Dragon Ball (artifact)

A Dragon Ball (龍球 Mandarin lóng-qiú, katakana ronchū) is a fictional artifact from the mangas and animes Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, andDragon Ball GT. A similar version of them with the same name also appear in the Akira Toriyama manga Dragon Boy (a series of manga before Dragon Ball).

The Legend of the Dragon Balls

File:DragonBalls.jpg

The Dragon Balls as they appear in the Dragon Ball anime

The Dragon Balls are seven magical stones scattered across the Earth that when gathered, can summon Shenron who will grant the summoner a single wish within his supernatural power, including but not limited to, reviving a person who had died of unnatural causes, provided that the person's death occurred within one year prior the summon. There are certain limitations, such as that Shenron cannot grant the same wish a second time. This regulation is also applied to the revival of a deceased person: Shenron can't revive a person a second time. Other restrictions on the balls include, not being able to grant the same wish to the same person a second time. For example, Shenron will not revive a person a second time and he can't transform anyone into something that they naturally are not, but he can grant eternal life.

Each dragon ball is about the size of a softball and is a crystalline orange color. The Dragon Balls also have reddish colored stars inside (Black in the case of the Black-Star Dragon Balls introduced in Dragon Ball GT). Each dragon ball has a different number of stars (the balls are ordered 1 through 7) and are often called by their respective numbers (ie. the ball with four stars is called The Four Star Ball). After each usage, the Dragon Balls scatter randomly around the Earth again and turn to stone for 365 days. It was later stated in Dragon Ball GT that the Dragon Balls were meant to be used only once every hundred years, due to the negative energy that builds from each wish.

The Dragon Balls were originally created by the Namekians. Kami made the Earth Dragon Balls after he traveled to Earth from his home planet called Namek. The Dragon Balls are directly connected to Kami's life force, so when Kami dies or his individual life force becomes absorbed into something, the Dragon Balls turn to stone, permanently, unless the balls are revived by another Namekian.

Although the Dragon Balls are most of the time revered, they were shunned by the Kaiōshin, because they disrupted the natural order of the Universe. The Namekians had made a promise with the Kaiōshin to not use the Dragon Balls outside Namek, but a colossal storm on Namek forced one Namekian to retreat to Planet Earth, where he had made a set of Dragon Balls, unaware of the promise to Kaiōshin.

The first Earth Dragon Ball we are introduced to is the "Four-Star Ball" (sì-xīng-qiú, katakana Sishinchū), possessed by Son Goku. Goku's adoptive grandfather named Son Gohan (do not confuse with Son Goku's son who was the same name in homenage of his adoptive grandfather) had given the ball to Goku when he died. Goku spent his life guarding the Four-Star Dragon Ball, until he learned of their true purpose from Bulma, a young girl who came looking for the balls so she could get her wish granted of having the perfect boyfriend.

Another set of Dragon Balls we know of reside on Namek, created by Guru (also known as Saichoro). These Dragon Balls are similar to the ones on Earth in powers and appearance, however the Namek ones are as large as volleyballs. There are also two extra precautions taken on the Namekian Dragon Balls; the summoner is required to utter a Namekian password in order to summon the Dragon God, Porunga. The other precaution is that the wishes must be spoken in the Namekian language. Once Porunga is summoned, he has the ability to grant three wishes, that are somewhat less powerful than Shenron's wishes. For example, Porunga could only revive one person at a time while Shenron could revive an infinite number of people at a time, but Porunga can grant the same wish as many times as the summoner pleases. The time the Namekian Dragon Balls take to restore is 130 days, not like the 365 days required for the Dragon Balls on Earth, this is because a year for the planet Namek lasts only 130 days.

Later on, both dragons were modified, after the conflict with an evil overlord named Freeza which resulted in the destruction of the planet Namek. Porunga (on a re-established Planet New Namek) was modified to have the power to revive more than one person at time. Shenron's modification was that he was given the ability to grant two wishes instead of one.

Dende, a Namekian, became the Earth's Guardian when Kami combined with Piccolo in order to become strong enough to defend Earth against a new threat. Since Piccolo and Kami's individual life forces became one, the balls became inert because Kami's individual life force ceased to exist. It didn't matter. Rather than creating a new set of Dragon Balls, Dende revived and modified the old ones based on Kami's design. This was when Dende also gave Shenron the power to grant 2 wishes instead of the original 1, this was the result of both a request by the Z warriors (originally they requested for 3 wishes like the balls on Namek but settled for two) and Dende's life force being strong enough to sustain two of the nearly infinite power wishes.

Negative energy

Dragon Ball GT introduced the concept of negative energy in Dragon Balls. According to Dragon Ball GT, when a wish is made on the Dragon Balls, an equal amount of negative energy is created along with the beneficial wish granting energy. To prevent this energy from causing problems, the Dragon Balls absorb this dark energy, which only disperses after the original 100-year waiting period. The Dragon Balls then scatter across the planet, giving them time to disperse the dark energy, since it would, in theory, take years for someone to find all 7 Dragon Balls and summon Shenron again. Unfortunately, this counter measure was proved near useless when Bulma invented the Dragon Ball Radar, making it very easy to locate and collect the seven Dragon Balls. Eventually (during Dragon Ball GT) all seven Dragon Balls were filled to full capacity due to overuse, causing them to crack and the dark energy to leak out. When these damaged Dragon Balls were used to summon Shenlong to restore the Earth after Goku's battle with Super 17, the Dragon Balls summoned years worth of dark energy instead, which manifested into an evil Black Smoke Shenlong, who in turn swallowed the Dragon Balls and split into seven lesser evil dragons called "Shadow Dragons", each one made by a wish that was made within the past 100 year period (all the wishes made by Goku and his friends).

Black Star Dragon Balls

In Dragon Ball GT, the Black Star Dragon Balls (BSDB) were introduced. This set of Dragon Balls was created by Kami, during the time period when he still had the influence of Piccolo Daimaō. It is thought that after Kami and Piccolo became separate entities that the BSDB became stone as their creator was no longer "alive." The type of being Kami was pushed him to keep the BSDB as a reminder of his once corrupted heart. Once Kami and Piccolo merged again the balls became active but remained hidden and undisturbed in the tower.

The BSDB can summon a much more powerful "Red Shenron", a mighty dragon who is not restricted like the regular Shenron (eg. Red Shenron can kill a person if wished to). To counter this powerful improvement, the side effects of a wish made on the Black Star Dragonballs are catastrophic. There are four major side effects that happen when a wish is made on the Black Star Dragonballs:

1. When a wish is made they scatter across the universe.
2. Unlike the Earth and Namekian Dragon Balls, the Black Star Dragon Balls do not turn to stone after the wish is made
3. The Black Star Dragon Balls can be used over and over again if these Dragon Balls are collected.
4. The planet on which Red Shenlong grants a wish will be destroyed in one year unless the Black Star Dragon Balls are returned to that planet within a year from when the initial wish was granted, stopping another wish from being made as this would scatter the Dragon Balls again.

These Dragon Balls will not reset like the other Dragon Balls, should they be recollected and another wish made then both planets will be at risk of destruction. The Black Star Dragon Balls and the Red Shenron were destroyed forever when Piccolo allowed himself to be killed by Earth's destruction, as he was the creator of the BSDB.

Dragon Radar

Dragon Radar

The Dragon Radar was built by Bulma, and is used to find Dragon balls very quickly when compared to conventional methods. This is due to the fact that Dragonballs emit a faint electromagnetic pulse , which the Radar can detect. It then points arrows in the directions of nearby Dragonballs. Pressing the button on the top can cause the view to zoom out and show more and more of the planet. The radar is used frequently by Goku and his friends in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, but in Dragon Ball GT, the Dragon Ball Radar is assimilated by the robot Giru, thus giving Giru the ability to find the Dragonballs for Goku and the others.

During their hunt for the Dragonballs, the Red Ribbon Army had their own version of the Dragon Radar, but it was rather primitive and could only give a general idea of where the Dragonballs were. Emperor Pilaf eventually built his own, superior version of the Dragon Radar; shaped like a globe and installed in his floating airship, it was able to show the Dragonballs' exact location on the planet.

In other media

• In the manga Dragon Boy, Dragon Balls are small balls that appear very similar to the balls in the Dragon Ball series. However, instead of granting wishes, they can be opened using ki energy to release a small baby dragon that does not grant wishes.

• In the anime Puni Puni Poemy, the main character is shown to have collected 3 Dragon Balls to wish back her deceased parents. This is simply a gag on Dragon Ball and not meant to be taken seriously.

• At Comic Con 06, a glass replica of the 4 star ball was shown for display.