Dragon Ball Z is the sequel to the Dragon Ball anime, which covers the first 16 volumes of a 42 volume Dragon Ball manga series created by Akira Toriyama, while Dragon Ball Z adapts the last 26 volumes of the original manga.
The Dragon Ball Z anime first aired in Japan from April 26, 1989, to January 31, 1996,and was dubbed in several countries around the world, including Latin America and in the United States. The American themes and soundtracks were composed and produced in part by Bruce Faulconer.
The series continues the adventures of Son Goku who, along with his companions, defend the Earth and other fictional planets against various supervillains. While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Goku through childhood into adulthood, Dragon Ball Z parallels his adult life with the maturation of his first child, Son Gohan.
The series also gives focus to the evolution of his rivals, Piccolo and Vegeta, from evil to good, with the former's evolution ocurring early in the series and latter's spanning across the entire series. The separation between the series is also significant as the later series takes on a more dramatic and serious tone, with a number of villains either threatening or committing acts of mass murder or outright genocide.
Akira Toriyama's self-parody manga series Neko Majin satires many concepts introduced in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.
After two unsuccessful attempts to release Dragon Ball in the US, FUNimation Productions Inc.Decided to create a dub of Dragon Ball Z, but was too poor a company then to distribute a series alone, so they teamed up with Saban and hired voice actors of the Ocean Group to handle the dialogue.
The English dubs of Dragon Ball Z are noted for featuring dialogue not found in the original script, dubbing that results in minor changes to the original story, the replacement of the entire original musical score written by Shunsuke Kikuchi, and renaming many characters, terminology, and locations.
In 2003, FUNimation began to redub the first 53 episodes that were dubbed by the Ocean Group voice cast, restoring them to the original 67. The distribution of the redubs on DVD, under the Ultimate Uncut Special Edition title, began in April 2005.
In the summer of 2005, Cartoon Network aired the uncut version of the first 67 episodes. This version used the original Japanese footage, with the exception of the Japanese opening and closing themes, and has an entirely new score of music.
Originally, only the Dragon Ball Z movies, and the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans OVA were available for home viewing in Japan. The movies were released on both VHS, and Laserdisc format. The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans OVA was released both on VHS, and on the Playdia, as two interactive FMVs.
In 2003, all of the DBZ anime were finally released for home viewing in Japan, on two large DVD boxed sets. Each DBZ Dragonbox had a large amount of DVD extras, as well as an action figure and a book.
The video and audio transfers of the show used on these DVDs came off of the Fuji TV master tapes of the show, as this allowed Toei to put out a far superior and completely accurate version of the show on DVD. This allowed all episodes to have their original openings, endings, eyecatches, next episode previews, etc., compared to what was available in the US.
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