Dragon Ball is a Japanese manga, written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. The story follows the adventures of Son Goku, a child who goes on a lifelong journey beginning with a quest for the seven mystical Dragon Balls. Along the way, he goes through many rigorous martial arts training regimens and educational programs, defeats a series of increasingly powerful martial artists, and becomes the top martial artist in the universe.
The series was published in the Japanese-language magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump. The individual chapters were collected by Shueisha in a series of 42 tankōbon volumes; The first tankōbon was released on November 10, 1985, while the last one was released on August 4, 1995. In 2002, the manga was re-released in a collection of 34 kanzenban, which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shōnen Jump run. There have also been two anime adaptations, both produced by Toei Animation. The first, also named Dragon Ball, adapted the first sixteen volumes of the manga. The second one was titled Dragon Ball Z and adapted the other twenty-six volumes of the series.
The distributing company Viz Media has released all 42 volumes in English in the United States. Viz titles volumes seventeen through forty-two of the manga Dragon Ball Z to reduce confusion for North American readers. Both manga series were published since March 1998 (with a re-release of the first ten volumes for both series in 2003); the last volume of the first part was released on August 3, 2004, while the last one of the second part was released on June 6, 2006. As of June 2008, Viz began re-releasing both manga series in a wideban format called "VIZBIG Edition", which is a collection of three volumes in one. Viz includes the title pages from the series' original run in Weekly Shōnen Jump in a "Title Page Gallery" section at the back of each volume.
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