Dragon Ball is the first in a trilogy of anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 adaptations of the Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995; later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Dragon Ball was inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the...

manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series by Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama

is a Japanese manga artist and game artist known mostly for his creation of Dragon Ball in 1984. Toriyama admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art...

. Produced by Toei Animation

Toei Animation

Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...

, the anime series premiered in Japan on Fuji Television

Fuji Television

is a Japanese television station based in Daiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, also known as or CX, based on the station's callsign "JOCX-DTV". It is the flagship station of the Fuji News Network and the ....

 on February 26, 1986, and ran until April 12, 1989. Spanning 153 episodes (Episode 140 was delayed by the death of Emperor Shōwa

Hirohito

, posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or , was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to...

), it covers the first 194 chapters of the 519 chapters-long manga series. It is followed by Dragon Ball Z, which covers the remainder of the manga, and Dragon Ball GT, the plot of which was created solely for the anime.

Harmony Gold USA

Harmony Gold USA

Harmony Gold is a television production and distribution company established in 1983. It is best known as the “creator” and main distributor of the anime series Robotech. It also partially dubbed the Dragon Ball series in the late 1980s....

 licensed the series for an English-language release in North America in the late 1980s. In the voice dubbing

Dubbing (filmmaking)

Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...

 of the series, Harmony renamed almost all of the characters, including the protagonist Son Goku

Son Goku (Dragon Ball)

Goku, known as in the English-language manga and original Japanese-language version, is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Dragon Ball franchise created by Akira Toriyama. He is loosely based on Sun Wukong, a central character in Journey to the West...

, who was renamed "Zero." This dub was cancelled shortly after being test-marketed in several cities and was never broadcast to the general public, thus earning the fan-coined term "The Lost Dub."

In 1995, Funimation Entertainment

Funimation Entertainment

Funimation is an American entertainment company. Originally founded in 1994 by Gen Fukunaga, the company became a subsidiary of Navarre Corporation on May 11, 2005...

 acquired the license for the distribution of Dragon Ball in the United States. They contracted BLT Productions to create an English version for the anime in Vancouver, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The dubbed episodes were also edited for content. Thirteen episodes aired in first-run syndication during the fall of 1995 before Funimation canceled the project due to low ratings. Trimark Pictures later purchased the home video distribution rights for these dubbed episodes. In March 2001, Funimation announced the return of Dragon Ball to American television, featuring a new English version produced in-house with slightly less editing for broadcast (though the episodes remained uncut for home video releases), and they notably left the original background music intact, which was met with delight from fans. The re-dubbed episodes aired on Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....

 from August 20, 2001 to December 1, 2003. Funimation also broadcast the series on Colours TV

CoLours TV

Colours TV was a multicultural American TV network produced by the non-profit organization Black Star Communications. Programs focused on the cultural and educational issues of the Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Native American communities. Some examples of programming included video...

 and their own Funimation Channel starting in 2006. This English dub was also broadcast in Australia and New Zealand. In Canada and Europe, an alternative dubbed version was produced by AB Groupe

AB Groupe

The AB Groupe is a French business group in the field of broadcasting. It was founded in 1977 by Jean-Luc Azoulay and Claude Berda as a music production company, and in 1987 went into the world of television.- Television :-External links:* *...

 (in association with The Ocean Group and Blue Water Studios

Blue Water Studios

Blue Water Studios Ltd. is a recording company located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada mainly known for voiceovers on Anime-dubs and Video games...

) and was aired in those territories instead of the Funimation version.

Funimation began releasing their in-house dub to Region 1 DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 box sets on March 18, 2003. Each box set, spanning an entire saga of the series, included the English and Japanese audio tracks with optional English subtitles, and uncut video and audio. However, they were unable to release the first thirteen episodes at the time, due to Lionsgate Entertainment holding the licensing rights to their previous dub of the same episodes, having acquired them from Trimark after the company became defunct. After Lionsgate's license to the first thirteen episodes expired in 2009, Funimation remastered and re-released the complete Dragon Ball series to DVD in five individual uncut season box sets, with the first set released on September 15, 2009 and the final set released on July 27, 2010.

Dragon Ball used two pieces of theme music for the entire series. "Makafushigi Adventure!

Makafushigi Adventure!

is the opening theme song of the Dragon Ball anime series. This song was performed by pop artist Hiroki Takahashi. It was released on vinyl on March 1986 and again 8 cm cd on March 21, 1998 in Japan only...

" by Hiroki Takahashi

Hiroki Takahashi

is a Japanese voice actor best known for the role of Eiji Kikumaru in The Prince of Tennis, Kenji Harima in School Rumble and Katsuya Jonouchi in Yu-Gi-Oh. He works at Big Shot/Interchannel. He also has voice acted in some yaoi Drama CD's such as Love Neco, and Koi cha no Osahou...

 is used as the series opening theme, and Ushio Hashimoto's "Romantic Ageru Yo" is used as the ending theme.

Emperor Pilaf Saga

Ep#	Translated title/Dub title/Canadian Title	Japanese Airdate	English Airdate

Tournament Saga

Ep#	Title	Original Airdate	English Airdate

Red Ribbon Army saga

Ep#	Title	Original Airdate	English Airdate

General Blue saga

Ep#	Title	Original Airdate	English Airdate

Commander Red saga

Ep#	Title	Original Airdate	English Airdate

Fortuneteller Baba saga

Ep#	Title	Original Airdate	English Airdate

Tien Shinhan saga

Ep#	Title	Original Airdate	English Airdate

King Piccolo saga

Ep#	Title	Original Airdate	English Airdate

Piccolo Jr. saga

Ep#	Title	Original airdate	English airdate

Movie Lists

1. Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies
2. Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle
3. Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure
4. Dragon Ball: The Path to Power