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Dragon Ball Z 

This article is about the manga and anime metaseries. For the Palm Pilot PDA microprocessor, see Freescale DragonBall.
Dragon Ball

First tankōbon volume, released in Japan on November 10, 1985
ドラゴンボール
(Doragon Bōru)
Genre Martial arts, Science fiction
Manga
Author Akira Toriyama
Publisher Flag of Japan Shueisha
English publisher Flag of Australia Flag of New Zealand Chuang Yi

Flag of Canada Flag of the United States Viz Media

Flag of the United Kingdom Gollancz Manga
Demographic Shōnen
Magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump
Original run 1984 – 1995
Volumes 42
TV anime
Director Minoru Okazaki
Daisuke Nishio
Studio Toei Animation
Licensor Pony Canyon (Japan)
FUNimation Entertainment (USA)
Network Fuji TV, Animax
English network Flag of Canada YTV

Flag of the United Kingdom Cartoon Network, CNX, Toonami

Flag of the United States Cartoon Network, CoLours TV, Toonami Jetstream, KIKU
Original run February 26, 1986 – April 12, 1989
Episodes 153
TV anime: Dragon Ball Z
Director Daisuke Nishio
Studio Toei Animation
Licensor Flag of Japan Pony Canyon
Flag of the United States FUNimation Entertainment
Network Fuji TV, Animax, Tokyo MX
English network Flag of Australia Network Ten, Cartoon Network

Flag of Canada YTV
Flag of the United Kingdom Cartoon Network, Toonami

Flag of the United States Cartoon Network
Original run April 26, 1989 – January 31, 1996
Episodes 291
TV anime: Dragon Ball GT
Director Osamu Kasai
Studio Toei Animation
Licensor Flag of the United StatesFlag of Canada Funimation Entertainment
Network Flag of Japan Fuji TV, Animax
English network Flag of Australia Cartoon Network

Flag of Canada YTV
Flag of the United States Cartoon Network

Flag of the United Kingdom Toonami, CNX
Original run February 7, 1996 – November 19, 1997
Episodes 64
Movies
  1. Curse of the Blood Rubies
  2. Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle
  3. Mystical Adventure
  4. The Path to Power
  5. Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone
  6. Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest
  7. Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might
  8. Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug
  9. Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge
  10. Dragon Ball Z: Return of Cooler
  11. Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13!
  12. Dragon Ball Z: Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan
  13. Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound
  14. Dragon Ball Z: Broly Second Coming
  15. Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly
  16. Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn
  17. Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon

Dragon Ball (ドラゴンボール Doragon Bōru?) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 through 1995, and its 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Inspired by the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West, it follows the adventures of its lead character, Son Goku from his childhood into old age. The manga series is licensed for an English language release in North America by Viz Media, in the United Kingdom by Gollancz Manga, and in Australia and New Zealand by Chuang Yi.

Dragon Ball has since been adapted into three different anime series, seventeen animated feature films, three television specials, a collectible trading card game, and a large number of video games. A live-action film has been in development since 2002, and is now slated for release on April 10, 2009.

Contents

Plot

See also: Lists of Dragon Ball characters

A monkey-tailed boy named Son Goku is found by an old martial arts expert and raised as his grandson. One day, during a full moon, Goku transforms into a giant ape and accidentally kills his adopted grandfather, but later has no recollection of it. Several years later, Bulma, on a quest to retrieve the seven Dragon Balls and have her wish granted by the dragon that will appear, meets Goku, now living alone with the four-star Dragon Ball that he treats as his dead grandfather. Goku decides to accompany Bulma on her quest, and along the way, meets and befriends many martial artists, undergoes rigorous martial arts training regimes and educational programs, and faces various challengers and villains, often at the Tenka-ichi Budōkai.

As the series continues, Goku goes from childhood into adulthood, and his first child, Son Gohan goes through similar experiences. As Goku evolves, so do many his rivals, including Piccolo and Vegeta, with some changing from evil to good. Goku himself dies and comes back to life several times, and becomes the top martial arts superhero in the universe.

Differences in anime adaptations

 This section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (July 2008)

Both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime are based on the same original Dragon Ball manga. Dragon Ball follows Son Goku's adventures as a child up until his marriage as an adult; roughly the arcs that had the most fantasy and humor elements. Dragon Ball Z takes up the story five years after where the Dragon Ball anime leaves off, with the introduction of Son Goku's young son and the arrival of a new, more powerful foe. Dragon Ball GT is the sequel to Dragon Ball Z, but is not based on the original manga by Toriyama.

Filler was used to pad out the series for many reasons; in the case of Dragon Ball Z, more often than not, it was because the anime was running alongside the manga, and there was no way for the anime to run ahead of the manga since Toriyama was still writing it.

The company behind the anime, Toei Animation, would occasionally create side stories to either further explain things, or simply to extend the series. Filler does not come only in the form of side stories though; sometimes it is as simple as adding some extra attacks into a fight. For instance, many scenes in the anime appear quite protracted, featuring long shots of the characters faces and stand-offs lasting an entire episode and even spanning multiple episodes for a single fight. As the anime series was forced to expand 12-14 pages of manga image and text into 20-22 minutes of animation footage, these changes were introduced to fill the complete television time slot or to allow the anime writers to explore some other aspects of the series' universe. The Garlic Junior arc, between the Freeza Saga and the Cell Saga, and the Afterlife Tournament arc, between the Cell Saga and the Majin Buu Saga, are examples of this.

Themes

At its core, Dragon Ball maintains the central tenets of the Weekly Shōnen Jump core philosphy of "friendship, struggle, and victory." As the series shifts from a "heart warming" story into a more action oriented piece, the protagonists go through an unending cycle of fighting, winning, losing, learning important lessons, then returning to the fight. As the series progresses, the heros continue this cycle by using miraculous divices to achieve life after death, continuing their on-going battles with the dead heroes continuing to learn lessons as defeats his challengers.[1]

Production

"Dragon Boy" redirects here. For the Canadian mini-series, see Dragon Boys.

Akira Toriyama initially modeled the Dragon Ball series on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.[2]

The series started life as a a two-part one shot manga series called Dragon Boy that was initially serialized in Fresh Jump and released in a single tankōbon volume in 1983. This short work combined the comedic style of Toriyama's successful six-year series Dr. Slump with a more action-oriented plot. This early work became the basis for Dragon Ball, with many of the same elements reused in the series. In the same year, he also published a sci-fi title The Adventures of Tongpoo, which included a character named Tanton who would be the inspiration of Son Goku, as well as additional plot elements that would be incorporated into Dragon Ball.citation needed

When asked why he draws "beautiful," "strong," and "sexy" women Toriyama replied that he is not comfortable drawing "weak females" and that it would be "no fun" drawing females weak. In some parts of Dragon Ball many of the strongest characters are small in stature. Toriyama said that he wished to go against the convention that stronger characters always appear larger and that he intended to switch between "telling a straightforward story" and telling an "unconventional and contradictory" story.[3]

Media

Manga

Main article: List of Dragon Ball chapters

Written and illustrated by Toriyama, Dragon Ball was initially serialized in the magna anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump starting in 1985, and running until 1995.[4] The 325 individual chapters were collected by Shueisha in a series of 42 tankōbon volumes.[5] The first tankōbon was released in November 10, 1985, while the last one was released in August 4, 1995.[6][7] In 2004, the manga was re-released in a collection of 34 kanzenban, which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shōnen Jump run.[4]

The distributing company Viz Media has released all 42 volumes in English in North America. Viz titles volumes seventeen through forty-two of the manga Dragon Ball Z, similar to the anime series adapted from those volumes, to reduce confusion for its readers.[4] Both manga series began publication in March 2003. The last volume of the first part was released in August 3, 2004, while the last one of the second part was released in June 6, 2006.[8][9] As of June 2008, Viz began re-releasing both manga series in a wideban format called "VIZBIG Edition", which collects three individual volumes into one oversized one.[10][11] Viz includes the title pages from the series' original run in Weekly Shonen Jump in a "Title Page Gallery" section at the back of each volume.citation needed

Crossovers

A year and a half into Dragon Ball, Toriyama included an extended cameo by some of the characters and locations from his previous creation, Dr. Slump. Toriyama and Eiichiro Oda teamed up to create Cross Epoch, a single chapter crossover between Dragon Ball and Oda's hit series One Piece. This single chapter appeared in the December 25, 2006 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jumpcitation needed

Neko Majin Z

Main article: Neko Majin

Originally a one-shot bearing little relation to Toriyama's other series, the first chapter of Neko Majin appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump in April 1999 (WJ #22-23). Though there were some similarities, it didn't become a self-parody of the Dragon Ball manga, until Neko Majin Z, which had cameos of characters from the author's magnum opus. As of 2005, the series was completed with eight total chapters (five of which are Dragon Ball parodies).[12] These chapters were compiled into a "kanzenban"-style package for release in Japan on April 4, 2005.[13]

Anime series

See also: List of Dragon Ball episodes

Dragon Ball

With the high popularity of the Dragon Ball manga, three lengthy anime television series were produced by Toei Animation to adapt the manga chapters. The first, named simply Dragon Ball, premiered in Japan on Fuji Television on February 26, 1986 and ran until April 12, 1989. Spanning 153 episodes, it covers the first 16 volumes of the 42 volume manga series.[14]

Harmony Gold USA licensed the series for an English language release in North America in the late 80s. In the their voice dub of the series, Harmony renamed almost all of the characters, with some names appearing very odd, such as the central character Son Goku being renamed to "Zero" and the character Karin's name changed to "Whiskers the Wonder Cat". This dub version was ill-received and was quickly canceled.citation needed

In 1995, Funimation Entertainment acquired the full license for the series for both broadcast and distribution in North America. Funimation initially had BLT Productions create the English voice track for the series and the series was edited for content.[15] Thirteen episodes aired in syndication before Funimation canceled the project[15] due to low ratings, switching to the sequel anime series Dragon Ball Z, which was more action oriented.citation needed In March 2001, Funimation announced the return of Dragon Ball to American television, featuring a new English audio track produced in house and less editing.[15][16] The redubbed episodes began airing on Cartoon Network on August 20, 2001.[17] Funimation also broadcast the series on Colours TV and their own Funimation Channel starting in 2006.[18] Funimation began releasing the uncut episodes to Region 1 DVD box sets in March 18, 2003. Each box set, spanning an entire saga of the series, included the English dub track and the original Japanese audio track with optional English subtitles. The Emperor Pilaf Saga, however, has not been released to DVD, due it still being licensed for distribution by Harmony Gold.

Dragon Ball uses two pieces of theme music for the entire series. '"Makafushigi Adventure!" by Hiroki Takahashi is used for the series opening theme and Ushio Hashimoto's "Romantic Ageru Yo" is used for the ending theme.[14]

Dragon Ball Z

With the ending of Dragon Ball, Toei Animation quickly released a sequel series, Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ(ぜっと) Doragon Bōru Zetto?, commonly abbreviated DBZ). Picking up where the first left off, Dragon Ball Z is adapted from the final twenty-six volumes of the manga series. It premiered in Japan on Fuji Television on April 26, 1989, taking over its predecessor's time slot, and ran for 291 episodes until its conclusion on January 31, 1996.[19]

Following its licensing of Dragon Ball, Funimation Entertainment licensed Dragon Ball Z for an English language release in North America. For Dragon Ball Z, Ocean Group was contracted to produce an English dub track. The dubbed episodes premiered in the United States on WB in September 1996. In May 1998, the broadcast was canceled and Funimation stopped production of the dubbed episodes. Three months later, the series began airing on Cartoon Network as part of the channel's new Toonami programming block. In 1999, Funimation started dubbing the series again, now using their own in-house voice actors and with a new musical score. The series completed its run in April 2003. Later that year, Funimation redubbed the first 67 episodes of the series, restoring the removed content and replacing the Ocean Group dubbing with the same voice cast used in the later episodes. These redubbed episodes were released to Region 1 DVD in uncut box sets, starting in April 2005, and aired on Cartoon Network throughout the summer of the same year. The Funimation dubbed episodes also aired in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland.citation needed

In the United Kingdom, the Funimation dubs of episodes 168 through the final episode were replaced with a new dubbed version. This version used a dub language track produced by Blue Water studios, but continued using most of Funimation's English language scripts.citation needed

Dragon Ball GT

Produced by Toei Animation, Dragon Ball GT (ドラゴンボールGT Doragon Bōru Jī Tī?) premiered on Fuji TV on February 2, 1996, spanning 64 episodes until its conclusion on November 19, 1997.[20] Unlike the first two series, it was not based on the original Dragon Ball manga.[21]

Funimation Entertainment licensed the series for an English language Region 1 DVD release and broadcast in North America. Funimation's English dub of the series premiered on Cartoon Network on November 7, 2003. The television broadcast skipped the first 16 episodes of the series. Instead, Funimation created a composition episode entitled "A Grand Problem", which used scenes from the skipped episodes to summarize the story. The skipped episodes were later aired after the remaining episodes of the series had been broadcast.[20] The dubbed episodes also aired in Canada on YTV, which divided the episodes into two seasons instead of sagas.[22][23]

Specials

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You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (July 2008)
  • Dragon Ball Z: A Lonesome, Final Battle~The Father of the Z Warrior Son Goku, who Challenged Freeza
  • Dragon Ball Z: Tatta Hitori no Saishū Kessen ～Freeza ni Idonda Zetto Senshi Son Gokū no Chichi
  • Bardock: The Father of Goku
  • Dragon Ball Z: Resistance to Despair!! The Remaining Super-Warriors, Gohan and Trunks
  • Dragon Ball Z: DoragonbōruZetto Zetsubō e no Hankō!! Nokosareta Chō-Senshi • Gohan to Torankusu
  • The History of Trunks
  • Dragon Ball GT: Goku Sidestory! The Proof of his Courage is the Four-Star Ball
  • (悟空外伝! 勇気の証しは四星球 Gokū Gaiden! Yūki no Akashi wa Sūshinchū?)
  • A Hero's Legacy
  • Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!
  • Dragon Ball: Ossu! Kaette Kita Son Gokū to Nakama-tachi!!
  • Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!

Anime films

Main article: List of Dragon Ball films

Video games

Main article: List of Dragon Ball video games

Because of its huge commercial success, the Dragon Ball franchise has spawned multiple video games in several genres, including fighting, platforming, role-playing, and card battling.

Soundtracks

Main article: Dragon Ball Soundtracks

Many Soundtracks were released to the Anime, movies and the games.citation needed

Live action films

Main article: Dragonball (film)

New Dragon Ball: The Legend of Shenlong is a live-action Chinese adaptation of the series in which an evil king steals the mystical "Dragonballs" in an attempt to possess them all. When all but one of the balls has been stolen, the former guardians of the magic balls decide to band together and take action. Led by a pig-headed wizard and a half-turtle martial arts master, the team takes on the king's army in a desperate bid to stop him from gaining control of the balls.citation needed

Art books

There are two companion books to the series, called the Dragon Ball GT Perfect Files, released in May 1997 and December 1997 by Shueisha's Jump Comics Selection imprint. They include series information, illustration galleries, behind-the-scenes information, and more. They were out of print for many years, but were re-released in April 2006 and this edition is still in print.citation needed

Reception

Dragon Ball is one of the most popular manga series of its time, and it continues to enjoy high readership today. By 2000, more than 126 million copies of its tankōbon volumes had been sold in Japan alone.[1] By 2007, this number had grown to pass 150 million.[5] It is the "quintessential mainstream manga" driven by an unending story. Its immense popularity resulted in the series being continuously extended, first through the use of acrobatic devices that regularly kept the series from falling into the routine characters and story lines, then by having the central characters surpass death itself using miraculous devises. In Little Boy: The Art of Japan's Exploding Subculture Takashi Murakami notes that Dragon Ball's "never-ending cyclical narrative moves forward plausibly, seamlessly, and with great finesse."[1] Goku's journey and his ever growing strength resulted in the character winning "the admiration of young boys everywhere".[2]

In a survey conducted by Oricon in 2007 between 1,000 people, Son Goku, the main character of the series, ranked first place as the "Strongest Manga character of all time."[24] Other manga artists, such as Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto and One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, have stated that Goku inspired their series' main protagonists as well series structure.[25][26]

When TV Asahi conducted an online poll for the top one hundred anime, the Dragon Ball series came in place twelve.[27]

References

  1. ^ a b c Murakami, Takashi (2005-05-15). "Earth in My Window", Little Boy: The Art of Japan's Exploding Subculture, Linda Hoaglund (translator), Yale University Press, Japan Society, pp. 105-106. ISBN 0300102852. 
  2. ^ a b Wiedemann, Julius (2004-09-25). "Akira Toriyama", in Amano Masanao (ed.): Manga Design. Taschen, p. 372. ISBN 3822825913. 
  3. ^ "" (November 2007). Shonen Jump 5 (11): p. 388. ISSN 1545-7818. 
  4. ^ a b c "Dragon Ball (manga)". Anime News Network. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  5. ^ a b "Comipress News article on "The Rise and Fall of Weekly Shōnen Jump"". comipress.com (2007-05-06). Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  6. ^ "DRAGON　BALL　　1 ドラゴンボール｜BOOKNAVI｜集英社" (in Japanese). Shueisha. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  7. ^ "DRAGON　BALL　　42 ドラゴンボール｜BOOKNAVI｜集英社" (in Japanese). Shueisha. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  8. ^ "Viz Media - Products: Dragon Ball Vol. 16". Viz Media. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  9. ^ "Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 26". Viz Media. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  10. ^ "Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 1 (VIZBIG Edition)". Viz Media. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
  11. ^ "Dragon Ball, Vol. 1 (VIZBIG Edition)". Viz Media. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
  12. ^ "Neko Majin Z (manga)". Anime News Network. Retrieved on 2008-07-21.
  13. ^ "ネコマジン　完全版｜BOOKNAVI｜集英社" (in Japanese). Shueisha. Retrieved on 2008-07-22.
  14. ^ a b "Dragon Ball (TV)". Anime News Network. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
  15. ^ a b c "Rough Air Date for Dragon Ball". Anime News Network (2001-03-09). Retrieved on 2008-07-19.
  16. ^ "Dragon Ball on CN debut date confirmed". Anime News Network (2001-05-02). Retrieved on 2008-07-19.
  17. ^ "DragonBall Re-dub". Anime News Network (2001-08-21). Retrieved on 2008-07-19.
  18. ^ "Dragon Ball Returns to US TV". Anime News Network (2006-11-12). Retrieved on 2008-07-19.
  19. ^ "Anime News Network Dragon Ball Z episode list". Anime News Network. Retrieved on 2007-11-08.
  20. ^ a b "Dragon Ball GT (TV)". Anime News Network. Retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  21. ^ "DBZ FAQ Update" (2001-04-10). Retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  22. ^ "Dragon Ball GT episode guide". YTV. Retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  23. ^ "Forum Buzz: New Anime on YTV this Fall". AnimeOnDVD.com (2004-08-18). Retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  24. ^ "1000人が選んだ！漫画史上“最強”キャラクターランキング！" (in Japanese). Retrieved on 2007-10-28.