My Dragon Ball pupil

JohnnyBoy_Z · Post by **JohnnyBoy_Z** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:54 pm

About a month ago, I introduced Dragon Ball to a friend of mine (same age as me: 25) who's heard of the anime, but has never seen one single episode or movie in his life. Mind you, he stopped watching cartoons a long time ago, and has repeatedly made fun of me over the years for being such a huge fan of Dragon Ball. But, ever since I showed him his first movie (DBZ movie #1), he's gone crazy for it. And now that he knows a little about what it's...about, he wants to see more and know more. In other words, he's hooked. He reminds me of...me, when I first started getting into the anime.

We're currently watching Dragon Ball every other night. We started with Dragon Ball episode #1, and will probably continue to the end of GT, with the movies in between. It's pretty cool to have someone to watch Dragon Ball with now. But it's even more cool being a source of info for something I love so much. I guess you could say that Iam his Dragon Ball master, and he is my pupil.

I feel a sense of pride knowing that I brought Dragon Ball into someone's life, and that it's making his life more fun. He told me the other day, with a great big smile, that he felt like a kid again. And he actually thanked me for getting him into the anime. He thanked me!

Anyway, I just felt like sharing this with the community.

Anyone else ever had a Dragon Ball pupil?

BlueSky · Post by **Kaboom** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:58 pm

Have you done the thing with him snatching the fly in your hand yet? That's fun, especially when the fly is actually a large, painted booger, but he doesn't know it, and you're just snickering to yourself about it and he gets all confused.

...

And yeah, I got my sisters into DragonBall. Er, one of them, anyway. She's not AS into it now, but still.

Also there's one guy I worked with up until a month or so ago, who used to watch it as a kid. He and I'd end up talking about it a lot, and I'd end up telling him things he didn't know or had misunderstood, and I'd tell him about the live-action movie and stuff...

Calcaneus · Post by **Calcaneus** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:58 pm

If I had the whole series in my possession, I could definitely see myself doing that to the few friends of mine that don't already know about Dragonball.

Artificial Human #887 · Post by **Artificial Human #887** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:14 pm

My boyfriend. He gets mad at me for it though, because he'll ask a question and I'll give him some long-winded answer. The again, he also gets mad if we ever watch anything dubbed because I can spot pretty much any voice actor.

A couple of people that I work with have gotten into (or re-into) DB because of me. So they always ask lots of questions. And then make fun of me for knowing all the answers. It's quite sad. And funny. Really.

AnzuMazaki · Post by **AnzuMazaki** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:38 pm

To tell you the truth I am also in the YGO fandom and have been trying to get my other friend into DB.

and I also really want to introduce some other friends to it.

cRookie_Monster · Post by **cRookie_Monster** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:42 pm

I got my wife and her sister into it ^^. They both moved onto other shows loooonnngg ago though. Actually, I got out of DBZ before my wife did, but DBZ was a real source of pain and anguish at that point in my life. I wanted to completely forget it. She stuck it out through a lot of the Buu saga.

Now its the reverse. I've come back after a long period of cleansing (about 6 years). My wife really doesn't give a *&#*& about DBZ anymore.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:13 pm

I'd make him try to catch a monkey.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:15 pm

My little sister.

Until she kicked my ass up one side and down the other of all three Budokai games.

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:51 pm

I think I got my best friend into it. Or we both started kinda right around the same times and fired the flames of fandom by constantly rambling about it together. It was cool though ^^

I don't know if I've pulled anybody into the series in the first place, but I've definately hepled direct some into the glory that is my green boys.

DaemonCorps · Post by **DaemonCorps** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 1:08 am

This has always been something that I've enjoyed doing, especially when I don't come off as forcing the series onto the other guy.

I remember my friend getting me into the series through his tapings from the i-channel. At first, I was kinda turned off by the massive amounts of "ultra-violence," but I eventually let up and am glad to say that I've been able to pass down the series to my friends in some way or another.

in particular, I remember being the first person to bring in manga into my class during silent reading time (I find it amazing that my seventh grade still had such a thing). At first, I'd just mind to myself, but some of my friends thought it was pretty cool that I'd actually dare to bring in something along the lines of a comic book during SSR time and being the seventh graders they were, decided to join in the "rebelliousness."

I didn't even think too much about it at the time, but I instinctively ended up starting all four or so of 'em with Dragon Ball. Two of 'em were completely new to DB, while the other two were more of casual fans who ended up getting a bit more into the series with my influence. At the time, Viz had yet to release volume 16, so when that time came around, some decided to just stop while the whole alien element wasn't as major, while others asked me to just bring in the following volumes after that. While I'm sure I brought in volumes up until Viz's DBZ volume 15, the guys started getting out of the series around the Namek stuff... not like it stopped them from reading what I brought in.

While none of them ever reached the point in fandom where I'd get in arguments with them over stuff in the series, or they'd ask me questions, I could definitely tell that they were sincerely into the series. I clearly remember them snickering and showing me panels of stuff like Goku being naked or Roshi being Roshi. It was just all in good fun and was never really intended to completely suck them into the fandom.

Fast forward to a month or so ago in my early Senior year. While I've stayed close with some of my friends, others have slowly gotten into a new group of friends. One in particular has become quite the drama nerd (not to hate or anything). One day, during free period, this guy and one of his friends were checking stuff up on YouTube and the other guy eventually brought up the "Over 9000" video (which I think is one of the things that really just gives such an inaccurate view of the series, but I digress). So, after my old friend sees this, he says something along the lines of "Ugh, DBZ is so stupid." Well, I think upon saying this, he remembered that I was right to his side, since he kinda glances at me and then says "But DB was awesome, though."

It's stuff like that that (dare I say it?) warms my heart. I mean, while me and him aren't that close anymore, I was amazed that he would still say such a thing, y'know?

Castor Troy wrote:I'd make him try to catch a monkey.

Sounds like a YouTube video waiting to happen...

JohnnyBoy_Z · Post by **JohnnyBoy_Z** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 1:32 am

Good post, DaemonCorps.

When I first starting getting into the series hardcore, I luckily had a close friend who knew just a little bit more than me (he had the internet at the time and I didn't). He is the reason I prefer the Japanese version over any other. Almost everyday he would come at me with some new info about what's going to happen soon in the series, or what changes each character is going to go thru later on in the series (way before FUNi got that far). It was freaking exciting! And sometimes I'd go to his house and he'd show me some pictures that I hadn't seen before (i.e. SSJ3 Goku, SSJ4 Goku and Vegeta, Gotenks, Gojita, etc.), and I would literally drool. You should've seen my face when I found out there was a GT series. lol

And that is exactly how my friend is acting right now. I'm having a great time explaining things to him about the series. He will be a great Dragon Ball fanatic one day. I will make sure of that.

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 4:06 am

I got a lot of my cousins into DBZ. Ironic thing is, they watched the eps on International Channel while not knowing a word of Japanese, while I didn't back in the day to avoid spoilers and not knowing who was who, yet they refuse to watch said eps subtitled.

sangofe · Post by **sangofe** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 4:32 am

I got one friend hugely hooked at Dragonball, he watched all DB Z GT in two weeks.
And I've gotten some other friends mildly into it: they've watched eps here and there, but aren't crazy about it.

Undercooked Sausage · Post by **Undercooked Sausage** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 6:09 am

About a year ago, I got my best friend who had never seen an episode to start from Dragonball, he would watch like five episodes a day and watched everything and completely fell in love with it. I pretty much felt the same way as the thread creator. The funniest part, is almost virally, my friend also got his dad, and a few of his friends into Dragonball as well.

I'm NOW in the process of showing him the subtitled version, which he is extremely eager to watch.

DemonKingPiccolo · Post by **DemonKingPiccolo** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:23 am

I've had several pupils, but none of them got as hugely into the series as I am. They're mostly Naruto fans now........ damn that overrated and over-"media-ized" series to hell.

shotkeeper · Post by **shotkeeper** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:40 am

Yeah if you call them pupils, then all my friends and little brothers are pupiles now, Jk.

Cool to see, You can enjoy it every night again. I'm sure you will come across something, you never saw before.

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:17 pm

DemonKingPiccolo wrote:I've had several pupils, but none of them got as hugely into the series as I am. They're mostly Naruto fans now........ damn that overrated and over-"media-ized" series to hell.

We have a shitstorm moooooving right in folks. Don't forget your flame shields as you go outside today, in other news...

Mike D · Post by **Mike D** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:02 pm

Pupils eh? Probably my younger brother. Then I have friends that were already into the series, but I always like to enlighten them when they try to argue.

Sshadow5001 · Post by **Sshadow5001** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 6:39 pm

I wish i could be a Master of Dragonball but noone around seems to care anymore (At least where i live).

Though i guess i'm a master when it comes to my little brothers and his mates when they argue about Naruto.

JohnnyBoy_Z · Post by **JohnnyBoy_Z** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:38 pm

Undercooked Sausage wrote:I pretty much felt the same way as the thread creator. The funniest part, is almost virally, my friend also got his dad, and a few of his friends into Dragonball as well.

Now THAT is cool! You're a grandmaster, my friend.

I'm NOW in the process of showing him the subtitled version, which he is extremely eager to watch.

Good stuff. I started my friend out on the Japanese version, and he got into it from the gates. The subtitles didn't bother him one bit, which was suprising to me. You would think that he would've wanted to start off watching the English dub, but not the case. Well, he asked me which version was better, and you already know what I said.