Anime of the Childhood #20: Dragon Ball, the popular shonen anime and manga

ドラゴンボール (Dragon Ball Z included!)

LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH A KAME-HAME-HA!

Hi, I’m Cory Roberts and this is what all you’ve been waiting for — it’s one of our favorite manga series written and drawn by Akira Toriyama, and it’s also one of our favorite anime series which is still dubbed today by Crunchyroll (ex Funimation) — we call it Dragon Ball!… and it’s also the Year of the Dragon!

Side note: Akira Toriyama, the creator of this manga series, is a well-known recluse, who avoids appearing in public or media. In an extension to his shyness, Toriyama has used an avatar called “Robotoriyama” since December 1980 to represent himself in manga and interviews. Also note that all English voices are from Crunchyroll.

Dragon Ball was inspired by the Chinese novel Journey to the West and Hong Kong martial arts films. The story follows the adventures of Goku (or “Son Goku”; Masako Nozawa, Japanese; Stephanie Naldony (pre-2010, child) → Colleen Clinkenbeard (post-2010, child) → Sean Schemmel), from childhood to adulthood, as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the Dragon Balls, seven magical orbs which summon a wish-granting dragon when gathered. Along his journey, Goku makes several friends and battles villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls.

His first friend is Bulma (Hiromi Tsuru (original, deceased) → Aya Hisakawa (current), Japanese; Tiffany Vollmer (original, retired) → Monica Rial (current), English), who first appeared as a teenager using the Dragon Radar, a fictional device she created to detect the energy signal emitted by Dragon Balls. She is led to Goku’s location by the signal emitted by the four-star ball in his possession and recruits him as a bodyguard while hoping to get his four-star ball to grant her wish for a boyfriend. She gives up on the wish after meeting Yamcha, and much later in the series, she marries Vegeta. Then we get Krillin (Mayumi Tanaka, Japanese; Laurie Steele (child) → Sonny Strait, English), a bald martial artist and one of Goku’s best friends and classmates. He and Goku are under the tutelage of Kame-Sennin/Master Roshi (Kohei Miyauchi (original, deceased) → Joji Yanami (deceased) → Hiroshi Masuoka (deceased) → Masaharu Sato (current), Japanese; Mike McFarland, English) initially his rival but later a friend, and a loyal companion in adventures thereafter. I would go on for more characters on this Medium story since the cast is massive, but you can use this Wikipedia link. Oh, and I have this shirt that I bought from Amazon back in early 2022 (below).

I used Goku as a model for my main protagonist’s spiky hair for the upcoming webcomic series I’m working on (you can view the process). Dragon Ball Z continues the adventures of Goku in his adult life as he and his companions defend the Earth against villains including aliens (Vegeta and Frieza), androids (Cell), and magical creatures (Majin Buu). At the same time, the story parallels the life of Goku’s son, Gohan, as well as the development of his rivals, Piccolo and Vegeta. Dragon Ball Z was aired on weekday afternoon block (including “Midnight Run” and “Rising Sun”) Toonami in mid-1998, and Dragon Ball was aired on the same weekday afternoon block in mid-2001. This also includes Toonami’s “New Year’s Evil” marathon on New Year’s Day 2001. There’s also the original Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super on Crunchyroll (both dub and sub) which are all available for streaming.

I also had DBZ Budokai (including the second and third games), Budokai Tenkaichi (first and second games only) on the PlayStation 2, and Dragon Ball Raging Blast (PlayStation 3), even though the Japanese and English voice actors are no longer with us (below, though this is not all of them):

• Kohei Miyauchi (original Kame-Sennin/Master Roshi; deceased 02 June 1995)
• Jōji Yanami (second Kame-Sennin/Master Roshi; deceased 03 December 2021)
• Hiroshi Masuoka (third Kame-Sennin/Master Roshi; deceased 21 March 2020)
• Hirotaka Suzuoki (original Tenshinhan/Tien Shinhan; deceased 06 August 2006)
• Hiromi Tsuru (original Bulma, including child Piccolo; deceased 16 November 2017)
• Toku Nishio (original Mr. Popo; deceased 19 July 2005)
• Daisuke Gori (original Mr. Satan/Hercule; deceased 17 January 2010)
• Yukinori “Unsho” Ishizuka (second Mr. Satan/Hercule; deceased 13 August 2018)
• Chikao Otsuka (original Tao Pai Pai/Mercenary Tao; deceased 15 January 2015)
• Chris Ayres (second Freeza/Frieza in English; deceased 18 October 2021)

You can listen to these soundtracks here, here, and here. We also had Goku on Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was in November of last year, though I didn’t get to see it on television.

Shino Kakinuma temporarily took the role of Videl following Yuko Minaguchi, the character’s original Japanese seiyuu, who took on a nineteen-month-long hiatus from acting to study abroad in the US in 2012. However, I do not have Crunchyroll and also have no plans for Crunchyroll due to geoblocking. I use Netflix and Disney+ (for nostalgia purposes), and occasionally Paramount+ (also for nostalgia purposes). When I did say “for nostalgia purposes,” I needed to revisit my childhood or watch the shows or films that I had not seen as a child.

Kenji Yamamoto, the composer and arranger who worked on various Dragon Ball video games, was known for plagiarism in his compositions by Toei Animation, and many of his musical works for the series infringed upon unidentified third-party copyrights, most notably “Hunting High and Low” by Stratovarius. The plagiarism of these works has been known to fans since May 2010. Toei Animation fired him as a result and replaced his compositions with those from the original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series written by Shunsuke Kikuchi.

I hope to see you in the next “Anime of the Childhood”. Thanks for reading.

Update 2024.03.07: Akira Toriyama has died — very sad — see the YouTube video here.