Katsura Akira

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Mod Note: This review was initially posted for the one-shot, Sachie-chan Guu!!, and was subsequently merged into Katsura Akira.

Sachie-chan Guu!! is a one shot manga that was serialized in Jump Square in May of 2008. From first glance on this manga’s MAL page you would suspect that it holds basically no merit, but I beg to differ. Akira Toriyama (prominently known for his original series Dragon Ball) and Masakazu Katsura (creator of Video Girl Ai, I”s, Zetman and possibly most well-known for his character designs in Tiger & Bunny) collaborated for their first time on this dream project with Toriyama on story and Katsura on ... art. Still not impressed? Well not only did this manga have two great mangakas working on it—the manga itself actually is quite impressive, even if it is only 53 pages. Keep in mind that this IS a one-shot and Toriyama & Katsura didn’t intend for it to be serialized into a weekly edition.

The story follows Sachie; a cute, young and ditsy teenage school girl. Her father is the martial arts champion Nijudayu Momochi, one of the strongest fighters on planet earth. While walking home from school Sachie encounters some octopus like aliens who say they are looking for her father to come and help them fight off evil-doers, the Mil Gang, at their village on Planet Octo. When they tell Sachie that her dad will get to pick any one prize from a catalogue they created, she decides that she will go and fight the Mil Gang herself—so she can get the birthmark on her butt that all the boys make fun of removed. Along with the Martial Arts World Cup Junior Champion, Zarid-san, they head off to Planet Octo. That basically sums up the story, if you’re disappointed I question your expectations on what type of in-depth story a 53 page one-shot “should” have. This is an extremely funny and refreshing short story that is highly complimented by the other aspects which I’ll speak about next.

The art was great, in fact you would think it was drawn my Toriyama himself, but it was actually drawn by Katsura. He decided for this project he would go against his highly realistic character designs and tried to match Akira’s super deformed style which he has become so famous for—and he did a great job of it. The art is smooth and nice to look at it matches the characters personalities perfectly and with a manga this short that’s all that really matters.

There is an ever on-going argument that character development is necessary for a piece of work to hold any merit—I find this to be incorrect, especially in such a short manga. We are given basic personalities for the characters in the way of humour and character designs and that’s all we really need. Toriyama always idealizes his characters and never gives them dark-traits but Katsura likes to make them act like normal people, this collaboration of different ideas contrasted well in creating highly enjoyable characters to have in a story.

Enjoyment is the main factor of this manga in my opinion, I mean are you really going to read a one-shot because you’re not looking for something nice and fun to past time? Akira and Katsura did a great job of making an easy to understand and enjoyable story with nice to look at art which overall created a great manga that I’ll find hard to forget about.

I will always highly recommend this one-shot to anyone, because it is so short yet so enjoyable. If you want a short story done right by two accomplished mangakas, complimented by great art and great characters, then give Sachie-chan Guu!! a chance, you won’t regret it.

Sachie-chan Guu!! and Jiya are two stories of Toriyama with Katsura.
This has the stupid fun gags of Tori but can direct to has action and takes some serous.
I need to note in the two has very scenario of what the story takes about its very good the space, funny and some sci-fi. atmosphere.
Sachie-chan Guu!! has
Two charismatic characters with a good interactions
Jiya has
the charismatic characters but + the character Jiya is more interesting
two has simple script as DBZ but are the simple and more interesting characters that make very good manga i can describe this as the combination of two but authors ... series
DBZ simple script but charismatic + Zetman simple serious funny script

Sachie-chan Guu and Jiya are introductions to the Galactic Patrol, a team of intergalactic crime stoppers inside the Dragonball universe.


Sachie-chan Guu serves more as a heart warming little space romp, and foundational backstory to the Galactic Patrol. Without many plot elements, or mystery beyond the visual mark of the Galactic Patrol, this manga does not really do much to help the wider universe establish itself. However, what it does do is help green light further Galactic Patrol material, which is ultimately what occurred. With it's punchy art style, and clear story telling, Sachie-chan is an enjoyable read that leaves the reader wanting to learn ... more about the Galactic Patrol.


Jiya is a more significant work than Sachie-chan, that tries harder to take itself more serious, and closer to something like DragonballZ. While written by Akira Toriyama, the art style heavily differs from Toriyama's usual content, which helps serve to shift the tone to something more akin to Go Nagai. Masakazu Katsura's influence is clearly felt in this work, as the tone differs heavily from something you would see in a Toriyama manga, and lacks many of the hallmarks that are found in almost every single Toriyama manga. This is not a bad thing, as the establishment of the Galactic Patrol, with different members and elements, having different personalities, serves itself to be written in different styles.