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Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ(ゼット)) is a Japanese animated television series produced by Toei Doga (now Toei Animation). Dragon Ball Z is the sequel to the Dragon Ball anime and adapts the last 26 volumes of the original 42 volume Dragon Ball manga series created by Akira Toriyama. Dragon Ball Z depicts the continuing the adventures of Goku and his companions to defend against an assortment of villains which seek to destroy or rule the Earth.

The 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.

Plot
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 occurring early in the series and latter's spanning across the entire series. The separation between the series is also significant as Dragonball Z takes on a more dramatic and serious tone, with a number of villains threatening or committing acts of mass murder and outright genocide.

Dragon Ball Z manga
The Dragon Ball manga originally started out as a gag manga with adventure elements, but Akira Toriyama switched focus to concentrate on martial arts. With this change of focus the new TV series was titled Dragon Ball Z, but the Japanese release of the manga remained Dragon Ball. The North American adaptation by Viz Media was titled "Dragon Ball Z" to prevent potential confusion for readers after the success of the anime adaptation. North American publication of the Dragon Ball Z manga debuted in Shonen Jump, beginning in the middle of the series with the Cyborg Saga. The release of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball mangas were released simultaneously by Viz Media. In March 2001, Viz continued this separation by re-shipping the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z titles starting with the first volumes of each work. Viz's marketing for the manga made distinct the differences between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z tone. Viz billed Dragon Ball Z as, "More action-packed than the stories of Goku's youth, Dragon Ball Z is pure adrenaline, with battles of truly Earth-shaking proportions!"

Dragon Ball Z anime
With the ending of Dragon Ball, Toei Animation quickly released a second anime series, Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ(ゼット)). Picking up a few years after the series first left off, Dragon Ball Z is adapted from the final twenty-six volumes of the manga series on Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1989–1995, it premiered in Japan on Fuji Television on April 26, 1989, taking over its predecessor's time slot, and ran for 291 episodes until its conclusion on January 31, 1996.

Japanese production
The title "Dragon Ball Z" was chosen by Akira Toriyama because Z was the last letter of the alphabet and he wanted to finish the series because he was running out of ideas for Dragon Ball. Conventional knowledge in Japan used the Z only for the anime to separate Goku's childhood and adult life.

Because Toriyama was writing the manga during the production of the anime, Dragon Ball Z was subject to lengthy "filler": material which is original and not adapted from the original manga source. An example of filler episodes is the run from the 9th episode "The Strangest Robot" through episode 17 "Pendulum Room Peril". Additional filler material included lengthening scenes or adding new ones, including new attacks and characters not present in the manga. This was occasionally necessary since Toriyama was writing the manga concurrently with production of the anime.

English production
In 1995, Funimation licensed Dragon Ball Z for an English-language release in the United States. They contracted Saban Entertainment to help finance and distribute the series to television, Pioneer Entertainment to handle home video distribution, Ocean Productions to dub the anime, and Shuki Levy to compose an alternate musical score. This dub of Dragon Ball Z had mandated cuts to content and length, which reduced the first 67 episodes to 53. Pioneer ceased its release at Volume 17, but retained the rights to produce an uncut subtitled version. After Funimation, concluded their partnership with Saban and Pioneer, it continued to dub and distribute the series by themselves. Funimation used their own in-house voice cast and included a new musical score composed by Bruce Faulconer. In 2004, Pioneer lost its distribution rights to the first 53/67 episodes of Dragon Ball Z, allowing Funimation to re-dub them with their in-house voice cast and restore the removed content. Funimation would take the original 67 episodes and reproduce them with the first releases of the uncut material appearing in 2005.

American releases
The series premiered in the U.S. on September 13, 1996 in first-run syndication, but was cancelled after two seasons due to a lack of interest from syndication companies. On August 31, 1998, the same cancelled dubbed episodes began airing on Cartoon Network as part of the channel's Toonami programming block. Soon after, Dragon Ball Z was now in full production in the U.S. and the new dub of the series aired on Cartoon Network from September 13, 1999 to April 7, 2003. After Funimation got the rights to the first 67 episodes they would air their own dub and restored content on Cartoon Network in the U.S. during the summer of 2005.

In January 2011, Funimation and Toei announced that they would stream Dragon Ball Z within 30 minutes before their simulcast of One Piece. As of 2013, Dragon Ball Z is being streamed on Hulu, containing the English dub with the Japanese music and uncut footage, as well as subtitled Japanese episodes.

American home media release
The home release structure of Dragon Ball Z is complicated by the licensing and release of the companies involved in producing and distributing the work. Releases of the media occured on both VHS and DVD with separate cut and uncut versions released simultaneously. Due to the popularity of the work both versions of the cut and uncut material are treated as different entries and would frequently make Billboard rankings as separate entries. Home release sales also were featured prominently on the Nielsen VideoScan charts. Further complicating the release of the material was Funimation itself; which was known to release "DVDs out of sequence in order to get them out as fast as possible"; as in the case of the third season.

In 2006, Funimation remastered the episodes in 16:9 widescreen format and then began re-releasing the series to Region 1 DVD in nine individual season box sets. The first set was released on February 6, 2007; the final set on May 19, 2009. In July 2009, Funimation announced that they would again be re-releasing Dragon Ball Z in a new seven-volume DVD set called "Dragon Box Z", which was previously released in Japan as a two-volume set. Based on the original series masters with frame-by-frame restoration, the episodes are uncut and, unlike the previous season box sets, are presented in 4:3 fullscreen format. The first set was released on November 10, 2009; the final set was released on October 11, 2011.

In July 2011, Funimation announced plans to release Dragon Ball Z in Blu-ray Disc format. Dragon Ball Z Level 1.1, containing the first 17 episodes, was released on November 8, 2011. However, after the release of the second volume, Funimation suspended production of the rest of the Blu-ray releases, citing concerns over restoring the original film material frame by frame.

Other International Releases
The Funimation dubbed episodes also aired in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand. However, beginning with episode 108, Westwood Media (in association with Ocean Productions) produced an alternate English dub. The alternate dub was broadcast in the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Canada, while Funimation's dub continued to air in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. Dragon Ball Z originally aired on the British Comedy Network in Fall 1998.

Story arcs
Dragon Ball episodes follow a structure defined as "sagas" which contain story arcs that deal with a central theme or foe. In the original Japanese Toei release, there are four sagas: Saiyan (Episodes 1–35); Frieza (Episodes 36–107); Cell (Episodes 108–194); and Buu (Episodes 195–291). The American release followed a similar form, though Funimation split the remaining sagas into smaller chunks also labeled sagas:
 * The Vegeta Saga (Episodes 1–35) remained whole.
 * The Frieza arc consists of the Namek Saga (Episodes 36–67); the Captain Ginyu Saga (Episodes 68–74); and the Frieza Saga (Episodes 75–107).
 * The Cell arc consists of the Garlic Jr. Saga (Episodes 108–117); the Trunks Saga (Episodes 118–125); the Androids Saga (Episodes 126–139); the Imperfect Cell Saga (Episodes 140–152); the Perfect Cell Saga (Episodes 153–165); and the Cell Games Saga (Episodes 166–194).
 * The Buu arc consists of the Great Saiyaman Saga (Episodes 195–209); the World Tournament Saga (Episodes 210–219); the Babidi Saga (Episodes 220–231); the Majin Buu Saga (Episodes 232–253); the Fusion Saga (Episodes 254–275) and the Kid Buu Saga (Episodes 276–291).

Dragon Ball Z Kai
In February 2009, Toei Animation announced that it would begin broadcasting a revised version of Dragon Ball Z as part of the series' 20th anniversary celebrations. The series premiered on Fuji TV in Japan on April 5, 2009, under the name Dragon Ball Z Kai (ドラゴンボール改(カイ)). The ending suffix Kai (改「かい」) in the name means "updated" or "altered" and reflects the improvements and corrections of the original work. The original footage was remastered for HDTV, featuring updated opening and ending sequences, and a rerecording of the vocal tracks. The footage was also re-edited to more closely follow the manga, resulting in a faster-moving story, and damaged frames removed.

On March 9, 2011, Toei announced that due to Kenji Yamamoto's score for Dragon Ball Z Kai infringing on the rights of an unknown third party, the score for remaining episodes and replays of previous episodes would be replaced. Later reports from Toei claimed that with the exception of the series' opening and closing songs, as well as eyecatch music, Yamamoto's score was replaced with Shunsuke Kikuchi's original score from Dragon Ball Z. This change in background music would eventually affect all episodes of the series' English dub in the U.S. The series concluded with the finale of the Cell arc as opposed to including the Majin Boo arc. It was originally planned to run 98 episodes, however due to the Tōhoku offshore earthquake and tsunami, the final episode of Dragon Ball Z Kai was not aired and the series ended on its 97th episode in Japan on March 27, 2011.

International release
Funimation licensed Dragon Ball Z Kai for an English-language release in the U.S., under the title Dragon Ball Z Kai. The series was broadcast on Nicktoons from May 24, 2010 to January 1, 2012. In addition to Nicktoons, the series also began airing on The CW's Saturday-morning programming block, Toonzai, on August 14, 2010 and as of June 2013 continues to air on Toonzai's successor, Vortexx, which began on August 25, 2012. Both the Nicktoons and Toonzai/Vortexx airings have been edited for content, though the Toonzai/Vortexx version is censored even more so than Nicktoons', most likely due to The CW being a broadcast network. In addition to the TV airings, Funimation has also released bilingual Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray box sets of Dragon Ball Z Kai. These box sets contain the original Japanese audio track with English subtitles, as well as the uncut version of the English dub, which does not contain any of the edits made for the TV airings. CSC Media Group acquired the broadcast rights to Dragon Ball Z Kai in the United Kingdom and began airing it on Kix! in early 2013.

Majin Buu arc
On November 5, 2012, Mayumi Tanaka, the Japanese voice of Kuririn, announced that she and the rest of the cast are recording more episodes of Dragon Ball Z Kai. She noted that the show will not be aired in Japan, but will be continuing overseas. More recently, Sean Schemmel and Kyle Hebert, the Funimation dub voice actors for Goku and Gohan, announced that they've started recording for the English dub of these episodes.

Censorship
Dragon Ball Z's original American release was the subject of heavy censorship which resulted in a large amount removed content and alterations that greatly changed the original work. Funimation CEO Gen Fukunaga is often criticized for his role in the censorship; but it was the distributor Saban which required such changes or they would not air the work, as was the case with the episode "Orphans". Much of these changes included altering every aspect of the show from character names, clothing, scenes and dialogue of the show. The character Mr. Satan was renamed Hercule for the original English media including the Viz Dragon Ball Z manga and games, which includes referring to his name, erroneously, as "Hercule Satan" in Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22. The dialogue changes would sometimes contradict the scenes itself; after the apparent fatal explosion of a helicopter the character said, "It's okay, I can see their parachutes!" Funimation's redub for the 2005 release would address many of the censorship issues that were required by Saban, with the uncut releases preserving the integrity of the original Japanese release.

During the original Japanese TV airing of Dragon Ball Kai, scenes involving blood and brief nudity were censored, also included was digitally altering the black skin of Mr. Popo to blue. A rumor that Cartoon Network would be airing Kai uncut was met with an official statement to debunk the rumor in June 2010. Nicktoons would also censor Kai; it released a preview showcasing these changes which included removing blood and cheek scar from Bardok and altering the color of Roshi's alcohol.

Funimation Subtitles
Steven Simmons offered commentary on the subtitling from a project and technical stand point, addressing several concerns. Simmons preferred yellow-on-black subtitles, but these were rejected for the light gray which did not cause blurring. Simmons noted that Gen Fukunaga did not want any swearing on the disks, but because there was no taboo word list Simmons would substitute a variation in the strength of the words by situation with the changes starting in episode 21. The typographical errors in the script were caused by dashes (—) and double-quotes (") failing to appear, which resulted in confusing dialogue.

Japan
Dragon Ball Z's Japanese run was very popular with an average viewer ratings of 20.5% across the series.

The first episode of Dragon Ball Kai earned a viewer ratings percentage of 11.3, ahead of One Piece and behind Crayon Shin-chan. Although following episodes had lower ratings, Kai was among the top 10 anime in viewer ratings every week in Japan for most of its run. Towards the end of the original run the ratings hovered around 9%-10%.

America
In 2001, Cartoon Network obtained licensing to run 96 more episodes and air the original Dragon Ball anime and was the top rated show in the Toonami block of Cartoon network. Beginning March 26, 2001, Cartoon Network ran a 12-week special promotion "Toonami Reactor" which included a focus on Dragon Ball Z, which would stream episodes online to high-speed internet users. Many home video releases were met with both the edited and unedited versions placing on in the top 10 video charts of Billboard magazine. For example, "The Dark Prince Returns" (containing episodes 226-228) and "Rivals" (containing episodes 229-231) edited and unedited, made the Billboard magazine top video list for Oct. 20, 2001

Dragon Ball Z Kai premiered on Nicktoons in May 2010 and set the record for the highest-rated premiere in total viewers, and in tweens and boys ages 9–14. The show would go on to be the highest rated show on Nicktoons which averaged 549,000 total viewers.

Other
Nielsen Mega Manila viewer ratings ranked Dragon Ball Kai with a viewer ratings with a high of 18.4% for October 30-November 4 in 2012. At the end of April 2013, Dragon Ball Kai would trail just behind One Piece at 14.2%.

OVAs
Four specials have been released as OVAs or TV specials bearing the Dragon Ball Z title. The first is Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, which originally released September 6, 1993 in two parts as the "Official Visual Guide" to the video game of the same title. Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans was the 2010 remake of this OVA. TV specials include Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku and Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks.

Movies
The Dragon Ball Z movies comprise a total of fourteen entries as of 2013. The movies typically release in March and July in accordance with the spring and summer vacations of Japanese schools. The Dragon Ball Z movies consist of stories that take place between sagas as stand alone entries. The movies themselves offer contradictions in both chronology and design that make them incompatible with a single continuity. Examples include Gohan having a tail when he should not, or characters able to undergo Super Saiyan transformations when they were unable to in the continuity of the series.

Video games
There are over 57 video game releases bearing the name Dragon Ball Z across a range of platforms from the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom to the current generation consoles; also included are Arcade games like Super Dragon Ball Z which would eventually be ported to consoles.

In North America, licensing rights had been given to both Namco Bandai and Atari. In 1999, Atari acquired exclusive rights to the video games through Funimation, a deal which was extended for five more years in 2005. A 2007 dispute would end with Atari paying Funimation $3.5 million. In July 2009, Namco Bandai was reported to have obtained exclusive rights to release the games for a period of five years. This presumably would have taken effect after Atari's licensing rights expired at the end of January 2010.

Soundtracks
Dragon Ball Z has been host to numerous soundtrack releases with works like "Cha-La Head-Cha-La" and a series of 20 soundtracks released as part of the Dragon Ball Z Hit Song Collection Series. In total, dozens of releases exist for Dragon Ball Z which includes Japanese and foreign adapted releases of the anime themes and video game soundtracks.

North America
Dragon Ball Z merchandise was a success prior to its peak American interest, with more then $3 billion in sales from 1986-2000. Though the merchandising of Dragon Ball Z would be a hit even into the holiday season.

In 1998, Animage-ine Entertainment, a division of Simitar, announced the sale of Chroma-Cels, mock animation cels to capitalize on the popularity of Dragon Ball Z. The original sale was forecasted for late 1998, but were pushed back to January 12, 1999.

In 2000, MGA Entertainment released more then twenty toys, consisting of table-top games and walkie-talkies. Irwin Toy released more then 72 figures consisting of 2-inch and 5 inch action figures, which became top-selling toys in a market dominated by the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Irwin Toys would release other unique Dragon Ball Z toys including a battery powered Flying Nimbus Cloud which hovered without touching the ground and a die-cast line of vehicles with collector capsules. In June, Burger King had a toy promotion which would see 20 million figurines; Burger King bore the cost of the promotion which provided free marketing for Funimation. The Halloween Association found Dragon Ball Z costumes to be the fourth most popular costumes in their nationwide survey.

In December 2002, Jakks Pacific signed a three-year deal for licensing Dragon Ball Z toys, which was possible because of the bankruptcy of Irwin Toy. JAKKS Pacific's Dragon Ball Z 5-inch figures were cited as impressive for their painting and articulation.

Central and South America
In 2010, Toei closed deals in Central and South American countries which included Algazarra, Richtex, Pil Andina, DTM, Doobalo and Bondy Fiesta. In 2012, Brazil's Abr-Art Bag Rio Comercio Importacao e Exportacao closed a deal with Toei.

Cultural Impact and Legacy
In Japan's a survey done by asked about influence of anime on adults; Dragon Ball was cited as influential to 28.8% of men surveyed about its influence on them as children of the 1980's.

Dragon Ball Z was listed as the 78th best animated show in IGN's Top 100 Animated Series, and was also listed as the 50th greatest cartoon in Wizard magazine's "Top 100 Greatest Cartoons" list.

Dragon Ball Z's popularity is reflected through a variety of data through online interactions which show the popularity of the media. In 2001, Children's Business reported that the official website of Dragon Ball Z records 4.7 million hits per day and included 500,000+ registered fans. The term "Dragonball Z", ranked 4th in 1999 and 2nd in 2000 by Lycos' web search engine. For 2001, "Dragonball" was the most popular search on Lycos and "Dragonball Z" was fifth on Yahoo.

Meme
Dragon Ball Z is host to a meme of Vegeta yelling, "It's over 9000!" before smashing a scouter. The original material stems from Dragon Ball Z's 21st episode and was altered and uploaded by a Youtube user named Kajetokun. Created for friends on the 4chan website, its popularity took off when VG Cats linked it on the front page of their website. While the psychology and reasoning behind this meme is tied to the back-story of the characters, the line itself was slightly mistranslated in both the original Ocean Group and Funimation English dubs. The correctly translated line was "It's over 8000." The specific clip used in Kajetokun's video features Ocean Group's Brian Drummond, who voiced the Vegeta line in an exaggerated way. Funimation would use the meme in its advertisements and released two versions of the scene for its 2010 re-release under Dragon Ball Z Kai. The series uses the widely known incorrect "9000" translation for the TV release, while the DVD release reflects the correct translation. Funimation reasoned that the DVD buyers would prefer the accuracy over the meme itself.