Story by: Akira Toriyama | Art by: Toyotarou
The SUPER manga begins with an adaptation of the 2013 BATTLE OF GODS movie. Goku's existence comes to the attention of a deity named Beerus, the God of Destruction. Beerus comes to Earth to challenge Goku to a fight, in hopes that the hero will transform into the legendary "Super Saiyan God".
(By the way, I'm sort of assuming that you know what a Saiyan is. I'm writing this with the idea that the reader is familiar with at least the basics of the DRAGON BALL saga. It's hard to go in cold reviewing the new installments of a thirty-plus year-old property without having written about any of the material that came before!)
So Beerus and Goku fight and, sure enough, Goku achieves the Super Saiyan God form. Beerus thanks Goku for a good fight, then departs -- but not before informing Goku that the universe in which he lives is actually part of a multiverse comprised of a dozen near-identical universes, each with its own great warriors (Goku's universe, for the record, is Universe 7).
The manga takes an odd turn here, as a simple narration box informs us that the evil (and long dead) warlord, Freeza, was resurrected by his minions and engaged in a battle with Goku which unlocked another new form -- Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (it's the Super Saiyan form of the Super Saiyan God form). These events were chronicled in the 2015 RESURRECTION "F" movie, which had an accompanying manga by Toriyama and Toyotarou, so I assume the idea is that readers of the SUPER manga would have checked out the RESURRECTION "F" manga separately -- though from what I've read about that one, it was basically promotion for the movie and even ended on a cliffhanger telling readers to go watch the film to see how it would end.
But in any case -- Freeza was alive, fought Goku, died again, and now we've skipped ahead a bit to learn that Goku and his pal Vegeta have been training on Beerus's planet with Beerus' mentor, Whis. Beerus' brother, Champa -- the God of Destruction from Universe 6 -- appears and challenges his brother to a universal tournament: the five best fighters in Universe 6 against the five best fighters in Universe 7. The prize will be the Super Dragon Balls, massive planet-sized orbs similar to those found on planets Earth and Namek. Beerus agrees, and Goku and Vegeta quickly recruit their team: the two of them, plus allies Piccolo and Majin Boo (who is now a good guy; it's a long story from the original series). Beerus fills the last spot with a champion of his choosing, an alien named Monaka.
An interlude follows, during which Bulma calls up her sister, Tights, and asks her to get hold of Jaco. Together, Bulma and Jaco go on a little expedition to learn about the Super Dragon Balls. Then, on a neutral planet chosen by Beerus and Champa, the tournament begins. Universe 7's champions are accompanied by their friends and family as spectators, but Universe 6 oddly has nobody to cheer them on. Goku battles and defeats a Universe 6 opponent named Botamo, then squares off against Universe 6's counterpart to Freeza, known as Frost. The volume ends on a cliffhanger as Frost reveals his final form to battle against Super Saiyan Goku.
It's fun, having just spent the past three or so years watching DRAGON BALL SUPER every week on Cartoon Network, to now go "back to the beginning" and read the manga version. As I mentioned in my announcement of this project the other day, the SUPER manga was published concurrently with the airing of the TV show's episodes, but unlike the original manga and series -- where the latter was an adaptation of the former -- in this case, the show and comic are both plotted by Akira Toriyama from the get-go. The classic manga told its story and the TV shows adapted it and often expanded it with "filler" material, while here it feels more like the manga is condensed from the TV version rather than the show being expanded from the manga, if that makes sense.
Toyotarou's artwork is great as well -- he channels Akira Toriyama's style to the point that this series is nearly indistinguishable from the later era of the original manga. I'm sure diehard fans and those more artistically attuned than me could find the subtle differences between the two, but as far as I'm concerned, Toyotarou is about as close to a Toriyama clone as humanly possible. It's not just the art style, but the characters' expressions, body language, and so forth. It's all pitch perfect.
If I have one criticism of the first DB SUPER volume, it's simply that the early parts feel rushed -- like Toriyama felt he had to adapt BATTLE OF GODS but didn't want to spend too much time on it, and, of course, like he didn't want to adapt RESURRECTION "F" at all. Obviously RESURRECTION "F" is completely skipped here, but BATTLE OF GODS doesn't fare much better, amounting to little more than an extended fight with minimal exposition. Heck, the goofy-villain trio of Pilaf, Mai, and Shuu show up in these pages, de-aged as children, with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. It's sloppy.
But once we get past the first half or so of the book and begin the tournament storyline, the series begins to feel more like the classic manga in terms of pacing and style. Hopefully that feeling will continue as we proceed into the subsequent volumes.
*I've always spelled the character's name as "Buu", which was the accepted fan translation for many years, and was made "official" by North American licensor FUNimation quite a while back. But Viz's manga translation calls him "Boo" -- which, honestly, is how it really should be translated, since he was created by a wizard named Babidi who is the son of a wizard named Bibidi -- so for purposes of these reviews I'll use Viz's version of the name.
You've probably noticed there is some sort of Gohan Embargo for at least the two original arcs. From what I've gathered, Toriyama felt he couldn't turn Gohan into the protagonist (by his own will; the 'fans forced him' is probably a myth) and evidently lost interest in using the character (similar to how Claremont dropped Cyclops). However, it appears TOEI was interested. Note the difference in the two adaptations of RESURRECTION F. The movie (written by Toriyama) has Gohan doing some fighting. The Series gives him something of a character arc, having a wake-up call about his 'slack off in peace time' problem, realizing he has to train to protect his family. The situation is resolved with Gohan asking Piccolo to train him again. Unfortunately, nothing could be done with the Champa/Universe Arc because Toriyama's outline forbade Gohan from having a part in the storyline. Hence the 'Gohan has a conference' excuse (which possibly came from Toriyama).
ReplyDeleteThis is what I'm getting at: in the Series version, we have Gohan mentioned as a possible fighter for the U6 Tournament. Goku- quite nicely- comments that his son might be a little rusty. They come to Gohan training with Piccolo to ask the latter to join the Tourney. Gohan wants to volunteer, but when he learns the event conflicts with the conference, he pulls back, bowing for forgiveness. Goku understands, respecting Gohan's priorities (The Anime makes some gold with this plotpoint later. Gohan's presentation gets him a job offer, but he turns it down because it will mean neglecting his family; a nice character moment IMO).
However, the Manga has Goku turning down the idea of Gohan in a snap, insulting his son as a bookworm who quit fighting. Later, when Goku learns Gohan is at the conference instead of the Tourney, he calls him a 'little shit.'
WHAT THE? I know Goku hasn't been the best father in the world (although I don't think he's worse than what the fanbase has made him out to be), but I don't think he would ever insult his son like that. The intention- Goku resents Gohan retiring as a fighter- doesn't wash with the Goku respecting Gohan's non-combat ambitions to be a scholar right before his fight with Cell. And now he's pissy because Gohan chose to not see his matches at the Tourney? I don't believe Toriyama wrote that. If he did, why does the Anime give a different version of things? If anything, I blame Toyataro for that massive moment of out-of-character assassination. It's my one grievance against the manga. Not that Gohan isn't around much, but that Goku is a jerk to him.
In my opinion, the thing about Gohan is that as an adult, he's basically a Goku clone. When he was a kid and in his early teens (Saiyan Saga through Cell Games), he was his own thing. Even early Boo Saga, when he does the whole Spider-Man thing (high school student with a secret identity), you could see Toriyama was trying to do something different with him. But partway through Boo, it feels like Toriyama threw up his arms at that and decided Gohan should just be another Goku. He even dressed him identically to make the cloning complete.
DeleteAlso, it's funny you make those observations about Goku. I just wrote a bit about this in the review of volume 5, which will go up in a few weeks. Much as like SUPER, I have some issues with its treatment of Goku. I'll get into it in more detail in the post, but I feel like SUPER devolved the character into something he never even was in the first place, and I don't really like it. He was always naive, but SUPER makes him downright stupid a lot of the time, both on TV and in the manga.
Great work on reviewing volume 1 of the DBS manga.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteGoku clone. Not necessarily. Yes, I could argue Ultimate Gohan Kamesennin-Gi/Kamisama Shirt & Boots in the Buu Arc is the Goku Clone, Gohan without Gohan's characteristics (Piccolo commenting about him lacking his gentle nature). Turning Gohan into that may have been the factor that decided Toriyama to throw up his hands in making him the main protagonist (doesn't justify the author for throwing him under the bus, though). Although a great portion of the fandom would disagree, I feel Gohan's characterization in the first part of the Arc (SaiyaMan and the training for the Budokai) and the SUPER Anime are uniquely Gohan, with little resemblance to Goku. That doesn't mean I hate Ultimate Gohan; more on that later...
ReplyDeleteI suppose what offends me about the 'shit' label is that I used it in a fanfic of mine. THE KAKARROTTO SAGA, a crossover of DBZ, Tenchi Muyo (just Tenchi Masaki) and THE NEW MUTANTS (with Headmaster Magneto and Brit Psylocke). The plot, set a year before Cell, has the gang teleported (Illyana is having problems) to the DB Universe, where they befriend Gohan, Piccolo, and Kuririn. They learn about the Dragon Balls and plan to use those to get them back home. However, Goku's personality has been taken over by a buried persona of his pre-head-accident Saiya-jin Kakarrotto. Acting like the violent Saiya-jin warrior he had been denied for decades. In this personality, Kakarrotto denies Gohan, refusing to acknowledge him because of his half-blood. Seeing him as an abomination to the Saiya-jin race (although in truth, he sees Gohan as the symbol of his past humanity that he must deny in order to exist), he calls him 'Shit.' (I based it on a translation where Raditz referred to Gohan as a 'shit baby' as well as how the Nazis demeaned the Jews. In a scene from the novelization of the miniseries HOLOCAUST, a Nazi interrogates a Jew with the question: "Who was the whore that shit you?") Of course, the New Mutants befriend Gohan (Rahne has a crush, Roberto sympathizes him over daddy issues) and try to get the DBs before Kakarrotto gets them to attain immortality. Although I finished this plotline, with Goku getting cured (it involves Gohan...and Hela), I left some danglers that I never resolved (Gohan reconciling with Goku & his flawed parenting). Being in continuity, everything was somehow resolved for what happened to the New Mutants and DBZ. Back to the point, in my fanfic, Goku at least had mental issues on why he called Gohan that. The Goku in this manga has no excuse.
I do agree with you that in SUPER, Gohan is not a Goku clone. He has his own issues, and he's presented with his own strengths and weaknesses. I loved the idea of him as the strategist and "team captain" of Universe 7 in the Tournament of Power! But what I was getting at (and not stating particularly clearly) is that by the end of DBZ, I feel like Toriyama had turned Gohan into a Goku clone, and seemed to have no interest in making him be his own character.
DeleteI agree that the first volume is amazingly rushed, even allowing for how the Resurrection F movie had already been done, somewhat, in manga form. It felt to me like Toriyama and Toyotarou wanted to get past the movies as fast as humanly possible so they could get to the good stuff. Which, to a certain extent, is fair: Super the anime starts off kind of rough, clearly with a lower budget than one would expect for a Dragon Ball series, and really doesn't find its footing until the tournament with Universe 6. But that means that the manga basically brushes about a third of the anime series under the carpet, so the first volume's pacing is stupid fast.
ReplyDeleteHave to wonder how much of that is Toyotarou, since he came out of the fan background (he's generally considered to be the guy who did the Dragon Ball AF series under another name) and accelerating to get to the really good fight scenes feels like something a fan artist would go for.
There's also an occasional sense that the manga tries to be more its own thing with the turns it takes with events, especially later, and blowing through a lot of the series to get to the coolness is also something they'd do. And I mean, hell, once it gets to the second half it takes off and I've generally enjoyed it ever since, so, maybe they were onto something!
Good point about Toyotarou wanting to get to the "good stuff" in a hurry. I hadn't considered that, but it kind of makes sense. This is his first professional manga, and he's probably learning as he goes along. It just happens that he's doing it on a very high-profile series!
DeleteI agree; the manga does get better as it goes along, but even as of volume 6, which is the last one I'll be looking at for now, it still feels like it glosses past certain things. But that could be because, having seen the anime first, I know what was "supposed" to happen.
Great bllog I enjoyed reading
ReplyDelete