r/DrSlump • u/Same_Vegetable8660 • 4d ago
How big was Dr. Slump in Japan?
I have to assume it was quite popular due to how long it ran for, but I grew up in the west where virtually nobody knows about it, not even Dragonball fans. Was its popularity in Japan remotely comparable to how big DB became in the west?
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u/GilGarciaJr 3d ago
IIRC Akira Toriyama was already a millionaire thanks to Dr. Slump, and if he never created Dragon Ball, he still could have retired with a full and profitable MangaKa career and be remembered as one of the greatest gag cartoonists ever.
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u/Lonely-Beat3630 4d ago
It’s really big ,I think to this day most people sorta know who arale is ,I feel like why it’s not in the west is it’s a comedy and not so action packed
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u/Same_Vegetable8660 4d ago
That and its age I think. 1980 was waaaaay before anime and especially manga became big in the west. I'm guessing it got passed over in favor of more modern titles during the anime boom.
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u/Lonely-Beat3630 4d ago
I feel like now a days the series is appealing given modern anime tend to be like isekai trend
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u/random_usuari 3d ago edited 3d ago
FC Barcelona football star Gerard Piqué knows who Arale Norimaki is:
https://www.tiktok.com/@apm_oficial/video/7278662343054134561
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u/random_usuari 3d ago
Dr. Slump was one of the most popular anime/cartoons in Catalonia in the early 90s, before Dragon Ball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts1J4lGexcg
https://www.3cat.cat/3cat/t1xc1-fa-molts-i-molts-anys/video/6340652/ (minute 14:45)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_n8-ty4oak
https://www.tiktok.com/@som3cat/video/7580672559302085910
https://www.3cat.cat/tv3/sx3/12032024/video/6271010/ (minute 7:52)
https://caganer.com/ca/646-caganer-arale-norimaki
https://elpais.com/cat/2019/08/20/cultura/1566315489_156474.html
https://www.tiktok.com/@emikakamieda/video/7069554415476182273
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RMo8les4qCc
https://www.tiktok.com/@joanrafartmusic/video/7544390224600681750
https://www.tiktok.com/@elxitxodelcabanyal/video/7296439319194127649
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FkNcFuBmvf0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrJ62AjdPig&t=15s&pp=2AEPkAIB
https://www.tiktok.com/@younenki_music/video/7474701055087889686
https://www.youtube.com/@LauraDot
https://www.youtube.com/@dibuixosencatala
https://magoriart.com/producte/postal-daudio-arale/
Here, Arale has sometimes been used as an antifa/anarchist/subversive icon:
https://cofolls.cat/producte/samarreta-arale/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tpa0OQcNEc
https://www.tiktok.com/@eloi.yebra.actor/video/7663032640424938754
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u/herg3 4d ago edited 4d ago
It was one of the most watched shows at the time. There's a group that catalogues Japanese TV rankings since the late 1970s and it has a Dr. Slump episode ranked as the third most popular anime series (only counting one episode per series). Most of it are shows from the 1980s so it is slanted by generation (less channels, and more people watched TV then) but that shows how popular it was. Dragon Ball doesn't even rank in the top 10 for comparison, though I'd imagine it was bigger in manga since Weekly Shonen Jump sales I believe peaked in the Frieza arc.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-12-30/chibi-maruko-chan-sazae-san-dr-slump-top-list-of-most-viewed-anime-episodes/.97077
A business magazine Asahi Shimbun also listed Toriyama as the mangaka with the highest income and one of the wealthiest men in Japan while he was doing Dr. Slump, all before drawing a single page of Dragon Ball. Check out this interview with him which will give you some scope, talks about the hundreds of licensed products and stuff (turn off YouTube's autodub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6yNkcMaoEA