Earth, known as the Dragon World (ドラゴンワールド) and designated as "Planet 4032-877" by the

celestial hierarchy, is the main setting for the entire Dragon Ball series, as well as related media such as
Dr. Slump, Nekomajin, and Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. It is mainly inhabited by Earthlings (地球人,
Chikyūjin), a term used inclusively to refer to all of the intelligent races native to the planet, including
humans, anthropomorphic beings, and monsters. Starting from the Dragon Ball Z series, various
extraterrestrial species such as the Saiyans (サイヤ人, Saiya-jin) and Namekians (ナメック星人,
Namekku-seijin) have played a more prominent role in franchise media.

The narrative of Dragon Ball predominantly follows the adventures of Goku; upon meeting Bulma at the
beginning of the series, the two then embark on an adventure to gather the seven Dragon Balls.[ch. 1]
Goku later receives martial arts training from Master Roshi, meets his lifelong friend Krillin, and enters
the World Martial Arts Tournament to fight the strongest warriors on the planet. When the evil King
Piccolo, and later his offspring Piccolo, tries to conquer the planet, Goku receives training from Earth's
deities to defeat them. Goku later sacrifices his life to save the planet from his estranged brother Raditz,
[ch. 205] but later trains in the afterlife under the tutelage of King Kai, to save it from the other incoming
Saiyans Nappa and Vegeta. He later becomes a Super Saiyan and defeats the powerful tyrant Frieza. This
sets the tone of the rest of the series, with each enemy the characters face becoming stronger than the
last, requiring them to attain further training.

Dragon Ball Super establishes that the franchise is set in a multiverse[1] composed of twelve[N 1]
numbered universes, each ruled by a number of benevolent and malevolent deities, respectively called
Supreme Kais and Gods of Destruction who are appointed by a higher being called the Grand Zeno, who
watches over the multiverse along with the Grand Priest, the father of all the Angels. Almost all of the
Dragon Ball series, except for parts of Dragon Ball Super, takes place in Universe 7. Years in the timeline
are called "Ages", with most of the story occurring between Age 749 and Age 790. Universe 7 contains
several planets, including a fictionalized Earth, where humans reside, and Planet Vegeta, the home
world of the Saiyans, a powerful and destructive race. Many other races also inhabit Universe 7,
including Angels, Demons, Androids, Tuffles and Namekians. Humans are among the weakest races in
the universe. The protagonist Goku is raised as a human on Earth but finds out that he is actually a
Saiyan from Planet Vegeta.

Production

See also: List of Dragon Ball characters and Dragon Ball (manga) § Production

Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball

Akira Toriyama was a fan of Hong Kong martial arts films, particularly Bruce Lee films such as Enter the
Dragon (1973) and Jackie Chan films such as Drunken Master (1978), and wanted to create a manga
inspired by martial arts films.[2][3][4] This led to Toriyama creating the 1983 one-shot manga Dragon
Boy, which he later redeveloped into Dragon Ball.[5] Toriyama loosely modeled the plot and characters
of Dragon Ball on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West,[6][5] with Goku being Sun Wukong
("Son Goku" in Japanese), Bulma as Tang Sanzang, Oolong as Zhu Bajie, and Yamcha being Sha Wujing.
[7] Toriyama wanted to create a story with the basic theme of Journey to the West, but with "a little
kung fu"[8] by combining the novel with elements from the kung fu films of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee.
[9] The title Dragon Ball was inspired by Enter the Dragon and later Bruceploitation knockoff kung fu
films which frequently had the word "Dragon" in the title,[2] and the fighting scenes were influenced by
Jackie Chan movies.[10][7] Since it was serialized in a shōnen manga magazine, he added the idea of the
Dragon Balls to give it a game-like activity of gathering something, without thinking of what the
characters would wish for.[8] His concept of the Dragon Balls was inspired by the epic Japanese novel
Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (1814–1842), which involves the heroes collecting eight Buddhist prayer
beads, which Toriyama adapted into collecting seven Dragon Balls.[11][12]

He originally thought it would last about a year or end once the Dragon Balls were collected.[13]
Toriyama stated that although the stories are purposefully easy to understand, he specifically aimed
Dragon Ball at readers older than those of his previous serial Dr. Slump.[14] He also wanted to break
from the Western influences common in Dr. Slump, deliberately going for Chinese scenery, referencing
Chinese buildings and photographs of China his wife had bought.[15] Toriyama wanted to set Dragon
Ball in a fictional world largely based on Asia, taking inspiration from several Asian cultures including
Japanese, Chinese, South Asian, Central Asian, Arabic and Indonesian cultures.[16] The island where the
Tenkaichi Budōkai (天下一武道会, lit. "Strongest Under the Heavens Martial Arts Tournament") is held
is modeled after Bali (in Indonesia), which he, his wife and assistant visited in mid-1985, and for the area
around Bobbidi's spaceship he consulted photos of Africa.[15] Toriyama was also inspired by the jinn
(genies) from The Arabian Nights.[17]

The Earth of Dragon Ball, as published in Daizenshuu 4: World Guide

During the early chapters of the manga, Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, commented that Goku
looked rather plain, so to combat this he added several characters like Kame-Sen'nin and Kuririn, and
created the Tenkaichi Budōkai martial arts tournament to focus the storyline on fighting. It was when
the first Tenkaichi Budōkai began that Dragon Ball truly became popular, having recalled the races and
tournaments in Dr. Slump.[7] Anticipating that readers would expect Goku to win the tournaments,
Toriyama had him lose the first two while planning an eventual victory. This allowed for more character
growth as the manga progressed. He said that Muscle Tower in the Red Ribbon Army storyline was
inspired by the video game Spartan X (called Kung-Fu Master in the West), in which enemies appear very
fast as the player ascends a tower (the game was in turn inspired by Jackie Chan's Wheels on Meals and
Bruce Lee's Game of Death). He then created Piccolo Daimao as a truly evil villain, and as a result called
that arc the most interesting to draw.[7]

Once Goku and company had become the strongest on Earth, they turned to extraterrestrial opponents
including the Saiyans (サイヤ人, Saiya-jin); and Goku himself was retconned from an Earthling to a
Saiyan who was sent to Earth as a baby.[18] Freeza, who forcibly took over planets to resell them, was
created around the time of the Japanese economic bubble and was inspired by real estate speculators,
whom Toriyama called the "worst kind of people."[7] Finding the escalating enemies difficult, he created
the Ginyu Force to add more balance to the series. When Toriyama created the Super Saiyan (超スー
パーサイヤ人, Sūpā Saiya-jin) transformation during the Freeza arc, he was initially concerned that
Goku's facial expressions as a Super Saiyan made him look like a villain, but decided it was acceptable
since the transformation was brought about by anger.[19] Goku's Super Saiyan form has blonde hair
because it was easier to draw for Toriyama's assistant (who spent a lot of time blacking in Goku's hair),
and has piercing eyes based on Bruce Lee's paralyzing glare.[20] Dragon Ball Z anime character designer
Tadayoshi Yamamuro also used Bruce Lee as a reference for Goku's Super Saiyan form, stating that,
when he "first becomes a Super Saiyan, his slanting pose with that scowling look in his eyes is all Bruce
Lee."[21] Toriyama later added time travel during the Cell arc, but said he had a hard time with it, only
thinking of what to do that week and having to discuss it with his second editor Yu Kondo.[7] After Cell's
death, Toriyama intended for Gohan to replace Goku as the series' protagonist, but later felt the
character was not suited for the role and changed his mind.[7]

Going against the normal convention that the strongest characters should be the largest in terms of
physical size, he designed many of Dragon Ball's most powerful characters with small statures, including
the protagonist, Goku.[22] Toriyama later explained that he had Goku grow up as a means to make
drawing fight scenes easier, even though his first editor Kazuhiko Torishima was initially against it
because it was rare to have the main character of a manga series change drastically.[23] When including
fights in the manga, Toriyama had the characters go to uninhabited locations to avoid difficulties in
drawing residents and destroyed buildings.[15] Toriyama said that he did not plan the details of the
story, resulting in strange occurrences and discrepancies later in the series, including changing the colors
of the characters mid-story and few characters having screentone because he found it difficult to use.
[10][8][13][24] Since the completion of Dragon Ball, Toriyama has continued to add to its story, mostly
background information on its universe, through guidebooks published by Shueisha.

During the second half of the series, Toriyama has said that he had become more interested in coming
up with the story than actually drawing it, and that the battles became more intense with him
simplifying the lines.[10] In 2013, he stated that because Dragon Ball is an action manga the most
important aspect is the sense of speed, so he did not draw very elaborate, going so far as to suggest one
could say that he was not interested in the art.[23] He also once said that his goal for the series was to
tell an "unconventional and contradictory" story.[22] In 2013, commenting on Dragon Ball's global
success, Toriyama said, "Frankly, I don't quite understand why it happened. While the manga was being
serialized, the only thing I wanted as I kept drawing was to make Japanese boys happy.", "The role of my
manga is to be a work of entertainment through and through. I dare say I don't care even if [my works]
have left nothing behind, as long as they have entertained their readers."[25]

Manga
Main article: Dragon Ball (manga)

Dragon Ball debuted in Weekly Shōnen Jump No. 51, on December 3, 1984 which is also considered to
be highly sought after among fans and collectors.

Written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball was serialized in the manga anthology Weekly
Shōnen Jump from December 3, 1984 to June 5, 1995,[26][27] when Toriyama grew exhausted and felt
he needed a break from drawing. The 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes
by Shueisha from September 10, 1985 through August 4, 1995.[28][29][30] Between December 4, 2002
and April 2, 2004, the chapters were re-released in a collection of 34 kanzenban volumes, which
included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shōnen Jump run.
[31][32] The February 2013 issue of V Jump, which was released in December 2012, announced that
parts of the manga will be fully colored and re-released in 2013.[33] Twenty volumes, beginning from
chapter 195 and grouped by story arcs, were released between February 4, 2013 and July 4, 2014.[34]
[35] Twelve volumes covering the first 194 chapters were published between January 4 and March 4,
2016.[36][37] A sōshūhen edition that aims to recreate the manga as it was originally serialized in
Weekly Shōnen Jump with color pages, promotional text, and next chapter previews, was published in
eighteen volumes between May 13, 2016 and January 13, 2017.[38][39]

Spin-offs

Another manga penned by Ōishi, the three-chapter Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock that revolves
around Bardock, Goku's father, was published in the monthly magazine V Jump from August and
October 2011.[40]

The final chapter of Toriyama's 2013 manga series Jaco the Galactic Patrolman revealed that it is set
before Dragon Ball, with several characters making appearances.[41] Jaco's collected volumes contain a
bonus Dragon Ball chapter depicting Goku's mother.[42]

In December 2016, a spin-off manga titled Dragon Ball Side Story: The Case of Being Reincarnated as
Yamcha began in Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ digital magazine. Written and illustrated by Dragon Garow
Lee, it is about a high school boy who after an accident wakes up in the body of Yamcha in the Dragon
Ball manga.[43]