Dragon Ball Z
This will probably be a foregone conclusion to anyone that knows me - at the very least, they'll know that it comes down to one of two choices. On the one hand you have Pokémon, a franchise of which I've consumed almost every type of media, from the card game and the manga to the video games and anime.
But on the other hand, there is Dragon Ball Z, a show that I first started watching in 2000 on Cartoon Network (later CNX/Toonami) and that I could practicallv play a part in. I was first introduced to this amazing show when I was in Primary 6, at around nine years of age. At that time, numerous members of the class were already deeply invested in the show: Ross, Chris, Jamie and Peter to name a few, whereas I was a little late to the party, starting my journey during the early Androids saga.
Having other kids in the class that were interested in Dragon Ball Z, particularly as they were all older than me, heightened my interest in the show, and gave me the chance to get into discussions about the previous day's episode. We would theorise where the plot was going each day and since the internet was still in its infancy, we didn't realise the original Japanese anime had already ended four years earlier.
I rapidly became obsessed with the show, and it became clear very quickly that this was going to become one of my all-time favourites. When an episode would approach the end, I'd nervously clock-watch, not wanting it to finish, desperately hoping for more plot development. Only a few shows have elicited this sort of response in me - these were Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul and Lost.
Often, after the day's episode had come to an end, I would sit with my own action figures and I would play out the next episode as I imagined what direction the plot could take. I remember using some generic lizard toy from Spain that was filled with sand to represent Cell, fighting against a Triple H figure (not much Dragon Ball Z figures on the shelves in those days.)
I continued to follow Dragon Ball from Primary all the way through the various hiatus' and eventually the show would reach the Buu saga and its conclusion in my first year of High School. By this point, I was joined by Grieg in watching the show - Ross was still watching and discussing it too.
I tried to continue beyond the series into Dragon Ball GT but, even at my young age, I knew the show wasn't a patch on Z, and I wasn't wrong - GT was an original creation by the studio, with very little input from creator Akira Toriyama.
Following the finale I took a bit of a break from Dragon Ball in my teens, though I continued to purchase the 42 volumes of the manga and the various video games. My passion was suddenly re-ignited with the release of Dragonball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! in 2008 & Battle of Gods in 2013. I quickly became a bigger fan of the series than ever before and have never looked back.
I have since continued to watch Dragon Ball Super, Dragon Ball Daima and read the Super manga. I also made sure to attend Super Broly and Super Hero in the cinema upon release in 2018 and 2022 respectively.
Thanks to Fortnite DLC, my twelve year old son Logan also found himself becoming a massive fan of Dragon Ball Z. He is now playing the games (currently Sparking Zero) and has watched the complete series from Dragon Ball through to the end of Super. I think he might actually have become a bigger fan than I was at his age! It fills me with pride that we had this shared interest from similar ages and that we can both now connect over the show.
For his 11th birthday my partner and I arranged a Dragon Ball themed night in our house where we both played Dragon Ball FighterZ ate snacks and watched the movies.
I also once had a gamer room in our house that was practically dedicated to the series - numerous shelves filled with Dragon Ball figures, from Frieza and the Androids to Cell, Kid Buu and Zamasu. These have all since been packed away into storage after the arrival of our son Elias. I am patiently waiting for the day when we move to a bigger house and I can have everything on display once again haha!
