The Dragon Ball anime began its television version 37 years ago, to become one of the most popular Japanese youth series in Mexico.
On February 26, 1986, more than a year after its success as a comic, Japanese television screens received the first glimpse of the adventures of a boy with a monkey’s tail, surprising strength and skilled in martial arts. The Secret of the Dragon Ball was the first of hundreds of episodes, but it took another seven years for the title to reach Mexico.
Akira Toriyama was inspired by the Chinese novel Journey to the West, where a monk goes in search of sacred Buddhist texts in the company of the monkey king Sun Wukong and other characters. Thus, the Japanese artist presented the epic journey around the collection of seven magical spheres. The first installment started with the meeting between the little Son Goku and the teenager Bulma. He lives and trains alone in the jungle since the death of his grandfather, without knowing the civilized world; She is a very intelligent city dweller, who with the help of her technology searches for the dragon balls.
Although at the beginning the plot only proposes to gather the spheres to make the dragon Shenlong appear and make a wish, later villains emerge that nourish the story. Dragon Ball is the animated adaptation of its printed version from 1984, in this case, the homonymous comic.
This story first reached its consumers thanks to the weekly printings of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. That accelerated success prompted the production of the animated series by the Toei Animation studios. He won over the Mexicans. Since the 90s, Dragon Ball had detractors. One of the main controversies were the scenes of violent fights.
But Toriyama’s work is here to stay among the Mexican public. The first transmissions took place in 1994 on pay television and it would not be until 1997 that she won her space on Channel 5. A very human sample of Dragon Ball fever lies in the impact of the participation of Mexican artists in the Spanish dubbing of the animated series.
FS
Themes
Dragon Ball
Anime
Series de TV
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