T5W#180-Top 5 Personal Dragon Ball Z Moments

Dragon Ball fever has retaken the US once again.  Just last week, Dragon Ball Super: The Movie-Brolly finally arrived stateside.  On it’s first day it was the highest grossing movie in America and by the end of the weekend it ranked #3 on the Top 10 charts.  Holy freaking crap could you believe it?  Dragon Ball has always been a runaway hit in the US when it comes to televised Anime, or at least Dragon Ball Z specifically.  From it’s low key but momentum building run in syndication to it’s legendary run on Toonami, it’s hard to imagine a time when Dragon Ball hasn’t been part of an Anime fans life.  I know personally though I have stronger feelings for other Anime franchises like Gundam and Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball Z is still the show that really got me interesting in Anime.  So to celebrate that, today im doing something similar to what I did for Sailor Moon a while back (You can check out that Top 5 right here: http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2017/01/t5w75-top-5-personal-sailor-moon-life.html ) and thinking back on my Top 5 Personal Dragon Ball Z Moments, the definitive 5 memories that will always pop to mind when I think of that title and (mostly) that title alone.

#5-My First Japanese DBZ Episode

While I was stuck with the same 26 episodes of Dragon Ball Z across multiple Saturday mornings, it wasn’t the only way to watch the series.  The now defunct International Channel was running the series in full order on Sunday nights and they were far past the bookmarked point of the US broadcast.  These episodes were in their original Japanese broadcast format, no subtitles at all.  Not that it was hard to keep up with what was going on: it was where Frieza in his final form pummeled the bejezzus out of Vegeta.  Still, this was Dragon Ball Z in its purest form: the action, the music (including the Japanese theme that is so freaking legendary), the sense of fun that could only come from this show.  I only got to watch one episode this way because my parents room was the only one with cable and they were really into X-Files at the time.  Still, im glad I got to experience classic Z in this manner.  I should really go back and rewatch this series in Japanese one day…after I get the entire series which is long overdue in my book.

#4-Super Saiyan Goku…SOLD OUT

When the Frieza Saga was allowed to continue with Funimation at the helm of a new Dub, it was now time to wait for the moment everyone wanted to see since Vegeta dropped the name ages ago: Super Saiyan Goku.  The VHS tapes were pushed out once or twice a month but when the time came to reveal Goku’s transformation, an unprecedented 3 tape release was ordered.  It was around my birthday so I was excited to go to Suncoast and nab that volume…and it wasn’t there.  The other two prior volumes were still fully on the shelf but the volume entitled Super Saiyan Goku was completely sold out, both edited and unedited formats.  It was a gut punch and though I was ok getting a copy of the very beginning of Dragon Ball Z, I was still bummed I’d have to wait a lot longer to see Goku finally achieve a state that had long since become legend in my circles.

#3-The Picture and Info Book Crusade

One past time that came from getting into DBZ was downloading and printing out pictures from the internet.  Art came in all kinds from intense drawings to episode screencaps to scans from the manga itself.  It always excited my to collect a small haul on Friday nights and bring it into school the next week.  But me and my friends wanted to know more since Z was stuck in the same spot in the states for a long time.  So I got it in my head to research the series hard, gathering character and stat guides, episode summaries and full blown series and movie outlines.  This was how I learned what I did about not just Dragon Ball Z but prequel series Dragon Ball and the future Dragon Ball GT.  It only fueled everyones desire to try and find ways to watch it all (though boy were we in for a disappointment with GT).  I still have those books which serve as kind of an origin story to my entrance to Anime fandom.

#2-Z Day Announcement

As happy as I was to see Dragon Ball Z on Saturday mornings, there was a small problem.  The available episodes at the time only ran to about the first third of the Frieza Saga before things reset at the beginning.  Enduring this for over a year and a half (give or take) was hard.  Even when Dragon Ball Z arrived on Toonami and I got to see the very beginning of the show, the same reset point was there.  And then, one afternoon, a 30 second commercial played familiar audio from past episodes…and then ripped right into new footage of King Vegeta, the return of Piccolo, Frieza in battle, Goku battling the Ginyus.  This more so than the actual Z Day Event impacted me the most.  The wait was over and new Dragon Ball Z was coming…it was time to get hyped again.

#1-Watching Vegeta go Super Saiyan at a Suncoast

I often cite The Androids Saga as the high point of DBZ’s initial popularity and that was made pretty clear when it came out on VHS.  The four volume saga was up for grabs and drew a lot of attention from fans looking to see more post Frieza era DBZ and see the moments we’d long wanted to see from Japan.  Low and behold, one afternoon I was at my local Suncoast to find it packed.  The screens that often played family friendly movies were showing the mid point of the saga, the actual battle against the Androids.  Everyone was psyched and got even more psyched when Vegeta arrived and promptly powered up to Super Sayian.  The crowd went wild I was sure everyone on the other side of the mall could hear it.  It felt like the perfect time to be a fan of Dragon Ball Z cause moments like that didn’t really come around that often afterwards.