I had a terrible middle school/early years of high school experience. If I wasn't feeling completely alone and abandoned, I was being bullied. Instead of friends, I had video games and anime. And of course, my favorite video game was Chrono Trigger and my favorite anime was Dragon Ball Z.
I first remember seeing Dragon Ball on UPN or something on Saturday mornings, really early. I remember the very first episode I saw was during the time when Gohan was being trained by Piccollo and Goku was I guess having fun in the Home for Infinite Losers. I remember liking it but not knowing why I liked it.
Somehow it got its hooks in me, especially when it was picked up by Toonami. I remember I had seen the Namek arc multiple times, and then Toonami announced that it was finally going to start showing the Cell arc. I was so excited I had my dad record the episodes on VHS for me. He also kind of got into it too.
It wasn't until later that I made the connection that the first game my dad and I played "together" (Dragon Warrior) also had characters designed by the guy who did Dragon Ball.
Nowadays, I really don't think of Dragon Ball as being all that good of a manga/anime. But for a middle schooler who had pretty much only seen it and Sailor Moon, it was everything.
while you slept, the world changed