What makes the handling Dragon Ball different from other franchises that failed to catch on worldwide?

[GhostEmperorX]

But if the Saban dub was such a hit, then why did it get canceled? It’s not like they wanted to cancel it or anything, it’s just that Saban didn’t have much faith in it, most likely because of poor ratings. And even if it was a moderate hit, Toonami elevated the series from “decently popular cult classic” to “literal nationwide phenomenon”.

Ditto to what the two other replies to you said, Funimation just wanted to be cheaper than they were before since Barry Watson didn't like flying between Texas & Vancouver, so they moved everything in-house, and the quality degrade is history from there.
But now, due to the proliferation of comparison clips and other such snippets, an inverted perspective totally detached from time has emerged about the in-house Texas dub somehow being "better" than the Vancouver dub even though the former was mainly hired to imitate the latter and had less experience in general since they were picked up off the street (as were the people making the replacement music for the most part). It's like there's no good timeline for anything that happened on the NA side of things.

EDIT: Here's a relevant post from 5 years ago addressing your thesis.

[ZeroIsOurHero]

Okay, I’ll concede that the Saban dub was a hit. I wasn’t very aware of the history surrounding that. But still, my basic point stands: even if the Dragon Ball dub was made for VHS, it would almost inevitably be broadcast on Cartoon Network, and it would almost inevitably be a hit.

, and were later brought over to Toonami with massive success. Dragon Ball is a kids series at heart, so I doubt whoever owned the rights to it would be reluctant to let kids actually watch it.

Inuyasha and Ramna 1/2 are also in the exact same demo as Dragon Ball (and I think Tenchi as well)

And we've seen faithful Dragon Ball even when edited to kids tv standards. See the Toonami edited versions of the first 2 Z movies and Dragon Ball Kai on Nicktoons. Edited for content doesn't excuse complete rewrites in scripts just cuz, replacement music, and miscasted/misdirected actors.

To be fair, Ranma wasn’t broadcast on Toonami; there were too many uncensored boob shots for them to edit around. But they did try broadcasting it there, so that proves that Viz Media would try broadcasting Dragon Ball on Toonami if they had the rights.

And as for Kunzait’s essay, all it really sounds like to me is “anime became more homogenized and same-y once it received mainstream popularity in the US”. And yeah, that is a point that makes sense, but it’s pretty obvious that things become more homogenized with increased popularity. And it doesn’t have much to do with my main point.

[GhostEmperorX]

Oh, I was mainly referring to the portion that addressed the belief that Toonami was almost solely instrumental in popularizing anime series in the US.

[ZeroIsOurHero]

Oh, I was mainly referring to the portion that addressed the belief that Toonami was almost solely instrumental in popularizing anime series in the US.

I wasn’t saying that: like me and many others have said, adult-oriented VHS releases played a big part in priming the US market for the anime boom. But Toonami was the absolute apex of that boom, and I doubt anime in the US would be as huge as it is now if Toonami never existed.

[ChronoTwigger]

Reply to the opening question.
The aesthetics. DragonBall has an extremely high "marketability" on its side, as its aesthetic is *itself* capable of appealing - you can appreciate the style without enjoying the work.
Here in Italy there were a lot of DragonBall Z posters and gadgets *long* before it was imported. The poses, the colors, the contexts work well even if you don't know the story behind such images.
An old DBZ poster is very japonisme, it makes *art* even if you don't know the assumptions.
Many of the collectors I know buy action figures and materials *without ever having seen Super*. Here the airing was plagued by shameful shares, with zero merchandise apart from chips, but fans of japonisme graphics still buy toys and posters online.

Second factor: here the manga was an outstanding success at the time. It sold like crazy thanks to the most infamous Toriyama sense of humor. The demographic was perfect for it. DBZ sold way less.
The anime followed the same path. DB great, DBZ great too up to Frieza, decline with Cell, goodbye with Bu. GT was a tragedy and Super was probably the most ignored show ever, up to have the airing stopped and the timeslot changed, something that *never* happen here.
So, it look evident to me the early manga leaded to success. Yeah, those sexism, "racist", no-woke arguments made the success of the franchise. People love to re-enact fecal phase. That is.

Third: demographic change. DB is very long. It was able to intercept 4 generations, each one of them with a reason to support.
Saint Seiya was an *HUGE* success here in Europe, with a different demographic than kids, included girls and older people. But the airing covered just one generation. Hades came a bit too late and the new material, simply speaking, sucks.
It's like videogames. A franchise get valuable if reiterable. Why Mario is so famous? So much games thru time with him, so my 70 years old mother play Super Mario Bros II, and my 6 years old nephew play with Odissey., both of them on the Switch
Now kids have purple Vegeta, I had blonde one. Still there.
Other anime didn't had the same push thru time as DB had, even with debatable stretches like GT, Buu arc or some atrocious videogame.

Those are the reasons, to me.

[MasenkoHA]

. But Toonami was the absolute apex of that boom, and I doubt anime in the US would be as huge as it is now if Toonami never existed.

Sci fi had its own anime block in 1995. Anime movies like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Princess Mononoke were selling well on VHS and getting critical appraisal. Even on the kids tv side of things you had the obvious success of Pokemon on Kidswb and later Yu-gi-oh, as well as Digimon on Fox Kids.(and those shows getting licensed and being successful were completely independent of Toonami)

Anime would have been big without the existence of Toonami. Toonami was a symptom of anime's success in America by that point, not a catalyst.

[Hellspawn28]

Toonami help introduce younger people into anime, but the anime industry has existed for years before Toonami. As someone who got into anime as a little kid in the mid 90s, I remember when anime was all over the place like Suncoast, Sam Goody, etc. Not to mention, the anime coming out on DVD and VHS was never aim towards to kids who was watching CN, Fox Kids, KidsWB!, etc during the Toonami era. I seriously doubt companies like ADV, Urban Vision, Central Park Media, etc were releasing anime for the kiddies. Companies like Crunchyroll would still exist if CN never had its own anime block.

[MetaMoss]

Beyond its quality, I think a lot of Dragon Ball's success (specifically in North America) was a result of good timing. There was an anime subculture already in place and growing in presence and the prior mainstream success of Power Rangers showing the viability of importing Japanese kids' entertainment. Given that, something would have hit the big time in the mid-to-late 1990's, and it's little surprise that the series that did it had proven itself with massive mainstream success in Japan.

[GhostEmperorX]

the viability of importing Japanese kids' entertainment.

I mean, they were doing that years beforehand. Not sure they had any difficulty with that especially considering that they weren't doing much of anything different (at the referenced time period) besides either retaining or slightly modifying the names of IP's.
(This chiefly refers to the mainstream TV avenue.)

[ClutchBangstrip]

I think it largely comes down, even to this day, to its constant fighting and unique art style.

Let's be honest. Most anime/manga go ~50/50 on visuals and writing. Dragon Ball goes far beyond on the visuals. Animating a fight scene or drawing a fight scene is much more work than anything in those fields, but Dragon Ball is not afraid to do it. It's personally why I have so much respect for the franchise and the people who work on it. It really is hard work to pump out an unrivaled level of visual spectacle and Dragon Ball pushes the limit, like no other. It has it's flaws, major ones, but it's making an honest effort at giving you more burger than fries. Art and animation are visual mediums and Dragon Ball isn't trying to sell you a novel with pictures or a novel with cut scenes. I think most recognize this.

Also, Akira Toriyama's art style is supremely unique and cool looking. I love anime and manga's art style in general, more than anything. But I also have to be honest in saying a majority of it looks the same with some differences. That's cool and it all still looks great, but something like Dragon Ball is immediately recognizable. I knew people who had no idea Dragon Ball was a Japanese cartoon. I think that rare-high degree of uniqueness added to it's mass appeal. I know casuals who thought Dominion Tank Police was Sailor Moon. Of course I recognize the visual differences, but does the non-anime fan? Dragon Ball's art style ensures that's it's rarely mistaken for anything else.