The original crew... before Piccolo, a group of space aliens and Gohan existed.
To those who are living under the rock and I mean those who haven’t watched or read Dragon Ball, not Z with Nappa and Vegeta. The original series is about an innocent boy named Goku who is living outside of civilization who meets a sixteen-year-old girl named, Bulma who is looking for Dragon Balls with her invention, the Dragon Radar, and the rest, like they say, is history.
That’s how the original series went, Goku and Bulma’s quest for the Dragon Balls. That’s it. When I got the chance to buy the Viz Big Edition of Dragon Ball (Its Viz Media’s manga set in which 3 volumes is binded in one book!), I decided to buy it along with the last volume of Skull Man yesterday. Before reviewing for my finals (Which will happen later, hence, I will review again.), I decided to read it and was hooked with it. Now I understand why Yamcha, Chi Chi (Yes, she was there and it turned out she is an Ultra!), Puar, Oolang was there… and I thought those guys are useless!
To give you an idea about their use in the original series, here is how:
Yamcha – he is originally a bandit who is looking for loot and along with Puar, they met Bulma and co. He originally had a scuffle with Goku before joining them… and won, and later lost to Goku when he is recharged after eating his lunch. After learning that they are looking for Dragon Balls and learned its properties, he decides to sneak around to steal the Balls once it is complete before officially joining the group. What is Yamcha’s wish? Not to be scared with girls, yes, he is scared with girls.
Chi-Chi – she is the Ox King’s daughter who originally looked for Muten Roshi, who has a special fan, which can kill any kind of flame, since her home is burning for months, and she needs those! Wondering what is her skill? She wears a helmet that resembles an Ultraman’s helmet and the top piece can be removed like a boomerang and, by pointing her fingers on the circle in the center of her helmet, she shoots beams. Makes me wonder why Gohan never wore her mom’s Ultra helmet…
Puar and Oolong – Puar and Oolong are classmates in a shape shifting school. Puar is cat that tags along with Yamcha while Oolong is a pig who is terrorizing a village with his shape shifting skills. Oolong terrorizes the village by demanding a girl to be offered to him. Later on, we learned that he actually owns a mansion, with all the girls that were offered to her, enjoying! Because of Bulma, he ended up joining with them. Aside from his shape shifting abilities, he became useful at the climax of the second volume in which he wished for the mystical dragon a hot chick’s panties, which accidentally prevent Pilaf in wishing for world domination!
Krillin came in the third volume of the manga and serves as partner in training to Goku, in which we learned Roshi’s training. His training includes, delivering milk, plowing a field, finding a rock and strengthening one’s mind by reading lewd books. That is how easy his training is… minus the heavy turtle shell! The infamous Kamehameha came in when Muten Roshi extinguish the flames in Ox King’s house… and Goku was able to utilize this skill even he never received proper training!
The first three volumes shed light regarding the Z. It explains why those characters from Z existed, why Goku ended up with Chi-Chi, and why Bulma ended up with Vegeta. Sure, it was subtle but her attitude in the original series explains why she got pregnant with Trunks. Aside from that, Toriyama actually hinted Goku to be an alien in one chapter thanks to Oolong! The original series was great, but it still bothers me why the sequel, Z was more popular.
I know, you might say that Z has the fierce fights, but the original series was an adventure series, a supposed to be parody of a Chinese folklore, with less fierce fights, more comedy, and you don’t have a hard time recognizing all the characters. Dragon Ball is action-comedy-adventure at its finest, no doubt about it. The adventure aspect was partly gone in Z, which was one of the best things in the original series, and instead, focused more on the fierce fights that became the trademark of the series and the standard to most shonen titles… along with the usual power-ups.
GT tried to return the adventure aspect thanks to the first saga of the series, but it failed to deliver the elements that made the original memorable. The comedy was not that good, the adventure aspect was not as exciting as the original and the fights, a little lackluster compared to the standards set by Z. Still it bothers me, why here in the Philippines, GT was reruned over 9000 times (Lost count, sorry.), but the original series only aired two or three times in three TV stations! No chance of having Dragon Ball reruns?
When Dragon Ball Kai was announced, I thought that it is a remake of the adventures of Kid Goku, I was wrong, instead, Toei decided to upgrade the SD format of Z, turn it into widescreen HD, fixed some errors (A notable fixed error is Vegeta’s hair) and broken frames, remove the fillers and release it into the Dragon Ball name! What the hell?! Good thing, when it was released in the West, it went under the title, Dragon Ball Z Kai. Did Toei forget that a certain Dragon Ball exist that they produced years ago?
If I ask a younger fan how Goku looks like, he or she would point me into the adult Goku, who never changed after years of training with various mentors and having two kids, a grandkid and later in GT, a great grandkid. Everyone still recognizes the kid Goku, but the names of the characters that accompanied him aside from Bulma, Muten Roshi and Krillin are nearly forgotten. Why is it when they needed a decoy to distract Raditz or any villain, why Oolong or Puar was not there? Seriously, if Oolong was there, it can distract Nappa because he doesn’t know who is the real Krillin well, for five minutes. No love for Oolong and Puar?
I was wondering, why there is no love for the original series? If I am trying my best to look for figures regarding the original series, I failed in looking those figures right now. I am starting wonder, since Bandai is producing the S.H.Figuarts toyline, with Dragon Ball in it, what if they produce figures based from the original series? Seriously, I want to see an SHF Kid Goku that wears his classic blue threads. Kid Goku in blue needs some love from fans. Sure, his orange threads were iconic but we first saw him in blue, but when was the last time we saw him wear those? Oh, he wore it on the finale of Z and the entire GT series… with brown pants. No love for Goku’s all blue outfit?
Based on what I remembered, after the tournament, Goku will encounter the Blue Ribbon Army something in which, Dr. Gero one of its members would later create the Androids that would give our heroes a hard time in Z. If you haven’t watch Dragon Ball or read it, you would find Gero’s anger with Goku pointless even if we are briefed on the reason why he hated Goku. After fighting this group, he would later encounter the original Piccolo, the Piccolo that we saw in Z in his son, Piccolo, Jr. The original series would explain why the Piccolo we love in Z existed. If my memory serves me correctly, like Pilaf, they wanted the Dragon Balls for their own personal desires. This was partly missing in later parts of Z, other humans or aliens desiring for the Dragon Balls to be theirs!
In addition, there is one thing that I loved about the original series, Goku transforming into a giant ape that accidentally killed his Grandpa Gohan. After learning this, after seeing Z, if Goku learned about this, is he bothered? Did he have closure with his Grandpa Gohan that he accidentally killed? Maybe it made Goku more human in the later parts of the original series. Hope so. Guess what I am trying to say is, we should give the original series more love than in its sequel. Sure, Z has many memorable characters but Goku will not shoot Kamehameha on them without Bulma accidentally discovering him in the forest back in the first chapter of the manga/first episode of the series.