The initial manga, written and illustrated by Toriyama, was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995, with the 519 individual chapters collected in 42 tankōbon volumes by its publisher Shueisha.

Dragon Ball was originally inspired by the classical 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, combined with elements of Hong Kong martial arts films.

Dragon Ball characters also use a variety of East Asian martial arts styles, including karate[1][2][3] and Wing Chun (kung fu).

Along his journey, Goku makes several other friends, becomes a family man, discovers his alien heritage, and battles a wide variety of villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls.

It has had a considerable impact on global popular culture, referenced by and inspiring numerous artists, athletes, celebrities, filmmakers, musicians, and writers around the world.

It is mainly inhabited by Earthlings (地球人, Chikyūjin), a term used inclusively to refer to all of the intelligent races native to the planet, including humans, anthropomorphic beings, and monsters.

Starting from the Dragon Ball Z series, various extraterrestrial species such as the Saiyans (サイヤ人, Saiya-jin) and Namekians (ナメック星人, Namekku-seijin) have played a more prominent role in franchise media.

1] Goku later receives martial arts training from Kame-Sen'nin, meets his lifelong friend Kuririn, and enters the Tenkaichi Budōkai (天下一武道会, lit.

He later becomes a Super Saiyan and defeats the powerful alien tyrant Freeza; this sets the tone of the rest of the series, with each enemy the characters face becoming stronger than the last, requiring them to attain further training.

[26] The island where the Tenkaichi Budōkai is held is modeled after Bali (in Indonesia), which he, his wife and assistant visited in mid-1985, and for the area around Bobbidi's spaceship he consulted photos of Africa.

[28] Freeza, who forcibly took over planets to resell them, was created around the time of the Japanese economic bubble and was inspired by real estate speculators, whom Toriyama called the "worst kind of people".

[32] Toriyama later explained that he had Goku grow up as a means to make drawing fight scenes easier, even though his first editor Kazuhiko Torishima was initially against it because it was rare to have the main character of a manga series change drastically.

[38][39][40] Between December 4, 2002, and April 2, 2004, the chapters were re-released in a collection of 34 kanzenban volumes, which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shōnen Jump run.

[46][47] A sōshūhen edition that aims to recreate the manga as it was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump with color pages, promotional text, and next chapter previews, was published in 18 volumes between May 13, 2016, and January 13, 2017.

[50] The final chapter of Toriyama's 2013 manga series Jaco the Galactic Patrolman revealed that it is set before Dragon Ball, with several characters making appearances.

[52] In December 2016, a spin-off manga titled Dragon Ball Side Story: The Case of Being Reincarnated as Yamcha began in Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ digital magazine.

[79] He feels the series "established its unique identity" after the first occasion when Goku's group disbands and he trains under Kame-Sen'nin, when the story develops "a far more action-packed, sinister tone" with "wilder" battles with aerial and spiritual elements and an increased death count, while humor still makes an occasional appearance.

[79] Yadao claims that an art shift occurs when the characters "lose the rounded, innocent look that he established in Dr. Slump and gain sharper angles that leap off the page with their energy and intensity.

"[80] 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".

[81] In Little Boy: The Art of Japan's Exploding Subculture, Takashi Murakami commented that Dragon Ball's "never-ending cyclical narrative moves forward plausibly, seamlessly, and with great finesse".

In November 1999, Toys "R" Us removed Viz's Dragon Ball from their stores nationwide when a Dallas parent complained the series had "borderline soft porn" after he bought them for his four-year-old son.

Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ(ゼット), Doragon Bōru Zetto, commonly abbreviated as DBZ) picks up five years after the first series left off and adapts the final 325 chapters of the manga.

[88] Dragon Ball GT (ドラゴンボールGT(ジーティー), Doragon Bōru Jī Tī, G(rand) T(ouring))[89] premiered on Fuji TV on February 7, 1996, and ran until November 19, 1997, for 64 episodes.

Damaged frames were removed, resulting in some minor shots being remade from scratch in order to fix cropping, and others to address continuity issues.

[113][114] In 2000, satellite TV channel Animax together with Brutus, a men's lifestyle magazine, and Tsutaya, Japan's largest video rental chain, conducted a poll among 200,000 fans on the top anime series, with Dragon Ball coming in fourth.

They've also been the first movies to have original creator Akira Toriyama deeply involved in their production; Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F' were remade into the first and second arcs of the Dragon Ball Super anime, which told the same stories as the two films in expanded detail.

[146][147] The 1996 feature film, Dragon Ball: The Path to Power, was also a full-length theatrical release with a running time of 80 minutes, and was produced to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the anime as a re-imagining of the first few arcs of the series.

[153] Franchise creator Akira Toriyama also criticized the film adding he was completely left out of the creative process, despite having himself offered to help, going as far as saying: "the result was a movie, I couldn't even call Dragon Ball".

[155][156] With the news of 20th Century Fox selling itself, its assets, which include the film rights to the Dragon Ball franchise, will now be owned by its purchaser, The Walt Disney Company.

A second attraction titled "Dragon Ball Z: The Real 4-D at Super Tenkaichi Budokai" debuted at Universal Studios Japan in the summer of 2017, which featured a battle between the heroes and Broly.