To capitalize on the hype surrounding Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, the franchise’s first theatrical film in 17 years, Shueisha began releasing a fully-colored print-only version of the manga based on the kanzenban edition. Each “Full Color” volume contains 17 chapters, as opposed to the kanzenban editions which typically contain 15 chapters per volume. Unlike all other releases of the Dragon Ball manga, the “Full Color” release began with the “Z”-era storyline, and chapter numbering has been divided up by story arc. Shueisha later announced plans to revisit the beginning of the series, although as a digital-only release.

When the first “Dragon Ball Full Color” volumes hit bookstores on 04 February 2013, Shueisha surprised many fans by releasing the first 194 chapters digitally in a new “Color Edition” format via a variety of sources, including their own “Jump Book STORE!” app for iOS and Android, as well as Amazon Kindle and the iBookstore. Note that these print-only “Full Color” releases are different from the “Digital Color Edition” volumes released, as they differ in chapter counts. The remaining chapters were subsequently released in conjunction with their respective “Full Color” releases — the Freeza arc was available in print on 04 April 2013, while print editions of the Artificial Human and Majin Boo arcs did not see release until the middle of 2014.

In late-2015, Shueisha announced that the series’ pre-“Z” storyline would be receiving a print release of its own beginning in January 2016.