Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball (Japanese: ドラゴンボール, Hepburn: Doragon Bōru) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. Originally serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995, the 519 individual chapters were printed in 42 tankōbon volumes. Dragon Ball was inspired by the Chinese novel Journey to the West and Hong Kong martial arts films. It initially had a comedy focus but later became an action-packed fighting series. The story follows the adventures of Son Goku, from childhood to adulthood, as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the Dragon Balls, seven magical orbs which summon a wish-granting dragon when gathered. Along his journey, Goku makes several friends and battles villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls.

Dragon Ball has become one of the most successful manga series of all time. Its initial serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump was responsible for the magazine reaching its highest circulation of 6.53 million weekly sales. Its collected tankōbon volumes have sold over 160 million copies in Japan and more than 260 million official copies worldwide, making it the third best-selling manga series. When including unofficial pirated copies, the series is estimated to have sold over 400 million official and unofficial copies worldwide. Critical reception to the series has been mostly positive. Reviewers have praised the comedy, fight scenes and pacing while recognizing the coming-of-age theme and the use of cultural references from Chinese mythology and Japanese folktales. Complaints from parents in the United States resulted in English-language releases being edited to remove nudity, racial stereotypes, and other content.

Regarded as one of the most influential manga series, Dragon Ball has inspired numerous manga artists, including Eiichiro Oda (One Piece), Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto) and Tite Kubo (Bleach). A sequel, titled Dragon Ball Super, has been published in V Jump since 2015. It is written by Toriyama and illustrated by Toyotarou.

Plot
Son Goku, a monkey-tailed boy, and Bulma, a teenage girl, travel to find the seven Dragon Balls, which summon the dragon Shenlong to grant the user one wish. Their journey leads to the desert bandit Yamcha, who later becomes an ally; Chi-Chi, whom Goku unknowingly agrees to marry; and Pilaf, an impish man who seeks the Dragon Balls to fulfill his desire to rule the world. Goku undergoes rigorous training regimes under the martial arts master Kame-Sen'nin to fight in the Tenkaichi Budōkai (天下一武道会, lit. "Strongest Under the Heavens Martial Arts Tournament"). He becomes friends with a monk named Kuririn, his training partner and initial rival. After the tournament, Goku searches for the Dragon Ball his grandfather left him and almost single-handedly defeats the Red Ribbon Army and their hired assassin, Taopaipai. Goku then reunites with his friends to defeat the fortune teller Baba Uranai's fighters and use her to find the last Dragon Ball in order to revive a friend killed by Taopaipai.

Three years later at the Tenkaichi Budōkai, Goku and his allies oppose Kame-Sen'nin's rival and Taopaipai's brother, Tsuru-Sen'nin, and his students Tenshinhan and Chaozu. Kuririn is killed after the tournament; Goku tracks down the murderer's leader, Piccolo Daimao, but is defeated. The samurai Yajirobe takes Goku to the hermit Karin, who heals him and gives him a power boost. Meanwhile, Piccolo defeats and kills Kame-Sen'nin and Chaozu before using the Dragon Balls to regain his youth and destroy Shenlong. Goku then kills Piccolo Daimao, who, before dying, spawns his son/reincarnation Piccolo. Karin then directs Goku to Kami, the original creator of the Dragon Balls and Piccolo Daimao's other half, to restore Shenlong and revive his slain friends. Goku trains under Kami for the next three years, once again reuniting with his friends at the Tenkaichi Budōkai. There, he defeats Piccolo, whose life he spares as it would also kill Kami. Goku leaves with Chi-Chi to keep his promise to marry her.

Five years later, Goku is a young adult and father to a son, Gohan. A man named Raditz arrives on Earth, identifies Goku as his younger brother Kakarrot, and reveals to him that they are members of a nearly extinct extraterrestrial race called the Saiyans (サイヤ人, Saiya-jin), who sent Goku to conquer Earth for them; however, Goku had suffered a severe head injury as an infant and lost all memories of his mission. Goku refuses to continue the mission, and sides with Piccolo to kill Raditz at the cost of his own life. In the afterlife, Goku trains under the North Kaiō until he is revived by the Dragon Balls to save the Earth from the invading Nappa and Vegeta. In the battle, Yamcha, Chaozu, Tenshinhan, and Piccolo are killed, and the Dragon Balls cease to exist. Kuririn and the galactic tyrant Freeza learn of another set of Dragon Balls on the planet Namek (ナメック星, Namekku-sei), Piccolo's homeworld. Bulma, Gohan, and Kuririn search for them to revive their friends and restore Earth's Dragon Balls. Their goal leads to several battles with Freeza's minions and Vegeta, the latter standing alongside the heroes to fight the Ginyu Force, a team of mercenaries. The long battle with Freeza ends when Goku transforms into a legendary Super Saiyan (超サイヤ人, Sūpā Saiya-jin) and defeats him. Barely surviving, Freeza recovers and goes to Earth to take his revenge on Goku; however, he is killed by a Super Saiyan from the future named Trunks.

Three years later, a group of Androids (人造人間, Jinzōningen, lit. "Artificial Humans") created by a member of the former Red Ribbon Army, Doctor Gero, appears, seeking revenge against Goku. During this time, an evil life form called Cell also emerges and, after absorbing two of the Androids to achieve his "perfect form", holds his own fighting tournament to challenge the protagonists. After Goku sacrifices his own life to no avail, Gohan avenges his father by killing Cell. Seven years later Goku, briefly revived for one day, and his allies are drawn into a fight against Majin Boo. After many battles, including the destruction and re-creation of the Earth, a resurrected Goku destroys Boo with a Genki-Dama (a sphere of pure energy drawn from all intelligent beings on Earth) and wishes for him to be reincarnated as a "good person". Ten years later, at the Tenkaichi Budōkai, Goku meets Boo's human reincarnation, Oob. After testing his powers, Goku departs with Oob to train him to be the Earth's new guardian.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) An interesting premise in which you have to get 7 "Dragon Balls" in order to make 1 wish.
 * 2) The series serves as a love letter to Akira Toriyama's love towards Chinese Matial Arts films and Sci-Fi.
 * 3) It's one of the most influencial franchises ever made as it inspired series such as Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Fairy Tail, My Hero Academia, Negima, Black Cat, To Love-Ru, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, Black Clover, Jujutsu Kaisen, Zatch Bell, High School DxD, The Seven Deadly Sins, Eyeshield 21, One-Punch Man, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Hellsing, Claymore, Excel Saga, Phantom Thief Jeanne, Full Moon o Sagashite, Dragon Drive, Kill la Kill, Steven Universe, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ok K.O, Tekken, Street Fighter, Arms, Another World, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc.
 * 4) Unforgetable characters such as Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, Bulma, Krillin, Master Roshi, Trunks, Goten, Android 18, Yamcha, Tien Shinhan, Chiaotzu, Oolong, Puar, Chi-Chi (Depending on your view), Ox-King, Launch, Korin, Mr. Popo, Android 17, Mr. Satan (Depending on your view), Videl, Fortuneteller Baba, Grandpa Son Gohan, etc.
 * 5) Amazing and unforgettable Antagonists such as the Pilaf Gang, Red Ribbon Army, King Piccolo, Frieza, Zarbon and Dodoria, Ginyu Force, Nappa, Raditz, Cell, and Majin Buu.
 * 6) Amazing, Well done, and unforgettable arcs such as Emperor Pilaf Saga, Tournament Saga, Red Ribbon Army Saga, King Piccolo Saga, Saiyan Saga, Freiza Saga. Android Saga, and Majin Buu Saga.
 * 7) The theme of the story as the story of Dragon Ball centers primarily around a theme of redemption, mostly through exposure to the ideals of Goku and Gohan. Nearly every major character in the manga entered the series as a villain but was, through one method or another, converted to the side of good (often, this would entail a temporary team up to defeat a greater foe, but somehow the former enemies rarely found the motivation to begin fighting again). This theme was evident from the beginning (with the conversion of Yamcha, Oolong, and Puar) and continued even to the last saga (with the acceptance of Majin Buu). This style of redemption is not unique to Dragon Ball (it is often seen even in American comic books), but it is significant that it persisted even through other major shifts in style and tone.
 * 8) Amazing Artwork as the series progresses.
 * 9) So many iconic scenes.
 * 10) Emotional moments such as any of Krillin's death, Goku's Heroic Sacrifice against Raditz, anyone that was slaughtered by Nappa during the Saiyan Saga, Gohan watching the Cell Jrs beat up and brutalize his friends, #16's dying speech to Gohan, Goku's 2nd death, Goku returning to Earth in the Buu Saga, etc.
 * 11) A really good ending in which 10 years after the defeat of Buu where the earth is now saved, and Kid Buu was reincarnated into a human being of pure good called Uub, he and Goku have a match, after the match Goku decides to go to Uub's village and train Uub to his potential so that one day they can have a match to decide who is the strongest fighter in the universe (currently Goku).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The Majin Buu arc has its fair share of problems, despite it introducing some cool concepts;
 * 2) * The power-scaling became irrelevant during the Majin Buu Saga and has been a recurring problem with the franchise since.
 * 3) * Some of the memorable characters have been downgraded in this arc;
 * 4) ** Gohan, the boy who saved the world by defeating Cell, becomes a complete joke by the time the Majin Buu Saga rolls around due to him having neglected his training in order to become a scholar. To add insult to injury, he starts masquerading as the costumed superhero "Great Saiyaman", which, at best, makes him more of a butt-monkey than a real hero. Even though he finally manages to regain his strength through the Elder Supreme Kai's ritual, he is ultimately defeated and killed by Buu, with Goku finishing the job with a Spirit Bomb and reclaiming his position as main protagonist.
 * 5) *** This was reportedly due to heavy fan backlash that forced Toriyama to bring Goku back to life after his planned "final" death in the Cell Games Saga.
 * 6) * The newer characters are completely wasted:
 * 7) ** Videl is killed by Majin Buu in a horrifying fashion and ultimately gives up on fighting completely to become a stay-at-home mom.
 * 8) ** Goten and Trunks are shuffled off to the sidelines after failing to defeat Buu.
 * 9) ** The Supreme Kai, despite being built up as a "god-amongst-gods", turns out to be utterly incompetent at his job.
 * 10) * The older supporting characters barely ever do anything significant at all, with even the likes of Master Roshi and Tien Shinhan being demoted to support roles.
 * 11) **Granted that this series has this flaw from the beginning, especially with characters like Launch, who was almost completely forgotten about after the Saiyan Saga, but it was taking up to the eleven in this arc.
 * 12) ** Bulma is the only exception to this rule, as she remains the Z-Fighters' primary gadget builder.
 * 13) Some unlikable characters, such as Chi-Chi, Kid Trunks, Good Buu and Gotenks (Depending on your view).

Trivia

 * 1) The claims that the series was originally intended to end with the Saiyan or, more popularly, the Frieza Saga. This is actually a fandom invention as Toriyama never stated that. What he did say was he didn't intend for the series to last as long as it did or to explode in popularity the way it did. The Saiyan and especially Frieza Sagas are just very obvious points where fans can say "well, it could have stopped here and it'd be a fairly clean finish".
 * 2) The manga came into existence due to Akira Toriyama's wife saying how her husband would watch kung fu movies when drawing Doctor Slump when him and his editor were considering giving up on brainstorming their next manga project. This statement gave the idea of writing a kung fu series and the rest is history...
 * 3) The original pilot for the manga, and for the series as a whole, was called "Dragon Boy". Its hero, Tanton, was a boy with bat wings that would evolve into the monkey-tailed Goku. The pilot interestingly featured an artifact called a Dragon Ball, but it was pretty useless (all it did was release a puny dragon). The story was also much more heavily based on Journey to the West than the actual printed Dragon Ball was/is, and had Tanton escorting a princess that strongly resembles Bulma back home to her country. When the story ends, the heroes still had nine-tenths of the way to go. Just think of all that could have been here...
 * 4) During the early days of the manga, Kazuhiko Torishima, Toriyama's editor at the time, expressed interest to have Goku and Bulma fall in love with each other. This was mentioned in an omake at the end of a chapter in Doctor Slump.
 * 5) Toriyama didn't plan on Goku being an alien. His Great Ape transformation was supposed to be something like that of a werewolf and chalk it up to Our Werebeasts Are Different, and a nod to Journey to the West. He also didn't plan Piccolo as being an alien either.note
 * 6) Androids 19 and 20 were originally meant to be the Big Bads of the Android saga. But almost immediately following the release of their introductory chapter, Toriyama's former editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, got in touch with him just to basically laugh at him for making the new and much-hyped villains be a fatso and an old geezer. Which resulted in Toriyama creating Androids 17 and 18... which Torishima also didn't like on account of being brats, prompting Toriyama to create Cell... Which his then-current editor, Yuu Kondou, didn't like the design of, making him push Toriyama into giving Cell the ability to transform... However, Kondou thought Cell's second form just looked moronic, so he pressed Toriyama into quickly unveiling Cell's cooler, perfect form.
 * 7) Gohan was slated to become the protagonist after the Cell Saga. However, Toriyama later decided against it, believing he wasn't fit for the role. There were several instances where the story could have been drastically different. This page goes into more details about what could have been.
 * 8) Gogeta was originally supposed to be in the manga and the anime, but because the writers behind Fusion Reborn came up with the concept before he could unveil it, Toriyama came up with Vegito instead. Gogeta would later make a TV appearance in Dragon Ball GT. Gogeta would later make his debut in a Toriyama-written piece of media in Dragon Ball Super: Broly.

Reception
Dragon Ball is one of the most popular manga series of all time, and it continues to enjoy high readership today. Dragon Ball is credited as one of the main reasons manga circulation was at its highest between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. During Dragon Ball's initial run in Weekly Shōnen Jump, the manga magazine reached an average circulation of 6.53 million weekly sales, the highest in its history. During Dragon Ball's serialisation between 1984 and 1995, Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine had a total circulation of over 2.9 billion copies.

Dragon Ball also sold a record number of collected tankōbon volumes for its time. By 2000, more than 126 million tankōbon copies had been sold in Japan alone. It sold over 150 million copies in Japan by 2008, making it the best-selling manga ever at the time. By 2012, its sales in Japan had grown to pass 156 million, making it the second best-selling Weekly Shōnen Jump manga of all time, behind One Piece. Dragon Ball's tankobon volumes sold 159.5 million copies in Japan by February 2014, and have sold over 160 million copies in Japan as of 2016.

The manga is similarly popular overseas, having been translated and released in over 40 countries worldwide. The official total number of tankōbon volumes sold worldwide is more than 260 million copies, not including unofficial pirated copies; when including those, an estimated total of over 400 million official and unofficial copies have been sold worldwide. Other estimations increase the figure to the 300 or even 350 million copies worldwide without the pirated copies.

For the 10th anniversary of the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2006, close to 79,000 Japanese fans voted Dragon Ball the third greatest manga of all time. In a 2007 survey of one-thousand people conducted by Oricon, Goku ranked in first place as the "Strongest Manga Character of All Time". Coinciding with the 2012 Summer Olympics, Oricon conducted a survey at the international World Cosplay Summit on which manga and anime series attendees considered world class works. Dragon Ball was overwhelmingly in first place. In November 2014, readers of Media Factory's Da Vinci magazine voted Dragon Ball the greatest Weekly Shōnen Jump manga series of all time. The Portuguese edition of Dragon Ball won the 2001 Troféu HQ Mix for Best Serial. On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Dragon Ball ranked fifth.

In 2011, manga critic and editor of Viz's editions of the series Jason Thompson said that: "Dragon Ball is by far the most influential shonen manga of the last 30 years, and today, almost every Shōnen Jump artist lists it as one of their favorites and lifts from it in various ways." Explaining its basic formula of "lots of martial arts, lots of training sequences, [and] a few jokes" became the model for other shōnen series, such as Naruto. Thompson cited the artwork as influential, pointing out that popular shōnen manga of the late 1980s and early 1990s had "manly" heroes, such as City Hunter and Fist of the North Star, whereas Dragon Ball had the cartoonish and small Goku, thus starting a trend that he says still continues. Commenting on Dragon Ball's global success nearly two decades after it ended, Toriyama said, "Frankly, I don't quite understand why it happened. While the manga was being serialized, the only thing I wanted as I kept drawing was to make Japanese boys happy. The role of my manga is to be a work of entertainment through and through. I dare say I don't care even if [my works] have left nothing behind, as long as they have entertained their readers."

The manga has received a mostly positive reception from critics. Jason Thompson commented that Dragon Ball "turns from a gag/adventure manga to a nearly-pure fighting manga". James S. Yadao, author of The Rough Guide to Manga, explains that the first several chapters "play out much like Saiyuki (Journey to the West) with Dr. Slump-like humour built in" and that Dr. Slump, Toriyama's previous manga, has a clear early influence on the series. He feels the series "established its unique identity" after the first time Goku's group disbands and he trains under Kame-sen'nin. On the second half of the manga, he commented that it developed "a far more action-packed, sinister tone" with "wilder" battles and aerial and spiritual elements with an increased death count. David Brothers for ComicsAlliance wrote that: "Like Osamu Tezuka and Jack Kirby before him, Toriyama created a story with his own two hands that seeped deep into the hearts of his readers, creating a love for both the cast and the medium at the same time." He said that while the author has "a sublime combination of Looney Tunes-style classic humor and dirty jokes," the best part of Dragon Ball is the fight scenes. Brothers explained that while Western superhero comics "would focus on a series of cool poses or impact shots" with the reader having to fill in the blanks between panels, Dragon Ball has a panel dedicated to one action and the next panel features the very next maneuver, making them incredibly easy to follow.

Fusanosuke Natsume says that the theme of disaster and growth in the manga is a reference to "post-War Japanese manga" that Osamu Tezuka began in the mid 1940s. He also comments that the violence in the manga has context that children can understand, and is not just there at random. While Toriyama has said that Journey to the West was an influence on the manga, Xavier Mínguez-López comments that it is a parody of the Chinese novel, since the stories are similar. He notes that Toriyama uses Chinese mythology and Japanese folktales, the dragon Shenlong who is summoned from the Dragon Balls, as well as characters who are able to come back to life as examples of similarities. Rachel Cantrell says that the manga parodies martial arts very well, and mentions how Toriyama uses panels to a full extent. She notes that the manga has a coming-of-age theme due to how the story captures Goku from a child to an adult. Dr. Frédéric Ducarme compared Goku's backstory to that of Superman, with whom the character has often been compared, but wrote that Goku remains a sportsman throughout the manga, not an avenger or vigilante.

Carlo Santos of the Anime News Network described Dragon Ball's setting as "a melting pot of sci-fi, fantasy, and folklore". Santos praised its quick development of new characters and storylines, and claimed that the series' crowning achievement is in its dynamic fight scenes. However, he did not enjoy the cliché training and tournament segments, nor its crude humor. His colleague Allen Divers praised the manga's story and humor as being very good at conveying all the characters' personalities. Divers also called Viz's translation one of the best of all the English editions of the series due to its faithfulness to the original Japanese. Animerica felt the series had "worldwide appeal," using 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". Comic Book Bin's Leroy Douresseaux described Toriyama as a "super-cartoonist," a blend of Carl Barks, Jack Kirby, and Peyo. He gave Dragon Ball a perfect rating and called it one of the best manga and comic books he has ever read. Ridwan Khan of Animefringe.com commented that the manga had a "chubby" art style, but as the series continued the characters became more refined, leaner, and more muscular. He cited one slight problem in Viz's release; the translation uses informal language to capture Goku's country accent, but it ends up feeling "forced and odd". Khan prefers the manga over the slow pacing of the anime adaptations. Ollie Barber writing for Forbes echoed Khan stating with a lot less padding, the manga's "pacing is a lot tighter and makes you realize how talented Dragon Ball's creator Akira Toriyama truly is when he chooses to flex his storytelling muscles". Including it on a list of "10 Essential Manga That Should Belong in Every Comic Collection", Matthew Meylikhov of Paste also praised the manga over the anime as an entirely different and more "involved experience." He wrote that "You come to know and care for the characters more intimately, and the joy and wonder of watching them fight, learn and grow throughout the series improves tenfold."