Since the debut of the anime adaptation of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga in 1986, Toei Animation has produced nineteen theatrical films based on the franchise: four based on the original Dragon Ball anime and fifteen based on the sequel series Dragon Ball Z.
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The first seventeen films were originally shown as back-to-back presentations alongside other Toei film productions and thus have a running time below feature length (around 45-60 minutes each), the sole exception being 1996's The Path to Power (which has a running time of 80 minutes). The first through fifth films were shown at the Toei Manga Festival (東映まんがまつり, Tōei Manga Matsuri), while the sixth through seventeenth films were shown at the Toei Anime Fair (東映アニメフェア, Toei Anime Fea). These films were mostly alternate re-tellings of certain story arcs involving new characters or extra side-stories that do not correlate with the same continuity as the manga or TV series.
The newest films in the series, Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F', differ from the earlier ones, as they are full-length feature films set between chapters 517 and 518 of the manga, with Toriyama deeply involved in their creation. Toriyama did have some involvement with the earlier films, such as checking the scripts, altering new characters and their names or designing them from the ground up himself.
There are also three television specials that were broadcast on Fuji TV and two short films, which were shown at the 2008 Jump Super Anime Tour and Jump Festa 2012 respectively. A two-part hour-long crossover TV special between Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and Toriko aired on Fuji TV in 2013. Additionally, there is a two-part original video animation created as strategy guides for the 1993 video game Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, which was remade in 2010 and included with the Raging Blast 2 video game.
As with the franchise's TV anime series, all nineteen films and the first three TV specials were licensed in North America by Funimation. Dragon Ball Z movies six and twelve received select theatrical presentations in the United States, as part of a double-feature on March 17, 2006, while movies fourteen and fifteen were given limited theatrical runs in August 2014 and August 2015 respectively. In Europe, AB Groupe licensed the second and third Dragon Ball movies, the first nine Z movies and the first two TV specials.
Television specials
The Dragon Ball franchise has spawned three one-hour long television specials that aired on Fuji TV, the first two based on the "Z" portion of the series and the third based on the "GT" portion. Of these specials, all are original stories created by the anime staff with the exception of the second special, which is based on a special chapter of the manga.
Though the specials aired on TV in Japan, Funimation's North American releases of the episodes are on home video, each one labeled "Feature" the same as their theatrical films. This, doubled with the inclusion of the "Z" specials in Funimation's remastered "Movie Double Features" has caused fans to continue to erroneously believe these to be theatrical films, when they are not.
On April 7, 2013, a two-part hour-long crossover TV special, between Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and Toriko, referred to as Dream 9 Toriko & One Piece & Dragon Ball Z Super Collaboration Special!! aired on Fuji TV at 9: The first part is named "Run, Strongest Team! Toriko, Luffy, Goku!" (走れ最強軍団！トリコとルフィと悟空！, Hashire Saikyō Gundan! Toriko to Luffy to Goku!) and the second is titled "History's Strongest Collaboration vs. Glutton of the Sea" (史上最強コラボVS海の大食漢, Shijō Saikyō Collaboration vs. Umi no Taishokukan). The plot has the International Gourmet Organization (from Toriko) sponsoring the Tenka'ichi Shokuōkai, a race with no rules that characters from all three series compete in.
Festival shorts
Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! is a 35-minute short film that was shown at the 2008 Jump Super Anime Tour, which visited ten Japanese cities to celebrate Weekly Shōnen Jump's 40th anniversary. It was later released as a triple feature DVD with One Piece: Romance Dawn Story and Tegami Bachi: Light and Blue Night Fantasy in 2009, that was available only through a mail-in offer exclusive to Japanese residents. In 2013, it was included in the limited edition home video release of Battle of Gods.
Another short film, Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock, was shown at the Jump Festa 2012 event on December 17, 2011. It is an adaptation of the three part spin-off manga of the same name by Naho Ōishi that ran in V Jump from August to October 2011, which is a spin-off sequel to the Bardock – The Father of Goku TV special. It was later released on DVD in the February 3, 2012 issue of Saikyō Jump together with Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans. The film was included subtitled in the European and North American exclusive Xbox 360 video game Dragon Ball Z: For Kinect, released in October 2012.
Original video animations
In 1993, Toei Animation, in cooperation with Weekly Shōnen Jump and V Jump, produced a two-part original video animation (OVA) that serves as a video strategy guide to the Family Computer game titled Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans. The first volume was released on VHS on July 23, while the second was released on August 25. The animation was also used in the 1994 two part video games, True Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, released for the Playdia. The complete OVA was included in the second Dragon Ball Z Dragon Box DVD set released in Japan in 2003.
The OVA was remade for the 2010 PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 under the title Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans. It was included in Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 as a bonus feature, unlocked at the start of gameplay without any necessary cheat code or in-game achievement, presented in its original Japanese-language audio with subtitles appropriate for each region. It was later released on DVD in the February 3, 2012 issue of Saikyō Jump together with Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock.
Educational programs
Two educational shorts based on the original Dragon Ball anime were produced in 1988. The first was a traffic safety special titled Goku's Traffic Safety (悟空の交通安全, Gokū no Kōtsū Ansen), while the second was a fire safety special titled Goku's Fire Brigade (悟空の消防隊, Gokū no Shōbōtai). The two educational films were included in the Dragon Box DVD set released in Japan in 2004.