, and should, have been. It was an interesting time period to be a new fan, because the show was equally 'new' and 'old hat' at the same time, versus now where it's pretty much all 'old hat', barring the newest material from recent years - it's becoming exceedingly rare to find fans who are actually coming to the franchise for the very first time nowadays, or at least any that are aren't nearly as vocal about it for whatever reason.

Again, not trying to disrespect the long history of fans that pre-date that era, but that era of fans is hardly some group of 'upstart kids' that can be immediately discounted just because they happened to come a little later either. Not when that 'little later' is still well over a decade, and getting pretty darn close to two decades, ago itself.

[Kunzait_83]

I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but in a certain light, you do realize that can come off as pretty condescending, right? Sure, those of us from the "Toonami brat" generation as you call it, might not have been around nearly as long as a lot of other fans, but that's still a pretty good long time with the franchise. Certainly long enough for one to have come quite a long way with the franchise if they've stuck with it all the way through, since as VegettoEX highlighted in his own post, that was a pretty tempestuous time for the franchise in the US - we were both finally getting a lot of the material here, legally, for the first time, while also dealing with material that wasn't nearly as faithful to the original version as it could, and should, have been. It was an interesting time period to be a new fan, because the show was equally 'new' and 'old hat' at the same time, versus now where it's pretty much all 'old hat', barring the newest material from recent years - it's becoming exceedingly rare to find fans who are actually coming to the franchise for the very first time nowadays, or at least any that are aren't nearly as vocal about it for whatever reason.

Again, not trying to disrespect the long history of fans that pre-date that era, but that era of fans is hardly some group of 'upstart kids' that can be immediately discounted just because they happened to come a little later either. Not when that 'little later' is still well over a decade, and getting pretty darn close to two decades, ago itself.

Yeesh, if THAT little bit was enough to set a couple of bells off, I don't even want to imagine what the reactions would be to the actual full post on the matter that I've had brewing for entirely too long now.

For the record no, I DON'T mean it in a condescending way: certainly no more than someone like Mike means to be when he's "dropping science" on people here about whatever the given topic may be. But I know that that won't stop a lot of people from taking it that way since (and yes I know I'm generalizing horribly here, but its not without precedent) a LOT of fans from that specific generational bracket are INCREDIBLY over-sensitive about any sort of criticism whatsoever for their overall era of fandom.

A lot of my issues though are entirely set apart from what you're talking about up there: at this point most Toonami-era fans have been in it for about as long as I was by the time that THEY first came into it. Which is plenty considerable. Not knocking that or taking anything away from it at all, not in and of itself anyway.

But there's a LOT of issues I've had with that side of the fanbase that hasn't really changed or evolved or improved to any real substantial degree over the course of the last 10 to 15 years now. For all that's indeed changed, there's also a quite a lot that's remained stunningly and depressingly the same as well. At this point, a lot of these issues are just baked into the very fabric and nature of the identity of today's average anime fan, and no matter how long its been or how "normalized" its become, its STILL never sat right with me and almost certainly never will.

But to reiterate: no, NONE of this is intended as "condescending" or antagonistic. Frustrated and annoyed, sure, but certainly not condescending or to cause hurt to anyone. If anything the source of my frustration with this is because I've long, long since wanted to see a lot of these aspects of the 2000s - and now 2010s - fanbase actually improve and evolve. Though at this point, this many years in, I'm fairly sure that's never gonna happen: people are old enough at this point and have held certain viewpoints for long enough to be entirely too set in their ways by and large.

I've waffled an awful, awful lot on talking about this stuff, primarily BECAUSE of the kind of over-sensitivity about it that reactions like this are emblematic of (which has given me a general "its not even worth the hassle" attitude about it for long many years now). But I think when all's said and done I keep finding myself continually drawn back to wanting to do it because I'm just a sucker for closure, and I think if I finally let a lot of this crap off my chest, it'll finally give me some reasonable sense of closure on my time spent in this place.

[Gyt Kaliba]

No 'sensitive bells' set off, I just wanted to similarly clear the air and make sure it really wasn't meant to be that way or not, since again, to some eyes it definitely could be taken that way.

Again, I have the utmost respect for the fans that came before me, especially the ones that paved the way for more, and most importantly 'better', releases to come out, as well as setting up those early websites that fans from my generation were able to peruse and learn from. Without them, my generation of fans would have been completely lost when trying to get further into the franchise. Anyone who thinks for half a second would realize that, I'd hope.

If there's anything that does sort of rile my feathers I suppose, it is sort of the 'get off my lawn' mentality you bring up. I can certainly understand that mind set, but...I guess I just can't really agree with it, at least not wholeheartedly. There are franchises out there that I would absolutely love get the chance to grow and bring in more fans, but they sadly are pretty dead in the water. If they ever were to grow though, I would hope that most of it's fans would do their best to foster growth of new fans, rather than...I dunno, basically dismissing them simply because they came after we did, or loved the series for a different reason than a previous set of fans did.

I doubt we'd ever see fully eye-to-eye on that issue though, in particular since I am also a fan of quite a few other anime and can relate to them in the same way I do Dragon Ball (though rarely to the same degree), and no doubt have learned and housed a lot of those tendencies of a modern day anime fan that irks you so badly. That's thankfully no reason we can't discuss it cordially like we have here though, thankfully. Cheers!

[Kunzait_83]

No 'sensitive bells' set off, I just wanted to similarly clear the air and make sure it really wasn't meant to be that way or not, since again, to some eyes it definitely could be taken that way.

All well and good then. And no matter what I may say to the contrary or how delicately I might try to put certain things, I'm all but CERTAIN that there's a number of folks who'll just refuse to see any criticism, no matter how nuanced, of their most cherished era of anime or the overall atmosphere of their timeframe as fans as direct and personal insults at THEM as people. Its just part of the nature of how easily riled and extreme people get when they get on the internet for some totally incomprehensible reason.

If there's anything that does sort of rile my feathers I suppose, it is sort of the 'get off my lawn' mentality you bring up. I can certainly understand that mind set, but...I guess I just can't really agree with it, at least not wholeheartedly.

See here's the thing about "get off my lawn"... as time has passed and as I've gotten older, I continue to get the sense further and further that while there ARE certainly indeed any number of people to whom that criticism and stereotype can apply to: in just as great a many OTHER instances, I also so often see accusations of "you're just old: 'get off my lawn!'" used as a cheap cop out or a dodge to escape from having to engage with a point that's challenging that person's preconceptions about something too much.

If someone with a TOTALLY different point of view on something that's completely foreign to you and how you've thought about something for most of your life says something that runs totally counter to an opinion you've had for however many X amount of years: if that person is older than you, its a LOT easier to just resort to an attitude of "Yeah, whatever gramps!" dismissiveness rather than actually engage with the point being made itself.

I mean in my case really, when all's said and done... I'm only 32 years old. 32 in the grand scheme of things is just NOT that fucking old yet. And I've been on the receiving end of accusations in the past (both on this site and elsewhere) that I'm simply engaging in "get off my lawn!" old geezer-ism since as far back as my early/mid 20s. There's any number of people just from this very forum here alone who would hurl that chestnut at me in a conversation where I'm trying to properly explain stuff that requires proper context from well before their time even years and years back into my earliest days here... when I was the ripe, old age of 24/25.

If a 24 year old tries to make a point to an 18 year old about something that said-24 year old may have a better grasp on and all the 18 year old has in response is "Ah you're just old now: 'get off my lawn!' lol!" then I'd say odds are (if only by sheer virtue of 20-something NOT actually being in any way, shape, or form anything that's even close to "old" yet) the 24 year old probably has at least SOME kind of valid point that they're trying to make and the 18 year old is fairly likely being a stupid, shit-for-brains 18 year old that's looking for an excuse to be dismissive rather than be challenged and legitimately engage with something that's genuinely new to them.

Again of course, these things are indeed very relative and that's not ALWAYS the case: sometimes some people just ARE actually being a cranky, out of touch old person about something (god only knows this happens a LOT in political discussions): but I think that just as often, the "get off my lawn!" stereotype is often thrown around WAY too thoughtlessly as a cheap and easy dodge by some (SOME I stress) younger people to avoid having to actually confront a point that might somehow, for whatever reason, be coming from a place that's beyond and that challenges their frame of reference.

[z_cherub]

Most people here, on average, are still only in their 20s and have only known about and been invested in anime for a little over 15 years at most. I'm now well over 27 years into it with all this (putting me at least a solid decade ahead of the lot of you) and am also now in my 30s: most of you are all still babies so far as I'm concerned.

Bullshit. I'm in my 30's as well. You got into the series 3-4 years prior to me.

You're a grumpy old bastard towards me because you want to be. Just like I'm a grumpy old bastard towards fans that were born in 1995/2000 and got into the show via the dub that was already complete by the time they were old enough to talk.

The reality is, I don't care when you were born as long as you don't pull that "zomg I wish errybody wuz supa say-yan 7 all tha time why Goku sound like a girl, das weak maing!" crap.

That said, seeing kids born in the 90s able to drink absolutely makes me feel old...

[Kunzait_83]

You're a grumpy old bastard towards me because you want to be. Just like I'm a grumpy old bastard towards fans that were born in 1995/2000 and got into the show via the dub that was already complete by the time they were old enough to talk.

I bolded that bit because its incredibly telling. You're personalizing a VERY broad sentiment and taking it as aimed directly "at you", when in reality I have absolutely ZERO idea who in the utter hell you are from Adam. Even within this forum, you're name rings not a single, solitary bell in my mind. We've never interacted before, and if we somehow did I can assure you I certainly do not remember one whit of it whatsoever. I have no familiarity with any of your posts or thoughts about anything here. Everything I wrote couldn't have been LESS aimed at you personally in anything that could even be mistaken for resembling a direct way.

And moreover you're also playing amateur psychic and telling me what my intentions "actually" are and putting words in my mouth, when the reality is that you, likewise, don't know who the fuck I am from Adam nor what any of the stuff that bothers me about later fandom actually is (seeing as how I haven't actually gone all that deeply into any of it yet).

Since you brought it up though, no I DON'T "want" to be nasty or hostile or "grumpy" or whatever towards ANYONE. I don't give two solid fucks when someone was born as a principal in and of itself. In spite of everything else, I've made actual, fairly tight off-site friendships with a few people who I've met on here that I have roughly close to a solid decade-ish (or just under a decade) in age over. The reality of the sources for where my issues with later eras of anime fandom are actually VERY nuanced and multi-faceted, enough so that it WOULD more than justifiably require one of my particular "giant sized" posts to really properly cover it.

And the real kicker is, in all honesty I don't even consider ALL of it to be even entirely their fault directly. Some of it is in actual fact very much tied more to shitty circumstances and weirdly specific timing of when various crucial things occurred within the broader anime industry of their time period, as well as a SLEW of other absurdly detailed cultural factors (both on the East AND Western ends of things) that I'll be the very first to admit I'm nowhere NEAR close enough to be considered any kind of an "expert" on in the slightest (but I try the best I can with grasping what bits of it I can all the same).

So don't for a second mistake this for some sort of "ah, fucking stupid kids!" mindless scapegoating-fest. There's certainly plenty of aspects of these things that I DO hold the younger fans accountable for, don't get me wrong, but it also damn sure isn't anything close to a black and white, 100% "they all suck about everything and are completely at fault for everything I don't like, always" type of thing.

But that doesn't really matter either honestly (partly because who the hell even knows if I'll ever get around to actually finishing and posting any of this shit: its not exactly my #1 priority in life at this moment): what really gets me about a post like this, beyond just the "I know what you're REALLY thinking"-style of reading into my thoughts and intentions, is that you yourself just admitted that you have a bias against fans who were born past a certain year, and are basically trying to make me "complicit" in that bias along with you (for whatever fucked up reason).

You're a grumpy old bastard... ...Just like I'm a grumpy old bastard towards fans that were born in 1995/2000 and got into the show via the dub that was already complete by the time they were old enough to talk.

By your own admission at least, you have a problem with being a "grumpy old bastard" towards fans of a certain age range. Whatever man, that's on you and good luck with that really. I on the other hand have some complex issues with the way that modern anime fandom has "evolved" (so to speak) over the years, and its brought me into awkward and uncomfortable conflict with a lot of younger folks in places like this... much to my honest to god, genuine regret: I'd LOVE nothing more than to just get along swimmingly with as many people as possible within these types of little subcultures as I possibly can. I enjoy few things more in life than meeting new people and making a lot of new friends wherever I can, no matter what their age or background.

Whatever your own issues with younger fans are, I have no idea what they are and I'm honestly not judging: just leave me the hell out of it and quit projecting. Cause that's what everything about that above quoted post positively reeks of: pure projection of your own issues onto a random stranger you just met.

Yes, I certainly have problems with younger fans from a specific era: quite a lot of them in fact. But NONE of it is because I "want to" and I DAMN fucking sure do not derive the slightest lick of enjoyment out of it. Why in the hell anyone would actively WANT to be and make a purposeful effort toward being an embittered, ostracized crank within a given group is a notion that is without a doubt entirely beyond me.

[Bansho64]

Yes, I certainly have problems with younger fans from a specific era: quite a lot of them in fact. But NONE of it is because I "want to" and I DAMN fucking sure do not derive the slightest lick of enjoyment out of it. Why in the hell anyone would actively WANT to be and make a purposeful effort toward being an embittered, ostracized crank within a given group is a notion that is without a doubt entirely beyond me.

What is your problems with younger fans? I want to know so please explain to me why you dislike them so much. As I said before, I can assure you that not all of us are the same as you might think.

[MetaMoss]

So, from what I'm getting here, I can look forward to being a crotchety old man when my fandom hits the 20+ year mark. I can't wait.

In all honesty, I just find it so amazing that Dragon Ball has had the ability to bring together people from different cultures, walks of life, and generations. Maybe it's just because I started with the series as being something I bonded with my parents over, but I've always appreciated being able to share my love for the series with others, whether or not they're fans of it as well.

[JulieYBM]

Let's see, I first learned of Dragon Ball in...fall of 1998? Actually, I remember the day and episode I caught on Toonami. Sort of. It was the episode where Vegeta was making the 'Rei Gun' hand gesture as he slaughtered that Namekian village. My friend was helping me organize my Pokemon cards and we were watching the television in my room. I had never watched Cartoon Network before, sticking mostly to Channels 10 (then The WB), 11 (then UPN, where Pokemon first aired in my area), and 13 (our FOX affiliate). I remember leaving my room to check the television in my brother's room to see what was happening on Power Rangers in Space that day. It was the episode where Zhane was trying to recharge his powers with a lightning bolt! Near as I can tell, this means my first exposure to Dragon Ball was on 14 October 1998.

Fast forward eighteen years. Holy shit. I've been a fan for eighteen years...assuming you can call someone who watched a wretched, shitty dub up until around 2007 a fan of said cartoon. Dragon Ball has always been one of many things I have interest in. That is no different from today where my fandoms spread to many other Japanese comics, cartoons or video games. As I have grown both as a viewer and a creator I have learned that what makes art so great it how it is reflective of those who make it. What draws someone to listen to a radio show in the car about sports of all things? It's the passion of the radio hosts and the oddities of their characters. This is what has only renewed my interest in series like Dragon Ball or Pokemon. This is what draws me to new works ever so often. What makes Dragon Ball so great is the genuine, perverse natures of those who make it.

[Kunzait_83]

What is your problems with younger fans? I want to know so please explain to me why you dislike them so much. As I said before, I can assure you that not all of us are the same as you might think.

I'm not about to open that can of worms in here, but I'll just say that no, I don't harbor some frothing-at-the-mouth vitriolic disdain for younger fans. Its NOT that serious or anywhere close to it (I'm a 32 year old man with an actual life for fuck's sake), and people blowing it out of proportions like that and taking it so deeply personally is one of the biggest hurdles I'd have to jump in even beginning to broach the issue.

THAT"S all I meant by the topic being "incendiary" in the first place: its not like I harbor opinions that are in any way hateful of any particular people, its just that my entire perspective on the core approach to and appeal of anime as a medium is so WILDLY diametrically opposed to that of the younger generation (in large part due to how drastically different the era that I came up in was on an incredibly fundamental level), that many people - with this being the internet and all - are very likely to gear up and go into reactionary defensive mode instinctively because god forbid someone doesn't think of Toonami as the single greatest thing that ever happened to anime in the U.S. and bows their head to it in eternal gratitude.

So, from what I'm getting here, I can look forward to being a crotchety old man when my fandom hits the 20+ year mark. I can't wait.

Assuming that was aimed at me, yeah this is EXACTLY what I was talking about with the pitfalls of the whole "get off my lawn!" thing from before. No matter what possible point I could even try to make or how I make it, if its something that's the least bit critical of someone's beloved childhood sacred cow in any fashion, the automatic response is just to curl up straight into defensive mode and using the whole "You're just old and cranky!" thing as an escape hatch to avoid actually maybe, heaven forbid, giving some serious critical thought to the nuance of what's actually being said.

Again, no one's PERSONALLY getting insulted here. These are just a bunch of fucking TV shows (kids' TV shows no less) when all's said and done: and the fact that so many people from this specific subset of fandom are THIS instinctively hyper-defensive against any and all critical thought that's in any way the least bit negatively opposed to those shows (and moreover the broader effects that they had on Western fandom in the long term) is in itself a LARGE part of the problem.

[MetaMoss]

Assuming that was aimed at me

It was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else.

[Kunzait_83]

Assuming that was aimed at me

It was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else.

Fair enough (not like you can tell these things through text mind you).

To bring this back around to something more positive, Dragon Ball HAS been a running theme constantly throughout a pretty great deal of my friendships IRL. Its certainly not 100% mind you, but a startling number of the people I've grown the closest to over the course of most of my life were initially roped into my orbit either directly or indirectly through Dragon Ball in some fashion or another. I have NO idea how the hell that happened nor what that tells me about anything other than the fact that that's about as much of a parallel between Dragon Ball and the theme of "friendship" as I can manage to find.