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Dragon Ball Series Order: How to Watch the Dragon Ball Series in Order [2020]

Team StickyTrigger

We all have grown up watching Dragon Ball. Well, if not watching then at least listening about it from time to time. I always thought that Dragon Ball series order was straight forward and one can never get confused when its Dragon Ball anime. 

Until recently, when I found out how complicated Dragon Ball series order can get for first time watchers. Should you watch original Z or choose Kai? Do you watch ten tons of movies or not? Gt before Super or not? 

See? How complex it has become and specially new anime fans will go through a hell lot of struggle to get this through. The question here is, what is the ultimate Dragon Ball series order? Let’s get this sorted for you!

Should I Watch Dragon Ball GT?

Most of the Dragon Ball anime can be separated into Canon or not canon. Canon in the anime world mens that the particular series or movie primarily followed the original manga series and was made with insights from the creator – Akira Toriyama.  For most of its parts, The Dragon Ball anime series is of a canon nature. However, there are some exceptions.

First of all, Dragon Ball GT is categorised as non-canon. Akira Toriyama had negligible inputs on the GT series and was not happy with how it turned out. 

Even though, there are moments in the more current and canon Dragon Ball Super by which it seems they are trying to connect it to the canon, but, almost every fan will suggest to skip GT entirely.

Other non-canon Dragon Ball include some of the movies which contradicts with occurrence in the canon story line. 

Generally, fans suggest not to bother watching ALL the movies as there are tons of them, but there are some canon movies that fill in important details and insane fight sequences.

Dragon Ball Z or Dragon Ball Z Kai?

Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Z Kai are the pretty much same thing. Typically, Kai is a remastering of the events in the original Dragon Ball Z series. 

Kai features less filler with much better pace, and additional dialog from the original manga. Given that it is a newer animation, it looks better in some spots.

The fact that in the original DBZ some fights literally take upto 10 episodes to conclude, Kai takes the spotlight with better pacing. Dragon Ball Z has amazing filler but may get lengthy for some. So, frankly, it depends upon you. If you chose Kai, be assured you won’t miss out any crucial details.

Canon Standard Watch Order

If you are looking for the best possible Dragon Ball series order, you may not need to watch it in the chronological order. 

This is the Dragon Ball Series order that we suggest:

You might also want to watch Battle of the Gods and the Resurrection movies, because they are pretty cool, but they also have arcs in Super. If you plan to skip, you won’t really miss out on anything but the movies definitely have lot more details.

The Chronological Dragon Ball Series Order for Crazy People

You don’t need to really watch Dragon ball in chronological order and we don’t suggest it. This would just toss out the concept of canon and no canon and include all the movies, GT, and Super in the closes possible timeline. 

You may even find the timeline of some movies contradicting and end up confusing yourself, see, that is why they are considered non canon and are usually kept out of the watch order.

But, if you are really rooting to watch Dragon Ball in chronological order, here you go.