Why do so many people prefer DBZ to DB?

[Xeztin]

I'm not the only one who thinks this considering that's how Toie decided to introduce new kids and anime fans to the franchise.

I've seen this consistently in enough posts of yours to assume that it's not just a typo, but the name of the company behind the animated adaptations of Dragon Ball is Toei, not Toie. I hope this is helpful.

Oh God, as a kid I started with DBZ on the episode Gohan speared Raditz. At that point the action caught me the same way Ninja Turtles does my little cousin. Growing up with it, everyone in school tried to go Super Saiyan, I don't think anyone cared where Piccolo or the cast came from during my chilhood. It was the fighting, the character designs, music, and screaming that capitivated us. Before DBZ, we had your run of the mil cartoons like Johnny Bravo. DBZ showed us a mature different path, a gateway that till this day is helping other anime get dubbed. DBZ, Yugioh, and Halo were the big things all the kids liked growing up here. Everyone had an immediate connection with adult Goku.

That is an interesting story and not too dissimilar from my own (although no one I knew cared about Yu-Gi-Oh, and I hated Halo). And maybe I'm just weird, but that same basis never stopped me from being fascinated in what came before. It tantalized me. In fact, it probably did moreso BECAUSE it was lost and mysterious. I remember being extremely amazed at that flashback Blooma had when she was captured by Freeza's men. There was actual footage of what came before! There was also my friend Justin, who was into DBZ like the rest of us, but he's actually seen the original Dragon Ball when it had aired! His memory was a bit fuzzy (he thought Piccolo was a grown-up version of Pilaf) and assumed those 13 episodes were literally the entire series. But he'd been there! When I got the Internet and found FUNimation's website and saw their store carried all the tapes, do you think I bought DBZ? Hell, no. I could record that off the TV. I bought every single tape of Dragon Ball, and my friends and I sat around in my room watching the first ever episode of how our favorite series began.

Later on, it was a huge boon to me to find Curtis Hoffmann's manga summaries because, for the first time, I was finally able to accurately fill in the gaps. When I got into the Japanese version and started getting fansubs, of the first three tapes I ordered, two were DB, and one was later DBZ America hadn't gotten yet. Again, maybe I'm just weird, but I can't imagine someone getting into DBZ, realizing the series had gone on for a few years prior to that, and not dying to know what all he/she'd missed.

Back then I think everyone in my childhood was used to cartoons being an un-consistent story. Take SpongeBob for example: If Plankton stole the recipe during an episode, on the next episode it was like it never happened and it had a different plot that completely ignored the previous. I think that's what we were used to because every cartoon was like that. I think I completed DBZ dubbed at about 10 years old, (Not watching every episode, missed a bunch) and I never once wondered where all these characters came from. I did wonder what Goku was like as a kid, but I honestly thought that DBZ was the start, and that it just jumped into these characters who are middle aged and took off from there. I always thought their backstory's would be revealed as the show went on. I think a lot of people thought that where I lived. After the Boo saga ended, wanting more fueled me and my friends to sneak upon my sisters computer. We tried to find information on if there would be a new series, keep in mind we were completely ignorant to the fact that Dragon Ball came from a manga and from Japan to boot despite the Japanese writing on stores and such in the show. We stumbled onto Dragon Ball AF and the previous anime series Dragon Ball and all the movies. At that point, our minds were blown. I will say that Yu-Gi-Oh! and DBZ stood out to us over every other cartoon. We knew they were different, but we had no idea why.

[ABED]

Joss Whedon calls it reset TV where the events in a previous episode don't have bearing on the subsequent episodes. It's true that most TV was like that, but even back then there were series with different degrees of serialization. Second, they weren't ever middle aged. Goku is in his very early 20s in the first episode of DBZ and Piccolo is technically 8.

This isn't directed at you, but one argument I don't understand is the whole "I never had a hard time following the story and knew what I needed to know about the characters' backstory, so I don't care about watching Dragon Ball."

[Gaffer Tape]

Yeah, I just turned 30 last month, so the fact you referred to early to mid-20s aged characters as middle-aged made my heart stop for a second! =P

But, yeah, I am and was used to episodic television that hit the reset button. I'm not saying I immediately came into DBZ and went, "Hmm, I wonder what they were like as kids!" Like I said, it is when I found out that Dragon Ball Z was NOT the start, both through my friend who told me he'd seen an earlier series and through actual flashbacks in DBZ itself that SHOWED proof positive it was not the beginning, that I wanted to watch it. It would be as if you'd watched SpongeBob for years only to see clips in a commercial from episodes you'd never seen before. But you could tell through the art style that it was older. "Well, where were those episodes? How come I haven't seen those before?" You're telling me you never would have had that reaction? Because it happened to me all the time as a kid and even before the Internet. "Wow. This episode of Gumby is styled completely differently than what I've seen before. I wonder if this is older or newer? Let me see if I can find a year in the end credits." "Why is the art style of Johnny Bravo and the characters totally different from before? Are these new episodes? Well, why the heck do they look worse now? Surely these are some older, long-forgotten episodes, right? Oh, they are newer? Well, that sucks..."

[Xeztin]

Adult Goku may have been the better term, middle aged was the first thing that came to mind.

I suppose we all have different reactions or different first impressions to Dragon Ball and that's honestly what makes it so special. I got the Jackie Chan/Super-man-hero impression while my friend felt like he was watching Mortal Kombat or something. In all honesty at the time when I didn't know about Dragon Ball existing, I didn't care to know their backstory pre-DBZ just because I never knew it existed. I thought I knew everything there was to know. It's hard to explain, but I never known a series with Goku as a child existed. I think there were flashbacks of Goku and Grandpa Gohan when it was being explained to Goku that he was basically an alien. I thought his backstory was being revealed right there at that point and it never has been seen before. BUT when I discovered Dragon Ball (Orginal series) I watched it as soon as possible and I'm glad I did. I do encourage anyone to watch Dragon Ball then Z, but it just didn't turn out that way in North America which led to people's ignorance including mine. Us being kid's didn't really help the cause either. Oh! about the art style, I don't recall if I noticed the differences of the flashbacks, but as a kid I more than likely didn't pay it much attention.

[ABED]

In the first few episodes Goku brings up both Muten Roshi and Kuririn having died once before, that's not the kind of backstory you just casually mention, there was clearly something missing.

[UltimateHammerBro]

In the first few episodes Goku brings up both Muten Roshi and Kuririn having died once before, that's not the kind of backstory you just casually mention, there was clearly something missing.

Not to mention the whole mess with Piccolo and Kami. I don't know if they explained why they were linked properly, but if I remember correctly, the Ocean dub of the episode where they died had characters talking about the possibility of reviving them with the Dragon Balls... while there were no Dragon Balls anymore, and the Namekian Balls weren't brought up until much later

The whole "Piccolo dies/Kami dies/there are no Dragon Balls/there are Dragon Balls" must be a lot more confusing without having seen the original DB.

[DBZAOTA482]

In the first few episodes Goku brings up both Muten Roshi and Kuririn having died once before, that's not the kind of backstory you just casually mention, there was clearly something missing.

Not to mention the whole mess with Piccolo and Kami. I don't know if they explained why they were linked properly, but if I remember correctly, the Ocean dub of the episode where they died had characters talking about the possibility of reviving them with the Dragon Balls... while there were no Dragon Balls anymore, and the Namekian Balls weren't brought up until much later

The whole "Piccolo dies/Kami dies/there are no Dragon Balls/there are Dragon Balls" must be a lot more confusing without having seen the original DB.

The connection between Piccolo and Kami is made pretty clear.

[Gaffer Tape]

The connection between Piccolo and Kami is made pretty clear.

Depends entirely on when you were first watching the series. If you were getting into it when it was first airing in the US, as we were, a big scene talking about it was cut out. It wasn't until halfway through the second season that it was actually explained. And even then, the oft-repeated question was, "Well, then, why is Piccolo young and Kami old?"

That said, that does remind me of a particularly baffling and intriguing flashback. At the beginning of season 2, Blooma refers back to the 23rd Budoukai, and we see Piccolo and Shen talking to each other in Namekian. I spent so long wondering who the hell that "scientist-looking guy" was, how he knew Piccolo, and why he could speak Piccolo's language! It was fascinating to me.

[Xeztin]

Keep in mind we were probably all 7 year old kids. I don't think we were as worried as much about the plot are who everyone was but rather the "Cool looking Aliens, and fighting them" My little nephew is 5 and he's basically doing the same thing I did, he caught Kai on Toonami when Goku goes SSJ on Namek and despite the cast that was there, the only questions he asked me were why Goku's hair turned blonde and why does the alien want to kill them (Freeza). He never questioned who the rest of the cast were, and he assumed Goku was human and that Namek was Earth. He basically assumed that Freeza came to Earth to take over/kill the humans. He never asked what happened before the Namek arc either. I haven't shown him Dragon Ball yet, he found it on his own and now makes his mother record it every Saturday (Though he does forget to watch them). I think he first caught the showing at 8 pm on Cartoon Network. The only information I gave him was that I grew up with the show, at his age trying to explain everything would lead to lots of questions since he's in the "curious" stage.

[Kunzait_83]

Just as the annoying "DBZ IZ HARDCORE" fan repeats his trauma so does the "BUT DRAGON BALL/ONE PIECE IS FUN AND LIGHT AND HAS AN ACTUAL PLOT YOU BIG SHALLOW POOPY HEAD" fan and for that I shake my head.

This is almost literally the very first time (or one of the VERY painfully and depressingly few times) I've ever seen anyone, anywhere - including on this forum - make this specific case: the case that there has been - particularly within the last decade or thereabouts now - a completely misguided and ultimately regressive and self-defeating "war" or push-pull between two diametrically polar opposite extremes for "tone" in geek media. Those two extremes being "Hardcore Xtreme Fuck Yeah Mature Brah!" and "Whimsical and light and upbeat and look at how above all this fake macho posturing we've now become by almost exclusively embracing all things cute and cuddly."

Both extremes are not only maddeningly wrongheaded, but completely idiotic and senselessly polarizing and stiflingly narrow of vision: just for two different sets of specific reasons on both ends. But without delving too deep into that particular end of the pool (else I'll be here for a novel's worth of text) both extremes ultimately are bad because they equally disregard nuance, they both senselessly throw away an almost infinite rainbow's worth of gradients that exist between their respective black vs white worldviews, and both are in the end ultimately reductive in the worst and most painful possible way of what art is capable of accomplishing and of the impact that it can have on both the individual and on society as a whole.

And that, in the end, only ends up cheating all of us (both creators and audiences alike) out of an INFINITE universe of creative and imaginative possibilities that exist so far, far, FAR beyond the incredibly tiny, narrow walls of "Grimdark Call of Duty/Zack Snyder Brown and Greys" vs "Pokemon and Pixar and My Little Pony bright, fluffy cheeriness".

Outside of perhaps a VERY tiny minority, almost NO one else in the wider spectrum of society wants to (nor SHOULD want to) live in an artistic world comprised almost solely of a choice between either "13 year old-level faux-maturity" or "manchild validating comfort food fluffiness (which if you REALLY examine it closely, is ALSO its own form of 'fake maturity' not much different at all from the former in many ways)." A healthy, intellectually growing, and most of all balanced mind absolutely NEEDS something that's FAR more inherently malleable and adaptable and free-flowing than those two insanely rigid and backwards ideals.

What amazes me even more than seeing someone else try and hammer this point is that its from a user who (with all due respect in the world possible to them) is someone I've viscerally disagreed with on basically damn near close to almost everything else that they've ever said elsewhere.

But whatever past disagreements aside, on THIS point Jacob's not only right, he's one billion percent onto a HUGE problem with geek culture (whether he realizes the extent of it or not) throughout the last generation or so now that has been eating it alive for WAY too long now and that someone, somewhere, sometime hopefully soon, REALLY needs to open up a legitimately nuanced discussion about.

This goes WAY beyond just Dragon Ball, but its an issue about art and creative media on the whole throughout the last decade+ now that's become exceedingly important to me and that I think is one of the single most important issues that's lurking behind and at the bottom of a lot of what's been "off" and corrosive and disconcerting about the overall direction of geek media for many, many years now.

And of course were I to go into more details and specifics on my own personal thoughts on this, my guess then (based on past discussions and threads at least) is that once more Jacob and I would part ways in our views on said-specifics more than significantly: but that's neither here nor there. Insofar as the baseline premise goes at least, he's not only right he's DEAD fucking right square on the bullseye. He's applying it specifically to Dragon Ball fandom here granted, but this EXACT same premise easily extends well far beyond outside of it onto wider media today.


So far as this topic itself goes, what a LOT of this ultimately comes down to is so very, VERY many "Z"-centric fans not really giving a chance to or taking into account, the latter half of original DB, which when it comes right down to it is almost INDISTINGUISHABLE from early Z. They bleed seamlessly right into one another in either the anime or the manga: because its all one big work rather than two. Of course if you're a dub-centric fan, THEN the division may be a whole lot more stark since you have the Z dub's differing score and overall altered stylistic tone creating much more of a sense of disconnect between the two anime series.

But if you're just going with the original (as well most people really should), then yeah: Dragon Ball stops being what most Z-centric fans stereotype of the original series as being roughly halfway through it or so. There's a good three or so story arcs - out of roughly six - where the original series just flat out becomes Z in all but the title screen.

And again this is all ultimately another form of "Xtreme Maturity is cooler!" vs "Featherweight fluffy is inherently better and more mature because its less self-conscious!", with Z (very likely FUNimation dub Z at that insofar as arguments like these often tend to go) standing in for the former and either original Dragon Ball by itself or the entirety of the original version of the whole franchise outright standing in for the latter in the minds of so many.

Yet again, this all easily segues from here into "the big modern anime fandom topic I promised I'd never touch", but I'll refrain still and simply say that part of the reason (of many) that I've raised so much noise about the whole Wuxia thing in recent months is to try and introduce a whole different perspective and a much greater degree of nuance into this particular asymmetrical warfare between two rigid (and maddeningly, pointlessly dumb) ways of thinking about this series (and about anime and art/media as a whole, which is also behind a lot of this as well, however unconsciously) that's long, long been at the heart of the most heated discussions in this screwed up community.

[JulieYBM]

We probably don't disagree on quite as much as we used to. You definitely helped me to notice, say, the issue with One Piece.

You got it right with what I was going for. The push back has become really annoying. Everyone seems to have something to prove, which just makes it harder to respect them. This is why I feel the Otaku written about by Saitou Tamaki have truly perfected the state of being a fan. Or the fans interviewed by Patrick W. Galbraith. There's an air of compure and sincerity that lacks defensiveness or hostility. They are the Gokuu that faced Chappa-Ou during the Twenty-Third Tenka'ichi Budoukai. Imagine a discussion between fans of that caliber!

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

So how much are you two discussing fan-to-fan combat versus how the fan interacts with "the rest of the world?"

[ABED]

Yes, extremes are often obnoxious and destructive, but they aren't the majority nor is it the heart of the issue. It's not a huge problem with geek culture at all. It's the problem with the internet. Anonymity has it's good points, but unfortunately it's given people who would not otherwise be nearly as brazen the platform to be belligerent. I'm sure many of these people were bullied and instead of learning from that and not becoming it, they continue the cycle. I'm still of the mind that this isn't a huge problem. It's a minority but a vocal one. There's room for grim-dark and light and fluffy. And there's room for fans of those two "extremes". There just shouldn't be a room for being A-holes.

[SuperSaiyanChair]

I see the exact opposite, at least in regards to folks who've experienced both DB and DBZ.

It's becoming more and more the popular opinion that DB is better than Z among those who gave both a fair chance. Very rarely do I find someone who's watched the entirety of Dragon Ball say that they preferred the Z section of the story.

Z is more popular, obviously, but that's due to multiple different things. It appeals to the lowest common denominator far more than DB, and it was the first introduction to the Dragon Ball universe for a lot of people because of Toonami. When fans who loved Z for how "ultra bad-ass and epic" it was look at the original DB, they're immediately turned off by the significant change in tone. Same reason why a lot of these fans say the Buu arc is the worst arc, or why they don't like Super because it isn't as serious as Z was.

[Speedster]

Not sure if by "so many people" you mean "so many people globally" or "so many people in the US". Because most of the Dragonball online English voice (popular forums, youtube channels, etc) comes from the US and that might be skewing your observations. Anyway count me out from those "so many people" that prefer the last 291 episodes over the first 153.

[SuperSaiyanChair]

Not sure if by "so many people" you mean "so many people globally" or "so many people in the US". Because most of the Dragonball online English voice (popular forums, youtube channels, etc) comes from the US and that might be skewing your observations. Anyway count me out from those "so many people" that prefer the last 291 episodes over the first 153.

I can't speak for the entire world, no. I'm just going by what I see, which is largely in the US/UK online communities.

I say "so many people" because the Dragon Ball online community is huge. Not the majority, but still a good portion. You also have to consider that the online communities are usually home to the more "dedicated" DB fans. In the outside world, most people who could be considered fans aren't usually as passionate about it as others. They base most of their love for it on watching DBZ on Toonami as a kid, and they never bothered to explore the series further. The most they do with the series nowadays is likely just the occasional Youtube clip, or maybe they'll buy a DBZ game if they're bored.