Yay! I'm not alone!

[SSJJezter]

So today I was walking home with my friend , we were talking about normal stuff for us: stuff at school, football (soccer), TV, whatever. Then we started talking about the PS4 and this moved onto older consoles, the Gameboy SD and whatnot.

Anyway, I'm rambling...

My friend mentioned he had a Dragonball Z game. My inner fan screamed inside and we started having a small talk about the series and characters and it turns out he used to like it and unlike a lot of others seemed quite open to watching it again. I'm gonna look to getting him into the Japanese version and watch it all through with him. This is so exciting for me as I know no one else seems to like it anymore. It'll be like reliving the series all over again!

This has gone on way too long and I'm sure you're bored, so how many of your friends still enjoy the series, have you watched it with them and have you ever tried to reintroduce it to someone like I'm looking to do?

If you read all of this probably boring story, I salute you! I'm so happy that I'm no longer alone as a fan where I live!

[Sin]

That's a nice story man, I love that feeling when someone brings up Dragon Ball and you're screaming in your head, but then you have to decide how much of a fan they are and play your fandom down depending on how they view the series. I don't think I have any friends that really like Dragon Ball, they just saw DBZ as a kid and therefor think it's something for kids, though we do all play the games together sometimes.

[SSJJezter]

Yeah, everything you said is exactly the same for me. I guess its just the way, especially in England. Hopefully you can find someone too because its just great to interact with other fans. I was carefully trying to gauge how open to watching it now he would be and the signs look quite promising!

[linkdude20002001]

That's always awesome. I just met this one guy through my friend Hannah, and it turns out he loves everything I do. My favorite band that no one else likes or has even heard of, my favorite video games, hobbies/interests, and of course, Dragon Ball. The next step is obvious: marry him. XD

[Gaffer Tape]

Well, you are in Washington, so you definitely could!

I find I rarely have these happen, and, if I do, it can never go into any depth because I've never met anyone in real life who follows the original version. So even though I certainly bite my tongue and don't correct dubisms (unless, of course, it's a story accuracy problem related to the discussion at hand), I'm not going to add dubisms into my own talk, so if, for instance, I'm talking about Tenshinhan, I'm going to call him Tenshinhan, the other person's going to question who the hell that is, and it's going to become a dub/sub thing. It won't be unpleasant, but it will be hard to connect most of the time.

Sadly, the last time it came up was at work when the TV in the greenroom was on on a Saturday morning, and Kai was on. Some of the stagehands who used to watch it as kids and teenagers were interested, and many of them already had a vague understanding of what it was with some inaccuracies, and then there was the co-worker who complained that the music was different, and I had to explain that it was actually the original music from when it aired in Japan.

And that's also the difficult thing: it's impossible to not be *that guy.* The guy who knows so much more about the subject at hand than anyone else, even other fans, that it's impossible to tolerate all the ridiculous misinformation that goes around. Here, nearly all of us are *that guy.* And that's what makes it cool. But out there, they aren't. So you get together with casual fans, and it almost always ends up being, "Well, no, Toriyama didn't hold a press conference saying there'd be a new series with 500 episodes. No, Dragon Ball AF isn't real. Um, no, actually, Goku's father isn't a brilliant scientist." And you hate being *that guy,* and they hate you bringing down all of their hopes and dreams and "cool scoops" they want to excitedly share with everyone else.

So, in conclusion, being a Dragon Ball in the real world is just fucking impossible!

[Kid Buu]

My friend circle know that I'm a big DB fan, and I have few friends who enjoy the series on a casual relationship.

Personally I found since the release of Kai that younger generations have really gotten into it. My friend is an Elementary Teacher and his 10 yea old students always ask him questions about DBZ....and now I'm starting to feel old.

[SSJ_Catacomb]

Last year I caught a work buddy watching terrible-quality episodes of DBZ on his break. I think we were both surprised by eachother and we got talking about the show. Again, as with the rest of you, I sorta had to hold back to not be "that guy", besides, he was only re-watching the show out of curious nostalgia.

Anyway, having purchased all the DBoxes by this point, I was able to convince this guy to buy all my orange bricks as I'd heavily discouraged pirating the show online. Unfortunately though, he'd already watched the entire series with the Funi Dub and sold the sold on to another friend before I got the chance to convince him to watch the original version...

[dbzfan7]

I'm forever alone here.

[sailorspazz]

I have a friend I've known since college who's been curious about Dragon Ball for a long time since she knows I'm such a big fan of it. Finally, within the last couple of months, she's started started borrowing my DVDs so she can see for herself what it's all about. She's at least made it up through the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai so far, and I occasionally get calls or texts with questions about the show, and I'm kind of torn on how much I want to answer and how much I want to let her discover for herself. She's been a general anime fan long enough (and seen enough random AMVs) that she knows some things about the series; one of her questions was about when does everyone get married and start having kids (well, she's got quite a way to go before she gets to those parts). The funniest question was whether Kame Sennin ever gets married. I answered that question with another question: "Who would wanna marry that guy?"

[samuraix123]

I definitely can relate to Gaffer Tape 100% I also seem to find myself in competition with my friends over Dragonball.
''I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT IT ALWAYS HAPPENS!'' One of my friends or someone that I randomly meet, starts talking about Dragonball and I hate knowing about everything they talk about because it makes me look weird! LOL I also run into more of the Funimation dub fans. Heck, that's all I run into! Not saying that's about thing. I'd just like to meet fans who like different versions. I'm hoping that I can run into someone who grew up with the BIG GREEN DUB and hates the Funimation version and the Japanese version. LOL that would be awesome.

[Cold Skin]

During university, I lived with four cotenants (two or three of them changing every year, and some in the middle of a year sometimes).
Except for one who wasn't into manga stuff at all (or any kind of cartoon), they were all eager to watch Dragon Ball Kai and/or read the manga (also pushed some of them to buy the Perfect Edition (Kanzenban), which is easy: you make them read volume 1, they are so amazed by the correctly-translated story and humor that they go on to buy all other volumes of the manga).
Also converted one guy who claimed he hated it (likely based on the little he knew or the old French dub): made him read Kanzenban N°1, he became a total fan. Easy.

Tss, in France, it's rather hard to find a young adult that's not into Dragon Ball, or so it seems to me (or perhaps university students are more inclined to like it here?! ).
A few weeks ago, I met a friend of one of my cousins at a family event, and sure enough, like 90% guys my age I met though years: he and his little brother liked Dragon Ball and we went to talk about it a lot and watch the Son Goku and His Friends Return, Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans, Episode of Bardack and Ultimate Tenkaichi's reanimated scenes.

Finally, almost every guy in my "become an English teacher" master were Dragon Ball fans, so when the teacher of oral class told us to become a teacher for 20 minutes giving a class about anything, I was nice to them:
I made a Dragon Ball class. It extended to more than 20 minutes though, cause even the teacher knew about the show, and...
well, even when you speed up the process of presenting the show, there's quite a lot to say about the franchise especially when it's an English class given in France, so you have to tell about the original Japanese, the way France handled it from back then to nowadays, and the way the US handled it from back then to nowadays! Phew!
Guys were quite amused when a girl asked me "could you sum up the story?", cause you know, it's not that easy to properly sum up 500+ chapters or 300+ episodes without "dumbifying" the story, so I avoided that by simply telling about the beginning with the Dragon Balls quest and then saying the story gets much more complex and the universe much bigger to the point that there's actually a full encyclopedia just for Dragon Ball and its many, many characters and events...

So... Yeah, in my experience, in France, it's easy to find a Dragon Ball fan among young adults, but those seem to also transmit it to their younger brothers or children...
That would explain why Glénat is so unrelentless about releasing Dragon Ball: Tankobon, Kanzenban, TV Anime Comics, Movie Anime Comics, with several of those at the same time... They just know they still have an ever-growing market waiting for them here, espcially since mangas sell extremely well in France.

[SSJJezter]

Cool stories guys, I guess we all have the same problem of not knowing many people who still like the series (apart from Cold Skin, sounds like your lucky) and when someone mentions it, we have to bite our tongues. My friend was quite surprised when I said I watch it subbed, but hopefully I can get him to watch the original version.

they were all eager to watch Dragon Ball Kai and/or read the manga (also pushed some of them to buy the Perfect Edition (Kanzenban), which is easy: you make them read volume 1, they are so amazed by the correctly-translated story and humor that they go on to buy all other volumes of the manga).

You had to go and make me jealous didn't you: first with your Dragonball-appreciative friends and then with your translated Kanzenbans. I still pray for an English translation (or for me to learn Japanese miraculously overnight).

[Kendamu]

None, really. Except Castor Troy, that is.

My girlfriend enjoys Dragonball. That's usually enough for me.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I've already brought it up, but I've been responsible for bringing Dragon Ball into... at least half a dozen casual fans lives at this point through my fraternity. At one of their behest, I'll be bringing my last 3 Dragon Boxes to attempt a year-long Buu-saga run, because on a college schedule it will probably take that long, one of them a guy who has never seen it all the way through (He cites Evil Buu's creation and Super Buu's killing the assassin has his "No" moment back in the day). And most of them have had NO issue with me being "that guy"- if anything they're glad for it, since they wouldn't have seen the newer specials or known the real details of Battle of Gods had I not been. I hate to rub salt in the wound of people like GafferTape, but I've had a wonderful time of it!

[DragonBoxZTheMovies]

I was quite surprised at the number of people who are into Dragon Ball at my school. I've heard people bring it up in conversations on a number of occasions. One guy even asked me to ask him any question relating to Dragon Ball and he said he'd be able to answer it. I just shuffled uncomfortably in my seat.

[Gyt Kaliba]

That's always awesome. I just met this one guy through my friend Hannah, and it turns out he loves everything I do. My favorite band that no one else likes or has even heard of, my favorite video games, hobbies/interests, and of course, Dragon Ball. The next step is obvious: marry him. XD

I've been there. Always fun to meet a new friend and find out that you share pretty much EVERY interest between yourselves. Thus, a bromance is born.

It's been forever since I've gotten to know anybody new in real life, so this situation hasn't happened to me in forever really, but it used to often enough. Usually because I was the kid with a manga (often enough Dragon Ball, what few volumes I have anyway) at school and reading it, and of course someone would see it and mention it if they were also a fan.

It's non-Dragon Ball related, but the funniest time this happened to me was at church camp of all places. Out of nowhere, two guys walked up to me, started talking with me, and were like 'Hey, do you like anime and manga? You should check out Negima!'. Very, very surreal...

[SSJJezter]

A couple of times he saw me today he mentioned Piccolo and Super Saiyans (say-uns - gonna have to make him change that ) in passing, so I think I could be able to get him to watch some of the series...




... or all of it...

[SsjRavi]

It's pretty rare to find Dragonball fans in the UK nowadays, mainly due to lack of exposure/promotion etc.

It's a shame that a majority of fans that I have met prefer the Funimation dub due to nostalgia and are reluctant to try the Japanese dub, they are missing out.

[Hellspawn28]

I haven't bump into many DBZ fans after Middle School. At the Howard Community College in Maryland, there are a good amount of Dragon Ball fans. I still bump into people who will say "People still like DBZ?" though.

[DoomieDoomie911]

Unforchantly, I never really meet anyone that's into any anime or manga in the real world. I'm sure one of these days though it's bound to happen!