Dragon Ball (original series)

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The Saga of Goku DVD Cover

Dragon Ball is the first part of the anime adaptation of the Dragon Ball manga written by Akira Toriyama and published in Japan in the Weekly Shonen Jump manga anthology comic. The second (and larger) portion of the manga was adapted into Dragon Ball Z.

The Dragon Ball anime is composed of 153 half-hour episodes and ran on Japanese television between February 26, 1986 and April 12, 1989. Two previous attempts at releasing Dragon Ball to American audiences failed. The first attempt was in the last 80s. It featured strange name changes for nearly all the characters. It became unknown, therefore it is referred to as "The Lost Dub" by fans. The second and more well known attempt was in 1995 with only the first 13 episodes translated and aired. This release was put out by KidMark and utilized Ocean Group for the dubbing. These original 13 episodes are still available on DVD as "The Saga of Goku." After Dragon Ball Z became immensely popular on Cartoon Network, the entire series was translated by FUNimation and released in the same scheduling block as its successor on the network. The complete series ran in the United States between August 20, 2001 and late 2003, due largely to 20th Television's renewed contract with Toriyama.