Dragon Ball Z Manga Series - Dragon Ball
The Dragon Ball manga is a series illustrated and written by Akira Toriyama, and the Dragon Ball Z manga is the second part of the original Dragon Ball franchise. The manga series was initially published in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1984 to 1995, totalling 519 chapters. Published by Shueisha, the manga consists of 42 volumes.
Dragon Ball Z is based on the last 26 volumes of the whole manga series set featuring the story of adult Son Goku after a time skip.
Production
The Dragon Ball manga series was adapted into two seperate anime series Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z produced by Toei animation, broadcasted in Japan from 1986 to 1996.
The Dragon Ball series has developed into a Media Franchise by Akira Toriyama, among the merchandise, there has been Action Figures, Cosplay and Costumes, Goku and Dragon Ball Toys, Collectable Card Games, Clothing and Funko Pop as well as Dragon ball movies, games and a bunch of colaborations.
Reception
During its period of production, Dragon Ball has become one of the most successful manga series of all time. Selling over 160 million copies over Japan as well as catching major popularity worldwide, especially the USA, makes an estimate of 250-300 million copies sold worldwide. Dragon Ball is currently the second/third best-selling manga series of all time, being behind One Piece, which is a manga series which took great inspirations from Akira Toriyama' production of Dragon Ball.
The manga was initially not very popular with the Dragon Ball manga series of kid Son Goku as Toriyama gave more focus on portraying the inspiration from Chinese mythology by modeling the themes around a classic Chinese novel Journey of the West, with only a bit of emphasis on battles with ‘Kung-fu’. After suspecting the fighting genre would appear more to a audience of Shonen Jump, Toriyama developed more battles and action into the series which we see a lot more focus around in the Dragon Ball Z series or the second part of the Dragon Ball manga.
The Dragon Ball Z series (second half) required Toriyama to give more focus on the storyline of the series, which resulted in more intense battles with simplified lines and phrases from characters. He states Dragon Ball is an action manga and the most important aspect is the action and speed, with less emphasis on the art. It is said he struggled with the balancing of the Arcs at times, especially trying to outdo the very successful Frieza Arc with the Android Arc (which in the end, was also successful), sometimes having to change his forcast of the storyline to maintain popularity for the series.
Though there was a small degree of negative reception from American parents towards the style of illustration in the Dragon Ball series consisting of some nudity, racial stereotypes, and other content they found disturbing. This problem was resolved by editing the English release of the series to not consist of inappropriate content towards young children.
Differences from the Dragon Ball Z TV Anime Series
Pacing
The original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series are both adaptations of Akira Toriyama’s manga. Although the plot of the series generally do not change, there is a insertion of non-canon filler episodes, which is seen more in the Dragon Ball Z series, the fillers are to slow down the pacing of the anime series so it won’t catch up to the manga chapter releases which is a common method in popular anime/manga series.
Gohan Returns to Fight Frieza
When Goku was fighting Frieza, there is a moment of pinch when Goku is briefly bested by a full power Frieza. In the anime Gohan jumps in to help his father and takes on Frieza, but in the manga the fight is strictly between Goku and Frieza.
Physical Differences from the Dragon Ball Z TV Anime Series
Namekians have extra fingers
In the anime series, the Namekians which are the race the likes of Piccolo appear to have five fingers in the anime, where in the manga they only have four.
Breaking the fourth wall
The fourth wall refers to the “invisible wall” between an audience (readers) and the illustrations. Akira Toriyama has a style of being playful with the audience, often breaking the fourth wall in the series comedy and martial arts nature. An example is, characters would sometimes get so hard, the manga panels break. However, the anime series couldn’t really adapt to this tradition of style.
Nudity
Both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series have several infamous dirty moments, the manga goes wholeheartedly for the R-Rated approach but there are more coverings in the anime series. The anime often uses quick editing and different angles to avoid showing R-rated content. The english releases of Dragon Ball has even more editing and censorship due to the
series streaming on platforms such as cartoon networks which has young children as the target audience.
Some Differences from the English Distribution
Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z
In the United States, the manga was released as two seperate American-style comic books Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z which started in the year 2000. The Japanese production was a full set of 42 volumes with no particular physical differences to the volume covers to distinguish between the Dragon Ball and the Dragon Ball Z series. The release was unsuccessful due to its large size and expensive cost, resulting in both series being canceled in 2002. The series transitioned into a launch title for the US edition Shonen Jump Collection in 2003 and in parallel, 42 volumes almost matching the original Japanese manga series but in English was released with the second part of the manga named as Dragon Ball Z to distinguish the two parts of the series.
Censorship
The American editions in the original release consisted of censoring nudity and graphic content in the DragonBall series. But by the end of 2004, the original Dragon Ball (not Z) manga had been released uncensored with re-releases of previously censored volumes. The Dragon Ball Z manga remained censored with the exception of a few volumes due to not containing inappropriate content.
Physical Differences from the English Distribution
- Mr. Popo’s lips were removed.
- Dark-skinned characters were edited because of some complaints.
- Middle fingers were edited into fists.
- Mr. Satan was edited into “Hercule” as well as the dubbing of the Japanese anime series.
- Firearms were edited into “laser blasters” except for pistol-armed robbers seen in the early series.
- Sexual and other graphic contents were edited to suit a child audience.
Links
Dragon Ball Series
Dragon Ball Z Series
Dragon Ball Kai Series
Dragon Ball Super Series
Dragon Ball GT Series
Super Dragon Ball Heros
Akira Toriyama