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| Dragon Ball (manga) | |
 Dragon Ball tankōbon volume 1 (Japanese version) | |
| Genre | Action, Science fiction |
|---|---|
| Manga | |
| Written by | Akira Toriyama |
| Published by |  Shueisha |
Dragon Ball (ドラゴンボール, Doragon Bōru) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama with an anime adaptation. The basis for the storyline took inspiration from two Chinese-related works, Jackie Chan's Drunken Master II and Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West. In Japan, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were collected into a single 42-volume series (called tankōbon) after the manga was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995.
The setting of Dragon Ball has a sort of Chinese feel to it, but it's not necessarily China. Exactly where it takes place is uncertain. The overall story is very simple, but I'd like to keep making up more details and illustrations as I go along. This way, I can draw anything I want to and enjoy the tension and excitement of figuring out what I'll draw next. — Akira Toriyama, 1985
In 2004, the manga was re-released in a 34 volume collection called kanzenban, which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shōnen Jump run. As of 2006, the U.S. distributing company Viz has released all 42 volumes (nearly matching the first Japanese set) in English-language. Viz titles the second part of the manga Dragon Ball Z to reduce confusion for North American audiences. The series is published in the United Kingdom by Gollancz Manga.
Plot
The story of Dragon Ball follows the adventures of a monkey-tailed boy named Son Goku. During his life, he fights many battles and eventually becomes the strongest martial artist in the entire universe. He is not without help, however, as the manga includes a large ensemble cast of martial artist heroes and villains which provide the conflicts which help drive the story.
Evolution
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A unifing component of the plot accompanying the Son Goku's progression as a martial artist is his search for the eponymous Dragon Balls. The Dragon Balls themselves are seven magical orbs which are scattered across the world. When assembled, they can be used to summon Shenlong, the dragon who will grant one wish within its limit. After the wish is granted, the Dragon Balls are scattered again across the world and become inert for one year. In times past, it would take generations to search the world and gather the Dragon Balls. In the beginning of the story, however, a 16 year old genius girl named Bulma has created a "Dragon Radar" to detect the Dragon Balls and made the process far easier than it was originally intended to be.
The story of Dragon Ball unfolded gradually over 11 years of publication. During those years, the tone and the style of the stories gradually changed to reflect the tastes of the readers and the editors of Japanese Shonen Jump. The early volumes of the manga (chapters 1-134) are primarily humorous fantasy stories, but containing some minor sci-fi elements, much like Dr. Slump. Notable fantasy elements include not only the monkey boy Son Goku and the Dragon Balls themselves, but also many talking animal characters, unlikely martial arts techniques, and characters identified as gods and demons. Despite the fantasy elements, the world does contain highly advanced technology including hoi-poi capsules, space-saving capsules which are pocket sized but can store almost any object, including cars, planes, houses, and other "near future" objects. The overall mood of the earlier volumes is light with few deaths and an emphasis on adventure and humor.
A subtle but significant change in mood began after Son Goku's best friend Kuririn was killed (the first of many deaths in this arc). This began the Piccolo Daimaō arc (chapters 135-194) in which the manga enters a darker tone compared to its earlier volumes. Dragon Ball fully transformed into an action based shōnen manga at the onset of the Saiyan arc (chapters 195-241). Starting with introduction of Son Goku's first son, things begin to take a much more serious and harder sci-fi approach. Many characters which previously had fantasy origins (Son Goku, Piccolo) are recast as aliens from other planets. Space travel, alien threats, and powerful cyborgs & androids take center stage instead of more fantastic villains. After the defeat of Vegeta, and the conclusion of the Saiyan arc, the survivors of the vicious Saiyan attack head off to the Planet Namek to resurrect their friends. This begins the Freeza arc (chapters 242-329). The Freeza arc is noteworthy for introducing the first Super Saiyan, now a staple of the series. It also set the tone for more awesomely powerful characters. For example, the antagonist Freeza has a "power level" (the series' futuristic measure of a fighter's speed and strength, i.e. one average human is listed as 5) of 530,000. He then transforms into a more powerful form, at which point his power level is over one million. After two subsequent transformations, he reveals that he is still only using a fraction of his full power.
The Cell arc (Chapters 330-420) introduced Trunks, a mysterious Half-Saiyan Half-Human from a destroyed future world where all of the Z Senshi have been killed by evil, seemingly invincible war machines called the Jinzōningen, and the enigmatic and villainous Cell who was made from the cells from most of the heroes as well as some of the villains. It was between this arc and the last arc that creator Akira Toriyama stopped measuring characters' power levels in the stories, deciding that it limited the stories. This arc is notable for being the only arc in which Goku does not defeat the main villain, but instead it is his son, Son Gohan, who defeats Perfect Cell. It is in this arc that Son Gohan surpasses the level of Super Saiyan and reaches the stage of Super Saiyan 2 in order to defeat Perfect Cell.
After these arcs and Son Goku's death and staying in heaven is the Majin Buu arc (chapters 421-519) which is the very last arc of the manga. The Majin Buu arc features more of the humor and fantastic plot elements that were present in the very early volumes of the manga. The beginning of this final arc concentrates on a teenaged Son Gohan mostly. Son Goku makes his return after being dead for seven years. All the male saiyans manage to reach the level of Super Saiyan at least (including fusions). Super Saiyan 2 is reached by Son Gohan, Son Goku and Vegeta. And the ultimate level of the Saiyans, Super Saiyan 3, is reached by Son Goku and Gotenks. A considerable number of fusions also take place to add to the series, allowing Son Goten and Trunks to merge to form Gotenks, and Son Goku and Vegeta fuse to create the incredibly powerful, invincible Super Vegetto. During this series, Majin Buu manages to kill everyone on Earth including central characters like Vegeta and increasing his own power by absorbing Gotenks, Piccolo and Son Gohan. Majin Buu also succeeds where the villains Vegeta, Freeza and Cell had previously failed and destroys Earth. Everyone (including Earth) is restored using the Dragon Balls, and Majin Buu's evil side is destroyed by Son Goku's Genki Dama (Spirit Bomb).
Majin Buu's evil side is reincarnated into a being of pure good called Uub. Son Goku and Uub fight at the 28th Tenkaichi Budokai, Uub enters to get money (zennie) for his village. Son Goku decides to train Uub to become even stronger than himself, the strongest fighter in the entire Universe. Uub's village will get money from Mr. Satan. To say goodbye every hero character to ever appear in the entire manga (except minors), all wave to the readers and a huge "THE END" sign floats above them.
After completing this series, Toriyama had a rest and then made another manga called Neko Majin. This manga featured many elements and characters from Dragon Ball, including Mr. Buu, Vegeta and even Son Goku himself.
Interpretations to Journey to the West
Template:Unencyclopedic There are many parallels between Journey to the West and Dragon Ball.
- In the original story, the priest, Xuanzang and his company search for the legendary Buddhist scriptures in the West. In Dragon Ball, Bulma and her company search for the legendary Dragon Balls.
- The equivalent to Sun Wukong of the original texts is Son Goku in Dragon Ball.
- The equivalent to Xuanzang of the original texts is Bulma in Dragon Ball.
- The equivalent to Zhu Wuneng of the original texts is Oolong in Dragon Ball.
- The equivalent to Sha Wujing of the original texts is Yamcha in Dragon Ball
- The equivalent to Niu Mo Wang of the original texts is Gyumao in Dragon Ball.
- In the original text, Sun Wukong is born from a boulder. In Dragon ball, Goku is first discovered in his round boulder-like spacecraft.
Some ideas from Journey to the West are borrowed later in the series.
- Son Goku's Nyoi-bō comes from Sun Wukong's magic staff that can change to any size anytime he sees fit.
- Flying clouds are driven by both protagonists.
- The borrowing of the palm-leaf fan from the Gyū-Maō to put out the Flaming Mountains occurred in both stories.
- Son Goku finds himself in a place reminiscent of the pillars of Buddha's palm, the location which Sun Wukong's rampage was finally put to an end.
- During the anime only, Goku is trapped in an urn by a pair of warriors terrorizing a village, which is designed to turn what is trapped within it into an elixir which increases the strength of those who drink it. This is a remake of the story that Sun Wukong was trapped in a Monster Lion's urn. The two differ in how the urns capture a person, and how the heroes escape from the urns.
Editing of the North American version
The Dragon Ball manga is published as both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z in North America by Viz. Originally, both of these releases were censored for nudity and some graphic content.
By the end of 2004, all Dragon Ball manga had been released almost completely unedited, including rereleases of the previously edited volumes 1 through 3. One notable exception was the removal of Mr. Popo's lips as well as a few other dark skinned characters. Another notable edit is the changing of any hand that "gives the middle finger" into a fist.
Since 2006, Viz Media constantly reverted to editing the manga entirely, with the majority of nudity and all profanity being removed. The manga series remains edited with Mr. Satan's name being changed to "Hercule" and nudity being removed, as well as gun edits in later volumes. This included changing a gun into a "laser gun" and by extension, the sound effects in Volume 24(U.S.)/40(Japanese), even though Volume 20/36 contained a scene in which Gohan stopped several robbers who used guns and shot a character. In addition, while profanity is retained in earlier volumes, the translation loosens in later ones, with such phrases as "Blast/curse you" instead of "Damn him/you," "shoot" instead of "damn," amongst others.
In the Viz English-language manga, Vegetto is named Vegerot (Volume 26 American, Volume 42 Japanese). This was Viz's attempt at sticking with original name puns while taking creative control. Vegerot comes from Vegeta and Kakarot. While this makes more sense as opposed to FUNimation keeping his original name, though spelling it "Vegito", this change was unwelcome with fans of the original version, along with all of the other changes being made recently to the graphic novels, including, but not limited to, slight zoom-in as a result of certain discrepancies within the English and original Japanese languages respectively, printing errors, mistranslations, removal of all profanity, references to alcohol and/or drugs, firearms, sexual innuendo, etc. This resulted in the series receiving an "A" (which stands for "All Ages") rating, a demographic which Viz generally targets its material at, in spite a great deal of criticism from fans.
Anime
Further information: Dragon Ball (anime), Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GTBoth Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime are based on the same original Dragon Ball manga. Dragon Ball follows Son Goku's adventures as a child up until his marriage as an adult; roughly the arcs that had the most fantasy and humor elements. Dragon Ball Z takes up the story five years after where the Dragon Ball anime leaves off, with the introduction of Goku's first child and the arrival of a new, more powerful foe. Dragon Ball GT is the sequel to Dragon Ball Z, but is not based on the original manga by Akira Toriyama.
Influence on other series
Dragon Ball has made an impact on many different video games and franchises; the Sonic the Hedgehog series has many references to Dragon Ball such as the main character, Sonic's transformation into a form that bears many resemblences to a Super Saiyan.
See also
- Dragon Ball (anime)
- Dragon Ball Z
- Dragon Ball GT
- Dragon Ball AF
- Dragon Ball (artifact)
- Lists of Dragon Ball characters
- List of Dragon Ball cast members
- List of Dragon Ball planets
- List of Dragon Ball video games
References
- ^ Dragon Ball ({{{type}}}) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2007-11-19.
- http://www.anime3000.com/information/creators/toriyama.html
- Dragon Ball at http://www.viz.com/
- Dragon Ball manga, vol. 1, page 1 — ISBN 1-56931-920-0
External links
- Official Toei Animation's Dragon Ball Website
- Official Toei Animation's Dragon Ball Z Website
- Official Toei Animation's Dragon Ball GT Website
- Official FUNimation's Dragon Ball Website
- Official FUNimation's Dragon Ball Z Website
- Official FUNimation's Dragon Ball GT Website
- Dragon Ball Wiki
- DBZ Encyclopedia
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