This story appeared in this week’s Weekly Shonen Jump as a special bonus story. I don’t know how long it’s been available in Japan and online, but this is the first that I’ve seen it so I thought I would write a little something about. I’m a big Dragonball fan, since I was a kid and used to watch Dragonball Z every night before going to bed. I’ve been reading the Dragonball manga as it’s been published in the 3-in-1 editions, but been falling behind a bit recently.
Synopsis:
This short piece begins with Burdock on a distant planet fighting for Freeza when all the Saiyans are ordered to return to their home planet of Vegeta. Burdock is very suspicious of Freeza’s reasons for ordering them all to return. As a result, he decides to send his youngest son, Kakarrot (who we all know as son Goku) out to a distant planet called Earth. After being sent away Burdock’s suspicions are confirmed and Freeza destroys Planet Vegeta, killing all the Saiyans on it. At the end we also see Jaco, from Tariyama’s newer series being sent to Earth before Goku arrives to assess the situation.
My Opinion:
Obviously the whole point of this little prequel story is to attract Dragonball fans to Toriyama’s new series, there can be no denying that. However, the story is very boring. There is nothing new that we didn’t know before as I was hoping for. It’s also quite corny, in showing Vegeta on another planet with Raditz simply refusing to go back to their home world because he’s a prince and he can do as he wants. To my memory this contrasts with the story given in the Anime (not sure about the manga) which said that Vegeta’s father was an ally of Freeza and they were with him when Planet Vegeta was destroyed. If anything the story actually raises more questions about Dragonball then Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. For example, there’s a comment about how the Saiyans have difficulty increasing their population because they are a warrior race. Okay, so what? Brought nothing to the story and was just there.
Rating:
Last week when I saw the announcement about this coming out I got so excited for it, but now that I’ve read it, meh. If you’re a Dragonball fan, obviously go find it and read it. If you’re not, don’t bother. It brings nothing new to the story and doesn’t even promote Jaco the Glactic Patrolman very well. If anything, I’m actually even less interested in Jaco then I was before reading. Toriyama forced this story out to much, and it doesn’t even seem as if he cared much about it. I’m more surprised that Shonen Jump would actually publish it as it was. Very disappointed in everyone involved in this. But hey, it was just to gain publicity, which I guess it can do, probably not the kind they wanted though. It’s still better than Dragonball Evolution.
Turtle
TurtleManga 