Dragon Ball Z: Instead of continuing the anime as Dragon Ball, Toei Animation decided to carry on with their adaptation under a new name and asked Akira Toriyama to come up with the title. Dragon Ball Z picks up five years after the first series left off and adapts the final 325 chapters of the manga. It premiered in Japan on Fuji Television on April 26, 1989, taking over its predecessor's time slot, and ran for 291 episodes until its conclusion on January 31, 1996.