How ‘Dragon Ball Z’ helped me overcome social anxiety and make friends

The beloved anime was a touchstone that helped me connect to others during the awkward years of adolescence

I was 11 and my insides had just turned to jelly. 

I was 7,000 miles from home, enrolled in a new school, and just had a fight with the first friend I had made in a strange, alien country.

It was recess. I couldn’t muster the courage to go outside and try unfamiliar games like kickball in the cold air. So I pretended to feel sick and stayed in.

To be fair, there was a weird feeling in my stomach like a gelatinous slime was worming its way through my gut. Oh, I thought, guess this is what loneliness feels like. 

I tried to distract myself. Two other boys had stayed in the classroom too, but they were far from quiet.

Michael – tall, broad, good-natured – and Lorenzo – wiry and witty – were engaged in a deep, animated discussion over a piece of paper. 

My eyes fell on it. There, sketched in thick pencil lines, was a familiar face. Before I could overthink the situation, the words burst from my mouth:

“Is that Piccolo?”

In an instant, I went from the awkward, standoffish new kid to being part of the class. After all, what was more familiar to a boy in the 2000s than another obsessive fan of Dragon Ball Z?

I had been inducted into the cult of DBZ while still in Dhaka when Cartoon Network India launched the late-night animation block Toonami. 

For kids raised on 90s Western animation, Dragon Ball Z honestly felt like a tidal wave – powerful, impressive, and all-consuming. 

Talk of the previous night’s episode dominated classroom conversation among the boys. We recapped blow-by-blow accounts of the over-the-top action and goofy jokes. We theorised about the story, the characters, the plot twists, everything.

To my surprise, it wasn’t too different on the other side of the world. Sure, Dhaka was a few seasons behind on the mammoth, sprawling saga of Dragon Ball, but the delight and enthusiasm were the same. 

My new friends introduced me to their other obsessions – Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bionicle – and suddenly fitting in wasn’t too difficult. 

But there was still something comforting about Dragon Ball Z. All the boys, regardless of their tastes, personality, or background, seemed to love it. It was like a universal language. A cheat code you could use to defuse any awkward social encounter.

Like with Noj.

Noj was the local bully. Well, maybe bully is too strong. He was an annoyance.

He lived near us and went to the same school. He was a year or two older than us. He ruined kickball games, hogged the TV and computer at the community centre, and teased the younger kids relentlessly. He had this weird habit of zigzagging down the hallway at school, intentionally bumping into everyone he could. There were rumours about his home life. Bad ones. 

At school, my friends and I rolled our eyes and steered clear of him. At home, we ignored him completely. 

Then, one day, at the community centre, Noj’s mom came up to us, nearly dragging him along. 

“Are you guys excited about the birthday party tomorrow?” she said. 

None of us knew when Noj’s birthday was. None of us wanted to know. But one look at their faces and we knew to keep our mouths shut. She was straining to be cheerful. He was sullen and seething. 

We made noncommittal noises.

“Great, we’ll see you guys at 4:30!” she said, determinedly holding her smile. 

Then she walked off, still holding Noj’s hand. He glanced back once. His eyes looked murderous. We thought up a thousand ways to get out of it, but we knew we were stuck. 

The next day, we approached Noj’s house with a mix of horror and desperate curiosity. What we found inside was… a birthday party. A regular birthday party. 

It didn’t fit Noj at all. He looked trapped and desperate, forced to go through the rituals of a birthday with people pretending to be his friends. 

My friend Ke – tall, Chinese-Canadian, brilliant – had a moment of genius. As we tentatively picked at slices of cake, he said, “Hey, Noj, you want to go to the community centre? They’re showing that DBZ marathon before the Buu fight.”

To this day, it was one of the kindest things I’ve ever seen anyone do.

We said our goodbyes to his mom and rushed out of the apartment, Noj in tow. The rest of the day was spent watching TV and eating vending machine popcorn. Freed from home, Noj cracked jokes and laughed. He was nearly bearable for once. 

Did we become friends? Absolutely not. But he did stop intentionally bumping into us in the school hallway. 

My family and I returned to Dhaka a year later. I re-enrolled at my old school. But it felt like everything had changed. 

I had never been the best at Bangla, but a year abroad had scrambled my brain to the point where I stumbled over basic lessons. I started struggling in school for the first time. 

My classmates were different too. In the year I was gone, many kids had transferred in and out. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be new faces. Even my old friends had changed. In the year I was gone, they had discovered football, a game I was too slow and unskilled to play.   

To be honest, I was different too. A year immersed in the language and culture of American pre-teens changed me. I had all these pop culture interests that wouldn’t make their way to Dhaka for a couple of years. Without that grounding basis, I felt adrift and disconnected from everyone.

Until, one day, a few of the kids who played cricket invited me to hang out with them. 

Hanging out and playing cricket badly turned into inviting a few of them to my house to hang out. We would go to the roof to play football and once it got dark, we played FIFA on the PS2 in my grandmother’s room. Slowly, before I even knew it, I had a friend circle again.

Several years later, I asked Tashfiq, the one who first asked me to play cricket, why he suddenly decided to become my friend. 

“I thought we were already friends,” he said. “In Class IV, I showed you my DBZ cards, right?”

It’s strange to think that Dragon Ball Z had such a ridiculous influence on my adolescent social life. But then again, maybe it’s not so surprising. The more socially awkward among us often need a little push. A point of commonality to build on when talking to others.

And, for those formative years of my life, that point of connection was Dragon Ball Z.

It’s been years since I’ve seen an episode of the show. My tastes have changed and I don’t know whether the saga of Son Goku would hold the same appeal.

But when I heard the news of creator Akira Toriyama’s passing, I couldn’t help but think about the ways his work had changed my life. In an odd way, the fans of his work are the truest testament to their power.

In Dragon Ball Z, villains like Piccolo and Vegeta evolved into fan favourite heroes over time. When they battle Goku, they face an opponent who loves martial arts and who sees no one as a true enemy. Over time, through their respect for his power, they become his friends. And, through this shift, they open their lives to people and relationships they never thought possible.

I think my experiences with the fans of the show mirror that. Through this silly, loveable, over-the-top show, I was able to connect to great people who have truly made my life better.

Maybe the true meaning of Dragon Ball Z is the friends I made along the way. 

This article is part of Stripe, bdnews24.com's special publication focusing on culture and society from a youth perspective.