Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball (ドラゴンボール, Doragon Bōru) is an adaptation of the first portion of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga. It is composed of 153 episodes around 20-minutes long and ran on Fuji TV from February 26, 1986 to April 12 1989. The series average rating was 21.2%, with its maximum being 29.5% (Episode 047) and its minimum being 13.7% (Episode 110). Dragon Ball was overshadowed by its successor Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball depicted Goku's childhood, while Dragon Ball Z depicted his adulthood. Both are adapted from the same manga.

Original series
Dragon Ball started off as a manga series called Dragon Boy. The story depicted a young boy named Tanton and his quest to return a princess to her homeland. The series was a loose adaptation of the Chinese legend Journey to the West, depicting monkey king Sun Wukong. Due to the series' unpopularity, Toriyama re-wrote Dragon Boy, adapting it as Dragon Ball. All the character's personalities were changed except for Goku. The re-adaptation named Dragon Ball became a hit.

Censorship
The U.S. version of Dragon Ball that was aired on Cartoon Network (before that, it was aired in syndication and on NBC in select cities) had many edits done to it. Most of the edits were digital cosmetic changes, which were done to remove nudity and blood, and dialogue edits. Sometimes, some scenes were deleted altogether, either to save time or cut out strong violence.

Broadcast
Two previous attempts at releasing Dragon Ball to American audiences failed. The first attempt was in 1989 from Harmony Gold USA (the company that previously dubbed Robotech). It featured strange name changes for nearly all the characters, such as changing Goku to "Zero" and Korin to "Whiskers the Wonder Cat". It was test-marketed in several cities, but was never broadcast to the general public; 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 dubbed and aired in first-run syndication. This release was a joint-production between FUNimation and BLT Productions, with Ocean Studios for the dubbing. These original 13 dubbed episodes were later released to DVD by KidMark as "Dragon Ball: The Saga of Goku."

Sagas

 * Toei Animation sagas


 * 1) Son Gokū (Episodes 1~28) (2/26/1986~9/3/1986)
 * 2) Red Ribbon Army (Episodes 29~68) (9/10/1986~7/1/1987)
 * 3) 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai (Episodes 69~101) (7/8/1987~2/17/1988)
 * 4) Piccolo-Daimaō (Episodes 102~132) (2/24/1988~11/2/1988)
 * 5) 23rd Tenkaichi Budōkai (Episodes 133~153) (11/9/1988~4/19/1989)
 * FUNimation sagas


 * 1) Emperor Pilaf Saga (Episodes 1~13; originally The Saga of Goku)
 * 2) Tournament Saga (Episodes 14~28)
 * 3) Red Ribbon Army Saga (Episodes 29~45)
 * 4) General Blue Saga (Episodes 46~57)
 * 5) Commander Red Saga (Episodes 58~67)
 * 6) Fortuneteller Baba Saga (Episodes 68~83)
 * 7) Tien Shinhan Saga (Episodes 84~101)
 * 8) King Piccolo Saga (Episodes 102~122)
 * 9) Piccolo Jr. Saga (Episodes 123~153)