STORY
Con: the occasional discontinuity and gag scenes. It doesn't take itself seriously enough, such as when Goku bites his opponents. I do understand that Toriyama wishes to remain true to its comical roots, but you have involved aliens and the entire universe INCLUDING HEAVEN AND HELL THEMSELVES with the cast. So as a result of trying to remain true, whenever those gag scenes pop up, they seem really out of place with the rest of the story's atmosphere. Though, part of this humor is creativity, such as the silliness of Gotenks and Buu screaming to create portal back to the regular dimension, which I really enjoyed because it matched with the feel of the scene; Gotenks and Buu, both immature children, using their awesome abilities as childish solutions. I find that there are certain parts where the target demographic humor is a appropriate and when it is not. Though, I suppose it is very relative, as the enjoyment of the gag scenes is dependent on your sense of humor.
Pro: Toriyama's storytelling technique is classic and the plot goes through a lot of evolution. There is obviously, no way to avoid Dragon Ball being labeled as a "typical Shounen" when it is the archetype for Shounen mangas. So I will be using a double standard. For its time, Dragon is highly imaginative and creative, with antics being performed on a regular basis and silly boyish humor.
Since so much of it is battles, talking about the fight scenes is unavoidable. The unfeasible antics and maneuvers that belonged in a cartoon, but then the fight scenes began to evolve. Of course, the maneuvers remained unfeasible, but as time went on, there was a lot less charge-jump-hit and more grappling between opponents. Then the implantation of ki attacks was absolutely brilliant. The combatants could manipulate its path; they could keep it at bay starting from the very beginning of the fight and use it as their trump card later on, whatever! There were endless possibilities.
Once the fight scenes got more and more intense, the story followed suit. All of a sudden, the enemies were more capable, they could do just the same things that our heroes could (even more), and sometimes better too. And so, Toriyama crafted opponents around the new abilities he’d given the cast. He also exposed our heroes’ weaknesses and made characters that could and would use the weaknesses to their advantage. So Dragon Ball went from a silly stylistic adaption of an ancient Chinese epic poem to a serious face-to-
face brawl in which the stakes was the very existence of everything.
ART
Con: Toriyama, I get it, you’re a good artist. I know. We all know. It’s plain since you show off through your awesome and completely irrelevant depictions of your characters riding exotic animals or intricately detailed machinery in exotic backgrounds.
Pro: Why do I need to talk about this? The art evolution is VERY obvious. Take a look at the very first chapter then the latest. The art started off as unpolished and choppy thick lineart and became more angular and fluid and Toriyama started using screen tone too. There’s not much too it.
CHARACTER
Con: why the hell did over 80% of your cast stop having character development starting with Gohan’s kidnapping? Seriously. The very first episode of what is known to Americans as Dragon Ball “Z”, Krillin pretty much gets kicked in the stomach, rolls up into a ball and is utterly useless for an entire season. The next time he proved useful was at the end of the Saiyan arc, and that was only because he was the least injured. Then he fades into the background for the ENTIRE SERIES. After Piccolo gets killed off, he’s useless. Don’t even get me started on Yamcha…oh…poor Yamcha, never useful after Goku hits puberty.
Pro: the characters Toriyama actually chooses to focus on go through a great deal of development. Especially Goku. The kind-hearted, dense boy lacking any social decency grows up into a gentle, honorable, and wise man, whose ideology inspired the greatest fighters of all time. This is the standard protocol for all of the characters who have any sort of development as they are also befriended and converted into good people. (Goku is quite an effective missionary, just without the official title, haha.)
ENJOYMENT
A very relative measurement, but I digress, I quite enjoyed Dragon Ball. It certainly was unique until others jumped onto the bandwagon to make money (I’m looking at you Naruto, One Piece, Bleach.)
One good thing about Dragon Ball out of them all: the creator had enough balls to end it when he wanted to, so I never really felt like it was dragging.
OVERALL
I enjoyed it enough. The manga didn’t have that much filler besides that one mini filler right before Buu arc about Gohan’s high school education. The plot was always progressing, the ones Toriyama chose to work on, he put them through a lot, so the characters grew a lot.
Dragon Ball is a light hearted yet somewhat serious story that is straight forward, it doesn’t overwhelm you with a bajillion side stories like Naruto or Bleach or One Piece. My only concern is that most readers will overlook the philosophy that the Z-fighters put their lives on the line for, and think it’s a mindless story about sacks of testosterone wrestling one another.
But I felt that overall, the art, the story and the characters went through a lot of evolution, and such development is missing in modern mangas and would like to see more works like this.
