Has Dragon Ball Made Your Life Happier?

[thatdbzguy]

So yeah. Not really sure what else to say here. Has Dragon Ball made you a happier person? Has it made you enjoy life more?

[Fionordequester]

Certainly!

[RocktheDragon]

I would definitely say so. Watching, reading, and researching about the series has brought me unbridled amounts of fun for the past several years and I hope it continues to! There are times when DB may have become a bit over saturated in my life but it always comes back with something new to show me and reels me in.

[TheAldella]

...Eh? It kinda made me more stupid back in the day, because it's all I would think about. Now that I have a brain stem and have widened my horizons, I actually feel much better.

Sure, it's always neat to watch Kai and things, but it's not my happy place or anything. Not even close.

[dodge2461]

When I got into it, I was stressed with AP classes I shouldn't have been in, overall bad grades,my grandmother becoming terminally ill, so when I started watching it on Hulu, it was a great experience. The sad life I was living always slipped away when I was watching the show. It helped me get through that rough patch of my life, introduced me to several other anime and manga series, and helped me find this community.

So yeah, I guess it did.

[TheGmGoken]

Yea it really has. More so than any other anime(favorite is TTGL). Seeing Goku always brings a smile...no not just Goku but the entire cast. When I'm sick of reality I dream of being Dbz. Its amazing. Watch Yo Son Goku return and you just have to smile. The bgm makes me pumped. The cast has to be in the top ten GOAT in terms of cast. Dragonball just gives you that feeling. Look how the cast interact when not fighting. Its great.

[Landcross]

I have fond memories of conventions and collecting DBZ merch from the early 2000's, so yes.

[Gaffer Tape]

It has given me countless fond memories, got me interested in Japanese culture and language, and continues to bring new people to my YouTube channel, so... yeah, Dragon Ball has impacted my life in a positive way.

[OmegaRockman]

Dragon Ball has always been a series that's been there for me right when I needed it. At first it was just a series I enjoyed watching and playing the games for, but in more recent years it's helped get me through some tough times. For example, a year ago a friend that I called my brother betrayed me and our friendship ended because of it. It absolutely devastated me at the time and watching the series again helped me take my mind off of things until I could better reflect on and deal with the situation. I'm still not completely over it, but things are a lot better for me due to me doing things involving the series such as the fandub I'm working on. Also, my aunt lost the battle cancer this past October and it really had an impact on my family since she lived with us. She had been diagnosed a long while before so we were expecting it, but nothing can prepare you for something like that. Some of my fondest memories of spending time with her, though, were when she would watch my sisters and me play through Zelda games, watching The Nostalgia Critic together, and, of course, watching Dragon Ball together. My aunt was never into many cartoons let alone anime, but when Kai started on Nicktoons she really got into it. She'd also watch with me when I bought the Kai DVDs as they were coming out. Later on I got the Dragon Boxes covering the Boo arc as a Christmas gift and she watched most of that with me, too. She didn't even mind that it was subtitled, and she usually hated having to watch subtitled shows and movies. We never got to finish it since I started school, but the fact that we enjoyed it so much together makes that a special memory for me. So yeah, Dragon Ball has done a lot for me not only on an entertainment level, but a deeply personal level as well.

[ConfusedPhantom]

In a way, yeah. It's always there to entertain me and brighten my day.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

It has made me less lazy & more motivated to do things.

[Codarik]

Whenever I get in a depressed mood, I always come to DB to cheer me up.

[Kuwabara]

I love the franchise and think it's affected my life positively, but the fact that the best possible releases of all three series still haven't dropped really depresses me.

[Fionordequester]

To elaborate on what I said before (I was busier at the time, and seeing all these great answers, I felt like I should expand on mine), it gave me my favorite soundtrack of all time in the Team Faulconer score, gave me a role-model in Goku (well, the FUNI version moreso, with stuff like Goku's "You'll never destroy what I represent, Buu!"), introduced me to FUNImation and all of their awesome actors (one of the only reasons I watched One Piece for as long as I did was because it was well dubbed), and, best of all, made for a great experience with my Dad as I introduced him to Dragon Ball Z Kai, a show which he absolutely fell in love with (although he sure didn't like the Kikuchi score that came later. He liked Yamamoto just fine though).

[penguintruth]

Yes, it has made me ecstatic that I have spent countless hours nitpicking a decades-old Japanese cartoon to the point where I spend hours in arguments over it, making videos trying to explain the differences between versions which are subsequently attacked en masse when not ignored, and criticism of the English dub cost me work.

Viva Dragon Ball.

I suppose if it weren't Dragon Ball, it'd just be something else, though.

[Wibbs]

DragonBall has definitely made my life happier, it's just one of those shows really. If I'm ever feeling down about anything it's nice to know I can just pop in a bit of DBZ or even GT to cheer myself up again. It could be anything though, what I mean by that is if you really like something, seeing it again is bound to make you happy, regardless of how bad you might think it is.

[Tzigi]

10 years ago I would say that it has made my life quite sad - I was bullied throught the whole 3 years (2001-2003) of my junior high school because other people considered Dragon Ball stupid and everybody who liked it was instantly branded a moron (it probably didn't help that I was always the best student in every class so I was hated even more). But now I've got to say that yes, it makes my life happier - it has helped me in my first year of university when I was hopelessly drowning in the sea of overworking and no friends (translating Dragon Ball Multiverse into Polish was the only non-university thing I did for a whole year and it has helped me maintain my sanity) and then it was one of the things (together with fantasy, board games and similar stuff) that drew me and my boyfriend, fiance and now husband together. So, yeah, it has made my life happier

[VegettoEX]

Pretty much brought my wife and some of my best friends in the world into my life. That ain't a bad thing.

I feel enriched learning new things about the series itself, the person who wrote it, the culture and time period it came from, and so on and so forth going back and larger each time.

I feel a great satisfaction from talking about it with other people who are also interested in it. I feel a greater satisfaction having built something that so many of them come to on a daily basis.

That's not to say the series didn't indirectly bring some bad times (many of that simply due to my own lack-of-growth/maturity/perspective somewhere between 13-14 years ago), but there ain't no denyin' how great it's been to be a fan of this series and I wouldn't trade it in for anything.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Let's put it this way. Right now, I've got a small case of the flu (hence the reason I can't sleep and am posting this early), and my throat is soar. For that reason, I'm tremendously worried about whether or not I'll be able to successfully complete a voice-over session that I have with a European client in a few hours.

But man, am I grateful to God that that is an actual concern of mine. Years ago, I thought becoming a voice actor was an unobtainable fantasy. But after buying the "Season 1" orange brick DVD set and resurrecting my interest in Dragon Ball, it resurrected my interest in the English dub and, by extension, an interest in one day being able to take part in the process of telling such a great story in English.

Now, of course I suppose I should mention that as I have gotten older I have found difficult not to let some issues with the old DBZ dub bother me (especially in the accuracy/adaptation department), and that orange brick DVD set's...shall we say, "less than stellar"...restoration process. However, even in the depths of "Season 3"'s worst changes, there was a certain magic I felt about that show as a young viewer, and getting back into the show reminded me of that magic, and renewed in me an interest to become a storyteller and be a part of recreating that same magic one day for future viewers.

I don't remember where she said it, but Masako Nozawa once said that one has, "Got to believe in the magic of anime." I friggin' LOVE that quote, and have tweaked that wonderful quote ever-so-slightly to say that one has got to believe in the magic of voice acting. I always remind myself before I step into my booth that whatever I'm doing isn't just a job, it's part of a bigger, grander process of creating the magic that Nozawa spoke of...and my belief in that magic has now made me a working VO talent, living in Los Angeles, a member of SAG-AFTRA, living my dream and pursuing my dream to even greater heights.

So absolutely. I already had an interest in acting in general, but I credit Dragon Ball with renewing it and taking that interest to the next level.

EDIT: Nozawa said the quote I mentioned in an interview featured on something called "GT Perfect Files." I found a translation of it on Kanzenshuu, actually. In this translation, the word "magic" is replaced with "power," but due to the exact same meaning and context, I just interpret that to be a slight difference in wording from the translation that I originally read.

[Dbzfan94]

Simply put, hell yeah. It's gotten me through really tough times.