Magical Girl shows are things like Sailormoon.
The main character is, well, a magical girl. They often need to transform into the magical alter-ego so they can hide in plain sight, and it's definitely not so they could re-use the animation in every episode to save money/waste time.
The sequence is often very dance-like, or almost like a photo-shoot. Very traditionally feminine.
Dragonball-Z was one of the first main-stream anime for boys that was shown on TV in North America.
The main characters are aliens who can turn into a "super" form, and they generally change the way they look during a transformation sequence. It's often just turning blond.
The sequence is often clenching your fists, flexing all of your muscles, and doing a battle-cry.
Absolutely. In Germany at least, anime is a very niche thing. Hardly anyone watches it here. I can't stand anime because of the lazy animation, though I do appreciate the creativity story-wise.
In France there was "club Dorothée", a kids morning show that would air these two shows and a few others so they were pretty popular. You were only a real weeb if you ventured into the stuff that wouldn't be on TV.
Hmm, now that you mention it, I think it was quite similar in Germany. But I personally don't know many people who watched these shows. It was still quite a niche thing. But you're right, they weren't considered weebs. Probably because the Germans are so unaware of foreign cultures, most don't even know what that means.