Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball is the blueprint almost every modern action anime is still copying. Akira Toriyama's manga began as a loose, comic riff on Journey to the West, then mutated into the template for the shonen fighting story: rivals who become allies, escalating power levels, tournaments, and transformations that reset the ceiling every arc. Goku's pursuit of a stronger opponent is the engine that has run for decades.

The scale here is the story. The manga spawned multiple anime series, a flood of theatrical films, and an enormous run of games, with the Budokai and Tenkaichi fighters in particular turning the show's combat into a genre staple. It is one of the most thoroughly cross-media franchises in entertainment, where the page, the screen, and the controller all chase the same simple thrill of two fighters going all out.

The Dragon Ball franchise spans 6 series, 1 books, 20 games, 36 films in the CrossBinge catalog.