All 'Dragon Ball' TV Shows In Order
Dragon Ball is one of the most influential manga and anime franchises of all time: even if you don’t know anything about Japanese pop culture, chances are you still recognise creator Akira Toriyama’s spiky-haired, alien superhero Goku and his iconic, golden power-up.
The manga began serialisation in 1984, and the first anime adaptation came two years later, but it wasn’t until the English-language release of Dragon Ball Z in the mid-1990s that it started to blossom internationally. Dragon Ball became formative to a generation’s first experience of anime, growing into a juggernaut of a multimedia phenomenon that still produces new material today. The TV series are the best place to start. Here’s how you can watch all Dragon Ball shows in order of release.
Where To Watch 'Dragon Ball' TV Shows Online
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If you’re more familiar with the interdimensional adventures and screaming battles of latter-day Dragon Ball, the original anime series may feel like a completely different property. Spanning roughly the first 200 chapters of the manga, the show is largely an origin story for Goku, from his humble beginnings as a monkey-tailed wild child and the strange friends and enemies he encounters along the way.
His overarching goal is to collect and safeguard the seven wish-granting orbs that Dragon Ball is named after from falling into nefarious hands. Taking inspiration from modern martial arts movies and ancient Eastern folklore, it’s full of goofy gags interspersed by glimpses into the otherworldly strength underpinning Goku’s destiny.
Although a direct sequel to Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z was most Western audiences’ jumping-on point for the franchise and can still be consumed that way now. Starring an older Goku alongside his young son, Gohan, DBZ contains most of the hallmarks the franchise has become iconic for, introducing his venomous frenemy Vegeta, the hair-raising Super Saiyan forms and villains like Frieza, Cell, and Majin Boo.
Though not without humour, DBZ is epic and gruelling, laying the groundwork for nearly every shonen battle series that followed. Multi-episode fights and story arcs kept viewers at the time glued to an action-packed, multi-generational saga unlike anything else on TV, paving the way for a ‘golden’ anime age in the west.
Dragon Ball GT is as divisive as Dragon Ball Z is beloved. It undoes the promise of Gohan as Goku’s successor by de-ageing the former to begin his adventures again, and it tells an original story rather than adapting any of Toriyama’s source material. Neither of these could’ve been intrinsic sins, but its execution leaves many fans cold.
The show recycles many plot elements from previous iterations and sacrifices a lot of the personalities and utility of fan-favourite side characters in favour of Goku’s quest. Still, while not penned by Toriyama, GT does provide an end for the series that completionists won’t want to skip. Plus, it’s worth making up your own mind about it.
If GT is Dragon Ball’s unofficial end, Dragon Ball Super is its estranged middle; you could easily hop straight from DBZ to here. Adapted from the continuing manga of the same name, which was authored by Toriyama until he died in 2024, DBS’ first two arcs form the basis of the films Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ before the TV anime was released, retreading said arcs in episodic format.
DBS pushes the established boundaries of DBZ, with Goku and Vegeta receiving godlike Super Saiyan forms, being trained by a God of Destruction, and entering a multiversal fighting tournament. Though the animation quality is mixed and the show hasn’t caught up to the manga, the DBS anime greatly reinvigorated interest in Dragon Ball.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes is another series made without Toriyama’s input and outside of main series continuity. In the web series, Goku and Vegeta are forced to travel to a Prison Planet following DBS’ Tournament of Power. There, they compete in a gladiatorial game to obtain seven Special Dragon Balls and try to work out the sinister agenda behind it all.
Episodes are about half the length of regular television ones, making it a breezier binge than other franchise entries. However, while not as controversial as GT, it is largely considered another inferior Dragon Ball concoction, relying too heavily on story crutches the series has become stereotyped for, with little of their flair.
The final animated Dragon Ball project that the late Toriyama contributed to, Dragon Ball DAIMA takes the core conceit of GT—reverting Goku, plus some key companions, to child form—and, thankfully, improves on it. Set after DBZ, the diminutive crew go in search of Earth’s Dragon Balls in the Demon Realm to undo what’s been done to them.
Though it’s another mid-point dalliance within Dragon Ball continuity rather than pushing the story forward as Super does, DAIMA resuscitates the heart of the series with the goofy humour of Dragon Ball and the cinematic quality of the DBS films’ action sequences.
