What version did you start off with?

[ゴクウブラック]

So I decided to create this thread to ask you guys what version of Z did you first watch?

For me it was FUNi's original dub ( I started watching the series back in 2012 during my second year of highschool )
A year later I watched the Japanese dub ( which I also loved )

All in all I loved both versions and i'll never ever get tired of watching them

Sean & Nozawa do /AMAZING/ performances as Goku they are the character to me, because they bring such life to his spirit and personality ( I hate Sean's Kaio though, kinda scratchy on the ears but other than that everyone else is pretty solid )
Post your first time exposures below! ( I'm quite curious )

[VegettoEX]

For me it was FUNi's original dub ( I started watching the series back in 2012 during my second year of highschool )

If you're talking 2012, there's a good chance you weren't watching FUNimation's truly original dub, which began in 1995 for DB and 1996 for DBZ with the Vancouver cast. I can't really tell what you're referring to with "original" here. The Toonami broadcast? The updated dub on the season DVDs? Probably not Kai. It's not impossible that you were watching the 1996 dub, but it seems unlikely.

Anyway, that original dub is what I started with!

[sintzu]

I started with the original Japanese version in 4:3.

Goku's Kaioken, Going Ssj for the 1st time & Vegeta's sacrifice were my top 3 favorite moments.

[Anime Kitten]

The Nicktoons run of Dragon Ball Z Kai is how I began watching.

[Bansho64]

The Nicktoons run of Dragon Ball Z Kai is how I began watching.

Same. I saw a little of the Z dub online after discovering Kai and thought it was bad and went back to just watching reruns of Kai. I remember they had GT on Nicktoons too.

[Anime Kitten]

I remember they had GT on Nicktoons too.

Yep, me and my brother watched GT as soon as Kai finished.

[Ajay]

Being from the UK, the Ocean/Westwood cast was my first experience with the show. This was back in March 2000 when the series first aired in the UK on Cartoon Network.

I only experienced the in-house FUNi cast for their brief stint where they were impersonating the Ocean cast during the Freeza arc. I was only young, so I didn't pay too much attention to any of that.

It went right back to Westwood for the Android arc. I believe FUNi's in-house cast was broadcast in the UK for portions of the Boo arc, but I had long since ducked out of the franchise by that point, so I have no memory of it.

I wouldn't hear that cast in full until I finally sat down and watched Kai! It definitely makes it very hard for me to relate to those who adore Faulconer and worship Nadolny. I guess I try and equate it to the nostalgia I have for Drummond and McNeil, but it's hard! It all just seems so... bad.

'My' cast, if you can even call it that considering how much it changed, doesn't exist anymore (unless Ocean Kai suddenly appears), so I have no means outside of old recordings to enjoy that anymore. Nowadays, I just watch the show in Japanese, and having no concrete cast to latch onto certainly made that transition very easy.

That, and well, I don't really watch dubs in the large majority of cases, anyway. It was just like revisiting a show as an adult.

[Nejishiki]

I started off with an amateur subtitled VHS tape of the original broadcast version of the Dragon Ball Z anime. Specifically, it began with this episode and it ended somewhere around the episode where a wish was made to return everyone to Earth. My memories aren't as clear on where the set stopped, only that I bought two tapes. Needless to say, the true staying power of the events were lost on me, but I was engaged and curious enough to seek out the entire series from there. It wasn't until later when I was made aware of the Toonami broadcast and I wasn't exactly thrilled with it, but I found common ground with my brother-in-law to archive the episodes for comparative purposes, so we made our own fun with that. We also completed the single sets together for the pictures. He happened to enjoy the FUNimation voice work while I was wondering what he saw in it. Despite that, and many details I'm sure I'm forgetting, I started from the beginning of the Dragon Ball anime after "tasting" what was to come later so that I could give it the context it deserved.

[ゴクウブラック]

For me it was FUNi's original dub ( I started watching the series back in 2012 during my second year of highschool )

If you're talking 2012, there's a good chance you weren't watching FUNimation's truly original dub, which began in 1995 for DB and 1996 for DBZ with the Vancouver cast. I can't really tell what you're referring to with "original" here. The Toonami broadcast? The updated dub on the season DVDs? Probably not Kai. It's not impossible that you were watching the 1996 dub, but it seems unlikely.

Anyway, that original dub is what I started with!

I started with the Season sets ( wish the quality was better though, but hey ho what can you do ) I am looking into buying the the season blu ray's, however while they're not perfect they look leagues better than FUNi's Orange Bricks

And I have just recently seen Kai and I gotta say it's phenomenal you can really see the improvements they've made and Chris Ayres as Freeza is just astounding he sounds so damn menacing

[ABED]

I lived in Japan from 1991 until 1993 so I saw some of DBZ and even some DB, but I didn't start watching the show regularly until the very first episode of DBZ back in September 1996. I might not have watched it then had I not had prior knowledge of it.

[Anime Kitten]

I lived in Japan from 1991 until 1993 so I saw some of DBZ and even some DB, but I didn't start watching the show regularly until the very first episode of DBZ back in September 1996. I might not have watched it then had I not had prior knowledge of it.

Off-topic, but curious. Do you know any Japanese?

[DrBriefsCat]

The Ocean dub on a local WB affiliate before it was on Toonami. Back then, I thought there'd never be a dub past season 2. lol

[ABED]

I lived in Japan from 1991 until 1993 so I saw some of DBZ and even some DB, but I didn't start watching the show regularly until the very first episode of DBZ back in September 1996. I might not have watched it then had I not had prior knowledge of it.

Off-topic, but curious. Do you know any Japanese?

So desu. The sincere answer is no. I know bits and pieces, but not enough to even put a sentence together. I lived on a Navy base because my dad was the XO and then the CO of his squadron. We got American channels and a few Japanese channels.

[Soppa Saia People]

I watched the first episode of Kai, then went back to Dragon Ball (Funi), watch the first 15 episodes, watch the Saiyan arc (Funi), then just stuck with the manga for a long time, then around 2013/2014 I said "why not give the JPN version a shot", and while it's not my perfered version (manga4lyfe), the JPN is fantastic.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Being Irish I was exposed to a lot of the Ocean/Westwood dubs. Although the first time I saw the show was when I lived in America and I randomly saw the Goku and Freeza fight, so I was initially exposed to the Funi in-house cast, despite having a lot more exposure to the Ocean Group cast since then.

Nowadays my preferred way of watching the show is English Kai or DB, DBZ, DBGT or DBS in Japanese. I think both are fantastic, and would highly recommend either to any anime fan.

I did initially like the Funimation in-house dub, but having watched a lot of Kai and the latest movies it's hard to go back to. I also watch a random Ocean dub episode from time to time out of nostalgia, although that may change if Ocean Kai ever surfaces and the actors nail their roles.

[Cipher]

A reairing of FUNimation's Freeza arc dub, just before the Cell arc started airing.

It was quite a while before I saw any of the Ocean dub material, outside of the movies.

[Lord Beerus]

Being from the UK, the Ocean/Westwood cast was my first experience with the show. This was back in March 2000 when the series first aired in the UK on Cartoon Network.

Same here. The the Ocean/Westwood dub of 2000 was my first exposure to Dragon Ball.

[qjz123]

I got into the series in 2009 which was my first time watching it all the way through. I watched DBZ on the Orange Bricks with Funimation's dub with the Japanese music.

[Desassina]

Portuguese Dub from Portugal. This was the intro... Much better than the French one.

[B]

I was familiar with the first 53-episode syndicated Ocean-casted run, but found it offputting. I picked it up around the summer of 2001, when the Freeza arc was rerunning on Toonami.