African Americans and DBZ

[Insertclevername]

I don't know what the RZA is, so... I don't know.

He's a member of the Wu-Tang Clan.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

Some people here like to associate Piccolo as if he were black, he isn't. There's Mister Popo but he's not black either, although you have some black characters like Star Officer Black and some of its citizens shown are too.

P.S: If the blackface is still a thing then I wouldn't recommend watching Soul Eater as that might piss someone off, but other than this the show is awesome!

Thats something I noticed a lot, especially in all the parodies Piccolo is always the black guy of the group. I can see why too sometimes, his Dub voice and personality kind of give off that vibe, plus hes the token ethnic alien friend.


Though I'm very disappointed in Toryiama for designing Mr. Popo the way he did. Weird enough nobody seemed to even notice.

[DBZfan29]

Why is this even a topic? When you say African American, do you simply mean "Black" people?

Anyway, since I work in a video store (kinda funny how Mike asked if Suncoast was still around - I work at their FYE store), I can tell you that many people of all races come in and look at Dragon Ball releases. If anything, I'd say "Males and DBZ" would be a more appropriate topic, but then we probably wouldn't see a topic that obvious on the forum.

P.S. I loved it when a man came in asking for Battle of Gods and I felt cool telling him it wasn't even out in Japan yet.

[cpuguy18]

Idk I guess DBZ is just something us african americans enjoy even my uncle owns the DVD's.

[Blade]

Why is this even a topic? When you say African American, do you simply mean "Black" people?

My posts referred to African American people and Black Culture, as in the people and culture of people of African origin in North America, where identification with Dragonball Z during the popularity years was particularly marked.

[Beji]

I used to think the same thing a few years ago and I actually thought of it in the same way as thatdbzguy. I would play on the basketball courts and hear African Americans talk about it. I thought "oh wow I didn't know African Americans liked Dragon Ball Z that's neat". It was just a pleasant surprise as most people who I knew who liked it were white. Then I met Hispanic people who enjoyed the series and though "Wow Hispanic people too? That's crazy!" I then came to the realization that there were people from all races, genders and even *I'm tip toeing here* poverty lines that like Dragon Ball Z. It was a show that has been broadcasted world wide and has been available in many different forms (TV broadcasting, vhs tapes, dvds).

I think the better question to ask is what makes Dragon Ball something that is universally accepted by all races and genders compared to other animes out there?

[flashback0180]

Hard to say I am not a American so.. But Your question does make sense because I have seen LOT's of youtube videos of anime reviews and other debates about anime(like goku vs superman) most of those guys (like 70% of the time) are Black.

(besides that many of my friends are black and they don't know what a manga is ..so its not the race or anything)

The only time I thought about what you were thinking about was when i first saw UUB ..
Like seriously he is black and has a mohawk .

(Maybe they needed something to make Uub resemble more like Buu and the hair looks like buu's "ANTENNA" thingi... )

[jjgp1112]

I'm black and it's definitely true. My older brother and his friends used to watch the old fansubs back when they were in high school. And they weren't the "nerdy" black guys, either - they were the stereotypical black teenagers you'd expect from the late 90s/early '00s.

[WittyUsername]

Hard to say I am not a American so.. But Your question does make sense because I have seen LOT's of youtube videos of anime reviews and other debates about anime(like goku vs superman) most of those guys (like 70% of the time) are Black.

(besides that many of my friends are black and they don't know that what a manga is ..so its not the race or anything)

The only time I thought about what you were thinking about was when i first saw UUB ..
Like seriously he is black and has a mohawk .

(Maybe they needed something to make Uub resemble more like Buu and the hair looks like buu's "ANTENNA" thingi... )

Uub looks more Indian to me.

[DarkPrince_92]

Uub looks more Indian to me.

Yeah, I never thought Uub was Black, he looks like he came straight from Nam's village.

[Super Sonic]

I did look at Uub as being black. Heck I used to refer to Z's ending as Goku going, "Bye everybody. I'm gonna train this black kid for awhile. Be back later." One time I said that to a friend at my college's anime club, and his mouth just dropped and he started laughing a little bit semi-uncomfortably. I asked what was so funny and he replied, "Had that been anyone other than you, that would've sounded really bad." (I was one of only 2 African American members of said club).

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Yeah come to think about it, the OP has a point. Back in the days of school (ahh felt like an age away and it only was 3 years ) Many of my black classmates, kept drawing Goku/Vegeta in SS and SS3 and like every available opportunity. And some of there drawings were actually pretty good.
I guess it's probably due to the badass fighting nature of DBZ. That's why many males enjoy it never ever seen a female discuss DBZ either on YouTube or IRL. Infact I picture everyone on here and on YouTube too be males. I apologize if anyone finds that sexist.

[Scarz]

I grew up in a predominantly black and low income neighborhood. And a lot of kids I grew up with absolutely loved DBZ, including myself (obviously). But it should also be noted that a lot of black young teens were also into a ton of other anime as well. DBZ was just the most popular anime on tv at the time, so of course it got the most attention.

My father used to tell me that when he was younger, a lot of black kids his age were into kung-fu movies. It made me think a lot about my own obsession with Shonen anime like DB. What about it that attracts so many black people towards the show? Is it the action? The characters? The story? Or all three? Why so?

I can't answer for the entire African American race but I can speak for my own observation. I fell into DBZ because I liked the characters and the action. Vegeta was the more popular among the boys. He was arrogant, strong, and overly confident (to his own determent) but for some reason most of the kids related to him. They all pretended to be tough little bastards "from the hood" but they failed at almost everything they did. They believed fighting harder and brute strength was the key to their success.

I remember there was this one black kid who screamed out during a fight, "I'm going to fuck you up like Vegeta would!" The kid lost the fight, but that line always sat with me. It could have just been a simple kiddy threat but I couldn't help but think that this kid was influenced somehow to keep fighting because of Vegeta's actions in the show. I'm probably looking to much into this.

Piccolo was also quite popular with a lot of black kids. I'm not exactly sure why but for me it was his tough yet calm demeanor that made him especially cool to me. He seemed to have control of his anger and I guess in a way kids wanted to be like Piccolo. Even if he wasn't the strongest they wanted to have their shit together when facing the constant strain of society.

And finally Goku, oh how we loved Goku! A low class warrior a part of race that was practically a slave to Freeza's bidding, sent to earth, and grew to be one of the strongest fighters in the Galaxy. He wasn't the brightest but he was super likable. We all wanted to be like Goku one way or the another. Overcoming our weaknesses and being the best at what we do.

I don't know why a lot of black people loved DB, I guess we just did.

[jjgp1112]

^Yeah, most black kids usually say that Piccolo is the closest thing to a black person on the show. His voice helps

[Kid Buu]

^Yeah, most black kids usually say that Piccolo is the closest thing to a black person on the show. His voice helps

He always Indian to me, even got a turban!

[goku the krump dancer]

Wow I've never read that article about the RZA and DBZ before... thats cool as hell.

I was anticipating your reply to this thread Scarz and must say I've had similar experiences and will probably have more just because of where my friends and I live. That Vegeta part was funny lol.

One instance I had "recently" was last summer, when I went to my supervisor's Barbershop to pick up my new ID for work ( odd, I know). It was in a real "urban" and common part of the city but anyways, upon entering the shop I noticed that the barber had a SLEW of old DBZ tapes, I mean really old fansub, ocean dub type of stuff. I felt my heart smile when I saw his collection and what made it better was that it wasn't just Dragon Ball it was other old series like Speed Racer and Robotech too, just to name a few and he even had old Kung-Fu flicks too.

So I took it upon myself to test him a bit and I said " Man, what 'chu know about Dragon Ball Z?" to which he replied "Pssh, man those tapes are probably older than you." (I'm 21 by the way).. I just laughed to myself and just couldnt help but stare at his collection almost in awe until I left about an hour later.

As for the question from the original post, I guess to a certain degree black people my be a bit more enthusiastic than others on a regular day. I know for a fact that if I see someone rocking a DBZ or Mortal Kombat shirt or what ever I'd surely give him I hi five, I'm just that kind of person.

Also If we want to go deeper into the hip-hop scene Battle Rappers reference DBZ and other anime and/or video games (mostly fighting games) quite often when ever they go against each other.

On a side note, not that it really means anything but there're more black people here than I thought.. I thought it was just me, Scarz and Darkprince_92... I had no idea JJgp1112 was African American. I have a feeling MysticBoy might be too.

[Super Sonic]

To be honest I for a long time thought I was the only black person on here. Even posted at times of being the only one or one of maybe 3-5. Never saw anyone else post pics of themselves and knowing how folks on anime-related forums are, just assumed.

[goku the krump dancer]

I've also been a bit curious as to what my fellow forum members look like, not that it really matters but i'm just curious. I mean I've been conversing with you guys about something I love for about four or five years now and I still havent the slightest idea on how some of you look save for a few who either have pictures of themselves as avatars on here or have actual pictures of themselves on different websites.

I think it'd be pretty fun if we all had images of ourselves as our avatar for about a month.

[Super Gazellian]

Mixed raced guy from England reporting in. Not that it really matters but I'm also surprised by the amount of black people on this forum too, at first I thought this topic was ridiculous but maybe there's something to it.

I don't think it is just about being black, I don't know a single black girl that likes dragon ball z apart from my sister, but yeah black dudes seem to love it. But I think this is because guys seem to love it in general regardless of race, all the black dudes I spoke to liked dragon ball z but I think because I generally hung around with the white kids (who all loved dbz btw) when I did hang around with black kids it's because they had similar interests to me, so no wonder they liked dbz.

So now I'm wondering, to all the people claiming that all the black people they know like dbz, is it because they're black or just because they have similar interests to you anyway? Lets face it most people generally tend to stay within their own race for their social groups as a sense of familiarity and comfort unless they feel they don't fit in with their subculture, so maybe the only black people you're conversing with just so happen to be the ones similar enough to you to have something to bond over. Obviously I'll be corrected in a few posts though but I'm just throwing it out there.

And ftr I never thought Piccolo was black or even Indian, he was obviously a Namekian.

[Duo]

I've also been a bit curious as to what my fellow forum members look like, not that it really matters but i'm just curious. I mean I've been conversing with you guys about something I love for about four or five years now and I still havent the slightest idea on how some of you look save for a few who either have pictures of themselves as avatars on here or have actual pictures of themselves on different websites.

I think it'd be pretty fun if we all had images of ourselves as our avatar for about a month.

Done. Sounds like fun. I've been using the Majin Vegeta one for like five years.