Review - Dragonball
The Manga Adapted Into One of the Most Popular Animes Ever Made
The story of Dragonball revolves around a young boy with a monkey-tail, named Son Goku, who had lived alone in the mountains after his grandfather passed away. His peaceful life is completely interrupted when Bulma, a girl seeking out the seven mythical Dragonballs, half-convinces and half-tricks Goku into becoming her bodyguard and aiding in her search. Whoever finds and brings together said Dragonballs will be able to summon the dragon god, Shenlong, who will grant the summoner a single wish.
The Story About a Boy and a Wish
The story branches out rather quickly from there though and after completing their adventure to summon the dragon, which resolves itself in a hilarious way, it undergoes a transitional change from comedy into martial arts and action in general. This is not to say that action was not present in the beginning, but the fighting goes from being used as a comedic device to a central plot point. For over five hundred chapters, Goku meets a host of colourful characters, realizes his own mysterious past, and faces deadly conflicts, which are usually resolved by somebody getting beaten up and something being demolished.
Toriyama's Influences and Style
First published in Weekly Shounen Jump in 1984, Toriyama had originally based the series off Journey To The West, one of the four most celebrated novels in Chinese literature, but Dragonball develops a life of its own right from the start. With its simplistic storytelling, slapstick humour, and high-flying, hot-blooded fight scenes, Dragonball was like no other manga in its time and inspired a generation.
The manga grows darker and more mature as time passes, but Toriyama's remains firmly on the idyllic end of the scale. Characters are killed and tears are shed, but with the power of dragonballs and the ability to grant any wish, they rarely stay down for long. Another Toriyama trademark is his characters. Most of them carry the most bizarre quirks, from a panty fetish to transforming things into chocolate, and none are safe from the zaniness. There was also a subtle art shift over time. What was first simplistic drawings with overblown expressions, evolved into detailed illustrations. Muscles became well-defined, villains developed a more sinister look, and the fighting, always the fighting, became better drawn.
A Genre is Born
Dragonball had popularized, if not invented, many standard shounen manga themes, like power levels, energy blasts, and transformations. To say this manga is groundbreaking would be an understatement. Picasso’s abstract art was groundbreaking. Dragonball takes a jackhammer and shatters the underlying tectonic plates, creating a new continent called Toriyamaland, where all the shounen manga now live in harmony.
Ultimately, this is a manga for boys. While there are plenty of females who admit to liking Dragonball, the directed audience has a definite male slant and this shows with the over-the-top action sequences and a complete lack of romance. But no fan of manga or anime can say that they have seen it all without at least a cursory glance at this near-legendary story from Japan.
Volume 1 Cover
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