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Dragon Ball (гÑ"‰Ð³Ñ"©Ð³‚Ò'гÑ"Ñ-гÑ"њгÑ"јгÑ"«, Doragon BÐ*ÐŒru?), created by Akira Toriyama in 1984, is an internationally famous media franchise. It consists primarily of one manga series, three different anime, seventeen animated feature films, an unofficial live-action movie, a collectible trading card game, a large number of electronic games, as well as other collectibles like action figures. An official live-action film has been currently in production as of 2002.

The narrative of the Dragon Ball manga received some of its inspiration and various characters from the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West, though it diverges from the novel very quickly. It follows the adventures of its lead character, Son Goku (based on the Monkey King of the folk legend, Sun Wukong) from his childhood into old age. Dragon Ball originally included action and comedy elements, as well a significant amount of science fiction, though the story became more sci-fi oriented over time.

Prior to ending a successful six-year run on his humor manga, Dr. Slump, in the Weekly Shonen Jump anthology magazine, Akira Toriyama started toying with the ideas that he would later apply into the Dragon Ball manga. In 1983, he wrote two chapters of Dragon Boy for the Fresh Jump anthology magazine. This story, left unfinished, merged in the comic style of Dr. Slump with an action-oriented plot. It included many elements which would be reused in the later series, including a very different kind of Dragon Ball. In 1983, Toriyama published The Adventures of Tongpoo, a sci-fi comic also featuring a Goku-like character and plot elements (such as "Hoi Poi Capsules") which he would reuse later.