1986–Present • Dragon Ball Series

      Doragon Bōru

      — Derek Padula —

      Dragon Ball is the world’s #1 anime.

      Without Dragon Ball, I’d be dead.

      Both of these statements express Dragon Ball’s power. But before I tell you how Dragon Ball saved my life, let’s explore what Dragon Ball is and why so many fans love to watch it.

      Dragon Ball is a story about a monkey-tailed boy named Son Goku and his journey for greater strength. The franchise started in 1984 as a manga, and it is still being produced. At this moment, the Dragon Ball franchise consists of 42 volumes of Dragon Ball manga, 5 volumes of Dragon Ball Super, and over 100 volumes of official spinoffs. There are four Dragon Ball anime titled Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super, comprised of 639 episodes (respectively 153, 291, 64, and 131). There are 19 theatrical animated films, 8 TV specials, 3 OVAs, and 3 live-action films—but fans often wish one of these did not exist, called Dragonball Evolution. There have been 149 video games that have sold over 44 million units, making it one of the best-selling franchises. In Tokyo there are 2 theme park attractions, 1 museum exhibit, and 1 Dragon Ball Café. If that weren’t enough, there are over 15,000 pieces of licensed merchandise, over 25 supplemental art books and data guides, 3 Collectible Card Games, an official holiday in Japan called “Goku Day,” celebrated every May 9, and a global religion based on Dragon Ball’s tenants, called Gokuism, or The Church of Goku.

      Dragon Ball is the world’s most-recognized anime and manga series. Dragon Ball’s creator, Akira Toriyama, is the world’s most influential living manga author and the third most famous in history. Dragon Ball Z is the #1 selling anime brand of all time, with over 25 million DVDs and Blu-rays sold in the United States alone. Dragon Ball is the #2 best-selling manga of all time, with 240 million volumes sold in Japan, and a collective 300 million worldwide. A common marketing tagline for Dragon Ball is that it’s, “The #1 Action Anime of All Time!” While this is subjective, it’s also true. In a 2017 poll of Japanese anime viewers, Son Goku’s rival, Vegeta, is the #1 rival in anime history. When you include the anime’s global reach, the franchises’ revenue is near-impossible to calculate.

      Despite its top rankings, or perhaps because of it, criticism of Dragon Ball abounds. For example, “It’s a show about nothing but punching and screaming,” and “It takes forty episodes for a single fight.” We are left to wonder, “If it’s so bad, then why is it so popular?” To answer this question, we have to dive into Dragon Ball’s origin.

      The story begins with Akira Toriyama as a twenty-three-year-old illustrator who is out of work and living with his parents. One day, while bumming ¥500 yen ($5 USD) off his mom, he goes to the café to smoke and drink coffee. There he reads a copy of Weekly Shōnen Jump and sees an ad for a contest where the winner gets ¥100,000 yen ($1,000 USD) and a publication deal. He has never written a manga, but he knows how to draw, so he enters the contest in hopes of winning the money.

      He doesn’t win, but a young editor at Shūeisha named Kazuhiko Torishima notices his talent and gives him a shot. Afterward, he becomes a superstar in the early ’80s when his Dr. Slump manga becomes the best-selling manga in Japan. Dr. Slump is about a dimwitted inventor named Senbei Norimaki who creates a nearsighted robot girl named Arale who has superhuman strength. But after five years, Toriyama feels burned out and wants to stop. Torishima becomes frightened at the idea of losing their cash cow, so he takes a train to Toriyama’s home to discuss ideas for a new story.

      After several hours of conversation, they fail to produce. That’s when Toriyama’s wife suggests he make a Kung fu manga, because he enjoys watching Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master and Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon while he works. Toriyama objects, but Torishima insists. A few months later, Dragon Ball is born.

      Toriyama uses the Chinese legend of Journey to the West (1592 AD) as his framework. This is a story about a Buddhist monk who travels from China to India to retrieve scriptures. The monk is aided on his journey by a supernormal Monkey King, pig man, sand demon, and a mystical white horse. These characters are the inspiration for Bulma, Son Goku, Oolong, Yamcha, and Bulma’s motorcycle. It also provides the impetus for the first arc of the series where they search for the mystical dragon balls that can grant any wish, similar to the scriptures that grant enlightenment.

      Journey to the West is a fusion of Buddhist, Daoist, and traditional Chinese folklore. As a result, the ideals of Buddhist compassion, Daoist truth, and austere forbearance, are baked into Dragon Ball’s culture. Toriyama emulates Journey to the West’s content, use of a narrator, cliffhanger endings, and style of humor. He then combines this with modern Western and Japanese pop culture. These include Hollywood films such as Blade Runner, James Bond, The Terminator, Indiana Jones, and Aliens; Japanese films like Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, generic ninja movies, and kaijū films like Godzilla; plus World War II films containing Nazis, aircraft, and machine guns. He then adds his own interests of motorcycles and automobiles, Japanese comedy shows, and his childhood countryside memories. Most importantly, he incorporates East Asian concepts of martial arts cultivation that enable Son Goku to ascend from a beginner martial artist to a literal god. This cultural fusion is the main reason why Dragon Ball appeals to fans across the world.

      Despite this winning formula, Dragon Ball does not start off with success. It isn’t until the emphasis is placed on martial arts action and self-cultivation that Dragon Ball becomes the biggest pop culture phenomenon in Japan. It becomes the primary reason for Weekly Shōnen Jump’s “Golden Era” of sales, from the mid-’80s to mid-’90s, selling 6.5 million copies a week. As a result, an entire generation of children was impacted by this series, and they’ve become what I call the “Dragon Ball Generation.” Their worldview is forever influenced by the worldview of Goku and his friends or, in many cases, his enemies who become his friends. In turn, Dragon Ball inspires future manga authors who go on to become stars. For example, the hit series of Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach are spiritual successors to Dragon Ball. To that point, the creator of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto, says, “Akira Toriyama is a god to me. A GOD!”

      Dragon Ball is a success wherever it goes. In many countries it was the first anime or manga to be localized. Dragon Ball breaks open the door, establishes anime and manga as a form of entertainment, and becomes the #1 hit that everyone has fond memories of. In the case that it’s not the first, it quickly becomes the top-selling series.

      The North American anime industry owes a lot of its success to Dragon Ball. FUNimation is the largest anime dubbing and distribution company in North America, and the first anime they acquired was Dragon Ball. This was possible because the founder of FUNimation, Gen Fukunaga, had an uncle who worked at Toei Animation, the producer of the Dragon Ball anime, and worked out a deal to acquire the license. Questionable as that deal may be, when Dragon Ball Z premiered in 1997, it quickly became the #1 hit throughout the country and made FUNimation into a hundred-million-dollar company. Fukunaga has said several times, “FUNimation is the house that Dragon Ball built.” In turn, FUNimation has dubbed and distributed hundreds of anime throughout the west. The money that goes into FUNimation from fans goes back to Japan to acquire the rights for more anime, which leads to more anime being produced. So the fact is, without Dragon Ball, the anime industry as we know it would be nowhere near as strong, and many of the anime we love would never have been produced or reached our shores.

      It’s because of this that I was able to see Dragon Ball Z in 1997 on Toonami. As a kid influenced by cartoons, comic books, and video games, afternoon TV was part of my daily ritual. But