is a Japanese anime series produced in the late 1980s by Toei Doga , being an adaptation of the first sixteen volumes of the ''Dragon Ball'' manga created by Akira Toriyama and published in Japan in the Weekly Shￅﾍnen Jump manga anthology comic. Volumes 17-42 of the manga were adapted as Dragon Ball Z in the United States. The anime is composed of 153 half-hour episodes and ran in Japan from February 26, 1986, to April 12, 1989. The series follows the early adventures of Son Goku as he and his friends search the world for the seven magic Dragon Balls. The series is known as... being a much less serious anime than its successor, Dragon Ball Z, though later sagas blur the lines a bit. Two early attempts at releasing Dragon Ball to American audiences failed. The first attempt was in the late 1980s by Harmony Gold. It featured strange name changes for nearly all the characters, such as changing Son Goku to "Zero" and Karin to "Whiskers the Wonder Cat". It is not well-known, and has been referred to as "The Lost Dub" by fans. The second and more well known was in 1995, when FUNimation first attempted to launch the ''Dragon Ball'' franchise in the United States.
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| On the air: | February 26, 1986 |