First Dragon Ball movie you saw in Japanese?

[Hellspawn28]

So what was the first Dragon Ball movie you saw in Japanese? For me, it was DBZ Movie 8 back in 2001. I remember I was at the Arundel Mills mall in the food court and there was a little table that had a lot of cool Japanese stuff. That table had a little TV playing DBZ Movie 8 with no subs and I asked the guy when the movie is coming out in the US. He was like "Not for another few more years kid" and I was kinda upset that I had to wait to see it. Then sometime later that year, I went to the Owings Mills to go to my favorite store which also sold a lot of cool Japanese stuff and the TV was playing DBZ Movie 8. They had DBZ movies for sale with fansubs on VHS and I used my money to buy my copy of the film. I rushed home to see it and the movie was totally worth it back then. As a kid, I heard about Broli but I wanted to see if the rumors about him were true or not.

I miss the days when stores for niche stuff was common in public malls since the Columbia mall also had a neat collectors shop upstairs (Now some shoe store) back in the late 90's.

[G1Ravage]

That's a good question. I'm trying to remember when I purchased the Pioneer DVD's for Movies 1-3. Or where I got them from. My first anime DVD *ever* was Ginyu - Assault. I'm assuming that the first movie FUNi put out themselves was Movie 4. I'm pretty sure I already had 1-3 on DVD before that.

[DB_Fan1991]

Dragon Ball movie 1 a few months ago since I'm going through the whole series in Japanese in order and am placing the movies in between the episodes it did originally.

[ABED]

It had to be one of the movies put out by Pioneer. I can't remember which one though. Probably the first one, but I'm not positive.

[VegettoEX]

My first VHS fansubs were in 1997, and they were DBZ TV episodes 94-104 (two tapes of six episodes each; Anime Labs version). A friend and I did a tape trade with a random person from a random message board or newsgroup posting. I actually have no real recollection of how we got in touch with them. We traded three tapes worth of the syndicated English dub airing (remember, there was no home release of it yet) for two tapes of the original Japanese version.

I ordered three tapes SASE from "Capsule Corp." distro on my own... it must have been early 1998...? It couldn't have been TOO much earlier than that, because it included raw recordings of DBGT 59, 61-64 (and that just aired in November 1997) along with Bardock + Trunks specials and DBZ Movies 11 + 12 (the latter two tapes being fansubbed).

So, technically speaking, I think my first DBZ movie in its entirety in Japanese ('cuz I had been watching clips online for a while) was DBZ Movie 11.

I don't understand how I made it as far as I did. Probably 'cuz Movie 12 came on immediately after and saved me?

(Very unsure of the timeframe. I definitely picked up DBZ Movies 1-3 subtitled from the FUNimation/Pioneer collaboration, and DBZ Movie 1 came out in late 1997 with the second and third in early 1998, but I do specifically remember picking them up dubbed first because that's all my local video store was stocking for a while.)

Time is confusing.

[DarkPrince_92]

Movie 13, before Funimation dubbed it. It was like a year before they dubbed it and it was in parts on youtube in terrible quality. Subs were interesting...

[chaosyoshimage]

The first DBZ film was mine. It was the second DVD I ever owned, right after the first "uncut" Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters volume.

[goku the krump dancer]

So what was the first Dragon Ball movie you saw in Japanese? For me, it was DBZ Movie 8 back in 2001.

Weird, it was the same time and movie for me as well. only the circumstances were very different lol. I was in 3rd grade at the time and one of my younger brother's teachers was a big DB fan and somehow he found out that we were too. I guess thats one of the good things that came out of "Show and Tell". But anyways he lets us borrow Movie 8 first then followed by Movie 10, 11, Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, the fight with Kid Boo, the Super 17 saga and finally the last fight with Yi- Shenlong.

[Super Sonic]

Movie 5 as it was the first movie I bought on dvd.

[Insertclevername]

Movie #7 since it was the one I had as a kid. It wasn't late 2011 was when I started getting interested in the Japanese version.

[DonZ]

For me this question is more like "first Dragon Ball movie you saw EVER" cuz i didn't watched the movies back in my childhood, and i don't watch dubbd anime at all.
trying to remember ............ DBZ Movie 3: Tree of Might.

[kei17]

I don't know because I must have watched it before my memory. Maybe it was DBZ movie 2 or 3.

[medama_oyaji]

I saw the 10th Anniversary Movie in the anime viewing room at Chicago Comic-Con....1997 I think? Then I went out to the dealers' room and found some VHS fansubs of DBZ movies 2, 3, and 12. A really good mix, I think. Some action-heavy early DBZ movies, and the humor and awesomeness of movie 12 (my favorite DBZ movie to this day).

[Gonstead]

Last year when I was doing a watch-through of all the movies and part of the series in Japanese.

So, Dead Zone.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

Z movie 1, around the time I'd started collecting the DVDs and watching the series in Japanese.

[DBZ Mick]

Movie 13, before Funimation dubbed it. It was like a year before they dubbed it and it was in parts on youtube in terrible quality. Subs were interesting...

This.

[The Tori-bot]

Movie 7, because my bootleg DVD set of all 13 movies was made before all of them had been dubbed so from that movie onwards I was basically watching fansubs.

[TheMightyOzaru]

Movie 9 I think.

[theoriginalbilis]

You kids with your bilingual DVDs have so easy, don't you?

I'd have to say my first Japanese DBZ movies were Movies 1 & 2 thanks to the old Pioneer/Geneon VHS releases. My parents got them for me as a Christmas present in 1998, knowing I liked the TV show. From 1999 onwards, I got various episodes and movies on Fansubbed VHS thanks a local comic store which I discovered was selling DBZ episodes and movies that hadn't aired on CN yet. Before I switched to buying the FUNimation DVDs in 2002, I had every DBZ movie in Japanese, as well scattered episodes of the Cell/Buu sagas, and the last 15 or so episodes of GT in order. All in crappy nth-generation quality...

Those were magical times when every new thing DragonBall was exciting and new. I guess I didn't know any better, because I even found the GT stuff I watched to be enthralling. Nowadays? Meh.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

I believe it was the first DB movie. I was watching the complete series back then with the FUNi dub, but because I was watching them uncut, I didn't watch that movie dubbed because it was edited (there wasn't the uncut version back then).