Dragon ball z vol 1 by akira toriyama

Five years after the events of Dragon Ball, the world is peaceful, and Goku has a son named Son Gohan after his grandfather. The two visit the Turtle Master and Bulma happens to be there. In another part of the world, a spacecraft crash lands and out steps a powerful being, Raditz, who immediately scans and finds Piccolo, Goku’s arch nemesis. The mysterious alien dispatches Piccolo pretty easily and continues to scan for powerful beings when he lands on Goku. Raditz flies over and interrupts Goku's reunion, and reveals Goku is really his brother, and there is a terrible plan for the Earth that involves decimating all of its inhabitants.

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After sixteen volumes of bawdy humor and tournament fighting, plus fetch quests and training in martial arts, not to mention Goku being descended from a monkey, Toriyama flips the narrative on its head by changing Goku’s origin story. Holy Ret-con batman! As much as Dragon Ball was about fighting, Dragon Ball Z takes the fighting and turns it up to 11 by introducing increasingly more powerful foes for Goku to fight, and higher stakes for him to overcome. DBZ is also quintessentially what people think of when they think of Dragon Ball. While some of the charm and mythos of the overall story is lost, as well as the historical fights, from starting with what is essentially volume 17, there is a bit of a soft reset on the series where Toriyama allows for new readers to join in the fun and put behind them some of the humor that doesn't stand the test of time.

Sara's Rating: 8/10
Suitability Level: Grades 7-12

(Single Issues)
Publisher: VIZ Media
Publication Date: March 12, 2003
ISBN: 9781569319307 (Paperback)

(3-in-1s) - not the cleanest place to start as DBZ starts with vol 17, sorry about that
Vol 6: containing 16, 17, 18
Publisher: VIZ Media
Publication Date: September 2, 2014
ISBN: 9781421564715 (Paperback)
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Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: Middle School, Suitability: High School, Manga, Action Adventure, ​VIZ Media