Comments on: Those Were the Days? Dragonball Z

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:46:27 +0000

Growing up I had the pleasure of watching this series during a two hour block that featured some “classics” of anime, whose names I can’t recall. Most of the show’s names were translated horribly into Spanish, although the dubbing was better than the English at the time. DBZ was always a guilty pleasure: I knew nothing new was going to happen, hated the drawn out battle scenes, but still continued to tune in Monday-Friday. This show was a big deal 10-15 years ago in Mexico, I remember watching a lot of the movies in theatres at a time when most people in the States barely even knew what anime meant. I agree with just about every point in your post (which was amazingly funny btw). I’m not exactly proud of having been a DBZ fan, but I won’t deny that I enjoyed it. As cringe-worthy as it seems, and horribly sub par to what I like to watch now, I like to think of it as the Arbor Mist I might chug in between glasses of a fine Bordeaux.

By: kyanni

kyanni — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 01:02:03 +0000

that’s just sad. I’m not ashamed of anything I watched or did as a kid. It all affects you in the long run anyway. I watched DBZ and I admit that I was obsessed with it. It’s always fun to look back at memories and have a laugh or two over interests such as the ridiculous cancer known as DBZ. I even watch the movies they show on Cartoon Network to this day. I’m an 18 year old female watching cartoons. I rock.

By: mrnashman

mrnashman — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:10:17 +0000

i second that, and unfortunately we think shows we watched when we were kids are wird and somewhat embrrising

By: Karura

Karura — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:50:09 +0000

“Of course, it’s all too common for people to think shows that they watched when they were younger aren’t up to par for them years down the line.”

To be honest, I’ve always found the opposite- I’ve looked at things with rose tinted glasses for years only to return to them in adulthood and find myself laughing at how poor they are.
As for the ‘bashing’, well of course randomly flaming something just for the sake of it or because everyone is should be avoided, but I don’t think there’s any harm in coming back to something from the old days and seeing what you think of it now- which is the point of this series of articles. In the case of DBZ, it was something that once entertained me in its soap opera “let’s find out what happenings in the next exciting episode” way, but having long since seen it all, I don’t really have any desire to sit through the drawn out fights (I’m sorry, but tens of episodes is just a teensy little bit too drawn out for me) ever again. It gave me what enjoyment it could long ago, and I very much doubt it has anything to offer my current self.

By: KT Kore

KT Kore — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:53:04 +0000

I really don’t think the show deserves the massive hatred that it receives, nor do I feel it deserves to be associated with embarrassment. To me, DragonBall is not a bad show in the least, and when you look at it for what it is (a shounen fighting show) rather than what it’s not (some other “deeper” show that you like better), it really is just fine. People complain about the show having no plot. Well obviously it does have a plot — this isn’t Ichigo Mashimaro or Azumanga Daioh we’re talking about here. It’s your classic good vs. evil based story. But I’ve always found that the real story lies within the fight, and not in why the fight was caused. That would explain the insanely long fights. And the show does just fine in being that. I’ve always enjoyed the super-long fights honestly. They always seemed more epic than your basic 1-2 episode fight in every other show in the genre. And when an arc finally came to a close, you felt the same sense of accomplishment (in a good way) that the characters did. The end of the fights always felt special to me…

Throw in some fun and memorable characters (who’s ever gonna forget Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, Vegeta, Kuririn, Freeza, Cell, etc?) and you’ve got a nice show, really.

Of course, it’s all too common for people to think shows that they watched when they were younger aren’t up to par for them years down the line. It’s only normal. But when we think objectively about it, those shows really weren’t bad at all for what they were, and that’s why we loved them.

As for me…DragonBall was my first love and now, 11 years later, I still greatly enjoy watching it, and that will probably never change. I think the DragonBall bashing is lame, but that’s just the way I feel.

By: Edrei

Edrei — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:20:01 +0000

Then people run smack into things like Naruto which probably takes after DBZ in terms of length and and spin offs.