The Day Goku Came to Life.

     On December of 1984, Akira Toriyama's  Dragon Ball was serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump. The individual volume versions of this series began publication from November 10th 1985, to August 4th 1995.

[Didn't take long to have a voice, huh?]

   on the day of this being written (February 28), the series received an anime adaptation on Fuji TV; thanks to Toei and Toei Animation.  It aired in Japan from that time until April 12, 1989.  For North American release, Dragon Ball underwent three revisions; the first one dubbed by Harmony Gold in the same year the series ended in Japan.  Most of the names of the characters were changed during the time, and the show was test market in very few cities.

[Harmony Gold: "Bitch, you look like Goku"!]

      The last two revisions were in 1995 and 2001.  Both of these were handled by Funimation Studios. In 1995, however, voice acting was handled  in Canada, also the series was edited for content, then eventually scrapped after 13 episodes in favor of it's sequel, Dragon Ball Z[Dragon Ball 17 - 42].  After said sequel's success on Cartoon Network's Toonami Block,  Funimation re-worked the 1986 adaptation; using the in-house staff from the Texas-based distributor for voice acting.  They also kept the original Shunsuke Kikuchi tracks and made lesser edits to the content.  DVD's were released in March of 2003; remastered editions would soon follow in 2009.

     The series in general was a huge success, and has since then made a huge impact in the history of comics and animation.  Though often times overshadowed by it's more action-oriented sequel, Dragon Ball has set the stage for shounen manga and anime.  It's art style and themes of adventure, martial arts, and action has won the attention of fans worldwide.  For me, I favor this over Z, which isn't to say that Z was piss or anything [not even close to bad]. One of my favorite sagas, was the Red Ribbon arc; Goku decimating an entire army was rather badass and has cemented my love for the series.  Upon that, DB was one of my first animes I grew up on as a kid.  With the sequel's new Movie, "Battle of the Gods" coming soon or in theaters after this writing, t