''Dragon Ball Z'' (originally published in Japan as ''Dragon Ball'' chapters 195–519) is the English title for the last two thirds of the '' Dragon Ball''

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...

, which was written and illustrated by

Akira Toriyama is a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for his highly successful manga series '' Dr. Slump'', before going on to create '' Dragon Ball'' (his best-known work) and acting as a character des ...

. The story follows Son Goku as he discovers that he comes from the extraterrestrial Saiyan warrior race and faces powerful enemies who threaten the inhabitants of earth and the wider universe. The original series was issued in the magazine ''

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the '' Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that r ...

''. The individual chapters were collected by

Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The foll ...

in a series of 42 ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or m ...

'' volumes; The first ''tankōbon'' was released on September 10, 1985, while the last one was released on August 4, 1995. In 2002, the manga was re-released in a collection of 34 '' kanzenban'', which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' run. There have also been two

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

adaptations, both produced by

Toei Animation () is a Japanese animation studio primarily controlled by its namesake Toei Company. It has produced numerous series, including '' Sally the Witch,'' '' GeGeGe no Kitarō,'' '' Mazinger Z'', '' Galaxy Express 999'', '' Cutie Honey'', '' Dr. Sl ...

. The first, also named '' Dragon Ball'', adapted the first sixteen volumes of the Japanese manga and the second, ''

Dragon Ball Z ''Dragon Ball Z'' is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation. Part of the ''Dragon Ball'' media franchise, it is the sequel to the 1986 '' Dragon Ball'' anime series and adapts the latter 325 chapters of the original ...

'', adapted the remaining twenty-six volumes. The distribution company

Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...

has released all 42 volumes in English in the United States, with volumes seventeen through forty-two renamed "''Dragon Ball Z''" volumes one through twenty-six. Both "series" were published since March 1998 (with a re-release of the first ten volumes in 2003); the last volume of the second part was released on June 6, 2006. The first 134 chapters of "''Dragon Ball Z''" were also released across individual comic books, chapters 135-226 made their North American debuts in '' Shonen Jump'' magazine, while chapters 227-325 were released exclusively in the graphic novel format. In June 2008, Viz began re-releasing both "series" in a '' wideban'' format called "Viz Big Edition", which is a collection of three volumes in one. A "Collector's Edition" of volume one including a hardcover was released on November 4, 2008. In February 2013, Viz began serializing a fully colored version of the manga in their digital anthology ''

Weekly Shonen Jump Weekly, The Weekly, or variations, may refer to: News media * ''Weekly'' (news magazine), an English-language national news magazine published in Mauritius *Weekly newspaper, any newspaper published on a weekly schedule *Alternative newspaper, als ...

Volume list

Notes

References