(Originally posted on The Coffee House Forums. March, 2020).
Pokemon remains the most impactful piece of media that I have ever seen, so it should come as no surprise that the sudden, violent and bright Big Bang that gave shape to its micro-universe blinded me to the point of missing the presence of a similar event taking place at roughly the same time.
I'm of course talking about Dragon Ball.
I never liked Dragon Ball as a kid, for reasons that I largely cannot explain (If I had to make a guess, I'd say that I was probably preocupied watching things that were a bit more up my alley, like Slam Dunk!*), but I was no foreigner to the impact it was having among my peers who chose to watch it.
Yeah, ok. Even I knew the opening by heart. The rock wasn't that big.
Unlike the Pokemon craze, there were no drawings being sold during recesses, nor wasn't anyone trying to predict where the story would go next... but the thing that drew most kids over was that Dragon Ball definitely felt like the more mature offering of the two, a perception that would soon be crowned by the fact that watching it required staying up at ludicrous hours just to catch the two-hour block dedicated to it on El Club del Anime, with host Mariela Carril pumping her tired viewers up with promises of great adventures with Goku and the gang.
It's very hard to explain the kind of phenomenon that was unleashed because of this sudden "requirement" of ditching bed, but it definitely led to sort of kinship between those who braved the task of sitting in front of their TV sets at one or two in the morning, praying to their saints of choice that their parents wouldn't wake up and send them back to bed among thunderous screaming and threats (I should know, I tried to join in at some point...).
Whilst I would never call the Dragon Ball fandom an "exclusive" club, there were definitely some unspoken tiers being promoted here and there, with the kids that watched past midnight enjoying early peaks at episodes that the rest of the fellas would have to catch after school, which led to some very changing conversations. Perhaps that made Dragon Ball feel a bit smaller than it really was, but it wasn't a problem that a constant flow of merchandise wouldn't fix.
And boy did they fix it.
Again, this wasn't as huge as what Pokemon was experimenting at the time, but a lot of DB-themed merchandise and tie-ins started appearing in store shelves and apparels seemingly overnight... it was a crazy thing to witness because, at one point, I bought a packet of the highly-popular Sugus fruit-flavored candy pieces and was rewarded with a little Krilin toy just chilling there, among my candy. It was that huge a deal, that you couldn't even buy cheap candy without being reminded of the series.
And those reminders were perhaps the only area in which Dragon Ball edged Pokemon, because several publications started including VHS tapes containing episodes of the show with their usual assorted trinkets, which is something the Pokemon anime (or the marketing people behind it) badly neglected, and it all led to a very effective promotion campaign, as those tapes were popular playing materials during sleepovers and lazy weekend days. The word-of-mouth that followed and the new fans gathered by those tapes are almost of unmeasurable value, specially when one takes into consideration that very few video-games were available at the time, unlike the Emulators and Roms that had fueled the Pokemon fandom to unprecedented heights.
Props to the marketing department for making sure we would get our hands on these.
Despite having such an overwhelming advantage on pretty much all areas, the height of Pokemon's popularity didn't last very long and the initial thrust came to a halt by the time the Johto Journeys had begun airing, whilst Dragon Ball only got more and more popular with every new story arc that aired (in fact almost everyone who started watching early saw the series through, all the way to the final episode of GT, which just blows my mind on so many levels).
I personally kept ignoring all of this under the excuse that it was too late for me to catch up on such a long series (season one alone was 153 episodes long (!)) and then I completely desisted on ever getting into it when both El Club del Anime was forced off the air and all those VHS tapes had long stopped being sold. To me, Dragon Ball remained "that thing I largely didn't watch".
All my friends had Dragon Ball games on their consoles. I dreaded every second of it because I didn't understand a single thing they were saying.
But last week I decided to watch a couple of episodes just to see if I could begin comprehending what the craze was all about... and I can certainly say that I totally missed out, man.
In fact, it actually stings a little knowing that I could never truly capture the magic felt by so many of my peers, who watched this as it aired, with absolutely no knowledge of what was next and that only got further into the story by chewing on piecemeal offerings being broadcasted at stupid times.
A lot of my friends look back on this as one of the most pleasant and defining moments of their childhood and it really does suck knowing that I could never really enter such a mindframe myself, because I can totally appreciate the artistic merits of the show, but I just can't see it through the eyes of a kid, with my sense of wonder and imagination being properly excited by the great and funny images playing before me. I see it as a fun show, but they see it as something bigger.
In all honesty, it really doesn't feel like an exaggeration saying that words can't even begin to explain how much loved and appreciated this show was among people of my age, with tons of love-filled comments flooding the comment sections of the many YouTube videos showing the opening and endings to the different seasons. Those comments, filled to the brim with nostalgia and typed in straight from the heart, are among the purest expressions of genuine sentiment that I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and I was taken aback by some of them.
This was definitely something special and I'm glad to finally understand what the crazy was all about.
"Who is this joker???" ~ 9-year-old me.
Pokemon remains the most impactful piece of media that I have ever seen, so it should come as no surprise that the sudden, violent and bright Big Bang that gave shape to its micro-universe blinded me to the point of missing the presence of a similar event taking place at roughly the same time.
I'm of course talking about Dragon Ball.
I never liked Dragon Ball as a kid, for reasons that I largely cannot explain (If I had to make a guess, I'd say that I was probably preocupied watching things that were a bit more up my alley, like Slam Dunk!*), but I was no foreigner to the impact it was having among my peers who chose to watch it.
Unlike the Pokemon craze, there were no drawings being sold during recesses, nor wasn't anyone trying to predict where the story would go next... but the thing that drew most kids over was that Dragon Ball definitely felt like the more mature offering of the two, a perception that would soon be crowned by the fact that watching it required staying up at ludicrous hours just to catch the two-hour block dedicated to it on El Club del Anime, with host Mariela Carril pumping her tired viewers up with promises of great adventures with Goku and the gang.
It's very hard to explain the kind of phenomenon that was unleashed because of this sudden "requirement" of ditching bed, but it definitely led to sort of kinship between those who braved the task of sitting in front of their TV sets at one or two in the morning, praying to their saints of choice that their parents wouldn't wake up and send them back to bed among thunderous screaming and threats (I should know, I tried to join in at some point...).
Whilst I would never call the Dragon Ball fandom an "exclusive" club, there were definitely some unspoken tiers being promoted here and there, with the kids that watched past midnight enjoying early peaks at episodes that the rest of the fellas would have to catch after school, which led to some very changing conversations. Perhaps that made Dragon Ball feel a bit smaller than it really was, but it wasn't a problem that a constant flow of merchandise wouldn't fix.
Figuritas! Figuritas! Get your figuritas! This was the 90s in a nutshell.
And boy did they fix it.
Again, this wasn't as huge as what Pokemon was experimenting at the time, but a lot of DB-themed merchandise and tie-ins started appearing in store shelves and apparels seemingly overnight... it was a crazy thing to witness because, at one point, I bought a packet of the highly-popular Sugus fruit-flavored candy pieces and was rewarded with a little Krilin toy just chilling there, among my candy. It was that huge a deal, that you couldn't even buy cheap candy without being reminded of the series.
And those reminders were perhaps the only area in which Dragon Ball edged Pokemon, because several publications started including VHS tapes containing episodes of the show with their usual assorted trinkets, which is something the Pokemon anime (or the marketing people behind it) badly neglected, and it all led to a very effective promotion campaign, as those tapes were popular playing materials during sleepovers and lazy weekend days. The word-of-mouth that followed and the new fans gathered by those tapes are almost of unmeasurable value, specially when one takes into consideration that very few video-games were available at the time, unlike the Emulators and Roms that had fueled the Pokemon fandom to unprecedented heights.
Props to the marketing department for making sure we would get our hands on these.
Despite having such an overwhelming advantage on pretty much all areas, the height of Pokemon's popularity didn't last very long and the initial thrust came to a halt by the time the Johto Journeys had begun airing, whilst Dragon Ball only got more and more popular with every new story arc that aired (in fact almost everyone who started watching early saw the series through, all the way to the final episode of GT, which just blows my mind on so many levels).
I personally kept ignoring all of this under the excuse that it was too late for me to catch up on such a long series (season one alone was 153 episodes long (!)) and then I completely desisted on ever getting into it when both El Club del Anime was forced off the air and all those VHS tapes had long stopped being sold. To me, Dragon Ball remained "that thing I largely didn't watch".
All my friends had Dragon Ball games on their consoles. I dreaded every second of it because I didn't understand a single thing they were saying.
But last week I decided to watch a couple of episodes just to see if I could begin comprehending what the craze was all about... and I can certainly say that I totally missed out, man.
In fact, it actually stings a little knowing that I could never truly capture the magic felt by so many of my peers, who watched this as it aired, with absolutely no knowledge of what was next and that only got further into the story by chewing on piecemeal offerings being broadcasted at stupid times.
A lot of my friends look back on this as one of the most pleasant and defining moments of their childhood and it really does suck knowing that I could never really enter such a mindframe myself, because I can totally appreciate the artistic merits of the show, but I just can't see it through the eyes of a kid, with my sense of wonder and imagination being properly excited by the great and funny images playing before me. I see it as a fun show, but they see it as something bigger.
In all honesty, it really doesn't feel like an exaggeration saying that words can't even begin to explain how much loved and appreciated this show was among people of my age, with tons of love-filled comments flooding the comment sections of the many YouTube videos showing the opening and endings to the different seasons. Those comments, filled to the brim with nostalgia and typed in straight from the heart, are among the purest expressions of genuine sentiment that I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and I was taken aback by some of them.
This was definitely something special and I'm glad to finally understand what the crazy was all about.
