Dragon Ball Z (Anime)

Weird, crazy, and something to do with tentacles are typical answers people gave in the U.S. when the topic of anime is brought up in the early 1990’s. However, all these stereotypes changed for anime in the mid 1990’s when Dragonball Z was released in the U.S. Between the ten episode power-ups and transformations that seems ridiculous, Dragonball Z paved the way for generations of anime in the U.S. Dragonball Z, created by Akira Toriyama, is the sequel to the famous series Dragonball that was ultra popular in Japan during its manga run from 1984-1995. Due to unsuccessful marketing and failed promotions, Dragonball wasn’t very accepted in the U.S. in its run in 1995. The same was to say for Dragonball Z when it was first aired on first-run syndication in the U.S. in 1996 where the show got similar results as it predecessor. Due to the poor results Dragonball Z received in partnership with Saban Entertainment, Funimation dissolved its partnership with Saban and the decision was made for the company to go solo with Dragonball Z’s production. On August 31, 1998, Dragonball Z launched on Cartoon Network’s action-oriented programming block, Toonami, where the series blew up in terms of popularity. With the seemly over-night success of Dragonball Z, Funimation launched its full-scale production, making Dragonball Z one of the few anime series to be completely dubbed into English to this date. Along with the success of Dragonball Z, action figures, costumes(cosplay), video games, and speciality merchandise took form and profited greatly.

The premise of Dragonball Z is almost exactly the same as Dragonball, except that all the characters have grown up and matured. The story of Dragonball Z, is based on a mythical Japanese tale that within the world, there consists of seven dragonballs, and if anyone collected all seven of them to one place, they were granted one wish. Afterwards the dragonballs would scatter the globe once again and the process would continue on and on. While holding this myth as the background premise, the series actually focuses on a young sayian, named Goku who came from another planet and has supernatural powers with amnesia.

On a grander scale, major animation production companies overseas in Japan realized and seized this opportunity, which began global licensing of anime, turning Japanese animation from a domestic consumer entertainment to international entertainment. One of the most striking examples of this was when Production IG, animation company, signed with Cartoon Network in 1999 in releasing licensing rights to many of their popular works such as Ghost in the Shell.