The series Dragonball was the brilliant creation of artist Akira Toriyama. After spawning the instant hit "Dr.Slump", Toriyama began to think about other plans for a new manga-series. He began with an idea, "Dragon Boy" a short, mini-series comic that appeared in a weekly Japanese-manga magazine-which inspired him to release dragonball later on. Based on the ancient Chinese fable "Pilgrimage to the West" -or "Journey to the West"-(a tale involving the Monkey King (Son-Wu-kong) and his adventures with his companions Piggy(Zhu-ba-jie), Tripitika(Hsuang-shen) and Sandy(another disciple), DragonBall was finally released---telling a tale of a young boy with a monkey tail named Son Goku (Son-Wu-kong in Chinese) and his adventures with the goal of obtaining the legendary DragonBalls. Story has it that he was found by a caring old man named Gohan, after landing in a capsule from who knows where(the story in DBZ revelas his true origins).
Along the way, young Goku meets up with some life-long friends which help him find these valuable relics--such as Bulma ("Bloomers" in Japanese) a spunky young girl devoted to finding them, armed with hi-tech equipment. WuLong( a sort of tea), a perverted pig that has the ability to shape-shift, Yamcha-a desert rebel fighter with an attitude and a friendly magical-cat companion(Kaos), KAME-senin--the wise old teacher of Goku and other fighters, with a perfected martial art known as "Kame-senin style"-(described later on), which he passes on to all his students, and finally, Kuilin-a monk who befriends Goku at an early age where they become good friends for the whole series,(but in the beginning they are quite competitive). The "Pilaf Series" is the first installation of Dragonball, followed by "Red Ribbon series" and then the "Piccolo series".
The series goes on until Goku grows into a young man, where he has plenty of experience in the famous "Tenkaichi-Budokai" tournaments. There is where the turning point of the series occurs, and he faces Piccolo--an awesome enemy that Goku ends up in a large battle with--and barely beats him. Piccolo supposedly splits into a good and bad form, and the good form prevails to remain on the earth for quite some while. DragonBall Z begins shortly after as a TV Show, but the manga series continues from there still under the title of "DragonBall"
DragonBall Z was not your regular TV Show and manga series, instead it involved an intertesting plot that consisits of a storyline where our heroes would fight a major enemy which would take up a number of episodes.
