Dragon Ball: history and main characters

Dragon Ball: discover the history and main characters of Goku's childhood

Welcome to the world of Dragon Ball! In this anime series, we follow the adventures of Goku, a young martial artist who possesses supernatural strength and a brave heart.

In this text, we invite you to discover the history and main characters of Goku's childhood in Dragon Ball. You will get to know (or remember again) some of Goku's allies and enemies on his journey, as well as some curious facts and highlights of the series.

If you are a Dragon Ball fan, or if you are simply interested in learning more about this legendary anime series, don't miss this opportunity to explore Goku's universe as a child!

Important data

Back in 1986, Toei Animation was the brave studio to adapt the manga Dragon Ball into anime, which was created by the legendary Akira Toriyama. In fact, this was not his first work to be animated, first aired the original Dr. Slump series, starring the girl Aralé.

The animation of the adventures of little Goku also had the collaboration of other studios such as Shūeisha, Astroimpact, Inc, Studio Live and Bird Studio. The anime series was also directed by Daisuke Nishio and Minoru Okazaki.

Toriyama himself participated in the production by assisting in the design and lighting of the characters. It first aired on Fuji Television from February 26, 1986 to April 19, 1989.

At the time, it had 153 episodes in total, which recounted the adventures Goku had during his childhood.

Distribution

As for the voice cast, Toriyama participated in the selection of the voice actors for the Japanese version of the main characters. The voice cast, both in Japanese and Latin Spanish, was composed of:

- Masako Nozawa and Laura Torres as Goku.

- Hiromi Tsuru and Rocio Garcel as Bulma.

- Kōhei Miyauchi and Jesús Colín as Kame Sennin (Master Roshi).

- Mayumi Tanaka and Rossy Aguirre as Krilin.

- Tohru Furuya, Jesús Barrero and Ricardo Mendoza as Yamcha.

- Hirotaka Suzuoki and Ismael Larumbe as Ten Shin Han.

- Toshio Furukawa and Carlos Segundo as Piccoro Daimaku.

Soundtrack

The music was provided by Shunsuke Kikuchi, the unforgettable opening that in Japanese is titled "The music of the day".Makafushigi Adventure!" is sung by Hiroki Takashi. For Latin America it is called "La Fantástica Aventura" and is sung by Luis De Lille.

As for the nostalgic ending, it is called "Romantic Ageru Yo" sung in Japanese by Ushio Hashimoto, while in Latin America it is known as "Romance te puedo dar" and is sung by Marisa de Lille.

The production team had previously worked with Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama on the Dr. Slump series.

Censorship in some countries

To the surprise of many, this animated series had many parts that were censored even though it was clearly intended for children. In fact, in order to adapt the animation to western audiences, some scenes had to be removed because they showed violence, blood and even sexual content (as you can imagine, some scenes involved Master Roshi XD).

In order not to cut scenes, they even changed some of the dialogues so that it would go unnoticed and could be broadcasted on television during children's time.

Of course this generated a lot of annoyance among Toriyama's fans, since some censorship was not necessary and it was all due to American stereotypes. By 2003, thanks to Pony Canyon, the DVD of this anime was released for the first time and included the original content without any type of censorship.

Synopsis

In his childhood, Goku lives alone in the mountains and trains in martial arts with his adoptive grandfather, the elderly Gohan. Suddenly, due to "mysterious" events, the grandfather passes away.

Our little protagonist takes care of himself by hunting and chopping wood to survive. Then, he meets Bulma and embarks on an exciting adventure to find the legendary Dragon Spheres, which can grant any wish to whoever collects them all.

Surely you remember that during these adventures there are several themes such as the World Martial Arts Tournaments, the confrontation with the Red Ribbon Patrol and even the confrontations against Pilaf and Piccoro. But, how was the order of all this? We tell you in order according to each of the arcs.

Pilaf Arch

Bulma, a 16-year-old girl, embarks on a long journey in search of the Dragon Spheres, legendary objects that, according to the story, can summon a sacred dragon that will grant a wish to whoever finds them all.

Thanks to the electronics skills she inherited from her father, Bulma built a radar to detect such spheres. During her journey, she encounters a strange 10-year-old boy named Goku, who has a tail and extraordinary strength.

After an accident, Goku meets Bulma, who had to confess that she was a girl, something unknown to him. Remember that this little boy lived alone in the mountains and did not know the city, as well as other inhabitants.

Goku invites Bulma to his house, where she discovers that the four-star sphere is there. This girl shows him two other spheres, there she tells him that he must collect the seven dragon balls for a great dragon to appear and grant him a wish. Thus, she convinces this boy to accompany her on her journey.

The turtle and Master Roshi

Despite not getting along well, they continue together in search of the spheres and make a short stop in a deserted place. There they meet a turtle who asks them for help to return home, and as a thank you, he offers them a gift.

These boys take the turtle to the sea and meet old man Roshi, who has another dragon orb. Bulma asks him for the orb, but he refuses to give it to her unless she gives him her underwear. After a brief discussion, she agrees and, well, she manages to get the orb.

In addition, Master Roshi, as thanks for having brought the turtle, calls the flying cloud, indicating that only people with a pure heart and a clean mind can ride on it. Only little Goku manages to get on, they say goodbye and continue their journey.

Oolong, Yamcha and Puar

On their journey through the world searching for dragon balls, Goku and Bulma arrive at a small village where a pig, named Oolong, with the ability to transform himself terrorized the inhabitants.

To obtain one more sphere, Goku and Bulma devise a plan to defeat the pig and succeed in defeating it after an intense fight. Oolong joins the group as an ally and together they continue their quest.

At their next stop, in a desert, they meet Yamcha and Puar, a lone warrior and his pet with transforming abilities. Yamcha easily defeats Goku in a fight because Goku was so hungry.

Meanwhile, Yamcha is intimidated by Bulma and Puar tries to help him by giving him a drug to eliminate his shyness. In spite of everything, the plans do not go as expected and in the end, Yamcha follows the group in the distance as they continue their journey.

Milk

Goku decides to search for a dragon sphere in Gyumaoh Mountain, where he meets a friend of his grandfather's, Son Gohan. It turns out that the mountain is on fire and he needs a magic fan that Master Roshi has and so he had entrusted his daughter to look for it.

During his quest, our protagonist meets the daughter who happens to be Milk as a child, who is being chased by a dinosaur. Sure enough, he manages to rescue her and together they decide to look for Master Roshi in his Flying Cloud to get there faster.

Upon arriving with Master Roshi, he tries to resolve the situation inappropriately by asking Bulma to show him her breast, but Bulma refuses and Oolong does an imitation to distract him.

The group manages to find the dragon sphere, but the magic fan they had obtained does not work. Goku decides to use it with the help of the Kame Hame Ha that Master Roshi taught him, but everything is destroyed.

The group continues on their way with a new vehicle borrowed from Gyumaoh, while Yamcha and Puar follow them.

Pilaf

Now our heroes must face Toninjinka and his henchmen, a rabbit that has transformed Bulma into a carrot. With the help of Yamcha and Goku, they manage to recover her original form.

In the heat of battle, trying to find the next dragon sphere, they are attacked and lose the backpack containing the spheres they had collected so far.

Yamcha decides to help them search for the lost backpack and together they head to the castle of Pilaf, a little blue man who also seeks to fulfill his wish with the spheres.

Once inside the castle, Pilaf locks them in a room and communicates with them through a screen. They soon realize that they are dying of heat.

In this predicament of our friends, Pilaf invokes the dragon Shen Long to fulfill his wish.

At that moment, Goku, seeing the full moon, transforms into a giant monkey, which allows them to escape. Despite the big scare, this allowed his friends to escape, while Oolong, to distract Pilaf, asks for the least imagined wish by all: women's underwear.

Shen Long disappears with the dragon spheres and Yamcha cuts off Goku's tail to prevent him from transforming back into a giant monkey. Finally, they decide to return to the city. During their adventure, Bulma and Yamcha seem to be in love and both have seen their wish come true without asking Shen Long. Goku, meanwhile, accepts Master Roshi's offer to become his new disciple.

Krillin

At Master Roshi's house, a boy with no nose and a bald head named Krilin appears and also wishes to train with Master Roshi. To accept his training, the master asks them to find a pretty girl and bring her along.

After taking a girl named Lunch, who changes personality every time she sneezes, they move to an island to begin training.

Training includes working in the dirt, facing a hive of wasps, crossing a lake full of crocodiles and pushing a giant boulder with heavy turtle shells on their backs. When they complete the training, they find that their strength and speed skills have improved.

Arc of the 21st Edition of the World Martial Arts Tournament

After arduous training on Kame House Island, Master Roshi invites Goku and Krilin to compete in the Martial Arts Tournament.

When they attend the event, they meet Yamcha, Bulma and Puar and have to get through a round of fights to make it to the big tournament.

Master Roshi, disguised as Jackie Chun, eliminates Yamcha in the first fight and Krilin defeats Bacterian, an opponent with an unpleasant odor, thanks to his lack of smell.

Nam, a monk seeking resources for his village, wins his match against Ranfan. In the semifinals, Krilin loses to Jackie Chun and Goku wins against Nam with difficulty.

In the final fight, Goku and Master Roshi engage in a humorous duel until the full moon causes Goku to transform into a giant monkey. Master Roshi has no choice but to destroy the moon and Goku, exhausted, falls from the platform before his master, thus becoming the strongest on the planet.

Red Patrol Army Bow

The four-star sphere is a very important memory for Goku of his grandfather and so he decides to go looking for it. But, he encountered the army of the Red Ribbon (or better known in Latin America as Red Patrol), who were also looking for the spheres.

After fighting against Silver Taisa and escaping in one of the army planes, our protagonist crashed near Sergeant White Shojun's tower, where a girl took him home. There he discovered that the mayor had been kidnapped by the army so that everyone would search for the magic sphere hidden in the town.

Our brave protagonist faced Hatchan, a robot carrying a bomb inside him, Murasaki, a ninja who hid several times, a gelatinous monster and a giant android, and even had to go through a labyrinth. Thanks to these feats, the villagers were saved.

Then, Goku headed to the city to have Bulma repair his radar and met Krillin. They found the next dragon sphere under the sea near Kame House.

Blue Shogun, another Red Ribbon sergeant, chased them to a cave in the water, where there was a pirate treasure. Blue stole their radar and the spheres, but Goku caught up with him in Penguin Village, where he met Arale, a robot girl who played the role of Goku. Goku recovered the dragon spheres, but Blue fled with the radar.

Upon returning to the tower, Tao Pai Pai, an assassin bought by Commander Red, murdered Blue Shogun and then Bora in front of his son Upah. Goku decided to climb the Sacred Tower so that God would offer him the sacred water.

After a long and hard climb, he meets master Karin who offered him a magic bean and gave him another flying cloud. Thanks to all this, Goku defeated Tao Pai Pai.

He sets out to find the next dragon sphere in the Red Ribbon tower, where Black Hosa had murdered and betrayed Sosui. Finally, Goku eliminated Black Hosa and returned to his teammates.

They had problems with the radar, so they went to Master Roshi's sister, Uranai Baba, who had a divination sphere. In return, they fought with his warriors: Dracula Man, Miira, Akkuman and even Goku's grandfather (Son Gohan) who at the beginning he did not recognize because he had a mask. They discovered that the sphere was in the hands of Pilaf, who summoned Shen Long and wished Bora to be resurrected.

Arch of the 22nd Edition of the World Martial Arts Tournament

Goku prepares for the upcoming Martial Arts Tournament and sets out on a new journey to increase his strength. At the tournament, he meets Krillin and Yamcha, who have also trained.

In this tournament they face powerful opponents: the disciples of master Tsuru, Ten Shinhan and Chaos. Although they both qualify for the quarterfinals without any problems, so do Yamcha and Krillin.

Chaos, with his mental powers, manipulates the draw. At that Krillin realizes he manages to distract him by asking him basic math questions. In the semifinals, Krillin and Goku, face each other in a match in which Krillin loses because he was trying to pull Goku's tail, his weak point.

In the final, Goku and Ten Shinhan face each other, the latter using his taiyo ken technique. But, our protagonist manages to dodge the attack with the help of Master Roshi's sunglasses.

Master Tsuru wants to win at all costs, so he orders Chaos to immobilize Goku so that Ten Shinhan can attack him. However, Ten Shinhan objects to this and asks them to play by their own means.

In the end, both are left without strength, but by chance, Goku leaves the platform first, touching the ground before. In this way, Ten Shihan wins the tournament.

Arch of the Great Demon King Piccoro

After the tournament, our protagonist realized that he had forgotten his staff and dragon sphere. Krilin offered to look for them, but Goku sensed that something had happened and went to look for him.

There he found his friend Krillin killed by Tambourine, under the orders of Piccoro Daimaku, a demon who had threatened the planet in previous years.

Goku marched in search of the assassin, but was defeated due to tournament fatigue and the destruction of his Flying Cloud. Nam, Giran and Man Wolf were also exterminated by Tambourine's hands.

Piccoro was freed by Pilaf and became one of his allies to find the dragon balls in order to become young again. In his quest, Goku met Yajirobe, who had one of the magic balls tied around his neck. Together, they defeated the monster Timbal and Tambourine, the brother of Krillin's killer monster.

Finally, Goku confronted Piccoro, but was defeated. This demon made the wish of eternal life to Shen Long and destroyed the dragon so that no one else could make wishes.

To stop Piccoro, Master Roshi attempted the Mutaito technique and sacrificed his life. Ten Shinhan also attempted the technique, while Goku climbed to the top of Karin Tower to drink the sacred water.

After drinking the water, our protagonist went to Bulma's parents' house, because Piccoro destroyed that area. On the way, Ten Shinhan stopped this demon with the help of his new ally, Drum. Goku arrived just in time to save Ten Shinhan, and together they managed to defeat Piccoro. But before dying, this demon expelled an egg from which Piccoro Junior was born.

Goku decided to look for Kami sama, who was above the temple of master Karin. After overcoming hard trials, our protagonist arrives at his destination and learned that Piccoro Junior was looking for him to defeat him.

In order to fight him, Kami sama asks Goku to train for three years there. Similarly, he resurrected Shen Long so that they could make a wish to revive all those who had died because of Piccoro.

But, something Kami sama did not reveal: if he finished off Piccoro Junior, he would also have to die.

Arch of the 23rd Edition of the Martial Arts Tournament

After training, the 23rd Martial Arts Tournament begins, where Goku shows up with a new look. He is now bigger than Krillin and no longer has a tail.

This tournament involves Piccoro junior, an unknown girl, a strange man and Tao Pai Pai, who has part of his body in the form of a robot. Chaos uses his mental powers to avoid fights in the elimination rounds, and in the next phase, Tao Pai Pai is pitted against Ten Shinhan, Goku against Milk, Piccoro against Krillin and Ten against Yamcha.

Tao Pai Pai uses illegal weapons and techniques from master Tsuru Sennin's school. Despite all this, Ten Shinhan manages to defeat him without any inconvenience.

Goku wins his fight against Milk, Gyumaoh's daughter, to whom he had become engaged in his first adventure. Krilin loses to Piccoro, and Yamcha loses to Ten.

In the semifinals, Goku takes off some of his clothes and gets the upper hand over Ten Shinhan by overcoming his weaknesses. In the fight between Piccoro and Ten, it is discovered that the latter is actually Kami sama, who has taken the body of a normal man to participate. Piccoro traps him inside his body, and in the final fight, Goku discovers Piccoro's weak point and defeats him.

With the tournament over, Goku and Milk prepare for their wedding, but Gyumaoh Castle is set on fire by magic fire. To get the Bansho Fan, they consult Master Roshi's turtle, who explains that they need the feathers of the Fire Eating Bird.

Although they get a shell from a baby bird, Grandmother Hakkake gives them a honey that helps them enter the Eight Divisions Furnace and save Gyumaoh. Finally, Goku and Chi-Chi get married and Uranai Baba reads their future as a wedding gift.

Curious Facts

- Akira Toriyama is a big fan of Star Wars, that's why he drew the Karin Tower inspired by Cloud City.

- We all remember Yamcha as a great baseball player. However, much earlier he played soccer together with Oolong.

- In the beginning, during the publication of the manga, Toriyama apologized when he made a mistake. In fact, this happened when he mistook Colonel Silver for General White and, by means of a drawing of himself, he apologized for that mistake and for future mistakes he made because he was not in good health.

- Goku managed to pull out the sword in the stone in episode 81 of the anime, thus simulating the story of King Artruro.

Where can I watch Dragon Ball online?

If you want to remember your childhood and even share with your children the adventures of little Goku, we tell you that you can enjoy this online through the following streaming platforms:

– Crunchyroll.

- Claro Video.

- Funimation.

- Comedy Central.

- Hulu.

In all of these, you can watch all episodes in the original language with Spanish subtitles or, if you prefer, listen to the Spanish audio.

In Conclusion

Dragon Ball marked the childhood of many, with a beginning full of humor, where we know the dragon spheres, being this an excellent start to understand the whole universe of this manga and anime.