• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Which was more popular at its height? The Naruto Series or Dragon Ball series? (tv,manga, games,ost,fanfare,hype)

Which was more popular at its height?

  • Naruto series (tv,manga, games,ost,fanfare,hype)

    Votes: 57 5.8%

  • Dragon Ball series (tv,manga, games,ost,fanfare,hype)

    Votes: 930 94.2%
  • Total voters
    987
NeonZ

NeonZ

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,377
Jin said:
Oh for sure but with how much of a stomp One Piece vs Dragon ball is in Japan, I'm not sure there is that much of a difference.
Worldwide appeal might still hold Dragon ball at the top right now tho.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's weird. The One Piece manga sells much better than the DB manga (in Japan), but when you look at overall merchandising and games Dragonball dominates One Piece even in Japan. See Bandai's numbers for example.


Even without a show on air, Dragonball merchandising makes more than double of what OP makes in Japan (Sales of IPs (Toys and Hobby Business, Japan)). And outside of One Piece's peak popularity around 2010, even the game push has generally been smaller than what DB gets. The manga was (and still is) extremely successful, but for some reason they were unable to really push success elsewhere outside of that peak era.
 

sanstesy

Banned
Nov 16, 2017
2,471
What I can say is that Naruto is way more popular with women than Dragonball ever was.

Otherwise, DB obviously was bigger with a male global audience.
 
Jin

Jin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
553
NeonZ said:
It's weird. The One Piece manga sells much better than the DB manga (in Japan), but when you look at overall merchandising and games Dragonball dominates One Piece even in Japan. See Bandai's numbers for example.


Even without a show on air, Dragonball merchandising makes more than double of what OP makes in Japan (Sales of IPs (Toys and Hobby Business, Japan)). And outside of One Piece's peak popularity around 2010, even the game push has generally been smaller than what DB gets. The manga was (and still is) extremely successful, but for some reason they were unable to really push success elsewhere outside of that peak era.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Cool Resource, thanks for that.

Didn't expect the Merchandising in Japan to still be this in favor of DB. Good to know, considering how OP has been able to hold the top spot for so long in WSJ, I expected it to also see more success in the other branches. But really looks like that outside of the Manga being unstoppable over in Japan they really can't capitalize on the other markets.

Outside of Japan I really never expected this to hold true at all, OP just never was able to get a foothold in the west. The 4kids dubs for sure didn't help.
 
Pein

Pein

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,230
NYC
But after dragon ball Naruto was in that top spot, it was front and center as the show of anime Fandom.
 
Twister

Twister

Member
Feb 11, 2019
5,080
It's so funny seeing everyone say Dragon Ball because it's really clear Era skews older. My older cousins loved Dragon Ball but no one in my generation really cared about it. Naruto (and even Boruto) are way more popular for people growing up in the early 2000s than Dragon Ball.
 
Viale

Viale

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,616
I definitely both rasengan'd and kamehameha'd as a kid. Dragon Ball is the definite answer, but I think some people in the thread are really underselling Naruto's popularity.
 
TheAggroCraig

TheAggroCraig

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 6, 2017
5,913
Dragonball definitely had a lull for a while which Naruto seemed pretty front and center during, and stayed there for a while.

DB ended in Japan in the early 90s, and then got popular in the west, but even then that whole 2000s era seemed to be very Naruto driven.

But in the end I guess DB's peaks still tower over Naruto, especially with Super recently.
 
Principate

Principate

Member
Oct 31, 2017
11,186
Lunar Wolf said:
Uh...yes it did. OP is only super popular in Japan.

Naruto like Dragonball crushes One Piece on the
international arena.

Dragon Ball and Naruto are also relatively close in manga sales.

And Boruto and Naruto are still TV Tokyo's most lucrative properties:




Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That stopped being true years ago. One Piece is roughly in the same ball park as Naruto is in manga sales outside Japan and is certainly well known enough to warrant a Netflix series.
 
Crashman

Crashman

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,101
If you count which is overall more popular, I think it's certainly Dragon Ball, but if you count what was a bigger deal with more people at each of their heights, it's a bit more nebulous and possibly goes to Naruto, at least with my perspective of the west. I can't say anything really about Japan, but in the west, Dragon Ball was sort of always there as the big anime series, but if you wanted, you could skip forward and know how it ended, since the series had long since concluded in Japan. Naruto during its height was on-going, and so was the hype as a result. If you were up to date with Naruto, that didn't mean you knew how it ended, but for most of Dragon Ball fans in the west, it did, and I think that generated less hype.
 

Normal

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,296
Dragon Ball. But Naruto is probably the second biggest anime in the West, people really underestimating it here lol. Not surprising tho when the forum age leans in the late 30s to 40s.

Pokemon is the real number 1 answer tho.

Saori said:
One Piece on the other hand, that's a better question.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Only in Japan maybe. Even Naruto is bigger than One Piece in the rest of the world lol
 
Tamanon

Tamanon

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
19,729
Dragonball spans generations. You had fathers and sons going to see the Broly movie. The show itself is iconic worldwide.
 
Dary

Dary

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,410
The English Wilderness
The funny thing being that DBZ never seemed to take off much in the UK, where Pokémon was the true gateway anime for kids (Sailor Moon fared even worse), so I wouldn't be at all surprised if Naruto had more "mainstream" popularity here.
 
Failburger

Failburger

Banned
Dec 3, 2018
2,455
Man, ya'll don't understand how big DBZ is in Latin-America.

Cities are shut down whenever a new episode drops.
 
Seesaw15

Seesaw15

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,817
Naruto started popular but definitely petered out in the west. Plus DB had the benefit of coming out when monoculture was still a thing.
 
Cess007

Cess007

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,105
B.C., Mexico
DBZ no doubt.

Even my parents were watching back when it was airing in Mexico. I remember the episode in which Trunks appeared being a massive event, some friends even skipped school to see it lol

Televisa was advertising the new chapters as it was some earth-shattering event lmao
 
Darryl M R

Darryl M R

The Spectacular PlayStation-Man
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,721
I enjoy Naruto more than DBZ but it is not even a fair match. DBZ vs Pokemon in popularity could be a discussion, but I then think Pokemon would win.
 
teruterubozu

teruterubozu

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,887
I teach middle school and Dragon Ball is still huge with the younger gen. They don't give a shit about Naruto, apart from the hands-behind-back running meme.
 
Kewlmyc

Kewlmyc

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
26,704
How is this even a question?

An actual question would be Pokemon (worldwide) or One Piece (Japan only).
 
Saori

Saori

Avenger
Dec 12, 2018
574
Fularu said:
Naruto is infinitely more popular worldwide than One Piece. It's obviously the other way round in Japan, but elsewhere it's not even a contest
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Since this point kept popping up, I checked for where I currently live (Germany) and One Piece and Naruto seem to be very much on par, sales wise at least(Manga). I can't speak for general sentiment though, since I haven't been here for long.
 
Zan

Zan

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,425
A better topic would be what's the top 5 most popular anime of all time, IMO. DB(Z) would probably be in the top 5, while Naruto would be in the top 10.
 
MnM

MnM

Alt-Account
Banned
Mar 9, 2020
1,008
Twister said:
It's so funny seeing everyone say Dragon Ball because it's really clear Era skews older. My older cousins loved Dragon Ball but no one in my generation really cared about it. Naruto (and even Boruto) are way more popular for people growing up in the early 2000s than Dragon Ball.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Dragonball beats records to this day. So what are you talking about?
 
jayu26

jayu26

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,592
Naruto was big with kids and teenagers. With Dragon Ball even adults got into it. Even my dad and uncles are fan. That's anecdotal evidence but it really felt like everyone was talking about Dragon Ball at its hight. I don't remember it being ever like that for Naruto.
Twister said:
Boruto is the most watched anime world-wide according to Crunchyroll's data
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What kind of evidence is this? Crunchyroll wasn't even a thing when Dragonball was its hight.
 
Crossing Eden

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,323
Two of the main characters in nature are literally color coded identically to goku and vegetable because of Dragonball's influence on the creator
 
Elfgore

Elfgore

Member
Mar 2, 2020
4,571
I even heard of Dragonball when I thought "anime" was for losers and refused to watch it. It's Dragonball.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.