Be Warned! The FAQ does contain a few spoilers, read at you own risk ^_^ Why do people call it SSJ when it Super Saiyan? What is this "jin" thing all about? In the Japanese language, Jin in added to the end of a word to indicate that it is a person from 'this place'. We say "american" they say "amerikajin". We say "German", they say "Doitsujin". We say "saiyan" they say "saiyajin". Get it? Why is Kuririn bald, but get's hair at the end of the series? Goku asks him this when they first meet (as in, why is he bald when he's still really young) and he says that it's to purify his fighting spirit and to keep enemies from being able to grab his hair in battle. Also, Kuririn is kind of a buddhist monk. Later on when he gets interested in #18, he lets his hair grow out so that she'll like him better. Is Dragonball Z still going on in Japan? No. The series ended quite a few years ago. What's the difference between Dragonball and Dragonball Z? In the manga? None. Its all the same series. But in the anime, they ended Dragonball when they caught up with Toriyama (he was still making the manga when they started making the anime). But the series was so popular that after Toriyama had a bit more of the manga written they decided to start up the anime again. Only this time they called it Dragonball Z. What does the Z in Dragonball Z stand for? Technically? Nothing really. But you could link it to the Z sword that exists on Kaioh shin's planet. Near the end of the series, Gohan pulls it out of a rock and trains with it until he breaks it in two. I heard there's another series called GT? Whats GT stand for? Yes, there is another series that comes after Z. GT stands for Grand Tour since in this series they go after the 'black star' dragon balls that don't spread out over the entire planet, but out over the entire universe. Thus it is a 'grand tour' of the universe. GT was made independently of Toriyama - in other words, it was never a part of Toriyama's original story. They simply made it so that they'd be able to keep on making a profit off the huge event that was Dragaonball mania. Unforunetly the series was rather poor (they messed up a lot of stuff) so it kind of bombed in Japan. Who are Shenlong and Porunga? Shenlong is the name of the Dragon of Earth. Porunga is the name of the Dragon from Namek. In the Dub they don't give them names - but they do mention Porunga (they say it's the "password" to make the Namekian dragon appear. Geez... they really did some stupid things to the dub. What are the differences between the Dubbed US version of DBZ and the Japanese version? Oh so much! First off all, in the first two seasons of the dub, they cut out any and all blood, cut quite a few scenes, and edited out any violence that they felt was 'overboard' for small children (since in America all 'cartoons' are for children.. grumble...) In the third and later seasons, they arn't cutting out all the blood and they don't cut up the fights... as much. However they are still butchering the dialog. They completely re-write a lot of the scenes - in some cases completely changing the stuff they were talking about. Plus they totally distroy a lot of the really funny jokes that were in the original series. Believe it or not, in Japan - Dragonball/Z is considered a comedy as well as a fighting show. Is there a whole lot of goorey voilence in the original Japanese Version of DBZ? No. It's not excessive at all - Funimation (the company who dubs it and brings it to English speaking countries) is just freakishly anal and feels the need to cut up stuff that doesn't need to be cut up. Who is Akira Toriyama? This is the guy who created Dragonball. He's a manga artist/writer, and he's the one who wrote and drew the original dragonball manga (comic books). It's Toriyama! What is a manga? What's the differnece between manga and anime? I get this question a lot so I figured I'd answer it. Anime is animation. It's TV series, OAV series (only released on Video), and Movies. Manga are books. Graphic Novels. Most anime series are created from popular manga series. Who is Hironobu Kageyama? This is the guy who is responsible for a large portions of the Dragonball Z music. He's the singer of "Head Cha-La", "We Gotta Power", "We Were Angels" (these are all openings/closings in the Japanese version), and pretty much every other song from the series. However Kuko, and a few others also did some music for the series. Where can I get a hold of the Japanese episodes of DBZ? Fansubed or the new seasons on DVD. However from what I understand Funimation still cut up some of the scenes, but I'm not sure about this. Fansubs are the original episodes recorded off of Japanese television and then translated by a fan and distributed for the cost of the vhs tape and the shipping and handeling (and as such, they are really cheap and easy to afford). If you get it fansubbed, you can get the entire series. However Funimation hasn't released the whole series commercially yet, so you'll have to wait for them, if you want to get the series on DVD. I've always watched the dubbed version on Cartoon Network, but I want to see the whole series and don't want to wait for Funimation. Is there anything I should know about the Japanese version that's really different? Um... well I get this from a lot of people who see the Jap version for the first time - they freak out over Goku's voice. Yes - I am perfectly aware that most people who are used to the english Goku can't stand having a woman as his voice actor in the Japanese version, but believe me, you get used to it. Personally, I cringe everytime I here the english voice for Goku. It's just so NOT GOKU. He shouldn't have a big masculine voice... dah! I can't stand the dub voice. But I've also seen 290+ episodes of the series with Masako Nozawa as his voice actress, so I suppose I have trouble seeing it from other people's points of view. How many DBZ movies are there? 13. There are also 4 Dragonball movies, and one live-action Dragonball movie. My personal favorite Dragonball Z movies are 12 and 13. 13 has a great plot and cool characters in it (Tapion!), and 12 is just plain funny as hell. How many tv specials are there? What are they about? There are two tv specials - the Trunks special and the Bardock special. There is also the Pladia OAV series, but I've never seen it so I don't know what they're like. The Trunks special tells the story of Future Trunks, and the Bardock special tells about Goku's father Bardock and the destruction of Planet Vegita by Freezer. How many episodes of DB and DBZ are there? There are 153 episodes of Dragonball, and 291 episodes of Dragonball Z. I don't know how many episodes there are of GT, exactly, but I think it's somewhere around 64. What other stuff has Akira Toriyama made? Ever played Chrono Trigger? Recognize the art any? heh.. yea. that was him. His other most popular series was Dr. Slump. But I don't think it's made it over to the US any. He's done a bunch of other stuff, but I can't remember the names of any of them now. doh..