"Dragon Ball is a Japanese manga by Akira Toriyama serialized in the weekly anthology magazine Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995".
Wikipedia entry.
I have to confess one thing here. I used to like the series until it becomes too powerful for my taste. I always remember fondly of adventures of young version of Goku, as he romps around the world with his wild antics and martial arts ability. I was having a good laugh as I flip thru the Chinese translation of the manga.
However when comes to middle part later on as he grew up, this is where my interest wanes. I mean, how many times you can see a fight that can destroy Earth, mountain, galaxy or hell, fighting in heaven after death you can take?
Mainstream public always wanted a fighting story with unlimited destruction but I am in the minority camp where I like to read about comedy of growing up, like for example the story of young Goku.
But like it or not, this franchise is still strong, with almost 22 years worth of run in popular media in most countries which were exposed to anime. In commercial sense, it is a resounding success but as story itself, I am not too sure what to say about it. I can count many of peers who grew up on Dragon Ball and still talks about it in excitement. 20 years from now, this process will be repeated again with old time Naruto fans. History repeats itself, automatically.
