Dragon Ball Gk

[Alana Fekety]

The Dragon Ball manga has been sold in over 40 countries and the anime has been broadcast in more than 80 countries. The manga's 42 collected tankōbon volumes have over 160 million copies sold in Japan and 260 million copies sold worldwide,[5][a][c] making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Reviewers have praised the art, characterization, and humor of the story. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential manga series ever made, with many manga artists citing Dragon Ball as a source of inspiration for their own now-popular works. The anime, particularly Dragon Ball Z, is also highly popular around the world and is considered one of the most influential in boosting the popularity of Japanese animation in Western culture. It has had a considerable impact on global popular culture, referenced by and inspiring numerous artists, athletes, celebrities, filmmakers, musicians, and writers around the world.

Dragon Ball Super establishes that the franchise is set in a multiverse[11] composed of twelve[d] numbered universes, with the majority of the Dragon Ball series taking place in Universe 7 (第７宇宙, Dai-Nana Uchū, lit. "Number Seven Universe"). Each universe is ruled by a number of benevolent and malevolent deities, respectively called Kaioshin and Gods of Destruction who are appointed by a higher being called Zeno, who watches over the multiverse.

He originally thought it would last about a year or end once the Dragon Balls were collected.[23] Toriyama stated that although the stories are purposefully easy to understand, he specifically aimed Dragon Ball at readers older than those of his previous serial Dr. Slump.[24] He also wanted to break from the Western influences common in Dr. Slump, deliberately going for Chinese scenery, referencing Chinese buildings and photographs of China his wife had bought.[25] Toriyama wanted to set Dragon Ball in a fictional world largely based on Asia, taking inspiration from several Asian cultures including Japanese, Chinese, South Asian, Central Asian, Arabic and Indonesian cultures.[26] The island where the Tenkaichi Budōkai is held is modeled after Bali (in Indonesia), which he, his wife and assistant visited in mid-1985, and for the area around Bobbidi's spaceship he consulted photos of Africa.[25] Toriyama was also inspired by the jinn (genies) from The Arabian Nights.[27]

During the early chapters of the manga, Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, commented that Goku looked rather plain. To combat this, he added several characters like Kame-Sen'nin and Kuririn, and created the Tenkaichi Budōkai martial arts tournament to focus the storyline on fighting. It was when the first Tenkaichi Budōkai began that Dragon Ball truly became popular, having recalled the races and tournaments in Dr. Slump.[17] Anticipating that readers would expect Goku to win the tournaments, Toriyama had him lose the first two while planning an eventual victory. This allowed for more character growth as the manga progressed. He said that Muscle Tower in the Red Ribbon Army storyline was inspired by the video game Spartan X (called Kung-Fu Master in the West), in which enemies appear very fast as the player ascends a tower (the game was in turn inspired by Jackie Chan's Wheels on Meals and Bruce Lee's Game of Death). He then created Piccolo Daimao as a truly evil villain, and as a result called that arc the most interesting to draw.[17]

Once Goku and company had become the strongest on Earth, they turned to extraterrestrial opponents including the Saiyans (サイヤ人, Saiya-jin); and Goku himself was retconned from an Earthling to a Saiyan who was sent to Earth as a baby.[28] Freeza, who forcibly took over planets to resell them, was created around the time of the Japanese economic bubble and was inspired by real estate speculators, whom Toriyama called the "worst kind of people."[17] Finding the escalating enemies difficult, he created the Ginyu Force to add more balance to the series. When Toriyama created the Super Saiyan (.mw-parser-output .templateruby>rtfont-variant-east-asian:ruby;font-size:85%.mw-parser-output .templateruby.largefont-size:250%.mw-parser-output .templateruby.large>rtfont-size:50%超(スーパー)サイヤ人, Sūpā Saiya-jin) transformation during the Freeza arc, he was initially concerned that Goku's facial expressions as a Super Saiyan made him look like a villain, but decided it was acceptable since the transformation was brought about by anger.[29] Goku's Super Saiyan form has blonde hair because it was easier to draw for Toriyama's assistant (who spent a lot of time blacking in Goku's hair), and has piercing eyes based on Bruce Lee's paralyzing glare.[30] Dragon Ball Z anime character designer Tadayoshi Yamamuro also used Bruce Lee as a reference for Goku's Super Saiyan form, stating that, when he "first becomes a Super Saiyan, his slanting pose with that scowling look in his eyes is all Bruce Lee."[31] Toriyama later added time travel during the Cell arc, but said he had a hard time with it, only thinking of what to do that week and having to discuss it with his second editor Yu Kondo.[17] After Cell's death, Toriyama intended for Gohan to replace Goku as the series' protagonist, but later felt the character was not suited for the role and changed his mind.[17]

Going against the normal convention that the strongest characters should be the largest in terms of physical size, he designed many of Dragon Ball's most powerful characters with small statures, including the protagonist, Goku.[32] Toriyama later explained that he had Goku grow up as a means to make drawing fight scenes easier, even though his first editor Kazuhiko Torishima was initially against it because it was rare to have the main character of a manga series change drastically.[33] When including fights in the manga, Toriyama had the characters go to uninhabited locations to avoid difficulties in drawing residents and destroyed buildings.[25] Toriyama said that he did not plan the details of the story, resulting in strange occurrences and discrepancies later in the series, including changing the colors of the characters mid-story and few characters having screentone because he found it difficult to use.[20][18][23][34] Since the completion of Dragon Ball, Toriyama has continued to add to its story, mostly background information on its universe, through guidebooks published by Shueisha.

During the second half of the series, Toriyama has said that he had become more interested in coming up with the story than actually drawing it, and that the battles became more intense with him simplifying the lines.[20] In 2013, he stated that because Dragon Ball is an action manga the most important aspect is the sense of speed, so he did not draw very elaborate, going so far as to suggest one could say that he was not interested in the art.[33] He also once said that his goal for the series was to tell an "unconventional and contradictory" story.[32] In 2013, commenting on Dragon Ball's global success, Toriyama said, "Frankly, I don't quite understand why it happened. While the manga was being serialized, the only thing I wanted as I kept drawing was to make Japanese boys happy.", "The role of my manga is to be a work of entertainment through and through. I dare say I don't care even if [my works] have left nothing behind, as long as they have entertained their readers."[35]

Written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball was serialized in the manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 3, 1984, to June 5, 1995,[36][37] when Toriyama grew exhausted and felt he needed a break from drawing. The 519 individual chapters were collected in 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha from September 10, 1985, through August 4, 1995.[38][39][40] Between December 4, 2002, and April 2, 2004, the chapters were re-released in a collection of 34 kanzenban volumes, which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shōnen Jump run.[41][42] The February 2013 issue of V Jump, which was released in December 2012, announced that parts of the manga will be fully colored and re-released in 2013.[43] 20 volumes, beginning from chapter 195 and grouped by story arcs, were released between February 4, 2013, and July 4, 2014.[44][45] 12 volumes covering the first 194 chapters were published between January 4 and March 4, 2016.[46][47] A sōshūhen edition that aims to recreate the manga as it was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump with color pages, promotional text, and next chapter previews, was published in 18 volumes between May 13, 2016, and January 13, 2017.[48][49]

Another manga penned by Ōishi, the three-chapter Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock that revolves around Bardock, Goku's father, was published in the monthly magazine V Jump from August and October 2011.[50]

The final chapter of Toriyama's 2013 manga series Jaco the Galactic Patrolman revealed that it is set before Dragon Ball, with several characters making appearances.[51] Jaco's collected volumes contain a bonus Dragon Ball chapter depicting Goku's mother.[52]

In December 2016, a spin-off manga titled Dragon Ball Side Story: The Case of Being Reincarnated as Yamcha began in Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ digital magazine. Written and illustrated by Dragon Garow Lee, it is about a high school boy who after an accident wakes up in the body of Yamcha in the Dragon Ball manga.[53]

Dragon Ball is one of the most popular manga series of all time, and it continues to enjoy high readership today. Dragon Ball is credited as one of the main reasons manga circulation was at its highest between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.[57][58] During Dragon Ball's initial run in Weekly Shōnen Jump, the manga magazine reached an average circulation of 6.53 million weekly sales, the highest in its history.[57][58][59] During Dragon Ball's serialisation between 1984 and 1995, Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine had a total circulation of over 2.9 billion copies,[60][e] with those issues generating an estimated 554 billion ($6.9 billion) in sales revenue.[e]

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