I completely agree. It's completely different nowadays also with streaming and abundance of home releases.ABED wrote: ↑Wed Aug 02, 2023 11:22 pm All the more reason to think I have a good point. Most people don't (or didn't, not so sure that holds true these days) start shows from the first episode, but that means that something that happened later drew their attention. If they go back to the beginning, they KNOW for certain that they will get to something they liked.
The first episode I ever saw of Community was the paintball episode. The show had a good pilot, but it took some time to find its footing, but because I knew it would become great, it allowed me to trust that my patience would be rewarded.
It would be definitely hard to recommend DB to people nowadays, as they will watch it on stream from episode 1, the show looks dated even more than it should be (thanks to the lackluster handling of remastering and edits in the western releases – while shows like Z Gundam had more production value back in the day and when remastered, it looks awesome) so you have to catch the audience from the first episode, if the characters click from the get go, if the visual design is appealing etc. It being product of different times in this fast paced era, doesn't help either, as it has different pacing than it would if it was adapted now.
But as ABED said, I owe my love for the show thanks to me seeing bits from 23rd Tournament, Freeza and Buu arcs on TV, around the same time on different TV channels after completely ignoring Dragon Ball at first and while I said this story many times, it hooked me on through the Buu arc and then I went back and rewatched the others, giving the old looking and weird slow paced kung fu show a chance on RTL II as well.
It was rare to watch a show from beginning on TV without any extensive promotion (on-screen and offline through magazines), more so on foreign channels. It was mostly switching through channels and see if you stumble upon something at the right place and time and it sticks or getting recommendation from your childhood friend (and most of my friends were watching Pokémon and Digimon).
All and all, as I said, in Germany, Dragon Ball was already a hit before the Z part and rest of the Europe ran Dragon Ball first as well.