Dragon Ball Z is an anime produced by Toei Animation, and based off of the last 26 volumes of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga. This series has less emphasis on comedy and more emphasis on science fiction themes than the original Dragon Ball anime.

Dragon Ball Z continues the adventures of Son Goku and his companions, who defend the Earth and other planets from various supervillains. While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Goku from childhood into adulthood, Dragon Ball Z shows Goku's adult life and the maturation of his son, Son Gohan. Piccolo and Vegeta are the main villains, and during the course of this series, the viewer sees their evolution from evil to good.

Dragon Ball Z was introduced to American audiences with FUNimation teaming up with Saban to produce an English dub of the series. Due to US broadcast standards, there was extensive editing done to the series; the amount of cuts that were made is the equivalent of cutting 14 of the first 67 episodes. This version features dialogue not found in the original script, which resulted in minor changes to the original story. The entire musical score was replaced, and many character names, terminology, and locations were renamed.

The English dub of Dragon Ball Z began airing on the WB network in September 1996. The show was canceled by the WB in May 1998 due to low ratings. In August 1998, Cartoon Network added Dragon Ball Z to their Toonami block. The series found a new life and new heights in popularity after being included in Toonami. By 1999, FUNimation had earned enough money to continue dubbing the series on their own, and dissolved their distribution agreement with Saban. FUNimation also eased up on their content restrictions a little bit.

In 2003, FUNimation began to re-dub the first 53 episodes, and ultimately restored them to the original 67. In April 2005, these new dubs were released on DVD under the name of the Ultimate Uncut Special Edition. That summer, Cartoon Network began airing these uncut episodes; this ultimately earned the series a rating of TV-PG.

In 2009, a re-working of Dragon Ball Z was produced in Japan to commemorate the series' 20th anniversary; this re-working was known as Dragon Ball Kai in Japan, while it was known as Dragon Ball Z Kai in North America. This re-working was done in such a way to remove much of the content in the original Dragon Ball Z anime that was not featured in the original manga. By removing this extra material, the story in Dragon Ball Z Kai goes at much more natural pace, and doesn't feel nearly as stretched out as the original Dragon Ball Z series did.

Title	Episodes	Release Year(s)	Director	Studio	N.A. Licensor
Dragon Ball Z	153	1989-1996	Daisuke Nishio	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone	N/A	1989	Daisuke Nishio	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest	N/A	1990	Daisuke Nishio	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might	N/A	1990	Daisuke Nishio	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Bardock, the Father of Goku	1	1990	Daisuke Nishio	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug	N/A	1991	Mitsuo Hashimoto	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge	N/A	1991	Mitsuo Hashimoto	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Return of Cooler	N/A	1992	Daisuke Nishio	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13	N/A	1992	Kazuhito Kikuchi	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan	N/A	1993	Shigeyasu Yamauchi	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound	N/A	1993	Yoshihiro Ueda	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks	1	1993	Daisuke Nishio	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Destroy the Saiyajin	1	1993	Shigeyasu Yamauchi	Toei Animation	N/A
Dragon Ball Z: Broly – Second Coming	N/A	1994	Shigeyasu Yamauchi	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly	N/A	1994	Yoshihiro Ueda	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn	N/A	1995	Shigeyasu Yamauchi	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon	N/A	1995	Mitsuo Hashimoto	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball: Yo! The Return of Son Goku and Friends!!	1	2008	Yoshihiro Ueda	Toei Animation	N/A
Dragon Ball Z Kai	97	2009-2011	Yasuhiro Nowatari	Toei Animation	FUNimation Entertainment
Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock	1	2011	Yoshihiro Ueda	Toei Animation	N/A
Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans	N/A	2011	Yoshihiro Ueda	Toei Animation	N/A
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods	N/A	2013	Masahiro Hosoda	Toei Animation	N/A