Dragon Ball

SW has been pouring over the Dragon Ball manga/comic books the past few weeks.  By some miracle... I was able to get the entire collection from the library (a combination of several libraries).  We even founded the Japanese anime on Hulu with subtitles.

I originally wasn't going to retrace my footsteps... but on some days when you don't want to read anything else... I grabbed a copy of it.  And man.... there's a reason why it's the top 5 Japanese Manga of all time.  This is probably my 2nd or 3rd time going through the series... and it's amazing how cute and funny young 悟空 is.  The first 15 issues of the series actually had a story line.  There were random characters like Dracula and a dinosaur.  Saw the first issue where they introduced "Kamehameha" (龜波氣功).  There was a sense of adventure...character build-up and development... appropriate level of lewdness and humor.  You simply couldn't NOT love 悟空。 

And then...with all comics (with most comics), your protagonist grows up.  And when 鳥山明 was starting to run out of ideas (I can only assume).  He had one final Tournament of Heavens.... and the story started to veer and moved from rated PG to PG-13.  We started digging into the backstory of 悟空 and introduced the character of 比達。  He even dared to fancy with a 2nd generation with 悟飯。 

The first "all powerful" villain, Freeza, was fascinating.  Leading to the breakthrough and till this day, cultural reference of 超級撒亞人。 But the story, really could've ended there.  鳥山明 simply re-did Freeza with Cell...and then much later with Boo.  Give him props for trying to pass the torch to 悟飯 and then testing the waters with 悟天 and 杜拉格斯。 These characters never took off or was never received as well as  悟空.  Time and time again,  鳥山明 couldn't wrap up the story and just had to bring 悟空 back. 

Here I am...criticizing this cultural phenomenon that transcended multiple generations on multiple platforms.  The time finally came for me to return this series to the library... and hope that another father can pass this on to his son (and daughter).  I even thought about buying a set for keeps.... then I thought better of it... until the thought comes back again.