User:Jayla987/List of Dragon Ball characters

Lead
While Many of the characters in the Dragon Ball series are humans with superhuman strength and/or supernatural abilities. The cast also includes anthropomorphic animals, extraterrestrial lifeforms, and even deities who govern the world and the universe. The series also includes depictions of the afterlife and time travel as a means of creating historical divergences. The Dragon Ball Super series in particular expanded the setting of the series to include parallel universes; Universe 7, or the Seventh Universe in the English dub, is designated as the universe where the vast majority of the Dragon Ball series takes place.

During the course of the story, Goku encounters allies such as Bulma, Master Roshi, and Trunks, '''. Goku also encounters rivals''' such as Tien Shinhan, Piccolo, and Vegeta, and villains such as Frieza, Cell, and Majin Buu. Goku's group of associates, known as the, bolster its ranks throughout the series with the addition of former enemies and new heroes. The group is also known in Japanese as the or TEAM "Z" in other media, and in the English dub of Dragon Ball Z as the Earth's Special Forces.

Article body
Akira Toriyama initially based most of the characters on those of the Chinese novel Journey to the West: Goku being Sun Wukong, Bulma as Tang Sanzang, Oolong as Zhu Bajie and Yamcha being Sha Wujing. He also incorporated ideas from one of his earlier one-shot manga series, Dragon Boy. Toriyama explained that the reason there are many anthropomorphic characters is that he found it easier to visually differentiate them compared to human characters. For the female characters, Toriyama created women he deemed "beautiful and sexy", but also "strong". He claimed that he has trouble drawing females and this is the reason there are relatively few women characters in the Dragon Ball series. to advance the story quickly, he introduced Goku's signature flying nimbus cloud, later gave most fighting characters the ability to fly, and eventually granted Goku teleportation.

Many of Dragon Ball's characters have names that are puns, and which match those of characters related to them. For example, Bulma and her family are named after undergarments, Saiyans are named after vegetables, and because Frieza is a pun on freezer, the Ginyu Force are named after products that one keeps in a refrigerator. A study on sound symbolism and its effect on character names conducted by researchers at Tsuda University, Tokyo discover that out of a sample size of 118 villainous characters from Dragon Ball, the consonants /g/ and /b/ were frequently used in their names and that there was a strong tendency to link “bad & male” characters with /ɡ/, which supports the notion that "a sound-meaning association can be attested in at least some phonemes" in the Japanese language. Toriyama explained that he does not like giving names to techniques and special abilities, but did so at his editor's suggestion. His wife was the one who named the series' signature, but he named all the others, even selecting them specifically for each character; saying someone like Vegeta would use names in English, and using kanji for the more sophisticated Piccolo.

The manga's anime and film adaptations feature some original characters not created by Toriyama but by Toei Animation staff: Dragon Ball GT and the vast majority of the film adaptations and OVA's exist in their own unique continuities which branch off from the anime television series at various points, hence original characters introduced in the films are usually unknown to the characters in either or both of the official anime and manga series continuities. Toriyama personally designed certain characters which made their debut appearances in animated films, such as Slug, Cooler, Android 13, Broly, Bojack, and Tapion.

Kami
is the creator of the Earth's Dragon Balls, and served as its guardian deity until the second half of the Dragon Ball Z series. The word "kami" is a generic term used by various characters throughout the series when referring to gods and deities in the original Japanese dialogue; this character is simply referred to as Kami (神様), and his actual name is never revealed. Kami and King Piccolo were once the same being'''. It is later revealed that Kami is a Namekian, who expelled King Piccolo, the evil side inside him in''' order to assume the mantle of Earth's guardian deity. The evil incarnation, King Piccolo, later went on to terrorize the Earth. Master Roshi's master, Mutaito later sealed away King Piccolo to stop him from terrorizing the Earth. Since Kami and King Piccolo are one, if either one of them dies, then the other will died as well and the Dragon Balls will cease to exist. Right before King Piccolo dies at the hands of Goku, he spawns a much stronger incarnation, Piccolo, who takes over King Piccolo's traits and retains his memories. Kami later attempts to attempt to seal away the new Piccolo himself by using the same technique that Mutaito '''used. Kami''' and enters the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, possessing a human named as a guise. But Piccolo has learned to reverse the technique that Mutaito used on King Piccolo before, and traps Kami in a water jug instead and swallows it'''. Kami is later released from the water jug''' thanks to Goku. During the fight against the Saiyans, Kami dies when Piccolo is killed by Nappa, but through the power of the Namekian Dragon Balls they both are wished back to life. During the Android Saga, Kami agrees to fuse with Piccolo, with Piccolo absorbing his energy, strength, memories, intelligence and thought pattern. A young Namekian named Dende later succeeds him as the new Kami. He is voiced by Takeshi Aono in Japanese, who would do so up until the Frieza arc in Dragon Ball Kai. After Aono suffered a stroke, Bin Shimada voiced the character for his final appearance during the Cell saga. In English he is voiced by Michael Dobson and Dale Wilson in the Ocean dub, and Christopher Sabat in the Funimation dub.