It has been announced that the first-ever worldwide character popularity poll, "DRAGON BALL THE ONE," will be held as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations for the popular manga "Dragon Ball" by the late Akira Toriyama. The series began serialization in "Weekly Shonen Jump" (Shueisha) on November 20, 1984, and voting began on a special website at noon on November 20.
Voting will be conducted in a survival format across four stages, with the number of characters available for voting decreasing as the stage progresses. After each stage, a loser's bracket will be held in X, with one character being revived and moving on to the next stage.
In the "1st STAGE," the top 80 characters from 212 characters will advance to the next stage, and the voting period for the "Final STAGE," in which the winner will be selected from the top 21 characters, will be from noon on December 17th to 11:59 AM on the 24th. The voting results will be announced in a special program streamed on the official Dragon Ball YouTube channel at noon on January 24th, 2026.
"Dragon Ball" was serialized in "Weekly Shonen Jump" from 1984 to 1995, and the TV anime series began in 1986. The total number of copies of the comics published worldwide exceeds 260 million.
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