What Started it All | Dragon Ball Z & Toonami

If you’re a millennial anime fan, there’s a very good chance your story started the same way mine did: Dragon Ball Z.

But what a lot of people don’t realize is how close we came to never experiencing it the way we did.

Dragon Ball Z first came to the United States in 1996 through Funimation in partnership with Saban Entertainment. The original dub by Ocean Studios was heavily edited for American television—episodes were cut down, violence was censored, and even the word “die” wasn’t allowed. Characters weren’t killed; they were sent to “another dimension.” It was marketed almost exclusively as a kids’ cartoon because the anime market in America barely existed at the time.

Then it got cancelled.

Two seasons in, Saban walked away and the show seemed finished in the United States. But everything changed when Cartoon Network’s Toonami block picked up the reruns in 1998.

The time slot was perfect—right when kids were getting home from school. Ratings exploded. The problem? Toonami only had the same 53 episodes. So they looped them over and over again.

And we watched them every single time.

Eventually Cartoon Network ordered more episodes, Funimation began dubbing the show themselves in Texas, a new voice cast was introduced, Bruce Faulconer created the iconic score, and by 2003 the entire series had been dubbed for American audiences.

Without Toonami, Dragon Ball Z probably never becomes the cultural force it became in the United States.

And for many of us, that was just the beginning.

Once DBZ pulled you in, the rabbit hole opened. Toonami started stacking the lineup with shows like Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, and Yu Yu Hakusho.

For me personally, Dragon Ball Z made me a fan.

But Yu Yu Hakusho made me a lifer.

And I think that experience—one gateway anime followed by the show that makes you realize what the medium is capable of—is something a lot of us share.

Decades later, anime is bigger than ever.

And it all traces back to that moment when millions of kids got home from school, turned on Toonami, and heard that DBZ theme song.