Dragon Ball:
Dragon Ball is a comic/manga that was published
in a Japanese monthly magazine, Shonen Jump. This
magazine is still running, and publishes various
different comics by certain Japanese mangaka
(comic artists). Dragon Ball was published in
1984 by Akira Toriyama. He had made several
shorter manga before Dragon Ball which were
relatively successful, including the very funny
Dr. Slump. Dragon Ball was loosely based on the
Chinese fairytale 'Legend of the Monkey King' aka
'Saiyuki', and was meant to be a humorous version
of it. Dragon Ball was hugely popular, and in
February 1986 an animated show was made. Toriyama
wanted to keep Dragon Ball short, maybe 10
volumes, but the comic's popularity and
Toriyama's want to add more to the story helped
it last for 42 volumes. As well as manga, a set
of Daizenshuus were made to go with the DB-Z-GT
series. They are books which contain images drawn
by Toriyama. Some are original images, some were
used as manga covers, some are sketches
explaining how Toriyama invented characters and
they also contain information. Daizenshuus are
highly sought after books and are hard to find
nowadays.
Dragonball Z:
The manga continued to be called Dragon Ball, but
at a certain point, the TV show changed its name
to Dragonball Z. Dragonball Z is the longest of
the three series. There is less humor but more
fighting than in Dragon Ball. More characters are
introduced and so are different species of aliens
as the characters travel through space. DBZ is
mainly about the Z warriors trying to defeat
different evil villains who want to take over the
universe, destroy the world etc. It is the most
popular of the three series.
Dragonball GT:
Dragonball Grand Tour is the shortest and the
only series which Akira Toriyama didn't invent.
That means there is no GT manga. The game
producers wanted to carry on with the show after
Toriyama had finished, as the show was so
popular. GT was not as well accepted as the other
series, partly because fans were getting bored of
it and didn't like the approach the new creators
gave to the series, and partly because many fans
didn't like the fact that Toriyama did not make
it. The thing a lot of people liked about DBGT
was that it revisited a lot of the early Dragon
Ball characters that were favorites of many but
were not in the manga for a very long time.
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