Synopsis: Dragonball is an manga series by Akira Toriyama. The series is complete with 42 volumes. Unlike the anime counterpart, Dragonball is not separated as Dragonball and Dragonball Z. The manga is considered shonen, martial arts, and comedy.
Summary: Dragonball focuses on the life and adventures of Goku. In the first half of the series, the main focus is on Goku as he travels with his friend Bulma to collect the 7 legendary Dragonballs, which grants the user one wish of his or her desire. During the journey, Goku will encounter many people who also wish to collect the dragonballs and will have to battle his way out to obtain new dragonballs as well as maintaining the ones he already has. In addition to collecting dragonballs, he and his friend Kiririn will undergo training from martial arts master Muten Roshi. The second half of the series is dedicated to revealing Goku's identity. Also, searching for dragonballs is no longer the focus as Goku must battle villains who threaten to destroy planet earth. In similar fashion to the first half, Goku must undergo training in order to defeat those who pose threat to the earth.
Review: As a manga series, Dragonball is one of the most important mangas to be ever released outside of Japan. It pioneered as the most influential shonen manga ever as many current shonen mangas (One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, etc) share common elements from Dragonball. As a martial arts manga, there's a lot of action and the fighting is done fairly well, though in the latter part it becomes difficult to follow. As far as comedy, much of the humor is found in the beginning volumes, whereas later on, the manga focuses much more on the plot. In terms of art, each character is designed well, and the main characters and villains are given great attention, though some of the side characters are forgettable. In similar fashion to the anime counterpart, the manga suffers from long dragging battles. In some cases more than 2 volumes are devoted to one main villain. Also, the art is not always clean as some parts are not clear.
In all, Dragonball is still a good manga as far as shonen goes. It is one of the key mangas responsible for establishing shonen as the most popular form of manga. Also, without Dragonball, a lot of the current mangas would never have surfaced.
My Final Score: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
Availability: Published by: Viz Media
Scanlator: kaosu buntai creative divison
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