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 Akira Toriyama.

Dragon Ball is the first part of the anime adaptation of the Dragon Ball manga written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama and published in Japan in the Weekly Shonen Jump manga anthology comic. The second and larger portion of the manga series was adapted into Dragon Ball Z.

The Dragon Ball anime is composed of 153 half-hour episodes and ran in Japan from February 26, 1986 - April 12, 1989. It follows the early adventures of the child version of Goku as he and his friends search the world for the seven magic Dragon Balls. Two early attempts at releasing Dragon Ball to American audiences failed. The first attempt was in the late 1980s by Harmony Gold. It featured strange name changes for nearly all the characters, such as changing Goku to Zero and Karin to Whiskers the Wonder Cat. It is not well-known, and has been referred to as "The Lost Dub" by fans. The second and more well known attempt was in 1995 with only the first 13 episodes translated and aired. This release was put out by KidMark and utilized Ocean Group for the dubbing. These original 13 episodes are still available on DVD as The Saga of Goku. After Dragon Ball Z became immensely popular on Cartoon Network, the entire series was translated by FUNimation and released in the same scheduling block as its successor on the network. The complete series ran in the US between August 20, 2001, and late 2003. Unlike the theme songs for Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, FUNimation made English versions of the original Japanese opening (OP) and ending (ED) themes for these episodes and left in the original BGM, which was met with delight by most fans. However, some insert (IN) songs were removed or have dialogue dubbed over them.

Dragon Ball is known as being a much less serious anime than its successor, Dragon Ball Z, though later sagas blur the lines a bit.

First Episode of Dragon Ball Series

(Click Here for all 153 episodes)

Plot

The story of Dragon Ball follows the life of Son Goku, a monkey-tailed boy loosely inspired by the traditional Chinese novel Journey to the West. The Dragon Ball franchise continues until Goku becomes an adult. The franchise then changes to Dragon Ball Z. During his life, he fights many battles and eventually becomes the strongest martial artist in the entire universe. He is not without help, however, as the manga has a large ensemble cast of martial artist heroes and villains which provide the conflicts which drive the story.

The eponymous Dragon Balls are one component of the universe, but are not the focus for most of the plot lines. The Dragon Balls themselves are seven magical orbs which are scattered across the world. When assembled, they can be used to summon Shenlong, the dragon who will grant one wish within its limit. After the wish is granted, the Dragon Balls are scattered again across the world and become inert for one year. In times past, it would take generations to search the world and gather the Dragon Balls. In the beginning of the story, however, a 16 year old genius girl named Bulma has created a "Dragon Radar" to detect the Dragon Balls and made the process far easier than it was originally intended to be.

Censorship

The US version of Dragon Ball that was aired on Cartoon Network (before that, it was aired in syndication) with excessive editing. Most of the edits were digital cosmetic changes, which were done to remove nudity and blood, and dialogue edits, such as when Puar says why Oolong was expelled from school, instead of saying that he stole the teacher's panties, they say that he stole the teacher's "papers." Some scenes were deleted altogether, either to save time or remove strong violence. For example, when Goku dives into the water naked to kick a fish he catches for dinner, a digital water splash was added on his groin; on other occasions when he is naked, he has some digital underwear added. Also, references to alcohol and drugs were removed, for example, when Jackie Chun (Master Roshi) uses Drunken Fist Kung Fu in the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament, FUNimation called it the "Mad Cow Attack." Also, the famous "No Balls!" scene was deleted from episode 2, and when Bulma puts panties on the fishing hook to get Oolong (in fish form), they digitally painted away the panties and replaced it with some money.

While implied throughout the General Blue saga, Blue is finally revealed to be a homosexual during a scene in which he recoils at Bulma's seductive advances as she tries to distract him. Blue is further revealed to be a pedophile upon displaying sexual interest towards a young boy on Penguin Island who stops to repair Blue's damaged car. All references to General Blue's sexual orientation were eliminated in the American TV release, and the scene involving the boy was redubbed to suggest that Blue believes to have found his long-lost younger brother.

Many of the changes were ill-received by long-time fans of the series, who believed the cable networks' censorship destroyed or diminished the original humor. The DVDs do not contain these edits.

It's an interesting note on inconsistency in censorship that a scene in Dragon Ball where young Goku charges completely through King Piccolo, putting a hole in the villain's chest, was edited so that the hole wasn't shown for the American broadcast, but the same scene was shown uncensored on American TV, in a flashback in a Dragon Ball Z episode, with the hole in King Piccolo's chest clearly visible.