Dragon Ball

**Original run** | February 26, 1986 – April 19, 1989 (Original)
 **Next** | - Dragon Ball Z
- Dragon Ball Z: Kai

***Dragon Ball*** (ドラゴンボール '**Doragon Bōru'**) is an adaptation of the first portion of Akira Toriyama's *Dragon Ball* manga. It is composed of 153 episodes around 20-minutes long and ran on Fuji TV from February 26, 1986 to April 12, 1989. The series average rating was 21.2%, with its maximum being 29.5% (Episode 47) and its minimum being 13.7% (Episode 110).

Despite its success, *Dragon Ball* was overshadowed by its more action-oriented sequel series, *Dragon Ball Z*. *Dragon Ball* depicted Goku's childhood, while *Dragon Ball Z* depicted his adulthood. Both are adapted from the same manga.

## Production history

### Original series

    *Dragon Ball* started off as a manga series called *Dragon Boy*. The story depicted a young boy named Tanton and his quest to return a princess to her homeland. The series was a loose adaptation of the Chinese legend *Journey to the West*, depicting monkey king Sun Wukong. Due to the series' unpopularity, Toriyama 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.

### English Version

    Two previous attempts at releasing *Dragon Ball* to American audiences failed. The first attempt was in 1989 from Harmony Gold USA (the company that previously dubbed *Robotech*). It featured strange name changes for nearly all the characters, such as changing Goku to "Zero" and Korin to "Whiskers the Wonder Cat". It was test-marketed in several cities, but was never broadcast to the general public; 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 dubbed and aired in first-run syndication. This release was a joint-production between Funimation and BLT Productions, with a dubbing voice cast similar to Funimation's initial dub of *Dragon Ball Z*. These original 13 dubbed episodes were later released to home video by KidMark as "Dragon Ball: The Saga of Goku.

After *Dragon Ball Z* became immensely popular on Cartoon Network's Toonami block, *Dragon Ball* was re-translated into English by Funimation's in-house ADR studio for redistribution in the U.S. The complete original series aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami from August 20, 2001 to December 1, 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 background music (which they would later also do with their dubs of *Dragon Ball Z Kai* and *Dragon Ball Super*). Some insert (IN) songs were taken out or have talking over them.

### Censorship

The U.S. version of *Dragon Ball* that was aired on Cartoon Network (before that, it was aired in syndication and on NBC in select cities) had many 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 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, Funimation called it the "Mad Cow Attack" (coincidentally, there was a real life Mad Cow epidemic shortly after the episode aired). 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 dialogue. 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 older 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 King Piccolo, putting a hole in the villain's chest, was edited so that the hole was not 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 King Piccolo's chest clearly visible.

## Reception

Original author of the manga, Akira Toriyama, held a great deal of respect for the *Dragon Ball* and *Dragon Ball Z* animes and those that developed them. Toriyama also admired the fact that the anime had original stories created by the animation team, and stated that he considered the *Dragon Ball* anime to be equal in importance to the *Dragon Ball* manga.

## Sagas:

* Emperor Pilaf Saga (Episodes 1–13)
* 21st World Martial Arts Tournament Saga (Episodes 14–28)
* Red Ribbon Army Saga (Episodes 29–45)
* General Blue Saga (Episodes 46–57)
* Commander Red Saga (Episodes 58–67)
* Fortune Teller Baba Saga  (Episodes 68–83)
* Tien Shinhan Saga (Episodes 84–101)
* King Piccolo Saga (Episodes 102–122)
* Piccolo Jr. Saga (Episodes 123–153)

## Movies:

* Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies
* Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle
* Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure
* Dragon Ball: The Path to Power (10th Anniversary Special)

## Funimation Remastered Season and Movie Sets

In 2009, after the release of the Remastered *Dragon Ball Z* and *Dragon Ball GT* Season DVD Boxsets, Funimation announced that they would begin releasing *Dragon Ball* in Remastered Format beginning September later that year. They are presented in their Original Aspect Ratio 4:3 and are presented in a 5 Disc Boxset. Unlike the *Dragon Ball Z* and *Dragon Ball GT* Sets, the *Dragon Ball* Sets only include a 5.1 English Voice Track with Original Japanese Background Audio and Original Japanese Mono as *Dragon Ball* had never had an American Soundtrack.

On December 28, 2010, Funimation released *Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies* to DVD and Blu-ray uncut and re-dubbed with their *Dragon Ball Z Kai* voice cast to Region 1 DVD. A complete box set containing all four *Dragon Ball* Movies was released in February 2011.All movies retain their original Funimation dub with the exception of *Curse of the Blood Rubies*.

* English track from Funimation dub, with the original Kikuchi score (Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, note that the FUNimation dub that aired on Cartoon Network used the original Japanese music; there was no original dub score ever made for it).
* Original Japanese audio (Dolby Digital 1.0 mono), with optional English subtitles.

### Season Set release dates

 *Dragon Ball: Season 2*
 *Dragon Ball: Season 3*
 *Dragon Ball: Season 4*
 *Dragon Ball: Season 5* | July 27, 2010 (Episodes 123 - 153)

### Movie Set release dates

 Dragon Ball Movie Complete Collection (Movie 4 Pack):
*Curse of the Blood Rubies*
*Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle*
*Mystical Adventure*
*The Path To Power*

Dragon Ball: Season 1Dragon Ball: Season 2Dragon Ball: Season 3Dragon Ball: Season 4Dragon Ball: Season 5Dragon Ball Complete Collection (Movie 4 Pack)

## Soundtracks

### Theme songs

* OP: "Makafushigi Adventure!"
	+ Version 1: episodes 1–101
	+ Version 2: episodes 102–153 (not on FUNimation's DVDs)
* ED: "Romantic Ageru Yo"
	+ 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)

### Insert songs

* Mezase Tenkaichi (heard in episodes 28, 86, 95)
* Fushigi Wonderland (29)
* Dragon Ball Densetsu (30, 33, 35, 76)
* Son Goku Song (43)
* Red Ribbon Army (48)
* With a Burning Heart ~Defeat the Red Ribbon Army~ (65)
* The Blue Travelers (78)
* Wolf Hurricane (87)
* Teachings of Muten Roshi (130)

## External links

* Official Toei Animation's website
* Official FUNimation's website
* Official Manga UK's website