#DRAGON BALL Z SERIES REVIEW SERIES#
Even the world Toriyama has created for the series is delightful. Goku is a great lead, as he’s fun to watch and you want to cheer for him. It’s hard to find anything to dislike about this series. Toriyama makes this part of the humor conspicuous when he has Pilaf shocked and dismayed by the heroes’ casual acceptance of such things. Most of the jokes are harmless, and part of the humor is seeing the men denied.
There is also a lot of suggestive humor, usually in the form of men wanting to see or touch girls’ panties. The creator Toriyama also isn’t above throwing in some bad puns and references to his previous manga, Dr. There are a lot of other gag elements running through these first three volumes, such as Oolong’s all bark and no bite transformations, Yamcha being a powerful fighter who turns to mush when he just sees a girl because he finds them scary, and the girl Lunch, who is sweet and innocent until she sneezes and becomes violent and angry. One of the running gags is that the only way for Goku to tell is someone is male or female is to “pat” them below the waist. There are a lot of “potty humor” type jokes. Lowbrow humor is also played up a lot in this series. This plays into a lot of the humor in this series. He can often be tricked by a bad guy, but usually not for very long. I would describe him as not being very bright. He has a strong sense of justice and recognizes right from wrong. Goku is good-hearted and innocent in the many of the ways of the world, but I wouldn’t describe him as naive. He has never seen a car or a female, although his grandfather did tell him about girls before. It becomes even more apparent when he first meets Bulma in her car. It is immediately apparent that Goku is not your average boy. He is shown going about his daily routine, which includes splitting large logs into firewood and using his prehensile tail to catch fish twice his size. The story starts by introducing Son Goku, the hero. They do so well, though, that they are allowed to enter in a famous fighting tournament. Their training is made up of the mundane task of delivering milk, made difficult by having to cross alligator-infested rivers and outrun dinosaurs. The last third of the book follows Goku as he goes to train with the Turtle Hermit and is joined by Kuririn, who also wants to train with Kame Sen’nin.
The quest ends happily, but not quite the way anyone expected. They also meet a lot of interesting characters: Kame Sen’nin, the Turtle Hermit, Gyu-Mao, Lord of Fry Pan Mountain, and the self-proclaimed Emperor Pilaf and his henchmen, who are also after the dragon balls. As Goku and Bulma gather the dragon balls, they are joined by Oolong, the transforming pig, and the desert thief Yamcha and his companion Pu’ar, who can also transform. The first two-thirds of this title is taken up by the quest for the dragon balls, which is based very loosely on a classic Chinese novel, Journey to the West. Dragon Ball is filled with lots of fun characters and light-hearted adventures that readers from teen to adult will enjoy. Once you start reading, it isn’t too difficult to tell why. Originally created in the 1980s, it is still popular today and is called a classic.
ISBN: 978-1-4215-5564-5ĭragon Ball is one of those rare timeless manga. Goku has one of the balls, but he’s not willing to part with it, so he goes along with Bulma, where they go on many adventures, collecting the balls and fighting villains-and that’s just the beginning of the story! If the balls are found and brought together, the dragon Shenlong will appear and grant one wish. Son Goku lives alone in the wilds, away from civilization, when he literally runs into Bulma, a girl on her summer vacation, searching for the 7 legendary Dragon Balls.