Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball Z
ドラゴンボールＺ (Doragon Bōru Zetto)
Genre	Adventure[1] Fantasy[1] Martial arts[2]
Anime television series
Directed by	Daisuke Nishio (#1–199) Shigeyasu Yamauchi (#200–291)
Produced by	Kenji Shimizu (#1–199) Kōji Kaneda (#108–291)
Written by	Takao Koyama
Music by	Shunsuke Kikuchi
Studio	Toei Animation
Licensed by	AUS Madman Entertainment NA Funimation UK Funimation UK
Original network	Fuji TV
English network	AUS Cartoon Network CA YTV US First-run syndication, International Channel, Cartoon Network (Toonami)
Original run	April 26, 1989 – January 31, 1996
Episodes	291 (List of episodes)

Dragon Ball Z (Japanese: ドラゴンボールZ, Hepburn: Doragon Bōru Zetto, commonly abbreviated as DBZ) is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation. It is the sequel to Dragon Ball and adapts the latter 325 chapters of the original 519-chapter Dragon Ball manga series created by Akira Toriyama which ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995. Dragon Ball Z aired in Japan on Fuji TV from April 1989 to January 1996, before getting subtitled or dubbed in territories including the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, Asia, India and Latin America. It was broadcast in at least 81 countries worldwide. It is part of the Dragon Ball media franchise.

Dragon Ball Z continues the adventures of Son Goku, who, along with his companions, defends the Earth against villains ranging from aliens (Vegeta, Frieza), androids (Cell) and magical creatures (Majin Buu). While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Goku from childhood to early adulthood, Dragon Ball Z is a continuation of his adult life, but at the same time parallels the life of his son, Gohan, as well as the development of his rivals, Piccolo and Vegeta.

Due to the success of the anime in the United States, the manga chapters making up its story were initially released by Viz Media under the Dragon Ball Z title.

Dragon Ball Z is adapted from the final 324 chapters of the manga series which were published in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1988 to 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.

Throughout the production, the voice actors were tasked with playing different characters and performing their lines on cue, switching between roles as necessary.

The voice actors were unable to record the lines separately because of the close dialogue timing. When asked if juggling the different voices of Goku, Gohan and Goten were difficult, Masako Nozawa said that it was not and that she was able to switch roles simply upon seeing the character's picture. She did admit that when they were producing two films a year and television specials in addition to the regular series, there were times when they had only line art to look at while recording, which made giving finer nuanced details in her performance difficult.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "Dragon Ball Z". Funimation. Archived from the original on August 13, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
2. ↑ "Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 1". Viz Media. Retrieved August 12, 2019.