Dragon Ball Z
| Dragon Ball Z | |
| File:Dragonballz.jpg Dragon Ball Z - The Freeza Saga. | |
| Genre | Shonen Action / Adventure |
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| Created by | Toei Animation Akira Toriyama |
| Anime | |
| Directed by | Daisuke Nishio Osamu Kasai |
| Studio | Toei Animation |
| Movies | |
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| TV Specials | |
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| Dragon Ball Z | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Akira Toriyama |
| Starring | Masako Nozawa Mayumi Tanaka Hiromi Tsuru Ryo Horikawa Toshio Furukawa Takeshi Kusao Toru Furuya Hirotaka Suzuoki Naoki Tatsuta Naoko Watanabe Kohei Myauchi Tomiko Suzuki Miki Itou Mayumi Sho Yuko Minaguchi Daisuke Ghori Ryuusei Nakao Norio Wakamoto Kouzou Shioya Joji Yanami |
| Country of origin | Japan |
| No. of episodes | 291 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 21–23 Minutes(Per episode) |
| Original release | |
| Network | Fuji TV |
| Release | April 26, 1989 – January 31, 1996 |
Dragon Ball Z is the long-running sequel to the anime Dragon Ball. The series is a close adaptation of the second (and far longer) portion of the Dragon Ball manga written and drawn by Akira Toriyama. (in the United States, the manga's second portion is also titled Dragon Ball Z to prevent confusion). The anime features characters, situations, and backstories not present in the original manga. Those portions are considered non-canon by many fans.
The series follows the adventures of the adult Son Goku who, along with his companions, defends the earth against assorted villains. While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Goku through childhood into adulthood, Dragon Ball Z is a continuation of his adulthood life, but at the same time parallels the maturation of his son, Gohan. The separation between the series is also significant as the latter series takes on a more dramatic and serious tone.
The anime first premiered in Japan on April 18, 1989 (on Fuji TV) at 7:00 p.m. and ended on January 31, 1996. In the U.S., the series ran between 1996 and 2003, though not always on the same networks or with continuity of dubbing. It aired in the UK, albeit with the same dubbing problem, on Cartoon Network, premiering on March 6, 2000 and running until 2002, with the final few episodes being shown on CNX starting from October 14, 2002 and finishing on February 28 2003. The channel then relaunched as Toonami, on which it was repeated daily.
After Dragon Ball Z, the story of Son Goku and friends continues in the anime-only series Dragon Ball GT. This series is not based on a manga by Akira Toriyama.
Toriyama's humor/parody manga Neko Majin Z features several concepts introduced in Dragon Ball Z (several Dragon Ball Z characters even make various appearances), but that manga is designed as a parody and not a true continuation of the series.
Impact
The impact of Dragon Ball Z is enormous. For more than 15 years, the series has stood the test of time and has reached out to many children and adults alike across the globe. This is mainly due to the series' very clear representations of good overpowering evil, love overpowering hate, the importance of family and friends, and an unyielding passion toward achieving goals. The series also featured heavy sci-fi overtones, and a greater emphasis on fighting - making it extremely popular among adolescent boys who had grown up alongside the original series.
Dragon Ball Z has also played a large part in contributing to the popularity of anime in westen culture. Though the first two seasons of the series were played on various networks in the U.S. in 1996, it would not take off for two more years until August 31, 1998, when Cartoon Network featured the show in its action-oriented Toonami lineup. Toonami heralded the show as "The Greatest Action Cartoon Ever Made," and it greatly boosted the popularity of Toonami, but unknowingly did so much more. Dragon Ball Z's newfound popularity helped to bring about a greater interest in Japanese cartoons in the eyes of western youth, which in turn fueled the western anime industry to new heights.
Censorship Issues
Dragon Ball Z was marketed to appeal to a wide range of viewers from all ages, and contains crude humor and occasional excesses of violence which are commonly seen as inappropriate for younger audiences by American standards. When it was marketed in the US, the distribution company FUNimation alongside with Saban decided to initially focus exclusively on the young children's market, because the anime market was still small compared to the much larger children's cartoon market.
Starting with the Ginyu arc (3rd US season) on Cartoon Network, censorship was reduced due to fewer restrictions on cable programming. FUNimation did the dubbing on their own this time around with their own voice actors. In 2003, FUNimation began to redub the first two sagas of Dragon Ball Z, to remove the problems that were caused from their previous partnership with Saban. They also redubbed the first three movies that were also dubbed by the Ocean Group voice actors but were distributed by Pioneer. The distribution of the redubs started in April 2005.
Creative Changes
To an equal extent, many people who object to censoring have taken issue with changes that are not seen as necessary, such as extraneous dialogue not found in the original, dubbing that sways the Japanese version in its own creative direction (example: the TV audience booing Goku's appearance during the dubbed Cell Saga while cheering him in the Japanese series), the replacement of the entire original musical score, and renaming of several characters. Combined with criticized voice acting, many feel that the English version of Dragon Ball Z almost seems like an entirely different show than the original, and this has led many familiar with the Japanese series to dislike FUNimation's English dub.
Uncut Version
In 2005, Toonami started showing the uncut and unedited version of the first two seasons of Dragon Ball Z, Using the original Japanese footage, aside from the opening and closing themes. It uses an entirely new score of music, far different to that of the original music. The uncut version also featured many scenes with large amounts of blood and mild profanity, as well as mild sexual humor.
Filler
Filler is used to pad out the series for many reasons; in the case of Dragon Ball Z, more often than not, it was because the anime was running alongside the manga, and there was no way for the anime to run ahead of the manga (since Toriyama was still writing it, at the same time).
The company behind the anime, Toei Animation, would occasionally make up their own little side stories to either further explain things, or simply to extend the series. Filler doesn't come only in the form of side stories, though; sometimes it's as simple as adding some extra attacks into a fight.
As the anime series was forced to expand 12 pages of manga text into 25 minutes of animation footage, these changes were introduced to kill time or to allow the (anime) writers to explore some other aspect of the series' universe (the Anoyo-ichi Budōkai (Afterlife tournament) between the Cell Saga and Majin Buu Saga and the Garlic Jr. arc, a.k.a. Garlic Jr.'s return from the Return my Gohan!! (Dead Zone) movie between the Freeza Saga and Trunks arc (pre-Cell Saga) are both good examples of this). They have also been known to contradict the manga and often create new plot holes.
Releases
Japanese Releases
Originally, only the Dragonball Z movies, and the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans footage were available for home viewing in Japan. The movies were released on both VHS, and Laserdisc format.
Dragonbox Releases
In 2003, all of the Dragonball Z TV series was finally released for home viewing in Japan, on two large DVD boxed sets. Each Dragonball Z Dragonbox had a large amount of DVD extras, as well as an action figure, and a book.
Sagas
- Toei Sagas
- Saiyan Saga (Episodes 1~35); 1989
- Freeza Saga (Episodes 36~125); 1990 - 1991
- Cell Saga (Episodes 126~199); 1992
- Buu Saga (Episodes 200~291); 1993 - 1994 - 1995
- FUNimation's Sagas
Saiyan Saga:
- The Vegeta Saga (Episodes 1~35)
Freeza Saga:
- The Namek Saga (Episodes 36~67)
- The Captain Ginyu Saga (Episodes 68~74)
- The Freeza Saga (Episodes 75~107)
- The Garlic Junior Saga (Episodes 108~117)
Cell Saga:
- The Trunks Saga (Episodes 118~125)
- The Androids Saga (Episodes 126~139)
- The Imperfect Cell Saga (Episodes 140~152)
- The Perfect Cell Saga (Episodes 153~165)
- The Cell Games Saga (Episodes 166~194)
Buu Saga:
- The Great Saiyaman Saga (Episodes 195~209)
- The World Tournament Saga (Episodes 210~219)
- The Babidi Saga (Episodes 220~231)
- The Majin Buu Saga (Episodes 232~253)
- The Fusion Saga (Episodes 254~275)
- The Kid Buu Saga (Episodes 276~291)
Movies, TV Specials, and Other
Movies
- Toei Titles
- Return my Gohan!! (1989)
- The World's Strongest Guy (1990)
- Super Deciding Battle for the Entire Planet Earth (1990)
- Super Saiyan Goku (1991)
- The Incredible Mightiest vs. Mightiest (1991)
- Clash!! 10,000,000,000 Powerful Warriors (1992)
- Extreme Battle!! The Three Great Super Saiyans (:1992)
- Burn Up!! A Close, Intense, Super-Fierce Battle (1993)
- The Galaxy at the Brink!! The Super Incredible Guy (1993)
- The Dangerous Duo! Super-Warriors Can't Rest (1994)
- Super-Warrior Defeat!! I'm the One who'll Win (1994)
- Fusion Reborn!! Goku and Vegeta (1994)
- Dragon Fist Explosion!! If Gokū Won't Do It, Who Will? (1995)
- FUNimation's Titles
- Dead Zone (1997) (Re-released in 2005)
- The World's Strongest (1998) (Re-released in 2007)
- The Tree of Might (1998) (Re-released in 2007)
- Lord Slug (2001)
- Cooler's Revenge (2001)
- Return of Cooler (2002)
- Super Android 13! (2003)
- Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan (2003)
- Bojack Unbound (2004)
- Broly: The Second Coming (2005)
- Bio-Broly (2005)
- Fusion Reborn (2006)
- Wrath of the Dragon (2006)
TV Specials
- Toei Titles
- A Lonesome, Final Battle: The Father of Z-Warrior Kakarrot, who Challenged Freeza {1990)
- Resistance to Despair!! The Remaining Super-Warriors, Gohan and Trunks (1993)
- FUNimation's Titles
- Bardock: The Father of Goku (2000)
- The History of Trunks (2000)
Other
- The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans (Video game footage)
Theme songs
Japanese Themes
- Openings
- "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA"
- Lyrics: Yukinojō Mori, Music: Chiho Kiyooka, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
- Version 1: episodes 1~21 (Not on FUNimation's DVDs, but is on movies 1, 2 and 3 Pioneer's DVDs only)
- Version 2: episodes 22~117
- Version 3: episodes 118~194
- Lyrics: Yukinojō Mori, Music: Chiho Kiyooka, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
- "WE GOTTA POWER"
- Lyrics: Yukinojō Mori, Music: Keiju Ishikawa, Arrangement: Keiju Ishikawa, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
- Episodes 195~291
- Lyrics: Yukinojō Mori, Music: Keiju Ishikawa, Arrangement: Keiju Ishikawa, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
- "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA"
- Closings
- "Detekoi Tobikiri ZENKAI Pawā!"; でてこいとびきりZENKAIパワー! (Come Out, Incredible ZENKAI Power!)
- Lyrics: Toshihisa Arakawa, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: MANNA
- Episodes 1~194
- Lyrics: Toshihisa Arakawa, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: MANNA
- "Boku-tachi wa Tenshi Datta"; 僕達は天使だった (We Were Angels)
- Lyrics: Yukinojō Mori, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Osamu Tozuka, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
- Episodes 195~291
- Lyrics: Yukinojō Mori, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Osamu Tozuka, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
- "Detekoi Tobikiri ZENKAI Pawā!"; でてこいとびきりZENKAIパワー! (Come Out, Incredible ZENKAI Power!)
FUNimation Themes
- Openings
- "Main Title" (AKA "Rock the Dragon")
- "DragonBall Z" (AKA "DBZ Theme")
- "DBZ Uncut Theme"
- "Eternal Sacrifice" (Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan theme song)
- Vocals: Tendriloh my god
Cast List
See also
- List of Dragon Ball characters
- List of Dragon Ball Episodes
- Dragon Ball Video Games
- Z Fighters
- CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA (The 1st opening theme song)
- WE GOTTA POWER (The 2nd opening theme song)
- Dragon Ball (franchise)
- Dragon Ball Canon
- Dragon Ball Movies
- Power Levels
External links
- English Dragon Ball Z website
- YTV Dragon Ball Z Site
- Toei Dragon Ball Z website
- Satan City, a fansite
- Daizenshuu EX
- DBZ Sneeze
- Ultimate DBZ
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