The Monkey King
Before there was Dragon Ball Z, there was Akira Toriyama's action epic Dragon Ball, starring the younger version of Son Goku and all the other Dragon Ball Z heroes! Meet a naive young monkey-tailed boy named Goku, whose quiet life changes when he meets Bulma, a girl who is on a quest to collect seven "Dragon Balls." If she gathers them all, an incredibly powerful dragon will appear and grant her one wish. But the precious orbs are scattered all over the world, and Bulma needs Goku's help (and his super strength)! With a magic staff for a weapon and a flying cloud for a ride, Goku sets out on the adventure of a lifetime... (from the back of the book)
Here is the first volume of Akira Toriyama's epic Dragon Ball series.
In this volume, Goku and Bulma start on their quest to search for the Dragon Balls. The Dragon Balls are seven magical balls (that appear to be made of glass) that, when all gathered together in the same place, summon a magical dragon that will grant the collector one wish. Bulma wants to gather the balls to wish for either a lifetime supply of strawberries or a cute boy, Goku just wants to see the dragon.
Their quest takes them from the forest, to the desert, and through small villages. Each new location brings about new friends and shenanigans, mostly involving humour that really lets the series ear its 'T' rating (nudity and sex jokes, yo). (Incidentally, the 'dragon's balls' joke only comes up twice this whole volume.)
I laugh out loud every time I read this volume. The first time I read it I immediately became attached to the characters. I love the characters from this series, they're so colourful and hilarious... not to mention strange. I first met these characters in the Dragon Ball Z TV series when I was a kid, so it was pretty interesting for me to see where they had all come from.
First there's Goku. He's a young boy who lives alone in the forest... he also has a tail, a monkey tail to be specific. He's also got super strength and seems to be a complete idiot. He is in possession of the four-star Dragon Ball (the ball with four stars on it), which he seems to think is his recently deceased grandfather; he talks to it like it is anyway. He's a very carefree and happy boy and pretty much just does what he wants. He also knows martial arts, having been taught by his grandfather before his death.
Bulma is the second character we meet. She's a 16-year-old genius from the city who is searching for the Dragon Balls during summer vacation. She built a radar to search for the balls and she manages to get Goku to join her on her search... after a weird misunderstanding where Bulma tries to shoot Goku in the head, and where the readers find out that Goku is pretty much indestructible.
Other characters that appear in this volume are Turtle, the sea turtle; Master Roshi, your friendly neighbourhood perverted turtle hermit; Oolong, a perverted and cowardly shape-shifting pig; Yamcha, a desert bandit who's afraid of girls (including Bulma); and Pu'ar, Yamcha's floating shape-shifting cat friend.
It's really the characters that make this story what it is. The story (so far, in this volume) is just your basic 'search for magical items' story. But the characters in this story are far too silly to go on a serious adventure. Bulma is a teenage girl searching for magical artifacts while on vacation from school, Goku just stumbles along behind her accidentally offending and surprising everyone he comes across, Oolong is a complete coward and is only staying with Bulma and Goku under threat of bodily harm should he leave (and he's tried to run), and Yamcha couldn't be sabotaging himself more if he tried. It's great.
The art is pretty simple. The children are short and chubby, the women are tall and thin (except for nameless background characters), and the men are usually pretty muscle-y (except for nameless background characters... and Master Roshi, who is old... very old...). A lot of the characters' eyes are pretty big, but not overly so, and the over exaggerated facial expressions are awesome and used to great humorous effect.
Dragon Ball is an action series and there are a lot of fights, which are drawn very well. Every attack has its own name and every character has their own signature move. The fight sequences read pretty quickly and are very entertaining, especially with the characters' personalities shining through everything.
Along with being an action series, it's also a fantasy/sci-fi type series. It has dinosaurs, futuristic technology, talking animals, flying clouds, and of course, the Dragon Balls.
This was an awesome first volume with an engaging story line, lovable characters, and genuinely hilarious humour. There's even somewhat of a cliff-hanger at the end, which promises that this hilarious adventure will continue.
Before there was Dragon Ball Z, there was Akira Toriyama's action epic Dragon Ball, starring the younger version of Son Goku and all the other Dragon Ball Z heroes! Meet a naive young monkey-tailed boy named Goku, whose quiet life changes when he meets Bulma, a girl who is on a quest to collect seven "Dragon Balls." If she gathers them all, an incredibly powerful dragon will appear and grant her one wish. But the precious orbs are scattered all over the world, and Bulma needs Goku's help (and his super strength)! With a magic staff for a weapon and a flying cloud for a ride, Goku sets out on the adventure of a lifetime... (from the back of the book)
Here is the first volume of Akira Toriyama's epic Dragon Ball series.
In this volume, Goku and Bulma start on their quest to search for the Dragon Balls. The Dragon Balls are seven magical balls (that appear to be made of glass) that, when all gathered together in the same place, summon a magical dragon that will grant the collector one wish. Bulma wants to gather the balls to wish for either a lifetime supply of strawberries or a cute boy, Goku just wants to see the dragon.
Their quest takes them from the forest, to the desert, and through small villages. Each new location brings about new friends and shenanigans, mostly involving humour that really lets the series ear its 'T' rating (nudity and sex jokes, yo). (Incidentally, the 'dragon's balls' joke only comes up twice this whole volume.)
I laugh out loud every time I read this volume. The first time I read it I immediately became attached to the characters. I love the characters from this series, they're so colourful and hilarious... not to mention strange. I first met these characters in the Dragon Ball Z TV series when I was a kid, so it was pretty interesting for me to see where they had all come from.
First there's Goku. He's a young boy who lives alone in the forest... he also has a tail, a monkey tail to be specific. He's also got super strength and seems to be a complete idiot. He is in possession of the four-star Dragon Ball (the ball with four stars on it), which he seems to think is his recently deceased grandfather; he talks to it like it is anyway. He's a very carefree and happy boy and pretty much just does what he wants. He also knows martial arts, having been taught by his grandfather before his death.
Bulma is the second character we meet. She's a 16-year-old genius from the city who is searching for the Dragon Balls during summer vacation. She built a radar to search for the balls and she manages to get Goku to join her on her search... after a weird misunderstanding where Bulma tries to shoot Goku in the head, and where the readers find out that Goku is pretty much indestructible.
Other characters that appear in this volume are Turtle, the sea turtle; Master Roshi, your friendly neighbourhood perverted turtle hermit; Oolong, a perverted and cowardly shape-shifting pig; Yamcha, a desert bandit who's afraid of girls (including Bulma); and Pu'ar, Yamcha's floating shape-shifting cat friend.
It's really the characters that make this story what it is. The story (so far, in this volume) is just your basic 'search for magical items' story. But the characters in this story are far too silly to go on a serious adventure. Bulma is a teenage girl searching for magical artifacts while on vacation from school, Goku just stumbles along behind her accidentally offending and surprising everyone he comes across, Oolong is a complete coward and is only staying with Bulma and Goku under threat of bodily harm should he leave (and he's tried to run), and Yamcha couldn't be sabotaging himself more if he tried. It's great.
The art is pretty simple. The children are short and chubby, the women are tall and thin (except for nameless background characters), and the men are usually pretty muscle-y (except for nameless background characters... and Master Roshi, who is old... very old...). A lot of the characters' eyes are pretty big, but not overly so, and the over exaggerated facial expressions are awesome and used to great humorous effect.
Dragon Ball is an action series and there are a lot of fights, which are drawn very well. Every attack has its own name and every character has their own signature move. The fight sequences read pretty quickly and are very entertaining, especially with the characters' personalities shining through everything.
Along with being an action series, it's also a fantasy/sci-fi type series. It has dinosaurs, futuristic technology, talking animals, flying clouds, and of course, the Dragon Balls.
This was an awesome first volume with an engaging story line, lovable characters, and genuinely hilarious humour. There's even somewhat of a cliff-hanger at the end, which promises that this hilarious adventure will continue.
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