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Series register DBZ
Dragon Ball Z
Earth finds out it is just one target among many.
Fact sheet
Main continuity291 episodes13 films
1989–1996
Broadcast
DBZ
Synopsis
Five years after the last tournament, Goku is a father and thinks he is done fighting. A warrior lands, calls him by another name, and tells him he belongs to a race of conquerors hired to empty planets of their inhabitants.
From there the scale changes. The story leaves Earth for Namek, then for timelines that were never meant to touch, and each arc resets the ceiling on power: Vegeta, Frieza, the Red Ribbon cyborgs, Cell, Majin Buu. Death becomes a reversible state, but never a free one.
Dragon Ball Z is also the work that installed the franchise’s visual grammar: the energy charge, the hair turning pale, the ground tearing upward. It is the longest series in the set, and the one that carried Dragon Ball out of Japan.
Main cast
Main cast
Japanese voice, plus the French voice where it is documented.
- Son Goku
Saiyan raised on Earth
- Japanese voice
- Masako Nozawa
- French voice
- Patrick Borg
- Vegeta
Prince of the Saiyans
- Japanese voice
- Ryô Horikawa
- French voice
- Éric Legrand
- Son Gohan
Goku’s eldest son
- Japanese voice
- Masako Nozawa
- French voice
- Brigitte Lecordier
- Piccolo
Former enemy turned mentor
- Japanese voice
- Toshio Furukawa
- French voice
- Pierre Trabaud
- Krillin
Strongest human fighter
- Japanese voice
- Mayumi Tanaka
- Bulma
Capsule Corporation engineer
- Japanese voice
- Hiromi Tsuru
- French voice
- Céline Monsarrat
- Raditz
Goku’s brother, first envoy
- Japanese voice
- Shigeru Chiba
- Nappa
Saiyan general
- Japanese voice
- Shôzô Iizuka
- Frieza
Employer of the Saiyans
- Japanese voice
- Ryûsei Nakao
Story files
Sagas in this series
01DBZSaiyan saga
1989–1990Episodes 1–35Details
Vegeta saga
Goku learns where he comes from at the same moment he learns someone is coming for him. Thirty-five episodes that push Dragon Ball from an Earth-bound martial arts story into a tale of space conquest, and cost the group half its fighters.
3 arcsVerified
02DBZNamek and Frieza saga
1990–1991Episodes 36–107Details
Departure for Namek, home world of the balls and of Piccolo, where three camps want the same thing. The saga installs Frieza as the franchise’s yardstick and ends on its most quoted transformation.
Verified
03DBZGarlic Jr. saga
1991Episodes 108–117Details
An anime-only interlude with no manga equivalent: a film antagonist returns to Earth while Goku is still away.
Verified
04DBZAndroids and Trunks saga
1991–1992Episodes 118–165Details
A teenager from a ruined future arrives with a date and two names. The saga turns the Red Ribbon Army into a long-term threat and introduces time travel as a narrative problem rather than a fix.
Verified
05DBZCell saga
1992–1993Episodes 166–194Details
An organism built from the cells of the best fighters stages its own tournament. This is the saga that shifts the hero’s burden onto Gohan and closes the alternate-future arc.
Verified
06DBZOther World tournament saga
1993–1994Episodes 195–199Details
A short anime-only interlude: Goku, still dead, enters a tournament for the deceased while Earth lives through seven years of peace.
Needs checking
07DBZMajin Buu saga
1994–1996Episodes 200–291Details
The last and longest saga of the Z era: a reunion tournament derails into the awakening of a weapon sealed for millions of years. It introduces fusions, the hierarchy of the Supreme Kais, and ends on the wish that closes the manga.
Verified
Arcs
Raditz arrivesEpisodes 1–6
A Saiyan warrior lands, reveals Goku’s real name and abducts Gohan. Settling it takes an alliance with Piccolo and a price nobody had considered.
Snake WayEpisodes 7–20
Two trainings run in parallel: Goku runs a million kilometres toward the North Kai, while Gohan survives alone in the wild under Piccolo’s distant watch.
Vegeta and Nappa on EarthEpisodes 21–35
The countdown hits zero. The Z Fighters hold the line until Goku climbs back, and the bill is heavy before the main duel even starts.
Broadcast log