

I know this is true for the United States but my question is mainly if this
was a phenomenon in other places as well. Personally, having grown up in
Austria \ Germany, I saw Dragonball on TV as a kid long before they finally
aired Dragonball Z.

Recently, I've been coming across lots of comments on various web platforms
suggesting that "most of the western world" saw Dragonball Z before Dragonball
(if they saw the latter at all). Are these people making poor generalizations
from the US to the entire western world or was Dragonball skipped in other
countries as well?


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question
dragon-ball-series dragon-ball-z dragon-ball
In which countries was Dragonball Z aired (dubbed) before Dragonball?


A simple google search takes us to a result compiled by Derek Padula about the
history of Dragon Ball Z in various countries. Countries in North America and
others where the Funimation dub was aired first usually had Dragon Ball Z
aired first.

<http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30285>

The list of countries is not exhaustive. However, I'd like to point out "Why
most of the countries (western world, and to Japan that is nearly the rest of
the world) Dragon ball Z aired first.

Anime was an experimental thing in most nations outside of Japan. Dragonball
was an exceptional manga and its first Anime adaptation did well in Japan.
Dragon Ball creator was not happy with the first adaptation though and had a
reboot in form of Z when Goku grew up. This was even more popular.

> Kazuhiko Torishima, Akira Toriyama's editor for Dr. Slump and the first half
> of Dragon Ball, felt that the Dragon Ball anime's ratings were gradually
> declining because it had the same producer that worked on Dr. Slump.
> Torishima said this producer had this "cute and funny" image connected to
> Toriyama's work and was missing the more serious tone in the newer series,
> and therefore asked the studio to change the producer. Impressed with their
> work on Saint Seiya, he asked its director Kōzō Morishita and writer Takao
> Koyama to help "reboot" Dragon Ball, which coincided with Son Goku growing
> up. The new producer explained that ending the first anime and creating a
> new one would result in more promotional money, and the result was the start
> of Dragon Ball Z.  
> [Source - Dragon Ball Z
> (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z#Production_and_broadcasting)

Western media channels decided to pick up Dragonball Z as an experimental
thing. It started airing in 1996, but halted after some episodes. However,
when it began airing on Cartoon Network's Toonami block, it got huge boost in
the popularity. Due to the success of the reruns, FUNimation began its in
house dub of DBZ.

It is reasonable to assume that, due to the success of DBZ, the media houses
decided to cash in on all the positive reviews and started airing Dragon Ball
as well. After the success of DBZ in North America other markets also started
airing DBZ and then followed by Dragon Ball.


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answer