by Akira Toriyama and Toyotarou
Dragon Ball Super, Volume 1 is the first volume of a new Dragon Ball age! That’s right, the Dragon Ball Z you remember so fondly is back, and, honestly? It’s just as good as you remember. The manga is an extension of the anime; a retelling, of sorts. The first volume covers the end of Dragon Ball Z, through the recent Battle of the Gods feature film and the return of Frieza in Resurrection of F. The first volume skips over Frieza in favour of pointing the reader at the film instead. For those that for some reason haven’t seen the film by the time they reach the middle of this volume, it might be a bit of an annoyance. However, you really can easily finish the volume and go back and still get to enjoy both.
Akira Toriyama slips back into his most famous characters with ease. Fans of the show and the manga will appreciate the familiarity of Super. It’s like sitting down with an old friend you haven’t seen in ten years and it’s like you’ve never been apart. He might not be drawing it anymore, but the stories are just as quirky and the characters are just as interesting. And, best of all, Dragon Ball GT never happened. Terrible, right? Anyway, Super forgets all that and moves on with new transformations for Goku and Vegeta, new enemies, crazy characters, and excellent fights. Seriously, Super is everything you’ve wanted since Z ended and you had to deal with GT.
Taking up art duties is Toyotarou who is more than up to the challenge. It can’t be easy taking up the pen for a legend, especially when said legend is still involved with the story. If you’re not looking for it, chances are you’re not even going to notice the difference–that’s how good Toyotarou is. The fight sequences are alive and quick and the characters are just as you remember them. Really, what more can you ask for? When a new artist takes over a series these days, it’s usually jolting and takes a few pages (sometimes issues) to get used to it. You can read the last volume of Dragon Ball Z and jump straight into Super; it’s that good.
Loved Dragon Ball Z, and maybe, to a lesser extent, Dragon Ball? Then Dragon Ball Super is absolutely for you. It’s nostalgic and new all at once. It’s fresh and exciting again, and the anime is fantastic; not to mention the feature films that have come out. So if you miss Son Goku, Vegeta–and, you know, the rest–then pick this up.
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