RELATED: Every Dragon Ball Hero's Most Iconic Moment Toei's original animated canon for Dragon Ball consisted of the first Dragon Ball adaptation, Dragon Ball Z, and finally Dragon Ball GT. It's worth noting that while GT is not canon to the main series, it is canon to the original anime's continuity. Completely rooted in new material, GT would be an anime-only follow-up to Dragon Ball Z's Buu arc. In spite of the series' waning popularity following the end of the manga, Toei went ahead with one last sequel series: Dragon Ball GT. Although only covering five major storylines and one filler arc, Dragon Ball Z can be divided into dozens of shorter sagas, and it went on to be the longest-running Dragon Ball anime. Dragon Ball Z made a statement early on that it was larger than life. This is a near-perfect adaptation that reaches movie-quality animation during the fight between Goku and Vegeta. For as messy as Dragon Ball Z gets, there's a reason DBZ is overwhelmingly popular.īeyond the occasionally excellent adaptations of Toriyama's fight choreography (and the outstanding performances from the Japanese cast), Dragon Ball Z opens with Toei's best effort as far as Dragon Ball goes: the Saiyan arc. The opportunity to rebrand helped pump lifeblood into the anime's staff, budget, and popularity.

The first episode aired one week after its predecessor's last, and DBZ's introductory episode was even scripted as a Dragon Ball episode rather than Dragon Ball Z Episode 1. In many respects, Dragon Ball Z is just a continuation of Dragon Ball.

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