Dragonball Z

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Biography

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama . It was originally serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995; later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankobon volumes by Shueisha . Dragon Ball was inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West . The series follows the adventures of the protagonist Goku from his childhood through adulthood as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the seven mystical orbs known as the Dragon Balls, which can summon a Shenron|wish-granting dragon when gathered. Along his journey, Goku makes several friends and battles a wide variety of villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls for their own desires.
The 42 tankobon have been adapted into two anime series produced by Toei Animation : Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z , which together were broadcast in Japan from 1986 to 1996. Additionally, Toei has developed seventeen animated feature films and three television specials, as well as an anime sequel titled Dragon Ball GT , which takes place after the events of the manga. From 2009 to 2011, Toei broadcast a revised, faster-paced version of Dragon Ball Z under the name of Dragon Ball Kai , in which most of the original version's footage not featured in the manga was removed. Several companies have developed various types of merchandising such as a Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game|collectible trading card game , and a List of Dragon Ball video games|large number of video games .

The manga series was licensed for an English-language release in North America by Viz Media , in the United Kingdom by Gollancz Manga , Australia and New Zealand by Chuang Yi and Malay-language release in Malaysia by Comics House . The entire anime series was licensed by Funimation Entertainment for an English-language release in the United States, although the series has not always been dubbed by the same studio. In China, a live-action film adaptation was produced in 1989. In 2002, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights to produce an American-made live-action film titled Dragonball Evolution that received a negative reception from critics and fans; the movie was released on April 10, 2009 in the United States.

Since its release, Dragon Ball has become one of the most successful manga and anime series of all time. The manga's 42 volumes have sold over 152 million copies in Japan and more than 200 million copies worldwide. Reviewers have praised the art, characterization, and humor of the story. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest manga series ever made, with many Mangaka|manga artists such as Masashi Kishimoto ( Naruto ), Eiichiro Oda ( One Piece ), Tite Kubo ( Bleach (manga)|Bleach ), Makoto Raiku ( Zatch Bell ), Yoshio Sawai ( Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo ), and Hiro Mashima ( Rave Master , Fairy Tail ) citing Dragon Ball as a source of inspiration for their own now popular works. The anime, particularly Dragon Ball Z , is also highly popular in various countries and was arguably one of the most influential in greatly boosting the popularity of Japanese animation in Western culture.

Plot summary

The series begins with a young monkey-tailed boy named Goku befriending a teenage girl named List of Dragon Ball characters#Bulma|Bulma . Together they go on a quest to find the seven Dragon Balls, which grant the user any wish they desire. Goku later undergoes rigorous training regimes under the martial artist List of Dragon Ball characters#Master Roshi|Master Roshi in order to fight in the World Martial Arts Tournament, a competition that attracts the most powerful fighters in the world. During his training with Roshi, he meets a Shaolin monk named Krillin , who starts out as Goku's rival classmate; however, they soon become best friends. Outside the tournaments, Goku faces diverse villains such as List of Dragon Ball characters#Emperor Pilaf|Emperor Pilaf , the List of Dragon Ball characters#Red Ribbon Army|Red Ribbon Army , and List of Dragon Ball characters#King Piccolo|King Piccolo . Several of the enemies and rivals Goku encounters eventually become his allies, including the desert bandit List of Dragon Ball characters#Yamcha|Yamcha , the assassin List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan|Tien Shinhan , the samurai List of Dragon Ball characters#Yajirobe|Yajirobe , and King Piccolo's offspring/reincarnation Piccolo (Dragon Ball)|Piccolo Jr.

As a young adult, Goku meets his older brother List of Dragon Ball characters#Raditz|Raditz , who reveals to him that they are members of a nearly extinct extraterrestrial race called the Saiyans. The Saiyans had sent Goku (originally named "Kakarot") to Earth as an infant to conquer the planet for them, but he suffered a Traumatic brain injury|severe head injury soon after his arrival and lost all memory of his mission, as well as his blood-thirsty Saiyan nature. Goku refuses to help Raditz continue the mission, and is soon killed along with Raditz in battle; however, he is revived a year later by the Dragon Balls. He then begins to encounter other enemies from space, most notably the Saiyan prince Vegeta , who becomes his rival and eventually another ally. Goku also encounters Frieza , the galactic tyrant responsible for the destruction of almost the entire Saiyan race, whose actions cause Goku to transform into a legendary "Super Saiyan." After a protracted battle on the planet Namek, Goku defeats Frieza, avenging the lives of billions across the galaxy.

Some time later, a group of androids from the former Red Ribbon Army appear, seeking revenge against Goku. During this time, an evil life form called Cell (Dragon Ball)|Cell emerges and, after absorbing two of the androids to achieve his final form, holds his own fighting tournament to decide the fate of the Earth entitled the Cell Games. However, Cell is eventually defeated by Goku's son Gohan (Dragon Ball)|Gohan in a desperate Kamehameha wave struggle. Seven years later, Goku and his allies are drawn into yet another battle for the universe against a magical being named List of Dragon Ball characters#Majin Buu|Majin Buu . After numerous battles, Goku destroys Buu with his ultimate attack; the Spirit Bomb . Ten years later, at another World Martial Arts Tournament, Goku meets Buu's human reincarnation, List of Dragon Ball characters#Uub|Uub . Leaving the match between the two of them unfinished, Goku takes Uub away on a journey to train him.

Themes

At its core, Dragon Ball maintains the central tenets of the Weekly Shonen Jump philosophy 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 and improving. They continue this cycle by using miraculous devices to achieve life after death and continue to learn lessons as they defeat their challengers. The series also follows the idea that people can better themselves and achieve their goals by constantly challenging themselves.

Production

Wanting to break from the Western influences common in his other series, Akira Toriyama loosely modeled Dragon Ball on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West . He also redeveloped one of his earlier One-shot (comics)|one shot manga series, Dragon Boy , which was initially serialized in Fresh Hump and released in a single tankobon 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 and paid homage to famous martial art actor Jackie Chan . Toriyama notes that his goal for the series was to tell an "unconventional and contradictory" story.

In the early concept of the series, Goku and Piccolo were from Earth. With the introduction of List of Dragon Ball characters#Kami|Kami , the idea of having fights from other planets was established and Goku and Piccolo were changed to alien species. For the female characters, Toriyama felt it was not fun to draw "weak females" so he created women that he felt were not only "beautiful and sexy", but also "strong". Going against the normal convention that the strongest characters should be the largest in terms of physical size, he designed many of Dragon Ball 's most powerful characters with small statures, including the protagonist, Goku.
The fighting techniques were initially unnamed, but the series editor felt it would be better to name them all. Toriyama proceeded to create names for all of the techniques, except for the Kamehameha which his wife named when Toriyama was indecisive about what it should be called. When creating the fictional world of the series, Toriyama decided to create it from his own imagination to avoid referencing popular culture. However the island where the World Martial Arts Tournament is held is modeled after Bali . When including fights in the manga, Toriyama had the characters go to uninhabited locations to avoid difficulties in drawing destroyed buildings. In order to advance the story quickly, he also gave most fighters the ability to fly so they could travel to other parts of the world without inconvenience. This was also the reasoning behind Goku learning to use Instant Transmission (thus allowing characters to teleport to any planet in a second).

After the first chapters were released, readers commented that Goku seemed rather plain, so his appearance was changed. New characters (such as Master Roshi and Krillin) were added and martial arts tournaments were included to give the manga a greater emphasis on fighting. Anticipating that readers would expect Goku to win the tournaments, Toriyama had him lose the first two while continuing his initial goal of having Goku be the champion and hero. After Cell's death, he intended for Gohan to replace Goku as the series' protagonist , but then felt the character was not suited for the role and changed his mind.

Toriyama based the Red Ribbon Army on a video game he had played named Kung-Fu Master|Spartan X in which enemies tended to appear very fast. After the second tournament concluded, Toriyama wanted to have a villain who would be a true "bad guy". After creating Piccolo as the new villain, he noted that it was one of the most interesting parts of the stories and that he and his son became the favorite characters of the series. With Goku established as the strongest fighter on Earth, Toriyama decided to increase the number of villains that came from outer space. Finding the escalating enemies to be a pain to work with, he created the Ginyu Force to add more balance to the series. During this period of the series, Toriyama placed less emphasis on the series' art work, simplifying the lines and sometimes making things "too square." He found himself having problems determining the colors for characters and sometimes ended up changing them unintentionally mid-story. In later accounts, Toriyama noted that he didn't plan out the details of the story, resulting in strange occurrences and discrepancies later in the series."Shenron's Newspaper", Daizenshuu vol.2 (limited edition)

Media

Manga

Dragon Ball

Written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama , Dragon Ball was initially serialized in the manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump starting on December 3, 1984. The series ended on June 5, 1995 when Toriyama grew exhausted and felt he needed a break from drawing. The 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankobon volumes by Shueisha from November 10, 1985 through August 4, 1995. In 2002, the chapters were re-released in a collection of 34 Tankobon#Aizoban and kanzenban|kanzenban volumes, which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shonen Jump run. Toriyama also created a short series, Neko Majin , that became a self-parody of Dragon Ball . First appearing in Weekly Shonen Jump in August 1999, the eight chapter series was released sporadically until it was completed in 2005. These chapters were compiled into a "kanzenban"-style package for release in Japan on April 4, 2005.

The Dragon Ball manga was licensed for release in English in North America by Viz Media which has released all 42 volumes. Viz released volumes 17 through 42 under the title Dragon Ball Z to mimic the name of the anime series adaptated from those volumes, feeling it would reduce the potential for confusion by its readers. They initially released both series in a monthly comic book format starting in 1998, and later began collecting them in graphic novels. The first 10 volumes of both series were re-released from March to May 2003 under the "Shonen Jump" format, with Dragon Ball being completed on August 3, 2004 and Dragon Ball Z finishing on June 6, 2006. In June 2008, Viz began re-releasing the two series in a Wide-ban|wideban format called "VIZBIG Edition," which collects three individual volumes into a single large volume.

In 2006, Toriyama and One Piece author Eiichiro Oda teamed up to create a single chapter Fictional crossover|crossover of their individual hit series. Entitled Cross Epoch , the chapter was published in the December 25, 2006 issue of Weekly Shonen Jump .

Spin-offs

A manga adaptation of Dragon Ball: Yo& #33; Son Goku and His Friends Return!! illustrated by Naho Oishi, was published in the March 21, 2009 and April 21, 2009 issues of V Jump .

A spinoff manga titled Dragon Ball SD , also written by Naho Oishi, has been published in Shueisha's Super Strong Jump magazine beginning in December 2010. A second issue was released in April 2011. This manga is a condensed retelling of Goku's adventures as a child, with many details changed.

Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock is a three-chapter manga, once again penned by Naho Oishi, that was published in the monthly magazine V-Jump between August and October 2011. This manga is a sequel to the 1990 TV special Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku|Bardock – The Father of Goku with some key details changed. As the title indicates the manga's story revolves around Bardock, Goku's father, who in this special is featured in a "what-if" scenario in which he did not die at the hands of Frieza and gets to fight his enemy as a Super Saiyan. The fact that Bardock appears as a Super Saiyan is based on the Dragon Ball Heroes card featuring him as one.

Anime series

Dragon Ball

Toei Animation produced an anime series based on the manga chapters, also titled Dragon Ball . The series premiered in Japan on Fuji Television on February 26, 1986 and ran until April 12, 1989, lasting 153 episodes.

Harmony Gold USA licensed the series for an English-language release in the United States in 1989. In their voice dub of the series, Harmony renamed almost all of the characters, for example, Goku was renamed "Zero." This dub version was test-marketed in several cities, but was cancelled before it could be broadcast to the general public.

In 1995, Funimation Entertainment acquired the license for the distribution of Dragon Ball in the U.S., as well as its sequel series Dragon Ball Z . Funimation contracted BLT Productions to create an English voice track for the first anime at their Canada-based dubbing studio and the dubbed episodes were edited for content. Thirteen episodes aired in broadcast syndication|first-run syndication during the fall of 1995 before Funimation cancelled the project due to low ratings and decided to shift their focus on the more action-oriented Dragon Ball Z . Vidmark Entertainment (later known as Trimark Pictures ) purchased the home video distribution rights for these dubbed episodes sometime after. In March 2001, following the success of Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network , Funimation announced the return of Dragon Ball to American television, featuring a new English audio track produced at their own Texas -based dubbing studio, as well as slightly less editing, and left the original background music intact unlike their dubs of the two sequel series. The re-dubbed episodes aired on Cartoon Network from August 20, 2001 to December 1, 2003. Funimation also broadcast the series on Colours TV and their own Funimation Channel starting in 2006.

Funimation began releasing their in-house dub to Region 1 DVD box sets in March 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. However, they were unable to release the first thirteen episodes at the time, due to Lionsgate Entertainment holding the distribution rights to their original dub of the same episodes, having acquired them from Trimark after the company became defunct. After Lionsgate's license to the first thirteen episodes expired in 2009, Funimation remastered and re-released the complete Dragon Ball series to DVD in five individual season box sets, with the first set released on September 15, 2009 and the final set released on July 27, 2010.

Dragon Ball Z

With the ending of Dragon Ball , Toei Animation quickly released a second anime series, . Picking up where the first left off, Dragon Ball Z is adapted from the final twenty-six volumes of the manga series on Weekly Shounen Jump from 1988–1995, 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.

Following their short-lived dub of Dragon Ball in 1995, Funimation began production on an English-language release of Dragon Ball Z . They collaborated with Saban Entertainment to finance and distribute the series to television, sub-licensed home video distribution to Pioneer Entertainment (later known as Geneon Universal Entertainment ), contracted Ocean Productions to dub the anime into English, and hired Shuki Levy to compose an alternate musical score. This dub of Dragon Ball Z was Editing of anime in American distribution|heavily edited for content , as well as length; reducing the first 67 episodes into 53. The series premiered in the U.S. on September 13, 1996 in first-run syndication , but also struggled to find a substantial audience during its run and was ultimately cancelled after two seasons. On August 31, 1998, however, these cancelled dubbed episodes began airing on Cartoon Network 's weekday-afternoon programming block, Toonami , where the series received much more popularity. With new success, Funimation continued production on the series by themselves, now with less editing due to fewer restrictions on cable programing. However, they could no longer afford the services of either the Ocean voice cast or Shuki Levy's music without Saban's financial assistance, resulting in the creation of their own in-house ADR studio and a new musical score composed by Bruce Faulconer . Dragon Ball Z was now in full production in the U.S. and the new dub of the series was broadcast on Cartoon Network from September 13, 1999 to April 7, 2003. In 2004, Geneon's distribution rights to the first 53/67 episodes of Dragon Ball Z expired, allowing Funimation to re-dub them with their in-house ADR studio and restore the removed content. These re-dubbed episodes aired on Cartoon Network during the summer of 2005.

In 2006, Funimation remastered the episodes Cropping (image)|cropped to 16:9 widescreen format and then began re-releasing the series to Region 1 DVD in nine individual season box sets, with the first set released on February 6, 2007 and the final set released on May 19, 2009. These sets were notable for including the option of hearing Funimation's in-house dub alongside the original Japanese music, an option that had previously not been available. Other options included hearing the in-house dub with the American soundtrack composed by Bruce Faulconer and Nathan Johnson, and a third option included watching the original Japanese version, with the original Japanese soundtrack and English subtitles. In July 2009, Funimation announced that they would be re-releasing Dragon Ball Z in a new seven-volume DVD set called the "Dragon Boxes." Based on the original series masters with frame-by-frame restoration, the first set was released on November 10, 2009 and the final set was released on October 11, 2011. Unlike the season box sets, Funimation's "Dragon Box" release is presented in the original 4:3 fullscreen format.

Funimation and Toei released a statement in January 2011 confirming that they would stream Dragon Ball Z within 30 minutes before their simulcast of One Piece . Dragon Ball Z is now being streamed on Hulu , containing the English dub with the Japanese music and uncut footage, as well as subtitled Japanese episodes.

In July 2011, Funimation announced plans to release Dragon Ball Z in Blu-ray format. Dragon Ball Z Level 1.1 , containing the first 17 episodes, was released on November 8, 2011. However, on January 26, 2012, Funimation suspended the release of the third Blu-ray volume of Dragon Ball Z , as well as production of the rest of the Blu-ray releases, citing concerns over restoring the original film material frame by frame.

Dragon Ball GT

Produced by Toei Animation, premiered on Fuji TV on February 2, 1996, and ran until November 19, 1997. Unlike the first two series, it was not based on the original Dragon Ball manga. The series lasted 64 episodes. In Dragon Ball GT , Goku is transformed back into a child by the Black Star Dragon Balls and is forced to travel across the galaxy to retrieve them in order to transform back into an adult.

Following the success of both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network , Funimation licensed Dragon Ball GT for distribution in the U.S. as well. Funimation's dub of the series aired on Cartoon Network from November 14, 2003 to April 16, 2005. The television broadcast initially skipped the first sixteen 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, advertised as "The Lost Episodes," were later aired after the remaining episodes of the series had been broadcast.

Funimation later released their dub to bilingual Region 1 DVD in two season box sets, with the first set released on December 9, 2008 and the final set released on February 10, 2009, which also featured the Dragon Ball GT TV special, '' Dragon Ball GT: A Hero's Legacy|A Hero's Legacy . In a similar fashion to their DVD releases for Dragon Ball Z , the DVD box sets have the option of hearing the English dub alongside the original Japanese music, and the rap song used for the TV airing of the show (nicknamed by fans "Step Into the Grand Tour") has been replaced by English-dubbed versions of the original Japanese opening and ending songs. Funimation later released a "Complete Series" box set of Dragon Ball GT (using the same discs as the two season sets, but with different packaging) on September 21, 2010.

Nicktoons (TV channel)|Nicktoons began re-airing Dragon Ball GT in the U.S. on January 16, 2012. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-12-15/u.s-tv-nicktoons-to-run-dragon-ball-gt-in-january

Dragon Ball Z Kai

In February 2009, Toei Animation announced that it would begin broadcasting a revised version of Dragon Ball Z as part of the series' 20th anniversary celebrations. The series premiered on Fuji TV in Japan on April 5, 2009, under the name , with the episodes remastered for High-definition television|HDTV , featuring updated opening and ending sequences, and a rerecording of the vocal tracks by most of the original cast. The footage was also re-edited to more closely follow the manga, resulting in a faster-moving story, and damaged frames removed. As such, it is a new version of Dragon Ball Z created from the original footage.

On March 9, 2011, Toei announced that due to Kenji Yamamoto (composer born 1958)|Kenji Yamamoto 's score for Dragon Ball Kai infringing on the rights of an unknown third party, the score for remaining episodes and replays of previous episodes would be replaced. Later reports from Toei claimed that with the exception of the series' opening and closing songs, as well as eyecatch music, Yamamoto's score was replaced with Shunsuke Kikuchi 's original score from Dragon Ball Z . The series concluded with the finale of the Cell arc as opposed to including the Majin Buu arc. It was originally planned to run 98 episodes, however due to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami|Tohoku offshore earthquake and tsunami , the final episode of Dragon Ball Kai was not aired and the series ended on its 97th episode in Japan on March 27, 2011.

Like all other Dragon Ball -based anime, Funimation licensed Dragon Ball Kai for an English-language release in the U.S., under the title Dragon Ball Z Kai . The series was broadcast on Nicktoons (TV channel)|Nicktoons from May 24, 2010 to January 1, 2012. -- Anime News Network (Received February 2, 2010) - Ohio.com Retrieved March 11, 2010 In addition to Nicktoons, the series also began airing on The CW Television Network|The CW's Saturday-morning programming block, Toonzai , on August 14, 2010. Both the Nicktoons and Toonzai airings are edited for content, though the Toonzai version is censored even more so than Nicktoons', most likely due to The CW being a broadcast network. Both these versions are rated TV-Y7-FV. However, in addition to the TV airings, Funimation is also releasing bilingual Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray box sets of the show. These box sets contain the original Japanese audio track with English subtitles, as well as the uncut version of the English dub, which does not contain any of the edits made for the TV airings. The uncut version is rated TV-PG.dragonballzkai.com Following the plagiarizing accusations of the series' musical score, both the Nicktoons and Toonzai airings have also been featuring the original Dragon Ball Z background music, as well as the uncut DVD/Blu-ray version.

Anime films

Seventeen anime films based on the Dragon Ball series have been released in Japan. The first three films were based on the original Dragon Ball anime series. The remaining films included thirteen Dragon Ball Z films and one tenth anniversary special (also based on the first anime series). However, the films are generally either alternate re-tellings of certain story arcs or extra side-stories that don't correlate with the same timeline as the series. Funimation has licensed and released all of the films to home video in North America.

Specials

Three television specials based on the metaseries were released in Japan. The first, Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku|Bardock – The Father of Goku , was released on October 17, 1990. It is a prequel to the series, set years before the start of the manga and details how Goku's father, Bardock, discovers that Frieza is planning to kill all the other Saiyans, and his efforts to stop him. The second special, Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks|The History of Trunks was released on March 24, 1993. Based on an extra chapter of the original manga, it is set in a parallel universe where most of the series characters are killed by the evil androids and focuses on Bulma and Vegeta's son Trunks (Dragon Ball)|Trunks . '' Dragon Ball GT: A Hero's Legacy|A Hero's Legacy , released on March 26, 1997, is set 100 years after the end of Dragon Ball GT''. It features one of Goku's descendants who begins looking for the Dragon Balls in order to help his sick grandmother, Pan (Dragon Ball)|Pan .

Two other specials were also released in Japan. A two-episode original video animation (OVA) series titled Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans , based on the Nintendo Entertainment System|Famicom video game of the List of Dragon Ball video games#1990s|same name , was released in 1993 and was set during Dragon Ball Z . Another special, Dragon Ball: Yo& #33; Son Goku and His Friends Return!! , premiered at the Jump Super Anime Tour on November 24, 2008. The special is set two years after the defeat of the evil Buu and has Goku and his friends facing against new enemies, Abo and Kado, and meeting Vegeta's younger brother, Tarble and his wife, Gure.

A remake of Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans titled Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans was released on November 11, 2010 as bonus feature on Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 . In November 2011, V-Jump announced an animated adaptation from Bardock's spinoff manga by Naho Oishi titled Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock which aired in Japan on December 18, 2011.

Video games

The Dragon Ball franchise has spawned multiple video games across various genres and platforms. Earlier games of the series included a system of card battling and were released for the Nintendo Entertainment System following the storyline of the series. Starting Super Nintendo Entertainment System , the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation most of the games were from the Fighting game|fighting genre including the series Super Butoden . The first Dragon Ball game to be released in the United States was Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout for the PlayStation on July 31, 1997. For the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable games the characters were redone in 3D cel-shaded graphics. These games included the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai (series)| Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series and the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi (series)| Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi series . Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit was the first game of the series developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 . A massively multiplayer online role-playing game called Dragon Ball Online is currently playable. It has been stated that Akira Toriyama has been working on character designs for this project for several years, and the game is available in Japan and South Korea.

Soundtracks

Myriad soundtracks were released to the anime, movies and the games. The music for the first two anime Dragon Ball and Z and its films was directed by Shunsuke Kikuchi , while the music from GT was directed by Akihito Tokunaga and the music from Kai was directed by Kenji Yamamoto. For the first anime, the soundtracks released were Dragon Ball: Music Collection in 1985 and Dragon Ball: Complete Song Collection in 1991 although they were reissued in 2007 and 2003, respectively. For the second anime, the soundtrack series released were Dragon Ball Z Hit Song Collection Series . It was produced and released by Columbia Records of Japan from July 21, 1989 to March 20, 1996 the show's entire lifespan. On September 20, 2006 Columbia re-released the Hit Song Collection on their Animex 1300 series. Other CDs released are compilations, video games and films soundtracks as well as music from the English versions.

Live-action films

A live-action Mandarin Chinese film adaptation of the series, Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins , was released in Taiwan in 1989. Considered a "tacky" version of the story by critics, the plot revolves around a rag-tag group of heroes, led by "Monkey Boy" (Goku) trying to stop King Horn from using the wish-granting "Dragon Pearls" (Dragon Balls) to rule the world.

In December 1990, the unofficial live-action Korean film Dragon Ball: Ssawora Son Goku, Igyeora Son Goku was released. The movie follows the original Dragon Ball story, and does so more closely than Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins| The Magic Begins . This live action adaption from Korea is an adaptation of the events of the first Dragon Ball story arc and a little of the Saiyan arc of Dragon Ball Z , as Vegeta's partner List of Dragon Ball characters#Nappa|Nappa makes an appearance in this film.

In March 2002, 20th Century Fox acquired feature film rights to the Dragon Ball franchise and began production on an American live action film entitled Dragonball Evolution . Ben Ramsey was tapped to create a screenplay based on Dragon Ball Z . Directed by James Wong (producer)|James Wong and produced by Stephen Chow , the film was released in the United States on April 10, 2009. The film was largely considered a failure by both critics and Dragon Ball fans, and it only grossed $57 million at the box office.

Art books

There are two companion books to the series, one called Dragon Ball - The Complete Illustrations , first published in Japan in 1995, which was then translated and printed in 2008 by VIZ Media. It contains all the 264 coloured illustrations Akira Toriyama done for the Weekly Jump magazines' covers, bonus giveaways and specials, and all the covers for the 42 tankobon. It also includes an interview with Akira Toriyama on his work process.
In Japan it was originally released as Volume 1 of the 7 part Daizenshuu series.

The other was Dragon Ball GT Perfect Files , released in May 1997 and December 1997 by Shueisha 's Jump Comics Selection imprint. It 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.

Collectible cards

There have been collectible cards, based on the Dragon Ball , Dragon Ball Z , and Dragon Ball GT series, released under Bandai. They feature various scenes from the manga and anime stills, plus exclusive artwork from all three series.
They were previously released in other countries, like Taiwan and Singapore , before making their debut in the United States in July 2008.

Reception

Manga

Dragon Ball is one of the most popular manga series of all time, and it continues to enjoy high readership today. By 2000, more than 126 million copies of its tankobon volumes had been sold in Japan alone. By 2007, this number had grown to pass 152 million in Japan and 200 million worldwide. 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." Goku's journey and his ever growing strength resulted in the character winning "the admiration of young boys everywhere".

In a survey conducted by Oricon in 2007 between 1,000 people, Goku, the main character of the franchise, ranked first place as the "Strongest Manga character of all time." 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 as series structure. One Piece Color Walk - Vol.1 - Interview with Eiichiro Oda and Akira Toriyama ((JP) ISBN 978-4-08-859217-6) Dragon Ball was also high inspiration to Yaiba , the manga written by Gosho Aoyama , best known as the creator of the manga series Case Closed|Detective Conan . Both Yaiba and Dragon Ball began as a kind of light-hearted gag manga, but towards the end of their run the tone became more serious and action-packed. When TV Asahi conducted an online poll for the top one hundred anime, the Dragon Ball series came in place twelve.

Animerica felt the series had "worldwide appeal" that uses dramatic pacing and over the top martial arts action to "maintain tension levels and keep a crippler crossface hold on the audience's attention spans". Ridwan Khan from Animefringe.com commented on the manga to have a "chubby" art style but as the series continued it gets more refined with the characters leaner and more muscular. He also noted he preferred the manga versions of the series to their animated counterparts that makes the story slower and pointless. Anime News Network praised the story and humor of the manga to be very good due conveying of all the characters's personalities. They also remarked Viz Media|Viz 's translation to be one of the best ones of all the English editions of the series, praising the lack of censor. Rationalmagic.com remarked the first manga volume as "a superior humor title". They praised Goku's innocence and Bulma's insistence as one of the funniest parts of the series. Writer Jason Thompson (writer)|Jason Thompson commented that the series popularity comes from a formula that Toriyama used in various story arcs from which he describes as "lots of martial arts, lots of training sequences, a few jokes." Yet, he noted that such formula became the model for other manga from the same genre such as Naruto .

Anime

The anime adaptations have also received positive reviews. On several occasions the Dragon Ball anime series has topped Japan's DVD sales. Dragon Ball Z was listed as the 78th best animated show in IGN's Top 100 Animated Series, and was also listed as the 50th greatest cartoon in Wizard (magazine)| Wizard magazine 's "Top 100 Greatest Cartoons" list. T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews considered the series characters to be different from stereotypical stock characters and noted that they undergo much more development. Despite praising Dragon Ball Z for its cast of characters, they criticized it for having long and repetitive fights. Anime News Network considered Trunks's storyline to be one of the better story arcs of the series, with the characters having more motivation than in previous stories.
Some critics and most fans of the Japanese version have given Funimation 's English dub of Dragon Ball Z mixed feelings over the years. IGN criticized some of the voices to be "quite annoying" and also noted that Frieza's English voice "made him sound like a lady. This combined with Frieza's appearance left a lot of fans confused about Frieza's gender for a while." IGN commented Dragon Ball GT "is downright repellent" mentioning that the material and characters had lost their novelty and fun. They also criticized the character designs of Trunks and Vegeta as being goofy. Anime News Network also gave negative comments about GT , mentioning that the fights from the series were "a very simple childish exercise" and that many other anime were superior. The plot of GT has also been criticized for giving a formula that was already used in its predecessors. The first episode of Dragon Ball Kai earned a viewer ratings percentage of 11.3, ahead of One Piece and behind Crayon Shin-chan . Although following episodes had lower ratings, Kai was among the top 10 anime in viewer ratings every week in Japan for most of its run.

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