What was your first introduction to Dragon Ball?

[Snobbz]

I was first introduced to kai and the videogames when I was young. I started watching video's about Dragon Ball Z which I kind of regret since it basically spoiled the rest of the series for me, but I thought it was awesome that these characters were shooting lasers out of their bodies and stuff. Honestly now learning about the lore is the most interesting part for me. I wonder how you guys got into it.

[JulieYBM]

I think the day was October 14, 1998 (or maybe it was October 10). A friend and I were organizing Pokemon cards as two girls are wont to do while watching television. She wanted to watch Toonami (which I had somehow never heard of) so as to watch the new episode of Dragon Ball Z. It was the episode where Vegeta was using the Rei Gun pose to slaughter Namekians. I wasn't exactly fully enraptured—I had to go and double check which episode of Power Rangers in Space was airing on television in another room—but as my first memory of Dragon Ball it stuck in my brain quite well.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I was living in the States for a few months between July and November 1999 and caught a few episodes as they were airing on Toonami. I think the first episode I saw, or at least the earliest I remember is Goku defeating Freeza. I'd never seen anything like it before and it was quite captivating. By the end of that year I found myself back home in Ireland, and seeing commercials for when the series was coming to Cartoon Network UK, and of course I was incredibly excited. Its been my favourite show ever since.

[ABED]

I was living in Japan during the early 90s so I heard about Dragon Ball and Goku but never saw anything. My brother had a few DBZ cards, but that's it. Then one day in 1996, I was watching Saturday morning cartoons and saw a Japanese cartoon and heard a woman shout "Gohan!" I knew that name! I saw a man with odd hair punch a giant tree down with his bare fist. I've been watching ever since.

[Luso Saiyan]

It was the original DB anime, when it started airing in my country back in 1995.

[Wrigglything]

Most likely airings of Kai on Cartoon Network in the late 2000s early 2010s, if I remember correctly. It was the English dub from Crunchyroll, meaning they played the localised theme songs and the voice cast was much of the crew we still hear to this day.

Of course, it wasn't until some time later that I really sat down and finished the show from start to finish. I think we all know how it turned out from there.

[MrSatan2099]

First time I ever heard the name Dragon Ball was old Fox Affiliate tv spots for the syndicated Z run back in 96/97, although I never actually watched it until it hit Toomami in 98.

[Snobbz]

I was living in Japan during the early 90s so I heard about Dragon Ball and Goku but never saw anything. My brother had a few DBZ cards, but that's it. Then one day in 1996, I was watching Saturday morning cartoons and saw a Japanese cartoon and heard a woman shout "Gohan!" I knew that name! I saw a man with odd hair punch a giant tree down with his bare fist. I've been watching ever since.

Was it really big there back in the early 90s or you didn't remember much?

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

A pretty bog-standard United States "Stand by for Dragon Ball Z!" introduction with the Ocean cast in syndication. I could not tell you when I first saw it, I did see the 3-episode cut of Tree of Might, which I read aired in 1997? Frankly the only things I remember from that moment in time are my confusion with said movie, wondering why the green alien-demon from the Japanese cartoon was making a David and Goliath analogy, and not liking the music. I watched the Toonami airings to some degree after that, I do remember seeing the Super Saiyan transformation and Garlic Jr., but funny enough I did not become a regular until the last leg of the Cell games going into Buu, when they started airing Dragon Ball. I can tell you I particularly enjoyed Buu's Fury on GBA on account of that.

[MasenkoHA]

It was sometime late in 98 or early 99 when the Funi/Ocean dub was airing on Toonami. Pretty sure it was the Escape from Piccolo episode

[dultimate02]

I got into Dragon Ball because of Kai's run on Nicktoons. Started right when it premiered cause the TV spots looked interesting. I had no idea this was a franchise that existed prior to its Nicktoons premiere till I started to become more into it as I watched the show. People often talk about the censorship in Nicktoon's Kai, but to be honest, as a then 8-year-old kid, the show still felt pretty serious in its tone to me.

I'm glad I got into Kai's Dub rather than the English Dub of Z because I got a more accurate script to the Japanese right off the bat.

I had become such a fan that I was gifted the entire DBZ Orange Bricks as a birthday gift. My family didn't know the difference between DBZ and DBZ Kai, and neither did I. But when I started watching the Z dub on the Orange Bricks, I was very confused why everyone's delivery was worse and the lines weren't the same as I remembered them on TV. And the voice changes! Gohan and Freeza's voices in Z really puzzled me as a Kai kid. Was seriously confused as all hell. Haha!

[Anonymous Friend]

I had watched Speed Racer on TV in the 80s, as well as watching Voltron and Thundercats. In the 90s, I watched whatever Sailor Moon and Macross would air. I was aware of Japanimation. Mid90s, I started hearing about this Dragon Ball Z thing but never saw anything of it. I walked past this asian store in the Bronx and they had one of the games playing on a TV. "Ah, okay. This is related to that dragon Ball thing I've heard of". It was one of the games where if opponents got to far away from each other, there would be a slash inn the middle of the screen.

Then, one of the syndicated channel in New York, either UPN or WB, started airing episodes at like 5am. I want to say it was UPN because I'm sure they were the channel also running the second Technoman series I only managed to catch half of one episode out of the five times I attempted. It was either Gohan getting trained by Piccolo for the saiyans, or a DB episode with similar imagery. All I know is that I'mm completely lost in the Who, What, When, Who, and Why. Couple years later and I'm enjoying the New Adventures of Johnny Quest and now they're bring us Dragon Ball Z

[ABED]

I was living in Japan during the early 90s so I heard about Dragon Ball and Goku but never saw anything. My brother had a few DBZ cards, but that's it. Then one day in 1996, I was watching Saturday morning cartoons and saw a Japanese cartoon and heard a woman shout "Gohan!" I knew that name! I saw a man with odd hair punch a giant tree down with his bare fist. I've been watching ever since.

Was it really big there back in the early 90s or you didn't remember much?

While I have vivid memories of those years, I lived on a military base. My father was a Navy pilot and he got stationed in Japan from 1991-93. The base got mostly American TV, but a few Japanese stations. So we got DB but it wasn't subtitled. I heard of DB and saw a few things here and there. A few kids had the Super Famicom games.

[90sDBZ]

Cartoon Network UK in 2000. I saw bits and pieces of Seasons 1 and 2. I remember Goku fighting Nappa. I think the first episode I sat down and watched properly was the 'Bulma's bad day' filler episode on Namek. I also remember seeing Goku fighting Burter and Jeice.

The episode that made me obsessed with the show was 'The end of Vegeta'. Seeing him die while giving that speech to Goku hit hard, and the Faulconer score enhanced it for me. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen in a cartoon before, and I went on to watch the entire Goku vs Frieza fight, which forever cemented Z as my favourite show. I watched all the reruns of earlier episodes and tuned into every new saga as soon as it aired. Even years later I would always watch the reruns on Toonami UK until they stopped airing.

Between those old broadcasts and the home releases I have no earthly idea how many times I've seen Z.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Cell arc when it was airing first run on Toonami in mid/late 2000. That's the first Dragon Ball content i can clearly remember seeing as a little kid. IIRC it was either the episode where Cell (in his Imperfect form) appeared for the first time or when Goku finally woke up after recovering from the heart illness.

[Hellspawn28]

I could have saw some DB related stuff before 1997, but the first time when I actually knew what Dragon Ball was back in 1997 when my Dad got two VHS copies of Dragon Ball for my birthday. They were these VHS tapes:





When I was 6, I thought Dragon Ball was pretty boring compare to the anime that I was watching on Sci-Fi. My two sisters (They were 4 and 2 at the time) did like it though. Sometime in 1998, I was waiting for Beast Wars to come on TV and I stumble upon the episode where Goku was being wished back to life. I had no idea what I was watching and I end up turning off the TV. I believe this was the syndication run of DBZ because I was still living at my old house in Columbia, MD before we moved out after July 1998 and DBZ didn't air on CN until August 1998. When I was in the second grade, I remember DBZ blew up and everyone was talking about it. I didn't bother to watch it until 1999 when I watched the episode when Piccolo was fighting Freeza. I remember hating it and I was like "This is so stupid. Why do people like this?". Even as an 8-year-old back in 1999, I can tell that the dub was awful. I was already watching other anime at the time, so I didn't see the point of watching anime on Toonami (I still watched it for some anime like Ronin Warriors).

From 1999-2000, I avoid anything related to Dragon Ball because I thought it was stupid and annoying. It was not until early 2001 when I was bored late at night and I decided to check out the Toonami Midnight Run. When I was a kid, I used to stay up late and did channel surfing to watch whatever I can find on late-night TV. I remember watching the episode where Goku teleported Cell to North Kai's Planet and I was now interested in Dragon Ball. The next day, I used the Internet at home to discover more about Dragon Ball and the first fan website that I went to was DBZ Uncensored. It did me want to check out the uncut episodes of DBZ in Japanese, but I had no idea how to. I was in the tape trading community, but I was mostly watching live-action movies from Japan and Hong Kong at the time.

When I move out of Ellicott City, MD during the summer of 2001, I moved to a new house in another part of Maryland and one of my neighbors was super into Dragon Ball. We became best friends and one of his friends had DBZ Legends on the PS1. This was my first time hearing Goku's voice in Japanese and it didn't bother me. When I started the 5th grade back in late August 2001, one person in the 5th grade had Japanese episodes of DBZ on VHS and he would start playground rumors of the series. He would tell people that DBZ in Japanese is a show for grown-ups and DBZ on Cartoon Network is the baby's version. After school, we sneak inside the TV room (It was a place where the school keeps all of their TVs) and watched uncut episodes of DBZ in Japanese. This was my first time watching Dragon Ball Z in Japanese and it was DBZ Episode 29 (Goku vs. Nappa). I would later buy a VHS fan sub-copy of DBZ Movie 8 and it felt amazing to watch something before it was dubbed.

Later that year in 2001, I found out that one of my cousins had DBZ stuff that he had before the series was dubbed. He had every episode of the Cell saga and Buu saga in Japanese with fansubs along with DBZ Movie 6, DBZ Movie 7, and DBZ Movie 12. I was also able to watch GT on fansubs tapes thanks to a friend of mine and a local Japanese collector's shop. I do admit that it felt cool that I was way head of everyone else when it came to Dragon Ball. The rest is history and I'm still a big fan of Dragon Ball. I never grew out of it or move on from it as I did with many other childhood franchises.

[StevenPiccolo]

Like many others, when Kai was on TV (it felt like they were always showing Namek episodes...) as an elementary school kid. My cousin had a few volumes here and there at his house. But it never really caught my interest, because it felt like they did absolutely NOTHING all the time. No one at school liked it either, and everyone talked about Naruto instead. I remember finding and downloading all the openings and endings in Japanese on my iPod, because they got stuck in my head.

But I didn't "formally" experience the series until this year, at the urgings of ex-friends and current friends over the last couple of years. It's one of those things I told myself I'd get around to reading eventually. And then I did read it. And here I am. I still dont know how to feel about watching Dragon Ball in The Full because I have a terrible attention span, but I'm trying not to let stupid childhood feelings sour it all.

[nineko]

It was summer 1999 for me. I don't remember the exact date, but I tried to look on the Italian Wikipedia and everything works out, here is what I can say.

I'm sure I was on vacation from school, I was 15 at that time, my family still had a house near the mountains back then, and I randomly noticed some new "cartoon" (I didn't know that "anime" was a thing back then) on the Italia Uno channel, it wasn't the first episode but it still was near the beginning, like the Pilaf arc iirc, which would be consistent with the informations on the aforementioned Wikipedia, which puts the start of the Italia Uno run at June 7th, so it makes sense if I caught some early episode right after school ended (schools usually end at the beginning of June here in Italy).

Anyways, I liked what I saw, so I made sure to watch the next episode on the following day. And the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that.

And I'm 38 now and my keychain is still Goku. What is wrong with me.

[sammybam88]

i think it was maybe when super started in 2015, when i was like 7, then the event in Fortnite got me really interested in it

[Snobbz]

I got into Dragon Ball because of Kai's run on Nicktoons. Started right when it premiered cause the TV spots looked interesting. I had no idea this was a franchise that existed prior to its Nicktoons premiere till I started to become more into it as I watched the show. People often talk about the censorship in Nicktoon's Kai, but to be honest, as a then 8-year-old kid, the show still felt pretty serious in its tone to me.

I'm glad I got into Kai's Dub rather than the English Dub of Z because I got a more accurate script to the Japanese right off the bat.

I had become such a fan that I was gifted the entire DBZ Orange Bricks as a birthday gift. My family didn't know the difference between DBZ and DBZ Kai, and neither did I. But when I started watching the Z dub on the Orange Bricks, I was very confused why everyone's delivery was worse and the lines weren't the same as I remembered them on TV. And the voice changes! Gohan and Freeza's voices in Z really puzzled me as a Kai kid. Was seriously confused as all hell. Haha!

I had the same experience as well, when I first saw kai on CW I thought it was a completely new show and wasn't part of something bigger. I'm rewatching kai from the nicktoons broadcast and honestly the censorship isn't that bad. I wish some parts were done better (like Guldo's death) but I have to admit, it was necessary for the tv-y7 rating. I still prefer the dub in a way since I grew up with it, even though I do like both the original and the dub.