Dragonball

The Dragon Ball anime is an adaptation of the first portion of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga. It is composed of 153 half-hour episodes and ran in Japan from February 26, 1986 - April 12 1989.

Dragon Ball is known as being overshadowed by its successor Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball depicted Goku's childhood, while Dragon Ball Z depicted his adulthood. Both are adapted from the same manga.

Original series
Dragon Ball started off as a manga series called Dragon Boy, a series that Akira Toriyama started while he was in college. The story depicted a young boy named Goku and his quest to find the seven magical Dragon Pearls. The series was a loose adaptation of the Chinese legend, The Journey to the West, depicting the pure hearted monkey king Sun Wukong.

Due to the series' unpopularity, Toriyama was forced to stop writing it. After the extreme success of his new series, Dr. Slump, Toriyama went back and re-wrote Dragon Boy, adapting it as Dragon Ball. All the character's personalities were changed except for Goku. The re-adaptation named Dragon Ball became a hit.

Broadcast
Two previous attempts at releasing Dragon Ball to United States audiences failed. The first attempt was in the late 1980s. It featured strange name changes for nearly all the characters, such as changing Goku to Zero and Korin to Whiskers the Wonder Cat. It became unknown, therefore it is 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, due largely to 20th Television's renewed contract with Toriyama. 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 background music, which was met with delight by most fans. Some insert (IN) songs were taken out or have talking over them.

Censorship
The US version of Dragon Ball that was aired on Cartoon Network (before that, it was aired in syndication) had a lot of edits done to it. Most of the edits were digital cosmetic changes, which were done to remove nudity and blood, and dialogue edits. Sometimes, some scenes were deleted altogether, either to save time or cut out 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 22nd Tenka'ichi Budôkai, FUNimation called it the "Mad Cow Attack." (Ironically, there was an epidemic called Mad Cow later on) 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. Also, a number of creative changes were made to the dialog. For example, 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."

A lot of fans hated these changes, because they felt it was butchering the original show's humor and dumbing it down. These edits, however, were necessary in order to have the show aired on TV. 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 Piccolo Daimaō, 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 on American TV later, in a flashback in a Dragon Ball Z episode, with the hole in Piccolo Daimaō's chest clearly visible.

Sagas

 * Toei Animation's Sagas
 * 1) Son Gokū (Episodes 1~28) (2/26/1986~9/3/1986)
 * 2) Red Ribbon Army (Episodes 29~68) (9/10/1986~7/1/1987)
 * 3) 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai (Episodes 69~101) (7/8/1987~2/17/1988)
 * 4) Piccolo-Daimaō (Episodes 102~132) (2/24/1988~11/2/1988)
 * 5) 23rd Tenkaichi Budōkai (Episodes 133~153) (11/9/1988~4/19/1989)


 * FUNimation's Sagas
 * 1) Emperor Pilaf Saga (Episodes 1~13)
 * 2) Tournament Saga (Episodes 14~28)
 * 3) Red Ribbon Army Saga (Episodes 29~45)
 * 4) General Blue Saga (Episodes 46~57)
 * 5) Commander Red Saga (Episodes 58~67)
 * 6) Fortuneteller Baba Saga (Episodes 68~83)
 * 7) Tien Shinhan Saga (Episodes 84~101)
 * 8) King Piccolo Saga (Episodes 102~122)
 * 9) Piccolo Jr. Saga (Episodes 123~153)

Movies and other
FUNimation's Titles
 * 1) Curse of the Blood Rubies
 * 2) Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle
 * 3) Mystical Adventure
 * 4) The Path to Power (10th Anniversary Special)


 * Public Service Videos
 * Gokū's Traffic Safety
 * Gokū's Fire Fighting Regiment

The special videos "Gokū's Traffic Safety" and "Gokū's Fire Fighting Regiment" are both very rare productions designed to be educational films. They were both completed in June 1988.

Unofficial Chinese Live Action Movie

A live-action version of the popular Japanese animated series. An evil king has been stealing the mystical "Dragon Pearls" in an attempt to possess them all. When all but one of the pearls has been stolen, the former guardians of the magic jewels 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 pearls.

Made in Taiwan and released in 1989, this feature has actually been released in the US as Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins (originally titled Xin Qi long zhu Shen long de chuan shuo, or New Dragon Ball: The Legend of Shenlong). While this movie does not follow Toriyama's conception exactly, it is a lot closer to it than it is to any traditional Chinese legends.

Dragonball: Evolution

A live-action version of the series, made in the United States. The movie retains the basic notion of Dragon Ball, but there are several major changes in the story and characters. The movie depicts Goku's trainings and his confrontation with Piccolo Daimao.

Theme songs

 * OP
 * "Makafushigi Adobenchā!"; 摩訶不思議アドベンチャー！ (Mystical Adventure!)
 * Lyrics: Yuriko Mori, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Kōhei Tanaka, Performance: Hiroki Takahashi)
 * Version 1: episodes 1~101
 * Version 2: episodes 102~153 (not on FUNimation's DVDs)


 * ED
 * "Romatikku Ageru Yo"; ロマンティックあげるよ (I'll Give You Romance)
 * Lyrics: Takemi Yoshida, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Kōhei Tanaka, Performance: Ushio Hashimoto)
 * Version 1: episodes 1~21 (not on FUNimation's DVDs)
 * Version 2: episodes 22~101
 * Version 3: episodes 102~132 (not on FUNimation's DVDs)
 * Version 4: episodes 133~153) (not on FUNimation's DVDs)





Season boxsets
In 2009-2010, after the release of the Dragon Ball Z season's/movie/special boxsets, and Dragon Ball GT season boxsets, Funimation has planned to remaster Dragon Ball. "Season One" will contain the Emperor Pilaf and Tournament Sagas, "Season Two" will contain the Red Ribbon Army, and General Blue Sagas, "Season Three" will contain the Commander Red and Fortuneteller Baba Sagas, "Season Four" will contain the Tien Shinhan and King Piccolo Sagas and "Season Five" will contain the Piccolo Jr. Saga. Dragon Ball Double Feature 1 will contain the Dragon Ball movies 1 and 2, and the Dragon Ball Double Feature 2 will contain the Dragon Ball movies 3 and 4. It is interesting to note that the original "Saga" sets that were released in America of the original Dragon Ball anime credited the subtitle translations to Clyde Mandelin, while the new sets credit them to Steven J. Simmons - although the translations are almost identical to those of the older sets.