Nostalgia for the so-called dark ages of DB

[MetaMoss]

That's what I got from your comment, a bunch of "you're wrong!"s

A bunch of the emotions he's describing in that post ("it felt to me like no one else in the while wide world knew about this except me!") are actually rooted at the heart of a LOT of still glaring misconceptions and incorrect assumptions that people still make about the Western histories of both DB and anime as a broader whole.

Me going through it and separating reality from vague, nebulous childhood emotions isn't me "picking on" anyone: especially on a site whose main purported goal is to be soberingly factual, in-depth, nuanced, and thorough about this particular franchise's ins and outs.

I think its actually pretty fucked up and unsettling the degree to which a lot (and I mean a LOT) of people on here tend to immediately interpret an "in-depth, thorough response" almost automatically as an assumed aggressive tone of malice and ill-intent up front, even without there being a HINT of such in any of the response itself.

To restate a point I've made earlier, if a bunch of separate people are telling you you're coming off as an asshole, and you're really not intending to, perhaps it's time to reconsider the tone your posts are actually conveying?

TheBigBoy was just recounting their personal experience with Dragon Ball back in the 90s: nothing more, nothing less. Yes, their perspective on the whole fandom at the time is limited, but I'm not seeing where they claim otherwise. There's certainly a place to have a discussion about what the larger Dragon Ball and anime fandoms looked like before Toonami, and I'm personally interested in learning and understanding that history, because I do enjoy learning that sort of thing. But this ain't it.

Honestly, how do you think a point-to-point debunking of someone, showing how they're wrong about something they never even claimed to be right about, is going to come across as?

[ABED]

I can't speak for BigBoy, but I did have the internet back then and while Kunzait is right that DB had a significant web presence back then, and while I'm sure DB was popular, it was still nothing like it became in 1999. I remember knowing there was an online fanbase and knowing people watched anime, I didn't know anyone or see anyone wearing DB merch or talking about it until it started airing on CN. I went "Oh, I'm not alone!" I don't think BigBoy literally thought he was the only one watching. Talking to someone over the internet and talking to someone in person are vastly different experiences, so even if he did have internet, it's a huge deal when you find someone in the flesh who shares interests.

[Hellspawn28]

I feel like things during that era was not much different now. You still had sub vs. dub wars, what is canon, and who win in a fight topics. Some people think that this site would be dead if there was no new DB content, but the site was still going strong even before BOG was announced in 2012.

[TheBigBoy]

No offense Kunzait, but you come off like a fucking psycho.

[Kunzait_83]

To restate a point I've made earlier, if a bunch of separate people are telling you you're coming off as an asshole, and you're really not intending to, perhaps it's time to reconsider the tone your posts are actually conveying?

Noted. For serious.

TheBigBoy was just recounting their personal experience with Dragon Ball back in the 90s: nothing more, nothing less. Yes, their perspective on the whole fandom at the time is limited, but I'm not seeing where they claim otherwise. There's certainly a place to have a discussion about what the larger Dragon Ball and anime fandoms looked like before Toonami, and I'm personally interested in learning and understanding that history, because I do enjoy learning that sort of thing. But this ain't it.

Honestly, how do you think a point-to-point debunking of someone, showing how they're wrong about something they never even claimed to be right about, is going to come across as?

To further clarify: the intent of the post wasn't "Fuck you and your childhood experiences BigBoy!" His post stuck out to me because he rather perfectly and clearly expressed what are fundamentally the emotional root of where a GREAT majority of the fanbase's weird misreadings of basic history for the franchise - and its native medium - often come from (including often from well established and notable voices within the community who otherwise make it a point to do their research and come correct with facts usually in most other cases), and one that's frequently made explicit within this community: "This was what I personally experienced as a small kid with limited contact and communication with others, ergo I'm going to on some level assume that this is what it was like everywhere for everyone (or at least for MOST people more so than not)."

It was less to do with BigBoy himself specifically than it was the bigger overarching theme of the mindset he was describing.

I can't speak for BigBoy, but I did have the internet back then and while Kunzait is right that DB had a significant web presence back then, and while I'm sure DB was popular, it was still nothing like it became in 1999. I remember knowing there was an online fanbase and knowing people watched anime, I didn't know anyone or see anyone wearing DB merch or talking about it until it started airing on CN. I went "Oh, I'm not alone!"

Of course it wasn't like it became in 1999: the main audience for it (within the West that is) MASSIVELY shifted at that point. There's a definite difference between something being very popular among a relatively older audience who are into wider-ranging media as a whole (which anime in general was prior to that point) and something being very popular among the Happy Meal set.

Still, while it was relatively/proportionally easier back then to find DB fans online, it certainly wasn't in any which way impossible to find them IRL either, provided you lived in more populated urban areas at least.

Its honestly like comparing the audience for classic Jackie Chan films to the audience for Power Rangers: the latter are going to be MUCH younger and in MUCH greater numerical abundance overall, and there generally isn't usually a HUGE degree of overlap between the two in most cases. That doesn't make the former audience either ridiculously small nor impossible to come across anywhere (be it online or IRL): it just means you're not going to come across them in every other household in Mom & Pop Middle America Suburbia and whatnot (and Mom & Pop Middle America Suburbia, while significant, also isn't the be-all, end-all of what makes something culturally significant or noteworthy in its popularity).

No offense Kunzait, but you come off like a fucking psycho.

But like I said before, I'll take MetaMoss' prior post(s) to heart going forward.

[supersaiyanZero]

I think it has to do with being younger and not knowing the full story. Thats why games were much more fun back then too - there was an aura of mystery and exploration. These days you have step by step tutorials for anything and everything. Back then, to get the secret stage in Mario 3 you had to buy an expensive Gamer Magazine on the month they had that secret OR word of mouth. Or trial and error, testing the boundaries of what you can and cannot do in a game. It's the same for DBZ, at least with me. There was never easy access to full episodes or even the manga, so the little bits I tasted helped me put puzzle pieces together. Nowadays I can log onto the internet and watch/read any episode within 5 minutes.

[ABED]

it just means you're not going to come across them in every other household in Mom & Pop Middle America Suburbia and whatnot (and Mom & Pop Middle America Suburbia, while significant, also isn't the be-all, end-all of what makes something culturally significant or noteworthy in its popularity).

Obviously, but it was a niche property at that point in the West. Niche can still be significant. Metallica was a well known metal band in the mid-80s, but they weren't mainstream and didn't get much if any radio play until ... And Justice For All when they truly became a headline act, then after the Black Album, it can't be denied they weren't just one of the biggest metal bands in the world, but biggest bands period.

[Hellspawn28]

Kunzait is right that the Internet was pretty mainstream by 1996 because you had 20 million American had access to the Internet back in 1996. Sure, you had dial up and the websites that we have now did not exist at the time (Youtube, Twitter, etc). However, people still use the Internet to look up information and had ways to chat with people. It was not hard to go on chat rooms or other fan forums to chat with people and ask them about the series. Unless you were Jay and Silent Bob, pretty much everyone knew what the Internet was. Even as someone born in 1991, I even use the Internet in my house since 1997.

From what I've seen, it seems a lot of people here (and other fansites) didn't start using the Internet until the later half of the 2000s. I can understand why people would think that if you didn't have Internet at your home at the time or if you grew up in the middle of nowhere.

[Mister_Popo]

Kunzait is right that the Internet was pretty mainstream by 1996 because you had 20 million American had access to the Internet back in 1996. Sure, you had dial up and the websites that we have now did not exist at the time (Youtube, Twitter, etc). However, people still use the Internet to look up information and had ways to chat with people. It was not hard to go on chat rooms or other fan forums to chat with people and ask them about the series. Unless you were Jay and Silent Bob, pretty much everyone knew what the Internet was. Even as someone born in 1991, I even use the Internet in my house since 1997.

From what I've seen, it seems a lot of people here (and other fansites) didn't start using the Internet until the later half of the 2000s. I can understand why people would think that if you didn't have Internet at your home at the time or if you grew up in the middle of nowhere.

America is big. I guess it depended where you lived. In my neighbourhood, internet was definitely not mainstream back then.
But there were enough people on the internet. If you had it and wanted to dicuss it, there were enough chances to do so end 90s.
In the 80s, begin 90s things were still a bit different though. I was living on the country side, no internet, so the only real way to experience it, was pretty much alone or with select friends. It all depends where you lived and what your backstory is.

[Dr. Casey]

Kunzait is right that the Internet was pretty mainstream by 1996 because you had 20 million American had access to the Internet back in 1996. Sure, you had dial up and the websites that we have now did not exist at the time (Youtube, Twitter, etc). However, people still use the Internet to look up information and had ways to chat with people. It was not hard to go on chat rooms or other fan forums to chat with people and ask them about the series. Unless you were Jay and Silent Bob, pretty much everyone knew what the Internet was. Even as someone born in 1991, I even use the Internet in my house since 1997.

There's a bit of looseness to the word 'mainstream.' 20 million users is definitely a very popular product/service, far moreso than what most inventions or products ever achieve. If you use mainstream as a synonym for 'ubiquitous,' though, calling the internet mainstream in 1996 would probably be an exaggeration. 20 million users in 1996 would be about 5 to 6 percent of Americans? I think of mainstream as basically being a synonym for ubiquity, which would be more like cell phones (owned by 62 percent of US adults in 2002 and more than 90 percent today) or the present day internet. On a global scale, the internet would be positively rare in 1996 (maybe around 1 percent? I know that about 5 percent of the human race had an internet connection in 2000), though it's beginning to reach ubiquity even by that standard at this point (right around 60 percent; a standard 3 to 4 percent year-by-year increase would see over 90 percent of the global population have the internet by the end of the 2020s).

It's surprising to hear that a lot of Kanzenshuuers didn't begin using the internet until the back half of the 2000s, though. I grew up on a farm, in a rural town of barely 100 people, and even we owned the internet in 1998 (though we were early adopters for our area, and only got it when we did because my mom had already become a fan of the internet since it was introduced to the hospital where she works around 1995 or so).

[Cure Dragon 255]

No offense Kunzait, but you come off like a fucking psycho.

What? Why?

[jjgp1112]

I've had internet in my house since at least '98; almost definitely sooner than that. And if you watch a lot of 90s TV shows started the obsession with plugging their websites and making cliche internet references around 96/97

[Dbzfan94]

No offense Kunzait, but you come off like a fucking psycho.

What? Why?

Because most of the time, he comes off as a complete asshole.

[ABED]

So, "the dark ages of DB" are between the end of GT and 2012?

[Mister_Popo]

So, "the dark ages of DB" are between the end of GT and 2012?

It differs how you look at it.
I completely lost intrest in that period, yes, because the series had ended.
That's why i referred to it as 'dark ages' in my post earlier this thread.
I am no gamer and i had already seen the series when the Funi-dub came out, so the lack of new DB-content made way to other intrests.
BOG renewed my investment in DB, which was till then nothing more than a childhood-memory.

I think mecha3000 used it in some different meaning:
"To get to my main point, I sorta miss that period from when I first got exposed to DB in 2004/2005 all the way up to 2012 when BoG was announced and DBS became a thing. My reasoning: Dragon Ball was surviving on the fandom and merchandise alone, and I enjoyed it."

He referred to the 'dark ages' as a time when he was actively invested in the franchise, if i understood well, before BOG.
But because it sorta comes down to the same period, i re-used his reference "dark ages".

[DBZAOTA482]

I wouldn't call it the dark ages but it definitely wasn't a good time for the video games. The series was long done at that point so games like Burst Limit and Raging Blast lacked innovation and were commercial disappointments as a result. Spike had the right idea with Ultimate Tenkaichi but the execution leaves a lot to be desired mainly with gameplay, which is so detached from a fighting game is supposed to be, thus the most polarizing DBZ game was made. Then the worst of the lot, Battle of Z, came and was somehow even more shallow and barren than Ultimate Tenkaichi.

Thankfully, Xenoverse brought DBZ games out of their creative rut and back to their roots.

[DBZAOTA482]

So, "the dark ages of DB" are between the end of GT and 2012?

It can't be 1998-2002 because those were some of the best times for westerners. Dragon Ball Z was dominating cable TV (even at one point being the #1 show in television) in the states and this newfound popularity was enough to rejuvenate interest in the franchise among Japanese fans culminating in the releases of the Dragon Boxes and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai.

[ABED]

#1 show for its demo, but alright. It was a dark age because the dub was awful, and that last sentence is specious at best.

[Dbzfan94]

I wouldn't call it the dark ages but it definitely wasn't a good time for the video games. The series was long done at that point so games like Burst Limit and Raging Blast lacked innovation and were commercial disappointments as a result. Spike had the right idea with Ultimate Tenkaichi but the execution leaves a lot to be desired mainly with gameplay, which is so detached from a fighting game is supposed to be, thus the most polarizing DBZ game was made. Then the worst of the lot, Battle of Z, came and was somehow even more shallow and barren than Ultimate Tenkaichi.

Thankfully, Xenoverse brought DBZ games out of their creative rut and back to their roots.

I don’t see how Battle of Z can be worse than Ultimate Tenkaichi in any shape or form. Battle of Z wasn’t great but it was amazing compared to the shit that was UT

[DBZAOTA482]

I wouldn't call it the dark ages but it definitely wasn't a good time for the video games. The series was long done at that point so games like Burst Limit and Raging Blast lacked innovation and were commercial disappointments as a result. Spike had the right idea with Ultimate Tenkaichi but the execution leaves a lot to be desired mainly with gameplay, which is so detached from a fighting game is supposed to be, thus the most polarizing DBZ game was made. Then the worst of the lot, Battle of Z, came and was somehow even more shallow and barren than Ultimate Tenkaichi.

Thankfully, Xenoverse brought DBZ games out of their creative rut and back to their roots.

I don’t see how Battle of Z can be worse than Ultimate Tenkaichi in any shape or form. Battle of Z wasn’t great but it was amazing compared to the shit that was UT

UT at least had an actual meta (even though it sucked), CaC (even though it was very limited), Hero Mode, good graphics, and local multiplayer. Battle of Zzz... (sorry, fell asleep) had nothing.