Dragon Ball Overview
Dragon Ball is a franchise of Japanese media created in the year 1984 by Akira Toriyama. Originally it was illustrated and written by Toriyama. Between the years 1984 and 1995, the total of individual chapters in the amount of 519 was collected into 42 volumes of tankobon and was published by Shueisha.
The classic novel called Journey to the West was the inspiration for Dragon ball. And that novel was also the inspiration for various Hong Kong films about martial arts. The Dragon Ball series tells the stories about the adventures of a boy called Son Goku. He is the protagonist of the story. The story starts from his childhood and continues until his adulthood. It shows how he trains for his martial arts.
Son Goku lives all of his childhood years far from people. And one day, he meets a teen girl whose name was Bulma. She is the one who persuades him to become her partner in a quest to find orbes in a total amount of seven those were called Dragon balls. And when all of these balls are gathered, a dragon is summoned that grants all of the wishes.
Along Goku’s journey, he meets several other people and befriends a lot of new people. As the years pass by, Goku becomes a father and discovers his alien heritage. He also battles various villains who seek the same things as he does.
After being adopted, this manga got divided into series of anime. It was produced with the names of called Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z by a company called Toei animation. Both of these series were streamed together and broadcasted from the years 1986 to 1996 in Japan.
Furthermore, this studio has also produced a total of twenty animated films along with special series as well. Sequel series of two animes were given the title of Dragon Ball GT from 1996 till 1997.
A remake of the Dragon Ball Z was aired from the year 2009 to 2015 in Japan. It followed the story of the manga and removed most of them unnecessary material from the anime.
Products
Various companies have produced and manufactured different merchandise inspired from the series that lead to a large franchise of media and it included live-action as well as animated, collectible card-games, various figures of action for children to play. It also included a collection of videogames and soundtracks.
Soundtracks
A lot of these soundtracks were released in the anime series, feature movies, and video games as well. Shunsuke Kikuchi composed the music and the films for the first two animes that were called Dragon Ball and Z.
In the year 1985, the soundtracks released of the first anime were the Music collection of dragon ball and in 1991, another collection of songs was released as well. Other CDs that were released included, soundtracks of films and video games, as well as music from the English version of the cartoons.
Bandai released the series of collectible cards and they were issued as well. Various scenes from the manga and anime series were featured on these cards, including artwork from all the three exclusive sets. Its first set was released in July of 2008 by Bandai.
Manga
The Viz media released a total of forty-two volumes of manga series inspired by these anime in the English Language. To reduce the confusion of the readers, through the forty-two manga, they titled the volumes as seventeen. A single volume of the manga is available in reasonable.
Pros
Enjoyable
Can be read and enjoyed by people of any age
Cons
Series are too long
Conclusion
Most people became aware of Japanese culture and traditions. It brought together people from various countries.