Dragon Ball debuted on November 20, 1984, in the pages of Weekly Shōnen Jump, created by Akira Toriyama. Over forty years it went from a comic adventure loosely based on a Chinese classic to the blueprint for every battle manga that followed. It spawned five TV series and twenty-one animated films, survived a television hiatus of nearly two decades, and came back stronger than ever. This is its story, in order, with the dates that matter.
Origins: life after Dr. Slump
By the early 1980s Toriyama was already a hit thanks to Dr. Slump, but he wanted to end it. Shueisha would only agree if he started a new series soon after. His editor Kazuhiko Torishima, the man who had discovered him, suggested he draw on one of his great passions: kung fu movies. Toriyama loved Hong Kong martial arts cinema, from Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon to Jackie Chan's Drunken Master, and he later said Dragon Ball would never have existed without the latter.
The first experiment was Dragon Boy, a two-part story published in Fresh Jump in 1983 about a young martial artist escorting a princess home. Readers liked it, and it became the seed of the new series. For the plot, Toriyama borrowed the framework of the Chinese novel Journey to the West: Goku is the Monkey King Sun Wukong (Son Gokū in Japanese), Bulma stands in for the monk Tang Sanzang, Oolong for the pig Zhu Bajie. Torishima explained that he picked the novel partly because it was in the public domain, and partly because a Chinese setting would set the new manga apart from the American West Coast feel of Dr. Slump. Instead of Buddhist scriptures, the heroes hunt for seven orbs that summon a wish-granting dragon.
1984: the Weekly Shōnen Jump debut
The early chapters were not an instant hit. Toriyama was enjoying the road-trip adventure, the changing settings and the gags, while Torishima kept pushing for better popularity. The turning point was the first World Martial Arts Tournament: readers loved the fights, and after a couple of attempts to return to pure adventure (the Red Ribbon Army, a visit to the village from Dr. Slump), fighting became the heart of the series. Even the decision to let Goku grow up, made because it made fight scenes easier to draw, met resistance from his editor at first, since it was rare for a manga hero to change that drastically.
The results went beyond anyone's expectations. Dragon Ball helped push Jump to its all-time record of 6.53 million copies a week, and the collected volumes have sold more than 260 million copies worldwide. Torishima remained Toriyama's editor for the first half of the run.
The Toei anime
On February 26, 1986, Fuji TV aired the first episode of Toei Animation's adaptation: Dragon Ball ran for 153 episodes until April 19, 1989. One week later, on April 26, 1989, Dragon Ball Z began, adapting the rest of the manga across 291 episodes until January 31, 1996. Because the show risked catching up with the comic, Toei padded it with filler and original stories. Over the same years came films for Toei's spring and summer festivals: three for Dragon Ball and thirteen for Z, plus two TV specials.
1995: the manga ends
The final chapter was published on May 23, 1995. Toriyama, worn out by more than a decade of weekly deadlines, needed a break. The manga closed at 519 chapters collected in 42 volumes, with Goku heading off toward new adventures. Our page on the Dragon Ball manga covers it in depth.
GT, Kai and the comeback
Toei kept going: from February 7, 1996, to November 19, 1997, it aired Dragon Ball GT, 64 episodes with an original story by the studio, to which Toriyama contributed little more than the title and some designs. After that the franchise slipped into a long television slumber, kept alive by video games and merchandise.
The revival began in 2009 with Dragon Ball Kai, an HD recut of Z for its twentieth anniversary. The real turning point came on March 30, 2013, with Battle of Gods, the first film Toriyama was so deeply involved in, right from the screenwriting stage. It introduced Beerus and Whis and became the first Japanese film ever screened in IMAX theaters. Resurrection 'F' followed in 2015, bringing back Frieza. That same year the Dragon Ball Super manga started in V Jump, drawn by Toyotarou from Toriyama's plot, and the anime premiered on July 5, 2015, running until March 25, 2018, for 131 episodes. Then came Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018), the highest-grossing Dragon Ball film ever, and Super Hero (2022), released on June 11 after a delay caused by a cyberattack on Toei.
2024: the passing of Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama died on March 1, 2024, aged 68, from an acute subdural hematoma. His Bird Studio announced the news on March 8, after a private funeral attended only by family, and tributes poured in from around the world. A few weeks later the Super manga went on indefinite hiatus: a special chapter about Trunks and Goten appeared in February 2025, but regular serialization has not resumed. His life and work are covered on our Akira Toriyama page.
Daima and the 40th anniversary
On October 6, 2024, the Dragon Ball Daimatsuri event at Tokyo Big Sight celebrated the manga's fortieth anniversary with the premiere of Dragon Ball Daima. The series aired from October 11, 2024, to February 28, 2025, for 20 episodes, and it is the last story written in full by Toriyama, with new characters he designed. The celebrations continued: on February 4, 2026, Shueisha released a box set of all 42 volumes with covers by 42 manga artists, originally created for the "Dragon Ball Super Gallery" feature in Saikyō Jump. In January 2026, the year of the anime's fortieth anniversary, Toei announced two projects: Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, an enhanced edition of Super that premiered in Japan on October 11, 2026, and Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol, which will animate the manga's Moro arc.
Did you know? Toriyama disliked naming techniques, but at Torishima's urging he came up with nearly all of them himself. The exception is the most famous one: the name Kamehameha was chosen by his wife while he was still undecided.
Dragon Ball timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1983 | Dragon Boy in Fresh Jump, the prototype |
| November 20, 1984 | Dragon Ball debuts in Weekly Shōnen Jump |
| February 26, 1986 | First anime episode airs on Fuji TV |
| April 26, 1989 | Dragon Ball Z begins |
| May 23, 1995 | Final manga chapter (519 chapters, 42 volumes) |
| January 31, 1996 | Final episode of Z |
| 1996–1997 | Dragon Ball GT, 64 episodes |
| April 5, 2009 | Dragon Ball Kai premieres |
| March 30, 2013 | Battle of Gods opens |
| April 2015 | Resurrection 'F' opens |
| June 20, 2015 | The Dragon Ball Super manga starts in V Jump |
| July 5, 2015 – March 25, 2018 | Dragon Ball Super anime, 131 episodes |
| December 14, 2018 | Dragon Ball Super: Broly opens |
| June 11, 2022 | Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero opens |
| March 1, 2024 | Akira Toriyama dies (announced March 8) |
| October 11, 2024 – February 28, 2025 | Dragon Ball Daima, 20 episodes |
| February 4, 2026 | 42-volume box set for the 40th anniversary |
| October 11, 2026 | Dragon Ball Super: Beerus premieres |
Why this history matters
Few comics have reshaped their genre the way Dragon Ball did. Training arcs, tournaments, rivals who become friends, ever-stronger enemies: it is a formula that creators such as Eiichirō Oda and Masashi Kishimoto have named among their influences. Most remarkable of all is its staying power: a series that ended in 1995 is still producing new stories, and still finding new audiences, three decades later.