Taken from "The History of Dragon Ball"
In 1984, twelve-year-old Son Goku and his friends were first introduced to the world in Dragon Ball, a manga based loosely on the Chinese story, "Journey to the West."
On February 26, 1986, Dragon Ball made the jump to TV, and eventually, to the silver screen in four theatrical incarnations. The TV series spanned a total of 153 episodes. In the late 1980s, it was released in the United States by Harmony Gold
After 153 episodes, the Dragon Ball TV series became Dragon Ball Z on April 26, 1989 (although the manga remained "Dragon Ball" all the way through).
Dragon Ball Z spanned 291 episodes, thirteen theatrical movies, two TV specials, and an OVA series.
After twelve years at the helm, Akira Toriyama finally ended Dragon Ball. But Toei didn't. Following the conclusion of Dragon Ball Z on January 31, 1996, Toei created Dragon Ball GT to keep interest up in the series while the last few videogames and such were released. GT returned to the comedy roots of the series and lost quite a few viewers. Although it turned around and moved back toward martial arts, it was doomed from the beginning, mostly due to the fact that it sucked. A lot. Dragon Ball GT lasted 64 episodes and one TV special, aired March 26, 1997, and on November 21, 1997, Dragon Ball, in all its original incarnations, was finally over.
In 1997, Dragon Ball was still in its infancy in the United States. It wasn't until August, 1998 that Dragon Ball Z first showed its face on Cartoon Network, and sinc ethen, it has gone on to become the longest running and highest rated show on the channel, and one of the highest rated shows on cable TV
Dragon Ball ran for a respectable 508 episodes, 17 movies, three TV specials, and one OVA. Dragon Ball has been over in Japan for four and a half years (although the manga is going to be reprinted soon),
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you still going to say gundam is more populer, gundam has run nearly as long as dragon but has never seen populer, just cos u like more then dbz, dont mean the rest of the world does.