My man, was that shyt really that good?
Would I appreciate it now as an adult?
I don't think so
Not if you watch it.
If you read the manga online though I think you could love it.
Well maybe you would, but way less than if you had seen it in your formative years... Watching it as a child makes you gloss over some drawbacks such as short episodes, fillers and long moments of silence between actions for intensity and production costs. Actually it even made it better because it helped build up the tension and anticipation, so as children we COULDN'T WAIT to watch the next episode the next day. When a fight finally happened we were delighted.
Animation also got a little bit old compared to, let's say, a My Hero Academia.
All in all it is a great introduction to manga/anime because it's an OG that gets it right. Inspirational characters, long epic fights, life lessons (training harder gets you where you want to go, rising above adversity...) and above all very very cathartic. I guarantee there is not a person on Earth that watched Dragon Ball as a kid that didn't try to do the Kamehameha.
The thing about the manga is it's much more mature and got none of the drawbacks of the anime. But of course, no voice acting, epic themes, etc etc. But the quality of the art makes up for it. Makes you realize that Akira Toryiama got a damn good pen.