Leung 31

Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball Z

Reviewed by Anson Leung

Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z is mainly about a young adult named Goku, who is the best martial artist in the world. The story begins in the original Dragon Ball manga that preceded Dragon Ball Z, where it was mainly about his journey to learn how to become the best martial artist on Earth. As a grown adult, his journey is now more focused on stopping otherworldly threats that menace the planet Earth periodically. Each main arc is focused on a villain, so it’s not a villain-of-the-week type story, but there’s more than one antagonist throughout the series.

Why does our hero need to fight off these villains? As Goku is only one person, surely the Earth’s military can do a better job, can’t they? Naturally, this question is answered by the fact that he is stronger than Earth’s military because he can throw gigantic waves of energy that have more energy output than atomic bombs. As the series progresses, the villains, and Goku himself, become strong enough to destroy the entire planet. Even at the beginning of the series, he is already strong enough to completely destroy an entire city. Plus, he can fly. Goku’s friends can likewise also perform superhuman feats, though not to the extent Goku can.

The start of his journey has Goku learning he is a Saiyan, and not a human like he previously thought. This explains why he was able to transform into a gigantic ape monster in the original Dragon Ball series. When his brother arrives to Earth, he learns that he is descended from a line of space pirates known as the Saiyans. But unlike his now-extinct race of people, he is pure of heart.

He learns from his older brother, Raditz, that his original mission was to destroy all of Earth’s lifeforms, not to protect the Earth. Saiyans conquer planets and sell them off to other species for a price. It’s a space pirate business mainly for money. Though it should be noted that most Saiyans love fighting, so some of it is for fun, too. But since Goku failed in doing so due to his personality being pure hearted, Raditz must now finish the job himself. He offers Goku the chance to join his group of Saiyans, the last ones alive in the otherwise-extinct race. Goku declines, and instead chooses to defend the Earth from Raditz. He dies fighting and successfully killing Raditz, then gets revived by the dragon balls by his friends. The dragon balls can grant any wish, as noted in the original Dragon Ball series. Raditz’ friends, two Saiyans stronger than he is by a considerable margin, try their hand at coming to Earth to collect the dragon balls, which are currently inert because they have already been used. They fight Goku and his friends, and they are defeated. But not before Goku’s friends are nearly all killed. Goku and his remaining friends who managed to survive go to planet Namek to find other dragon balls because the ones on Earth can no longer be used now that Piccolo, the creator (technically his father’s “good half” created them, but Piccolo’s life force is tied to it) of the Earth dragon balls, is dead. There they find Freeza (sometimes spelled Frieza), the tyrant responsible for destroying Goku’s entire race. He is the main villain of the entire Dragon Ball Z franchise. While the story does go significantly further than this, it should be noted that defeating Freeza, after Goku becomes the fabled Super Saiyan and avenges his entire race, was the original intended end for the series.

As a side note, Goku suffered brain damage as a baby when he was sent to destroy all life on Earth. His original personality was quite bloodthirsty, further reflected by the fact that Goku did not spare his enemies, like he would often do in this series, in the original Dragon Ball series. So, in short, his personality of being naïve, good natured, and heroic is not originally part of the Goku we know. But fans of this series happily gloss over this fact.

Another fun fact is that, in Western countries, Goku is viewed as a Superman clone. In native Japan, where the manga originated, Goku is a good person, but he prioritizes fighting over all else. Which is why the voiceover for the anime changes the Japanese words Goku speaks into something more heroic.

The series mainly consists of: Goku, the main protagonist; Bluma, a blue-haired and beautiful scientist who created the dragon radar to locate the dragon balls on Earth back in the original Dragon Ball series; Yamcha, a former desert bandit and cool fighter; Tien, a disciplined three-eyed muscular warrior; Krillin, a former monk, and Goku’s childhood best friend; Master Roshi, Goku’s master in martial arts in the original Dragon Ball series; Piccolo, the green Namekian alien who life and death is tied to Earth’s dragon balls being able to work; Gohan, who is Goku’s son and also has immense hidden fighting potential; Vegeta, Raditz’s most powerful Saiyan friend who survived the confrontation with Goku and his friends and has set his sights on defeating Freeza; and Freeza, the most powerful entity in the universe whose goal is to sell off planets for profit. His secondary goal is to attain immortality using the dragon balls on Namek.

Initially, the reader may think of this book as a mere children’s story. There is action, comedy, slapstick humor, and cliché storytelling; and being a shonen comic book, the original target audience of this book is mainly children in Japan.

However, looking past these aspects, one can see that Dragon Ball Z was a true inspiration for the manga industry. Meruem’s design from Hunter x Hunter was inspired by a later villain named Cell from the Dragon Ball Z franchise. Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation has inspired many manga with their own “power up forms” regarding their beloved characters. To further elaborate on this point, even One Piece, one of the most famous manga in the world, has its inspiration for the protagonist’s “Gear 5” transformation based on the Super Saiyan transformation. Dragon Ball Z may very well be the single greatest manga in the history of the entire world, and this is not an exaggeration.

Dragon Ball Z is well known for its fight scenes. While censored in the anime, the scene where Goku tricks Freeza into being cut in half by his own attack has his intestines dripping out of his upper half body, which is still very well alive. Plenty of explosions happen due the characters being able to throw out gigantic energy waves. The combat system is relatively straightforward, but overall variety is given. While brute force often takes priority, attacks also range from the ability to cut somebody in half, irrespective of how much stronger the target is in relation to the person using this attack, to attacks that can force a person into a tightly sealed jar. Tricking an enemy is sometimes a viable strategy, too, though that is far less seen in this series.

The characters in this manga are quite simple compared to other manga. Bulma’s main trait, in addition to inventing useful gadgets, is to overreact to any stupidity caused by characters within her immediate vicinity. Vegeta’s main trait is to be rude and abrasive, and that’s after he’s become a nicer person and no longer casually killing innocent races across the galaxy. Yamcha is nice, but unlike the previous Dragon Ball series, he lost much of the charm that made him “cool” in the first place. Many characters from the original Dragon Ball series don’t get used often enough. Dragon Ball Z becomes boiled down to Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, and Bulma, with occasionally Krillin, as the series progresses further and further past the Freeza arc.

Dragon Ball Z focuses on amazing scenes and great narrative designs as its main hook. The overall story might get somewhat repetitive and contrived as the series goes on, but due to its influential nature that permeates the entire manga industry, one can hardly dislike the series.

Anson Leung is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s Bachelor of Commerce program. He is an Alberta-based writer who loves all forms of writing, including poetry and article writing. In his spare time, he loves playing tennis and board games.