How Pop Culture Influences Our Perspective
Beyond upbringing or location, the culture we experience plays a significant role in shaping our worldview. Fiction—whether on screen, in books, or games—impacts our perspective and core values. For many kids in the 80s and 90s, Dragon Ball was a cultural touchstone.
Nostalgia Versus Reality
It's common to hear people say their childhood was better than their adult life. Nostalgia often tricks us, influenced by the way we perceive time and how memory works. Our brains can struggle to see youthful experiences as truly valid in adulthood. Still, it isn't that the past was always better—just different. The media we consumed, especially during formative years, helped define our approach to life and our sense of right and wrong. Take Dragon Ball and its sequel, Dragon Ball Z: these shows presented young viewers with morally ambiguous characters, encouraging a more nuanced understanding of good and evil.
Complex Characters, Complex Morality
Characters like Piccolo and Vegeta stand out for their complexity. They blurred the lines between hero and villain. Instead of simple “bad guys turned good,” they were anti-heroes, forcing fans to confront contradictory traits. Vegeta, for example, once destroyed entire planets and acted out of pride, but later chose to work alongside Goku for a greater cause. Dragon Ball presented this complexity at a time when cartoons often drew sharper lines between good and evil, as seen in some Disney stories. Akira Toriyama’s writing pushed audiences to look for character motivations and consider the grey areas—even when actions were questionable. Gohan, another pivotal character, shifted focus from fighting to academics as he grew, raising questions about power and the different ways it might be used—or set aside.
Empathy and Moral Growth
According to a recent study referenced in the original analysis, these kinds of stories could support psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. Being exposed to such characters between ages 9 and 17 might encourage broader, more empathetic moral values.
I don’t believe watching Dragon Ball Z as a child explains my own aversion to strictly black-and-white thinking…
But looking back, one could argue that society has become more polarized since the 1990s, especially with the rise of social media fueling extreme divides.
Political and cultural debate over the past few decades has grown more sharply divided—very different from the era when Dragon Ball Z first aired. In hindsight, those stories probably reflected their time more than they shaped it, and were not necessarily precursors to the polarization seen today.
Give more credit to the influences we’ve had in the past.