In 1984, "Weekly Shōnen Jump" began serializing Toriyama's "Dragon Ball", which became an instant hit. As of 2014, it had sold 159.5million "tankōbon" copies in Japan alone, making it Shueisha's second best-selling manga of all time. It began as an adventure/gag manga but later turned into a martial arts fighting series, considered by many to be the "most influential "shōnen" manga." "Dragon Ball" was one of the main reasons for the magazine's circulation hitting a record high of 6.53 million copies (1995). The series' success encouraged Toriyama to continue working on it from 1984 to 1995. At the series' end, Toriyama said that he asked everyone involved to let him end the manga, so he could "take some new steps in life." During that 11-year period, he produced 519 chapters that were collected into 42 volumes. Moreover, the success of the manga led to five anime adaptations, several animated movies, numerous video games, and mega-merchandising. The third anime adaptation, "Dragon Ball GT", was not based on his manga; however, Toriyama was still involved in coming up with the name and designing the main cast. Aside from its popularity in Japan, "Dragon Ball" was successful internationally as well, including Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with 250–300million copies of the manga sold worldwide.