So I’ve never actually read Dragon Ball before, just Z onwards, but I started that recently. I’m totally blown away at how perfect it’s first few volumes are! Toriyama’s crafting of his story and characters are flawless (except the perverted stuff which is a bit out of place these days), and the pacing is spot on. Every single member of the cast is significant to the story, whether they be friend or foe, and just when you’re starting to get tired of the cast in a certain set of events, he changes things up to keep it fresh. They all pop up frequently enough to remain relevant, and they’re given proper development so you actually enjoy their presence. None of them are generic or just there for the point of it, and they all have certain quirks that make them vastly different to how you’d imagine they’d be on their first appearance, so they’re actually memorable and feel alive. The entire world he’s crafted in these first few volumes is just all so perfectly linked together.
I know it was a pretty big deal at the time, hence why the series took off so well (though most of its success was later in its life), but even nowadays we barely see series with such solid beginnings. After following Jump for a few years and reading so many series that just completely fail in their set up, I’ve come to appreciate stuff like this a lot more. I never would have imagined DB was this good considering DBZ totally fails in many of these aspects (though excels at others).
