Dragon Ball

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That sounds fucking brilliant....

[VLordGTZ]

This is a pretty clever idea.

Viz NEEDS to translate/release this. 

[LumRanmaYasha]

This would be great content for them to add to the Shonen Jump website! 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I'm still being really cautiously optimistic, here, but three chapters in and I have to say that the latest arc of Dragon Ball Super has been to my liking so far. It especially feels like a breath of fresh air after the boring, exhausting, dragged-out test of patience that was the Tournament of Power arc.

I think what has won me over here, though, was the change-up from the established norms for Dragon Ball Super and the expanded world-building. I'm one of those people who genuinely enjoyed the Jaco manga and wanted to learn more about the Galactic Patrol and their role in the Dragon Ball Universe, which we are getting quite a bit of in this arc. I also really love the concept of Vegeta returning to Namek after all of the character growth he has experienced up until now, and is actually seeking some form of atonement for what he did on old Namek in the past.

And after the dull, soulless excursion of an antagonist that was Jiren, I'm finding Moro to be incredibly refreshing. For one, it's nice to once again have a big Dragon Ball antagonist who's power is based more in magic than in just raw Ki. And the fact that he can use the energy of the planet in his attacks is really interesting and inventive with him creating earthquakes, title-waves, and shooting out what I  assume is supposed to be magma from the ground (I can't tell for sure since it's not colored). It's a really nice change of pace from simple energy blasts.

About the only thing that I don't like so far is that Vegeta is once again jobbing to the new big bad to hype him up. If Toriyama isn't careful he's going to give one of his best characters a bad case of Yamucha-syndrome. Like, seriously, subvert expectations for once and give Vegeta the major win over Goku....but, you know, of course that'll never happen.

Of course, these are all initial impressions and I'm not entirely sold just yet. After all, the Goku Black arc started out similarly very good as well, IMO, and had a lot of interesting things going for it for at least the first half, but looking back on it I do think that the story fell to pieces by the second time they traveled into Future Trunks's version of the timeline. I'm hoping that there is at least some level of planning or forethought put into this arc so that it doesn't become a complete mess like the Goku Black arc did by the end, or just drag on aimlessly until it wanders into a climax like the Tournament of Power did. I'm holding out at least some hope, though.

[Daikun]

Dragon Ball Super: Broly is getting a manga adaptation.

[VLordGTZ]

Comicbook is far from a reliable news source for anything. 

That being said, it is specifically an ani-comic so it will basically just be screenshots of the film in a manga format.  It's a pretty common thing for Dragon Ball (GT still has an ongoing one in Saikyo Jump for instance).

[Daikun]

Akira Toriyama is nominated for an Eisner Award.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's good to see manga creators getting more recognition from the Eisner awards. This isn't the first time that a Japannese creator has been recognized (Blade of the Immortal won an Eisner award well over a decade ago), and there are at least a few other examples, but it's nice for it to become more commonplace as the years go on.

[Daikun]

Toriyama has been knighted.

[Markness]

France shows much more appreciation for manga than most other Western countries.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Totally Not Mark just started a video series examining early Dragonball: https://youtu.be/h5O29LqZx14

I'm really glad to see a relatively big YouTuber cover this for a change. While early DB was always thought of as the secondary or lesser part of the series by the bulk of the fanbase, over time it has now become even less discussed. And when it comes to general anime and manga YouTube channels, it's rarely ever discussed in the grand scheme of notable shonen series to the point of almost feeling non-existant.

It has always largely annoyed me that any strengths or weaknesses of DB as a series and franchise, and of Toriyama's ability as a story-teller and artist, is almost exclusively applied to the Z era and onward. Anything before that is a footnote at best, and Dr. Slump is basically an obscure relic as far as Western anime and manga fans are concerned.

Every time I revisit early DB I'm still always impressed by how efficient and charming Toriyama's art and writing are, and while the sexual humor is an understandable turnoff for a lot of people today (it's not nearly as bad or predominant as some other popular shonen series, though), there is a lot more that Toriyama brings to the table than just that. There is so much creativity to his panel layouts and use of spacing and in how he portrays motion by using different perspective shots, and there is a personality to all of it that few other series can match, IMO. Even some modern stuff with overall better writing and well thought-out characters and worlds (MHA, KnY, WT, etc.) still don't quite manage to match Toriyama at his peak in this specific aspect.

It's nice to at least have someone with a large enough voice in the community give this era of the series the proper credit that it deserves.

[Mustang]

To show y'all how stupid I am, I got this manga app on my phone. Cool. Had it for about 3-4 years now, not to mention Super is going on in the midst of all this, especially while I'm playing Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and it still don't hit me. As far as I knew there was only Super for the anime and it was at the end of Goku Black arc or something like that and Dragonball Fighterz is probably out at this point now or coming out.

Fast forward to, we'll say roughly 4 days ago. I'm in the mood for some Dragon Ball Z (Hell Evo happened, and had a great grand finals for DBFz). Go to the app on my phone. I see Dragon Ball. Alright, cool (here it never dawned on me why it had shorter chapters than the Bleach's, Naruto's, and One Piece's etc, so I'm thinking these chapters are gonna be long. Thinking I'm gonna be getting 71+ pages).  Go to the last chapter because in my mind I don't know why I'm thinking they're trying to play catch up. I see characters I don't know. I recognize Goku and Vegeta. I recognize Beerus and Whis. Who the hell are these other characters?  I go back to about chapter 40-ish. I'm like wait, ain't that Toppo? What the hell? I am reading Dragon Ball Z right? I come all the way out and scroll back to what I thought was Z and low and behold that shit says SUPER. Parent's, brother, niece and nephew hears a loud WHAT THE FUCK!!!

Ahem, I say all that to say that this is my reintroduction to Dragon Ball because I haven't given Super a full watch, and the manga at the moment has caught my full attention. Minus the abridged version, it's literally been years since I've watched Dragon Ball Z. I think I may've tried to watch it again in 2019 but it wasn't happening. And then I remember folks at Toonzone being overzealous about Dragon Ball Z back in like 2009-2010 (hell I thought I was the biggest fan. One dude there put me to shame and made me sick and tired of Dragon Ball fans to the point where I said bump all of them).

Anyway, I'm currently on chapter 13-14. Seeing some things/people that can be used for a DBFz 2 (heavy talks/rumors about it) or a DBX3. I'll be fine with either. I just don't want to see x amount of Goku's and Vegeta's. I'd rather see transformations or installs. I don't want to turn this into a game topic, but it was DBFz that got me back into it again.

I gotta talk about this artwork. While it's not Kubo (his designs are terrible but the way he draws the characters are great), it works for Dragon Ball, to a certain degree where it just wouldn't feel right if the characters didn't look the way they look. Like, lets say Kubo tries his hand at drawing Goku and Vegeta in his style. It wouldn't work for me. I'd probably even call it ugly if that were to happen. Anyway, I still hate Goku.

[Daikun]

The first post-Toriyama chapter of Dragon Ball Super (chapter 103) is now up on the Shonen Jump app.

https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/dragon-ball-super-chapter-103/chapter/41904?action=read