What Is Dragon Ball? The Akira Toriyama Classic That Shaped Global Anime, Explained by Marine

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More than four decades after its 1984 debut, Dragon Ball remains one of the most globally recognized manga and anime franchises ever made — and for many fans, it was the very first one.

From Weekly Jump to Global Phenomenon

Akira Toriyama began serializing Dragon Ball in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1984, following Son Goku from a martial-arts adventure story into an escalating series of battles against increasingly powerful foes. The manga ran until 1995, spawning a TV anime (1986-1989), the sequel series Dragon Ball Z (1989-1996), and later Dragon Ball Super (2015-2018 manga/anime, ongoing manga). Toriyama passed away in March 2024, but he had already completed key material — including character designs — for projects that continued into 2025 and 2026, such as the anime Dragon Ball Daima (October 2024-February 2025).

The Franchise in 2026

Dragon Ball remains active well beyond Toriyama's passing. At the Dragon Ball Genkidamatsuri event in January 2026, the franchise announced a remastered edition of Dragon Ball Super titled "Dragon Ball Super: Beerus," scheduled for fall 2026, alongside a new anime adapting the manga's Galactic Patrol Prisoner arc. A new game, Project AGE 1000, based on a character concept Toriyama created before his death, is planned for 2027.

What To Know

For a huge share of anime fans outside Japan, Dragon Ball (often via Dragon Ball Z) was literally the first anime they ever watched — it functions less as "one series among many" and more as the shared foundational reference point across generations of the global fandom, which is why its terminology (power levels, transformations, training arcs) shows up as shorthand across completely unrelated anime discussions.

Dragon Ball's original serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump follows the same reader-ranking, popularity-poll-driven system that shapes nearly every major Shonen Jump franchise since — understanding that Jump's survey cards (where readers vote for their favorite ongoing series each week) directly influenced story pacing gives useful context for why so many long-running Jump manga share similar structural rhythms.

What Fans Are Saying

• "Dragon Ball was my first anime ever, still holds up decades later."
• "Wild that Toriyama had prepared enough material for the franchise to keep going after he passed."
• "Excited but curious what a 'remastered' Dragon Ball Super actually changes."

Original Japanese

• 「ドラゴンボールが初めて見たアニメだった人、本当に多いですよね」
• 「鳥山先生が用意していた構想が今も形になっているのはすごい」
• 「リマスター版で何が変わるのか気になります」

Easy Japanese

「ドラゴンボール」は、鳥山明さんが作った有名なマンガ・アニメです。1984年に始まり、今も世界中で人気があります。