Dragon Ball is a manga written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama and in this first volume; this is when we saw how Goku’s adventure began… by tagging along with Bulma! Aside from that, if you never had the chance to watch the original series due to Z becoming extremely popular, here’s what I can tell to you, the characters that you thought are useless has some use!
The volume begins with Kid Goku, wearing his blue karate gi (If you are reading the same edition that I read, its blue. But if you read the original release which is in black and white, your lost!), living in the middle of nowhere and he was able to survive it after all. Aside that he was able to survive the wilderness, he hunts and do things what I a guy will do if he is in a forest.
Enter Bulma, a teenager who is looking for something and bumps into Goku who has just caught a fish and thinks of her car as a monster! After clearing things up, Goku welcomes Bulma in his house since that is what his dead grandpa tells him. Treat women nicely. And so, we saw the first Dragon Ball in this series, the four-star Dragon Ball.
We learned that there are more Dragon Balls in existence and we learned that once you complete all seven Dragon Balls, and once you do the proper chant, you can summon a mystical dragon named, Shenlong (That’s what my volume says, deal with it.) which can grant any wish that the person likes!
Since Goku doesn’t want to give his grandpa’s Dragon Ball, Bulma then convinces Goku to join in her quest to look for the Dragon Balls, and since Goku has nothing to do, he decides to tag along! And so, Goku’s adventure begins… along with Bulma.
As the volume progressed, we met Kame Sen’nin, translated as Turtle Hermit thanks to the sea turtle that was eternally lost in the forest. Because he helped him find his friend, he decides to give him a gift, originally, immortality but since the “immortal” phoenix died because of a tainted birdseed (I am serious), he decides to give Goku the next good thing… KINTOOOOOOO’UN! Ah, I miss screaming this one! Yep, if you are not familiar with it, I think Flying Nimbus is the term. And so, the Turtle Hermit gives Goku a cloud. Deal with the logic.
Aside from that, he has a Dragon Ball and after Bulma showing off her… assets (You need to read it if you want to know those assets), we now have the fourth Dragon Ball the grouped possessed.
Later, we met Oolong, a shape shifter who is terrorizing a town and this is when we saw the debut of Goku’s infamous “pat-pat” scenes for him to know if a person is a girl or not! Since the town has a Dragon Ball, Bulma decides to do a bargain; they will fix the problem with Oolong, if they will give the Dragon Ball.
Later, after they defeat Oolong and add him in their party (Plays FF’s Victory Fanfare), Bulma and co. is planning to go Fry-Pan Mountain to find the next Dragon Ball. This is when we learned about Gyuu-Mao aka The Ox King. Based on Oolong’s reaction, he is one dangerous guy.
After losing their capsules in the river, they all end up walking towards Fry-Pan Mountain and meets Yamcha and Pu’ar. Yamcha is a desert bandit and his partner is Pu’ar, the two of them are planning to rob Bulma and co. with their capsules and so, one of the first recorded awesome fights has been recorded… and we learn that he is afraid of girls… and I thought he is a pimp!
After the duo learns about the Dragon Balls, Yamcha now has a new mission, to steal the Dragon Balls and wish for the mystical dragon to remove his fear of girls. Cheesy, yes. Required? Absolutely! I mean, Yamcha dreams of getting married, so he must first get rid of that fear first!
Anyways, after their third encounter with Yamcha, and after he lost, he decides to give him the party a car with a tracker in it so that, he can follow them wherever they will go and steal their Dragon Balls if he has a chance! The party now continues with their quest in Fry-Pan Mountain in which we met Chi-Chi, who is secretly part of the Ultra Family due to her ability to shoot lasers and to throw boomerangs in her helmet. After that, Bulma and co. now looks for the Dragon Ball in the burning castle, and met Gyuu-Mao personally and apparently, he knows Kame Sen’nin, which he refers as his Muten Roshi in English, Invisible Master! Therefore, this is how the first volume of Dragon Ball ended.
On to the review, I will quote to one of the most clichéd sentences around, “this were it all began.” In this volume, we saw the first adventure of a naïve boy whom we have never thought that at the end, he will later save the world. From the following: a terrorist organization, green “demon,” aliens with monkey tails, another alien, a monster based on various aliens and a fat pink guy who will undergo major diet and will later shrunk into a dumb pink kid.
One of the driving forces in the first volume is Goku being extremely innocent. It is one of the driving forces of the comedy that this manga offers aside from the amount of Bulma fan service that we are getting in here. How innocent was Goku back then? Aside that he had a hard time identifying if that person is a guy or not, and after the incident that he learned that Bulma has no “balls” (You know the one), we saw the development of Goku’s technique in learning a person’s gender, the so-called, “pat-pat.”
You might say that Goku is stupid because of that, but here is his situation, according to Goku, his grandpa is crazy, add the fact that Goku is in the middle of nowhere, it is obvious that he will have a hard time learning the difference between a guy and a girl! Now you know why I love Goku back then! He is simple; all he cares is that as long as he can eat and beat the crap out of someone (Which is still remains up until now) he is happy.
Here is one thing I observed in this volume, the quest for the Dragon Balls was fast. By fast, it felt like, after every arc, Bulma and co. will earn a Dragon Ball. But that all changed when Yamcha appeared. In his introductory arc, the group never received a Dragon Ball, we only encountered a bandit that knows a martial arts technique called, Fist of the Wolf Fang and robs people and that includes Bulma and co. In the consecutive chapters after his introductory arc, Bulma and co. still doesn’t receive a Dragon Ball, which is good since it lessens the predictability of their adventure.
On to Yamcha, he left quite a good impression on me. In the first volume, he is the first decent antagonist that Goku faced aside that he is human; he was able to go on par with Goku in terms of fighting! Heck, it even caused Goku to lose more of his energy while fighting him! Add the fact that he never ate for a while! Their first fight was a real good read that I read it again. Too bad, he is afraid of girls.
My first impression on Bulma… she is a geek with quite a dirty mind. She is spoiled, had a hard time to live in the wilderness, and lastly, desperate for a perfect boyfriend that is why she is looking for the Dragon Balls, to wish for a perfect boyfriend! I find it absurd when I first read it but as soon as I read the volume, well, her wish has a point. I mean, she is Miss Perfect as seen on her actions in the volume, so all she needs is a guy who can add up to her “perfectness.”
First impression on Kame Sen’nin, he is a classic dirty old man with an awesome secret as revealed by one of his students, the Ox King. Aside that it was revealed that he “might” be immortal due to his immortal phoenix, seeing how terrifying the Ox King is, it is obvious that he is a strong master and like most old men in kung fu films, you should not under estimate him… and I was right after reading the following volumes.
As for the other characters that would be regulars, nah. They never left a good impression on me aside that Oolong is just a perverted pig, Chi-Chi has an Ultraman helmet in which up until now, and still confused on why she didn’t give it to her son, Gohan and Puar is just… Puar!
Overall, Volume 1 of Dragon Ball was a good start of Goku’s adventure. Sure, the first volume doesn’t give much focus on Goku as a main character aside that he only aides Bulma in her quest to look for the Dragon Balls just for the heck of it, but it gives us the meat on the stars of the original series, namely, Goku, Bulma, Kame Sen’nin and Yamcha.
The art for the first volume is great and the colors (If you are reading the Viz Big Edition), properly matches the characters. The only downside with Toriyama’s coloring is the fact that he went a little lazy after a few pages and decides to color the manga with the shades of red, orange and gray before going all black and white.
The edits made by Viz in terms of the sound cards is well done and in the Viz Big Edition, how they did the edits on Bulma’s service scenes was properly made (Note: The scans that I used here are the earlier releases of Dragon Ball in the US) for the new readers not to notice it.
If you are a fan of Dragon Ball Z and never had the chance to watch the original Dragon Ball series back in TV, the first volume is a must read. Aside that you learn why those characters in Z exist even if they don’t do a lot, you will learn that without those characters, Goku will not be the Goku we know and love. Thank God, Bulma found Goku in the wild and Goku wreck her car in return! That my friends, is how the relationship of a 14 (?) year-old with a monkey tail named Goku to a 16-year-old 36-C cup girl named, Bloomers, I mean, Bulma!
If you love this review, please support the official releases by Viz Media! You can buy your own copy of Dragon Ball Vol. 1 online (Which I post the links below), or if it is available in your local bookstore, buy it! The scans here are used for promotional purposes of the manga and for the sake of this review to be not boring because it is long. So please, Viz, don’t kill me.
Amazon
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Collector's Edition)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (VIZBIG Edition 3-in-1)
VIZ Store
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Collector's Edition)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (VIZBIG Edition 3-in-1)
Amazon
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Collector's Edition)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (VIZBIG Edition 3-in-1)
VIZ Store
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (Collector's Edition)
Dragon Ball Vol. 1 (VIZBIG Edition 3-in-1)