Volume 1 blurb. Full color version! Dragon balls - if you collect all seven of them and chant an incantation, you will be granted one wish, no matter what it is. One day, Son Goku, a boy living deep in the mountains, meets Bulma and decides to help her find the balls. That adventure story is now available in SD! Fans of the original will love it too! [DeepL translation checked and edited by Micki]
(Translator: DeepL)
Fun Dragon Ball remake with lots of hidden extras!
This is a remake of the original Dragon Ball manga drawn in SD (super deformed or “chibi”) style, i.e. the characters are drawn short in stature with oversized heads. Many of the panels are otherwise identical to the original, but overall there is a lot of editing so the story moves at a much faster pace than the original. It’s also in full colour.
On top of the original material there are lots of new short panels added. Often these are humorous asides from the characters reflecting on the story line. There are lots of clever references to future events, the wider Dragon Ball universe, the movies and famous memes. These asides are made by the characters themselves, often showing awareness they are in an SD remake. These are very funny and really add to the enjoyment of the story. I think you’d need to be a super fan to pick up all the Easter eggs hidden in these volumes!
There’s also plenty of bonus content including the adventures of Future Trunks.
There are full furigana, and there are Wanikani book club vocab sheets for the first eight volumes. It’s generally upper beginner level. There are quite a lot of different voices and ways of speaking, including two characters in volume one who speak in Tōhoku dialect which takes some getting used to.
Overall lots of fun!