Crunchyroll is inviting fans of the Dragon Ball anime franchise to hop on their Flying Nimbus cloud — and stream more than 500 episodes of the fan-favorite series that were previously available only on Funimation.
For the first time, Toei Animation’s “Dragon Ball,” “Dragon Ball Z” and “Dragon Ball GT” are now available to watch on Sony’s Crunchyroll streaming service in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The three series come to Crunchyroll as part of another wave of new content from Funimation, after Sony on March 1 announced that the two services would merge into a single unified Crunchyroll service. The trio of shows joins “Dragon Ball Super,” which has been available on Crunchyroll with English subtitles. Sony’s previously named Funimation Global Group bought Crunchyroll for $1.18 billion in cash from AT&T, a deal that closed in August 2021.
The Dragon Ball phenomena began in 1984 in Japan when the original manga series from Akira Toriyama premiered in Shueisha’s “Weekly Shonen Jump.” It quickly became a top-ranked title throughout its 10 and a half years of publication and its popularity has not waned — to date, Dragon Ball titles have sold 260 million copies worldwide. Today, Dragon Ball has grown into a global franchise that comprises four TV series, 20 feature films, multiple video-game titles and a huge collection of licensed merchandise.
The season and episode counts for the three new Dragon Ball series now available on Crunchyroll are as follows:
• Dragon Ball (Seasons 1-5) – 153 episodes (English Subs and Dub)
• Dragon Ball Z (Seasons 1-9) – 291 episodes (English Dub)
• Dragon Ball GT (Seasons 1-2) – 64 episodes (English Subs and Dub)
Crunchyroll LLC is an independently operated joint venture between U.S.-based Sony Pictures Entertainment and Japan’s Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.
Based in L.A., Toei Animation Inc. manages the film and TV series distribution of the studio’s properties including “Dragon Ball,” “Sailor Moon,” “One Piece,” “Digimon” and “Saint Seiya,” in North America, Latin America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
(Pictured above: “Dragon Ball Z”)