Dragon Ball Z 2

Production and broadcasting[edit]

Further information: List of Dragon Ball Z episodes

The title "Dragon Ball Z" was chosen by Akira Toriyama because Z is the last letter of the alphabet and he wanted to finish the series because he was running out of ideas for Dragon Ball.^[1] Conventional knowledge in Japan used the "Z" only for the anime to separate Goku's childhood and adult life. Dragon Ball Z is adapted from the final 325 chapters of the manga series which were published in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1988 to 1995, it premiered in Japan on Fuji Television on April 26, 1989, taking over its predecessor's time slot, and ran for 291 episodes until its conclusion on January 31, 1996.^[2]

Because Toriyama was writing the manga during the production of the anime,^[3] Dragon Ball Z added original material not adapted from the Dragon Ball manga. Additional original material included lengthening scenes or adding new ones, including new attacks and characters not present in the manga.

Throughout the production, the voice actors were tasked with playing different characters and performing their lines on cue, switching between roles as necessary.^[4] The voice actors were unable to record the lines separately because of the close dialogue timing. When asked if juggling the different voices of Goku, Gohan and Goten was difficult, Masako Nozawa said that it was not, and that she was able to switch roles upon seeing the character's picture.^[4]

Series Director Daisuke Nishio left the series after personally directing Episode #202. Nishio left the series to become series director of Aoki Densetsu Shoot!. The role of series director was not officially filled for Episodes #200-291, despite Nishio's directing of Episode #202.^{[citation needed]}

English production and broadcasting[edit]

In 1995, Funimation Productions licensed Dragon Ball Z for an English-language release in North America. They contractedSaban Entertainment to help finance and distribute the series to television, and Pioneer Entertainment to handle home video distribution. Saban hired the Vancouver-based Ocean Studios to dub the anime, and Shuki Levy (Saban's in-house musician) to compose an American background score and theme song (also known as "Rock the Dragon!"). This dub ofDragon Ball Z had mandated cuts to content and length, which reduced the first 67 episodes to 53.^[5][6] The series premiered in the U.S. on September 13, 1996 in first-run syndication, but was cancelled after two seasons due to a lack of interest from syndication companies.^[5] Pioneer also ceased its home video release of the series at volume 17 (the end of this dub) and retained the rights to produce an uncut subtitled version,^[5] but did not do so. Instead, Pioneer produced a bilingual uncut home video release of the series' first three movies, also dubbed by Ocean Studios.

On August 31, 1998, re-runs of the cancelled dub began airing on Cartoon Network as part of the channel's weekday afternoon programming block Toonami. Due to the success of these re-runs on Toonami, Funimation resumed production on the series' English dub by themselves, but could no longer afford the services of Ocean Studios without Saban's financial assistance. This led to Funimation creating its own in-house voice cast at their Texas-based studio, as well as a new background score composed by Bruce Faulconer. This new dub featured less censorship (due to fewer restrictions oncable programming) and premiered on Cartoon Network's Toonami from September 13, 1999 to April 7, 2003, continuing in re-runs through 2008. KidsWB briefly ran Dragon Ball Z in 2001 on its short-lived Toonami block.^[7]

In 2004, Pioneer lost its distribution rights to the first 53/67 episodes of Dragon Ball Z (as well as the first three movies), allowing Funimation to re-dub them with their in-house voice cast and restore the removed content.^[8] This dub's background score was composed by Nathan Johnson. Funimation's new uncut dub of these episodes aired on Cartoon Network during the summer of 2005 (in late night, due to the unedited content).^[9][10][11] Funimation's later remasteredDVDs of the series saw minor changes made to their in-house dub for quality and consistency, mostly after the episode 67 gap, and had the option to play the entire series' dub with both the American and Japanese background music.

In January 2011, Funimation and Toei announced that they would stream Dragon Ball Z within 30 minutes before their simulcast of One Piece.^[12] As of 2013, Dragon Ball Z is being streamed on Hulu, containing the English dub with the Japanese music and uncut footage, as well as subtitled Japanese episodes.

The Funimation dubbed episodes also aired in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand. However, beginning with episode 108 (123 uncut), AB Groupe and Westwood Media (in association with Ocean Studios) produced an alternate English dub to comply with Canadian broadcasting standards. The alternate dub was broadcast in the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland and Canada, while Funimation's dub continued to air in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Dragon Ball Z originally aired on the British Comedy Network in Fall 1998.^[13] This production used some of the same voices from the original short lived dub syndicated in the U.S. (that was later on Toonami), was edited for content, featured another alternate background score, and used much of the same script from Funimation's in-house dub.