~What Is Dragonball?
~Bid For Power
~Character Profiles
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~Movie Summaries 
~Goku
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~Trunks
~Vegita
~Fusion
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What is Dragonball?
Dragonball was created back in 1984 by a man named Akira Toriyama. Most say that he got his inspiration from a Chinese epic entitled the Monkey King. It started to be published in the Weekly Shonen Jump in Japan in November of 1984. Since then through 1995, Toriyama drew a total of 42 volumes of the Dragonball manga.
The story follows the adventures of Goku, a young, unusually strong boy. One of the main things in the story is them searching after the 7 Dragonballs, which when gathered together can grant a wish. We see him meet new friends and defeat many enemies who are after the mystical Dragonballs, and watch as he gradually gets older.
The characters in Dragonball can manipulate ki, which is basically "lifeforce" in western terminology. Using ki, they can do extraordinary and superhuman feats, such as flying and firing energy blasts from their hands. Ki blasts are a major part of the fighting, which leads to really cool fight scenes.
At volume 17 of the manga, it becomes known as Dragon Ball Z. Here, the focus shifts more towards fighting than comedy, as it was in Dragon Ball. The manga was adapted in to an anime, called Dragonball, and then Dragonball Z. Toriyama himself did a lot of the animation, so it closely resembles the manga version. The story line is basically the same with a few plot additions. The anime was produced by Toei Studios in Japan. When Dragonball Z was such a big success, they made a new series called Dragonball GT, which story was not in the manga. It turned out to be popular, but lacked the true style of Toriyama which made original series so good. Toei also produced several movies, 4 Dragonball ones and 13 from the story line of Dragonball Z. The movies filled in spots in time that the regular manga and anime didn't cover, but some don't fit in with the timeline.
Dragonball first aired in the US when DIC bought the rights to it and
aired it on FOX. The show was a complete failure, because for some reason
they decided to air it very early in the morning when no one would actually
get up to watch it, so they gave up on it. Later, FUNimation bought the
rights from Toei to dub the Japanese episodes and release them in the
US. They started out with the begining of DBZ instead of Dragonball, because
they believed Americans wanted more action than comedy, which was probably
a good guess due to the huge success it's had. FUNimation chose to air
the episodes on the Cartoon Network, because of the large number of households
that got it. It had much more luck than before, and became a hit. The
popularity has been rising continually, as more people fall in love with
the series. Even adults who it seemed for the most part stayed away from
cartoons started to follow the series. It's probably the mix of action,
drama, comedy and a good story which make it so appealing. Since they
first aired it, FUNimation has bought the rest of DBZ and DB and are going
to be airing the last saga of DBZ in September, and the start of DB in
late August.
Since it's success, demand for Dragonball products has greatly risen here in the US. The comic book company Viz is producing completely uncut, translated mangas for the US market, which is very bold, especially with all the whiny mothers who think that their kids can't handle a little violence and brief nudity. There are also many toys and action figures being released, which are done by Irwin toys. The quality of these aren't stupendous but they are getting better. And now with the release of uncut Dragonball and Dragonball Z episodes and movies on DVD, the American public is finally getting Dragonball in all of its original splendor. With all the storage and extra options on the DVD's, you can even chose to watch the original Japanese version with English subtitles, or, if you're fluent in Japanese, without subtitles.
That's about all I can tell you about Dragonball, besides the actual plot and such, but that belongs in another section. If you feel like you need even more info about it, you can always go to Planet Namek, who, in my opinion, has the best resources for Dragonball info on the internet. Anyway, thanks for reading this, I actually had fun writing it and sharing my knowledge with you. And if you see some info that is wrong, which there probably is since I did it from memory, please email me and i will fix it right away,I really don't want to misinform people.