Dragon Ball Z (DBZ) is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation. Part of the Dragon Ball media franchise, it serves as a direct sequel to the 1986 Dragon Ball television series, adapting the remaining 325 chapters of the manga series Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama. The series aired in Japan on Fuji Television and its FNS affiliates from April 1989 to January 1996 and was later dubbed for broadcast in at least 81countries worldwide.
Dragon Ball Z continues the adventures of Son Goku in his adult life as he and his companions defend the Earth against villains including a warrior race (Vegeta), evil forces (Frieza), androids (Cell), and magical creatures (Majin Buu). At the same time, the story follows the life of Goku's son, Gohan, as well as the development of his rivals, Piccolo and Vegeta.
Due to the massive success of Dragon Ball Z in the United States, the manga chapters making up its story were initially released by Viz Media under the same title. The anime's popularity has also spawned various media and merchandise that has come to represent the majority of the material within the Dragon Ball franchise, including films, home media releases, soundtracks, trading cards, and video games. Dragon Ball Z remains a cultural icon through numerous adaptations and re-releases, including a recut and remastered version titled Dragon Ball Z Kai that aired on Fuji Television from April 2009 to June 2015. Dragon Ball Z has since been followed by an anime-exclusive sequel series titled Dragon Ball GT (1996–1997), a "midquel" series titled Dragon Ball Super (2015–2018) and its remastered version Dragon Ball Super: Beerus (2026–present), and another midquel series titled Dragon Ball Daima (2024–2025).
Plot
Saiyan Saga Dragon Ball Z picks up five years after the end of the Dragon Ball series, with Son Goku now a young adult and father to his son, Gohan.
A humanoid alien named Raditz arrives on Earth in a spacecraft and tracks down Goku, revealing to him that he is his long-lost older brother and that they are members of a near-extinct elite alien warrior race called . Goku (originally named had been sent to Earth to escape the destruction of Planet Vegeta, the Saiyan planet.
Raditz tells Goku that along with two stronger elites, Vegeta and Nappa, they are the only remaining Saiyans after their home planet Vegeta was destroyed. Raditz asks Goku to enlist in helping conquering planets and joining the remaining Saiyans. When Goku refuses to join and help them, Raditz takes Goku and Krillin down with one strike, kidnaps Gohan, and threatens to murder him if Goku does not kill 100 humans within the next 24 hours. Goku decides to team up with his arch-enemy Piccolo, who was also defeated by Raditz in an earlier encounter, to defeat him and save his son. During the battle, Gohan's rage momentarily makes him stronger than Piccolo and Goku as he attacks Raditz to protect his father. The battle ends with Goku restraining Raditz so that Piccolo can hit them with a deadly move called , mortally wounding them both, and kills them after a short while. But before Raditz succumbs to his injuries, he reveals to Piccolo that the other two Saiyans are much stronger than him and will come for the Dragon Balls in one year.
Having witnessed Gohan's latent potential, Piccolo takes him into the wild to train for the upcoming battle against the Saiyans. In the afterlife, Goku travels the million-kilometer Snake Way so that he can train under the ruler of the North Galaxy, King Kai. King Kai teaches Goku the and the techniques. Despite his gruff and villainous nature, Piccolo grows fond of Gohan while he oversees him learning to fend for himself. This forges an unlikely emotional bond between the two.
After a year, Goku is revived with the Dragon Balls, but King Kai panics as he realizes that Goku will have to take Snake Way again to get back and will not make it until hours after the Saiyans arrive. Goku's allies group up to fight until Goku gets back, but prove to be no match for Nappa and the "Prince of All Saiyans", Vegeta. Yamcha, Tien Shinhan, Chiaotzu and Piccolo all perish in the battle, with Piccolo's death causing both Kami and the Dragon Balls to fade from existence. When Goku finally arrives at the battlefield, he avenges his fallen friends by easily defeating Nappa before crippling him by breaking his spine in half. A furious Vegeta then executes Nappa for his failure to kill Goku.
Goku uses several grades of the Kaio-ken to win the first clash with Vegeta, which concludes with a climactic ki beam struggle, but it comes at a great cost to his body. Vegeta comes back and creates an artificial moon to transform into a Great Ape, which he uses to torture Goku. Krillin and Gohan sense that Goku is in trouble, and they return for a group fight with the now-seemingly unstoppable Vegeta. They are aided at key moments by Yajirobe, who cuts Vegeta's tail to revert him into his normal state. Goku gives Krillin a Spirit Bomb that he made, and Krillin uses it to severely damage Vegeta. Vegeta is ultimately defeated when he is crushed by Gohan's Great Ape form, and he retreats to his spaceship as Krillin approaches to finish him off. Goku convinces Krillin to spare Vegeta's life and allow him to escape Earth, with Vegeta vowing to return and destroy the planet in revenge for his humiliation at Goku's hands.
Frieza Saga During the battle, Krillin overhears Vegeta mentioning the original set of Dragon Balls from Piccolo's homeworld, . While Goku recovers from his injuries, Gohan, Krillin, and Goku's oldest friend Bulma depart for Namek to use these Dragon Balls to revive their fallen friends in the battle.
Upon their arrival on Namek, Krillin, Gohan, and Bulma discover that Vegeta and his superior, the galactic tyrant Frieza, are already there, each looking to use the Dragon Balls to obtain immortality. Vegeta is stronger than before, as Saiyans become stronger when they recover from the brink of death, so he seizes the opportunity to rebel against Frieza. A triangular game of cat-and-mouse ensues, with Frieza, Vegeta, and Gohan plus Krillin alternately possessing one or more of the Dragon Balls, with no one managing to possess all seven at any given time.
Vegeta manages to isolate Frieza's lieutenants one by one and kill them. When Frieza sees that Vegeta is posing too big of a problem, he summons the Ginyu Force, a team of elite mercenaries led by Captain Ginyu, who can switch bodies with his opponents. Vegeta reluctantly teams up with Gohan and Krillin to fight them, knowing that they are too much for him to handle alone. The Ginyu Force proves too powerful, but Goku finally arrives and defeats them single-handedly, saving Vegeta, Gohan, and Krillin. Vegeta believes Goku may have become the legendary warrior of the Saiyans, the . As Goku heals from a brutal fight with Captain Ginyu, Krillin, Dende, and Gohan secretly use the Dragon Balls behind Vegeta's back to wish for Piccolo's resurrection and teleport him to Namek. Vegeta finds them using the Dragon Balls without him, but the Grand Elder dies and rendering the Dragon Balls inert before he can wish for immortality. Just as this happens, Frieza arrives and decides to kill the four of them for denying him his wish for immortality.
Piccolo arrives on Namek but is accidentally separated from the others due to a badly-worded wish. He finds the strongest Namekian warrior, Nail, who was defeated by Frieza and fuses with him to greatly increase his power.
Despite both Piccolo and Vegeta's advances in power, they are greatly outclassed by Frieza, who goes through several transformations before reaching his final form, which he then uses to kill Dende.
Goku arrives after healing from his injuries, and Vegeta tells him that Frieza was the one who destroyed the Saiyan homeworld and massacred the Saiyan race, as he feared that he would one day be overthrown by a Super Saiyan. Frieza then kills Vegeta in front of Goku.
Though Goku's power exceeds Vegeta's, he is still no match for Frieza. Goku uses his last resort, a massive Spirit Bomb with the absorbed energy of Namek and the surrounding worlds, and it seemingly defeats the tyrant. However, Frieza manages to survive, and he unleashes his wrath upon the group by gravely wounding Piccolo and murdering Krillin. Goku's rage finally erupts, and he undergoes a strange transformation that turns his hair blond, his eyes green, and causes a golden aura to radiate from his body. Goku has finally become a Super Saiyan.
Meanwhile, the revived Kami uses Earth's Dragon Balls to resurrect everyone on Namek that was killed by Frieza and his henchmen, which also allows the Grand Elder to be resurrected for a short time, and the Namekian Dragon to return. Dende uses the final wish to teleport everyone on Namek to Earth except for Goku and Frieza.
Even at 100% power, Frieza cannot manage to defeat the Super Saiyan transformation. Goku outwits Frieza, cutting him in half with his own attack, before escaping Namek as the planet is destroyed in a massive explosion.
Garlic Jr. Saga After the battle with Frieza in an anime exclusive saga, Goku's friends and family are waiting for word on his return when a demonic star drifts into Earth's orbit and opens up a rift in space, allowing the malevolent immortal Garlic Jr. to break free from his imprisonment inside the Dead Zone. Seeking revenge for a past defeat at the hands of Gohan, Garlic Jr. traps Kami and Mr. Popo inside a bottle and uses his Black Water Mist to turn all of Earth's inhabitants into bloodthirsty, vampire-like beings. Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo, Krillin's then-girlfriend Maron, and Gohan's pet dragon Icarus are the only ones unaffected and set out to stop Garlic Jr. and restore the Earth and its inhabitants. This proves to be easier said than done, as Garlic Jr. has complete immortality, making him impossible to kill. Luckily, Gohan's hidden potential gives him the edge he needs to eradicate Garlic Jr.'s forces and send him back into the Dead Zone. He also destroys the star, ensuring that Garlic Jr. will remain trapped in the Dead Zone for all eternity.
Androids and Cell Saga One year later, Frieza is revealed to have survived and arrives on Earth with his father, King Cold, seeking revenge. However, a mysterious young man named Trunks appears, transforms into a Super Saiyan, and kills Frieza and King Cold. Goku returns a few hours later, having spent the past year on the alien planet Yardrat learning a new technique: Instant Transmission, which allows him to teleport to any location he desires. Trunks reveals privately to Goku that he is the son of Vegeta and Bulma, and has traveled from 17 years in the future to warn Goku that two created by Dr. Gero will appear in three years to seek revenge against Goku for destroying the Red Ribbon Army when he was a child. Trunks says all of Goku's friends will fall to them - while Goku himself will die from a heart virus six months before their arrival.
Trunks gives Goku medicine from the future that will save him from the heart virus and departs back to his own time. When the androids arrive, Goku falls ill during his fight with Android 19 but is saved by Vegeta, who reveals that he has also achieved the Super Saiyan transformation. Vegeta and Piccolo easily defeat Android 19 and Dr. Gero (who turned himself into "Android 20"), but Trunks returns from the future to check on their progress and reveals that the androids they defeated are not the ones that killed all of them in the future.
Goku is out of commission and his allies are overwhelmed by the arrival of Androids 16, 17 and 18, while an even stronger bio-Android called Cell emerges from a different timeline and embarks on a quest to find and absorb Androids 17 and 18, allowing him to attain his "perfect form".