JACO THE GALACTIC PATROLMAN

Story ant Art: Akira Toriyama

It's been around seven years since JACO was published (the timeframe of its release included the build-up to, and release of, BATTLE OF GODS in Japanese theaters), so I don't recall if it was touted up front as a DRAGON BALL prequel -- but it becomes evident almost immediately in chapter one that that's exactly what it is. But at the same time, it's its own thing and pretty funny too, in its own right.

The story begins with our hero, a goofy space cop named Jaco, crash-landing on a small nearly-deserted island on Earth. The island's only inhabitant is an old man named Omori, who lives as a hermit following the death of his wife years earlier. Jaco reveals that he came to Earth to intercept a being currently en route from a planet of savage warriors. This, combined with glimpses of domelike architecture common in DRAGON BALL, are our first clues that the manga is set in the DB universe, and likely a prequel.

If only to get rid of Jaco, Omari -- a one-time research scientist who was originally on the island to work on a time machine -- begins repairing the patrolman's spaceship. Government operatives soon appear, ordering Omori to leave the island, and soon after, Omori realizes that he needs a rare and valuable element called "sky gold" in order to get it running. Realizing he may be stuck with Jaco for a while, Omori takes his guest to the mainland for some grocery shopping. There, Jaco stops some crimes and becomes wanted by the police. The unlikely duo meets a girl named Tights, who helps them escape the cops and returns to the island with them.

More hints about JACO's place in the DB universe appear around this time: the characters are said to be in the Eastern Capitol, while Tights is from the Western Capitol. DRAGON BALL aficionados may realize that Bulma is also from the Western Capitol, and that Tights shares the name-pun convention of Bulma's family -- "Bulma" = "Buruma" = "bloomers", plus her children's names, Trunks, and Bra, and her surname Briefs -- are all types of underclothing, like tights. And the Eastern Capitol is the city destroyed by Nappa when he and Vegeta arrive on Earth early in DRAGON BALL Z.

Anyway -- everything comes together in the manga's second half. There's a background sub-plot running through the whole thing, where the people of Earth are going to send a pop singer into space as a publicity stunt -- but it turns out Tights will actually be going as the girl's double. The rocket fails after launch, and Jaco and Omori use Omori's time machine -- which can't actually facilitate time travel but can slow time down for brief periods -- to save Tights' life. The police realize that Jaco is a hero, and we learn in the final chapter that Tights is indeed Bulma's sister, when the whole family comes to the island to visit. Tights inadvertently distracts Jaco from spotting the alien he was sent to stop, which means the Saiyan child called Kakarrot lands safely on Earth. The story ends with Bulma, now a teenager, stopping by the island to say hi to her sister as she departs on a quest to find the Dragon Balls, nicely bookending JACO with the start of the DRAGON BALL manga.

Though, as noted above, I don't recall the specific details of how JACO was marketed when it was announced, I do remember there being some amount of hype around it. It was Akira Toriyama's first manga in over a decade (the previous being 2000's SAND LAND), and it was the first time he would be drawing entirely digitally. I was mildly interested in JACO, but for whatever reason never sought it out. Probably because my DRAGON BALL fandom was in an ebb at that time, with no new content having hit the U.S. in a few years. Thus my first exposure to Jaco (and Tights) was in the DRAGON BALL SUPER TV series, where I found him to be kind of a throwback to the sorts of things I liked in classic DRAGON BALL -- specifically, the goofy stuff. There's a reason I said last week that the original pre-"Z" era of DB is my favorite. Back then, the series was more of a comedy/adventure saga than the pure action (peppered with comedy) series it would become. And that's the DRAGON BALL tone I prefer.

So JACO, with its silly protagonist and goofball situations, is just the sort of thing I like from Akira Toriyama, and I'm glad to have finally read it! (Notably, Toriyama seems to have slid back into the sillier side of DB in recent years. The SUPER anime is still mostly straight action, but it has a lot more straight comedy than I remember from latter-day DRAGON BALL Z. It feels more like the pre-"Z" era than the Freeza, Cell, and Boo sagas, which I really like.)

But that's not all! The JACO collected edition also features a new story from Toriyama called "Dragon Ball Minus", which is also set prior to the original series and is Toriyama's take on the events that led to Goku being rocketed to Earth as an infant. This material was famously covered by Toei Animation on their BARDOCK TV special back in the nineties, but this is the first time Toriyama has told the story himself (and as I understand it, "Minus" has now been adapted after a fashion into the anime as well in the recent DRAGON BALL SUPER: BROLY movie, which I have yet to see).

"Minus" introduces Goku's Saiyan father, Bardock (or "Burdock" in Viz's translation; I'll just go with the one I know from TV), a warrior from planet Vegeta. Bardock returns to the planet on orders from Freeza, who has recalled all Saiyans to Vegeta with secret plans to destroy the world when they arrive in order to prevent any of the Saiyans from becoming a legendary Super Saiyan. Bardock suspects something is up and he and his wife load their son into a space pod and send him away to planet Earth just before Freeza carries out his plan.

I've read that "Minus" is somewhat controversial for its ret-conning of the BARDOCK TV special, but having read this, I'm really not sure what the big deal is. It follows the story pretty much exactly as Toriyama had always laid out: Freeza calls all Saiyans back to Vegeta, destroys the planet, and tells any survivors that a meteorite was responsible. The only thing BARDOCK did was to expand upon those events and flesh them out into an hour-long special (in certain questionable ways, such as giving Bardock the power of precognition). I suspect that any real ire toward "Minus" is simply because it removes from the canon a story which had existed for more than two decades at the time, and seemed "untouchable", even by Toriyama.

But I tend to look at stuff like this the same way I look at George Lucas overriding aspects of the STAR WARS expanded universe with the prequels and CLONE WARS TV show (and Disney subsequently rendering the entire previous E.U. moot years later): the original story that people liked is still there. It still exists. If you want to watch it and prefer that it's the real backstory for Bardock, you can do so.

As to whether "Minus" is better or worse than the BARDOCK special... that, I can't say. I've only ever watched BARDOCK once, and it was probably close to twenty years ago now. I can say with certainty that "Minus" is much shorter than BARDOCK, and therefore not as fleshed out -- but I like its depiction of Saiyan culture (what little we get, anyway). It might be time to dig out the old DVD and watch it, preferably in a double-feature with the new BROLY movie...!

Next week, we'll begin DRAGON BALL SUPER proper as the God of Destruction appears on Earth in search of a Super Saiyan God!