Dragon Ball is a manga from Japan wrote and drown by the famous mangaka Akira Toriyama, which is also famous for several other mangas and anime. Dragon Ball is directly inspired from a Chinese tale calls: ”Journey to the west” in which the hero is calls Sun Wu Kong, the Monkey King. In the series we follow the tales of Son Goku and his friends since he was a kid until being adult. The series is cut in some parts:
-Dragon Ball
-Dragon Ball Z
-Dragon Ball GT
-Dragon Ball Super
Even if the GT’s series is not canon, we will take a look at it because it seems to please to many fans. Are you ready do dive in the biggest manga history of all time? So let’s go!
Dragon Ball
In this part at the beginning we follow the adventures of a strange young boy which has a tail and is very strong.
All begin when he encounters Bulma, a rich girl from the city who missed to kill him when driving her car.
She told him that she is seeking the dragon ball and when she get all the seven balls, she will make a wish.
Goku has the 4 stars ball in his possession, it is the only souvenir of his grandpa who’s dead some years ago. So he won’t give her his own ball.
So they decide together to go to seek and find them, they already have three, need four more then will see Shenron, the god Dragon which grant a wish.
It’s the first time for Songoku to leave the forest he lives in and it’s also a quest to discover how huge the world is.
The first friend they will make together is first an opponent but it appears that he is coward. His name? Oolong. A pig that can change himself in what he wants but only for five minutes.
Then three of them begin to take the road together, until in the desert where they will meet a thief called Yamcha.
He’s a young teen with long hairs and on the first fight bit Goku easily while he is starving.
After this our hero will finally eat and on their second meeting will defeat Yamcha in less than ten seconds.
They so continue the quest until they find all the seven balls and so call the dragon for the first time.
There is three notables fact between the Yamcha’s fight and the first apparition of Shenron the God dragon.
-Goku meets Muten Roshi , an old martial arts master who gives him a dragon ball and also the Flying Nimbus, a yellow cloud on which you can sit when you have a pure heart and have no vice to go anywhere very fast.
-Goku transforms on the full moon night in a big ape that can destroy everything, so now we know why he has a tail.
-We meet the first true villains that are still funny to watch.
The first wish ever is made by Oolong who did it to save the world of Pilaf the actual opponent of our friends.
What was his wish, you wonder? A girl panty that he puts on his head.
Training:
After the wish and the dragon disappear, the seven balls where dispatch by magic in each directions of the glob and been change in stone for one year.
So everyone separate and Goku decides to back to Master Roshi follows his training in the purpose to become stronger.
In the same time coming by the sea on a bark introduce a new character, Krilin, a young shaolin monk which was bullied by his tutors in the temple and so he decided to come to ask Roshi to trains him.
He uses tricks and vices to let the old man take him as a disciple by giving him porn magazines.
The tomorrow of that day, the training begins it consists by make them much stronger by doing in a short time what adult would do in a full morning, or in a day.
-First they have to deliver fresh milk by running and going door to door
-Then they have to plow fields with naked hands!
-In the afternoon they have to work on a construction site and run to do everything
-When come the evening they first have to swim in a lake full of sharks
-And so they have to avoid the bees while being tied to a tree at the end of a rope.
That was the first day training, from tomorrow on, they will have to do it with a turtle shell of 20Kg on the back.
To have the chance to learn the kamehameha technique of master Roshi, he challenge them to move a huge rock by pushing it.
After a while and a lot of hard work, they finally success and can do it, what obligates the old master to teach them the kamehameha.
And so on until the day of the tournament begins.
The day before the tournament they can leave on their shell and see how their progresses are effective.
To celebrate this Master Roshi offer to them a nice city suit and also a fighting suit to be ready for the game.
World Martial Arts Tournament:
The Budokai Tenkaishi Tournament is the world martial arts tournament that happens every four years.
The tournament takes place that way:
-Playoffs
-The finals matches
For the playoffs there is a lot of concurrent that want to be qualified for the final fight and win the tournament. If you want to know more about the tournament rules you can go to read this article.
Goku, Krilin, Jackie Chan (Master Roshi with a disguise for they don’t recognize him), Yamcha, Guilan, Nam, Lanfan, Bacterian are the finalists.
They will fight until the final match which opposes Jackie Chan to Goku.
Goku be defeated after a long, beautiful and fascinating match full of twists and turns.
After the final Master Roshi comes back as himself and say to Goku to go to train alone which he does by footh because master Roshi tell him to don’t use his flying cloud. He wants go back to find again the dragon balls.
The Red Ribbon Army:
After the 21st Tenkaishi Budokai, Goku decides to go in search of the fourth stars Dragon Ball of his grandfather.
On his way he will meet the Red Ribbon army who is trying to gather the Dragon Balls to conquer the world.
Goku will confront the members of this criminal organization in order to save the world.
Not far from there, a military brigade patrols and searches actively the fields and the surrounding forest.
Son Goku arrives by chance among two men of the captain Silver, and he discovers in front of them the Dragon Ball with 6 stars.
The two men attack Son Goku who knocks them out in no time.
Captain Silver, member of the Red Ribbon army, shoots Son Goku and atomizes his Kinto-Un (Flying Nimbus).
Enraged, Son Goku disables Silver who calls General Red, leader of the Red Ribbon, to inform him of his situation.
Son Goku takes a box of capsules and makes a plane and a robot to fly it appear but, when he arrives in the northern region, the robot freezes and makes the plane crash.
Son Goku is saved by Suno, a little girl living in the Jingle village.
While General White’s men search the carcass of the aircraft, Goku’s frozen body is dragged to one of the village houses by a little girl.
Once warmed up and on his feet, Goku learns more about the Red Ribbon.
The village Jingle, where Snow lives, is oppressed by this army, which in addition to having taken the mayor hostage in the Muscle Tower (headquarters of the commander White), forces the inhabitants to seek the Dragon Ball located in the area for their own account.
Goku decides to beat them up and to free the mayor, as a thank you for saving him. To do this, he starts by lending himself some clothes and discovers the snow…
When he arrives at the Muscle Tower, he defeats without too much trouble the few soldiers who are sitting there, then enters the tower where some armed men are waiting for him.
But the tower contains many other traps, starting with the sergeant Metallic who nobody has ever been able to defeat until now, the terrible ninja Murasaki, Boing, N°8, who proves to be unable to kill anybody, before finally arriving at the house of the commander White who takes the mayor of the village as a hostage before shooting Son Goku who survives.
As for the commander White, he is literally expelled by N°8. Son Goku recovers the ball that N°8 kept on him to prevent the “RR” to have it.
Son Goku then leaves with Bulma to look for another Dragon Ball.
He is chased by Commander Blue, and with the help of Norimaki Arale, Son Goku gets rid of him.
Blue returns to the headquarters but is killed by Tao Pai Pai for not having accomplished his mission.
Son Goku arrives at the Karin sanctuary and gets rid of Captain Yellow.
Tao Pai Pai arrives and kills Bora before getting rid of Son Goku who gets up and goes to the Karin tower to train.
When he comes back down, he beats up the hitman and goes to attack the Red Ribbon’s HQ.
He kills them all one by one before going back to look for the last Dragon Ball to resurrect Upa’s father.
The second tournament:
For the next four years Goku went to train alone in purpose to win the next Budokai Tenkaishi.
Yamcha and Krilin are training hard at the Muten Roshi’s place for the next four years and expect to bit or at least to match Goku’s power next time.
When come the day of the tournament, Goku arrives in extremis on time for the inscription just before it closed.
We also meet new rivals and villains as Master Shen, Tenshinhan and Chaozu.
Master Shen is the older brother of the assassin Tao Pai Pai, and he wants revenge for his brother.
So in the night, Master Shen dressed as a ninja escape his hotel followed by Tenshinhan, curious, tries to kill Goku in his sleep to revenge Tao Pai Pai, his younger brother.
Since Tenshinhan was a kid, he’s been trained by Tao Pai Pai about martial arts and bad philosophy.
He is haughty, proud and mean, since his first meet with our hero one year ago he still thinks Goku is weak.
After some tales in the tournament on the final it’s the expected battle is Goku vs Tenshinhan.
The fight is long, exciting and full of bounces, everyone is in shock by the incredible techniques of the fighters.
On the finish both are landing very far away of the arena and the winner is: Tenshinhan.
Notable fact, in the tournament the spirit of Tenshinhan has changed for good.
After the tournament Master Roshi invites everyone to a big meal together, but Goku had forgot his magic stick.
Krilin, Goku’s best friend tell him to go to eat and take some power by eating while he’s going to grab the magic stick and the fourth stars dragon ball.
Goku Has a bad feeling and for once he doesn’t want to eat. After a long time of waiting everyone begins to worry about the poor Krilin.
Our hero is running back to the Tenkaishi arena to find Krilin dead, just murdered by a monster who can flies with his wings.
Piccolo Daimao:
Rage takes over the mind of Goku, he asks Bulma the dragon radar and follows the moving ball on the Flying Nimbus.
He finally meets the monster which destroys the Nimbus and bit badly a starving Goku. Then fly to his destination to Piccolo Daimao, his master.
He also wants the dragon ball to make the wish of eternal youth. He been helped by Pilaf and his staff in this quest.
Piccolo makes an egg from his mouth and calls the monster which exit of the egg: Cymbals.
The assignment of Cymbals is to find the dragon balls and get back to his father/ master as fast as possible.
Mean while, Goku has wake up, and also found some food after ate the huge grilled fish, his strength back.
Suddenly, appears someone we never seen before, a kind of fat samurai, the owner of the fish Goku just finished to eat.
It’s at this moment that Cymbals the monster appears, to ask for the dragon ball which is around the neck of Yajirobe, the fat samurai.
Yajirobe cuts in two the monster, then grill and eat it alone and all of it!
Finally after some tales, and bounces Piccolo and Goku meet for the final fight and the evil character been defeated for good.
Goku and Yajirobe are going back to the Karin tower, and the master says to Goku to go to the rooftop, put the magic stick on the center of the hole.
Then he goes up, to meet the Almighty.
The palace of the Almighty:
After an ascent enough long to cross lightning and clouds, Goku finally gets in the palace of the Almighty where he first meet Mr Popo.
He first thinks that’s it, he finally meets the Almighty, but it’s “only” the one servant of God.
After a training with mister Popo he get really badly surprise when he meets God who is the twin of Piccolo Daimao.
In fact it’s not a twin, long ago Piccolo Daimao and God was only one people and to get the place of the Almighty he had to separate himself of his dark side.
That’s how Piccolo Daimao born and why he is already immortal, if one of them survives, the other wont die also.
Son Goku will spend three years in the palace to train with God and learn how to meditate.
The Third Tournament:
After 3 years, there is a new tournament and everyone has rendez vous there.
We so meet Goku who has grown up. He is almost an adult now and taller than everyone now.
But everyone can feel that something has changed in him, and they’re right.
Goku became wiser, stronger, faster than ever.
He can feels when his friends are coming when they are near without seeing them.
No one knows, but Goku has an assignment for this tournament.
What is it? To defeat the last son of Piccolo Daimao, which has grown and is also tall and strong as Goku.
After tales and fights, Yamcha meets and fight with a new opponents that no one knows.
Shen, that’s his name. In fact it’s the Almighty who has taken a human appearance, but Goku recognized him and decide to keep the secret.
In the tournament we meet also a beautiful girl who says to Goku that he promised to married her but she don’t want say her name until Goku bit her.
This girl’s name is Chichi, and we met her long ago on the Kinto Un.
After their fight, Chichi lost and so she tells her name. Then they married.
After many twists and turns Shen been enclosed in a bottle by Piccolo.
On the final Goku and Piccolo fight together also.
After Piccolo grown giant our hero enter in his mouth to liberate to grab the bottle and liberate the almighty.
On the end, Goku wins but still be defeated by a mouth shot from Piccolo that cross his body from face to back.
Fortunately, Yajirobe who participated to the tournament under a mask, brought some senzus the magic beans and ill Goku.
After refused to take the place of the Almighty he gone with his so new wife on the Kinto Un.
The Mountain in Fire:
Goku and Chichi then back to Ox-King (Chichi’s father) place to celebrate their wedding.
But there is a big problem: the mountain where is the castle is in fire.
The only way to stop the flams, and save her dad is to use the magic fan.
They so get on the magic nimbus and go to the quest of the magic fan.
After many tales they finally find it.
And so the story of Dragon Ball finishes by the wedding of Goku and Chichi.
The story continues in dragon ball Z which we will see next time.
Conclusion:
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