To quote my millennial coworker, “These Dragon Ball Colors are sick, bro!” Of course, in his youthful vernacular “sick” means really good. And I would have to agree with my excited young colleague, this these Dragon Ball Full Color versions are indeed, “sick.” And this new run also features one of the “sickest” Dragon Ball villains ever, Freeza! A masterpiece of character design, Freeza is a deceptively weak looking, but incredibly menacing foe. And although he doesn’t fight in this volume, or even get out of his flying chair pod thing, it’s made clear through Toriyama Sensei’s expert storytelling that this is a bad guy of extraordinary strength. Heck, even Vegeta fears him!

This is also where Dragon Ball goes into full Sci-Fi mode. It’s always had some Sci-Fi elements, but this arc takes place on an alien planet! People praise Toriyama Sensei for many things, but there’s one area where he might be a little underpraised and that’s his design of technology. It’s brilliant. His vehicles, space ships, mech suits are all visually impressive and show his distinctive style. His tech tends to be round with soft edges and look cartoony but have an intelligent sensibility that makes everything seem like it would really work. That’s not easy to do!

Storywise, the Freeza Arc has our heroes searching for the…dragon balls! But not just your normal dragon balls, special alien Namekian ones. Following the insane battle between Goku and Vegeta, the word about the wish-making power of these magic balls has traveled all the way across the galaxy and now multiple parties are searching for them. Freeza and his troops want them so Freeza can live forever, Vegeta wants them for the same reason, and Kuririn, Gohan and Bulma just want to bring their friends back to life. It’s the craziest easter egg hunt ever!

And caught in the middle of this cosmic easter egg hunt are the poor Namekians. Now, Toriyama Sensei isn’t shy about killing off characters (of course, many come back), but this arc, in particular, is quite dark. The amount of peaceful Namekians that get slaughtered is pretty shocking and not just by Freeza, but Vegeta as well. Just about everybody knows Vegeta ends up a good guy, but seeing him in the prime of his heartless past can really harsh your vibe.

Like other story arcs, Goku’s an absentee hero for quite awhile. I love it when Goku’s gone and the weaker characters have to fend for themselves. It’s a great way to show off the attributes that make them such great characters. Kuririn, while perpetually freaked out by being outgunned, manages to pull out surprise after surprise to keep the team alive. Gohan, while still a child, shows his mettle when pushed too far. And Bulma shows off her smarts and hilarious abrasive personality. If Goku were here, he’d overshadow all of them, and they’d end up as background characters. It’s a very smart way to make readers come to love more characters than just the hero.

The coloring in the book is excellent. It’s not just someone futzing around in Photoshop hitting the paint bucket icon. These are professionals and their coloring skills are superb. Luckily for them, Toriyama Sensei’s art lends itself to coloring because when it comes to texturing surfaces, he uses the minimal amount of line work for maximum effect. With just a few patterns here and there, the reader gets that an area is stone, grass, brickwork, rough, smooth, shiny and more. And he makes it look easy. It’s actually really difficult to. I guess that’s one of many reasons he’s considered a master among mangaka.

I suppose I could keep singing the praises of Toriyama Sensei all day, but this review has to end. I will say this, though--if you’ve never read Dragon Ball and just assumed it was all fighting and yelling, you couldn’t be more wrong. Well, there a lot of that, but it’s so much more. It’s a wonderfully entertaining story filled with charming and compelling characters. It’s dramatic one moment, then hilarious the next. It never takes itself too seriously and has a whimsical air about it that just feels like the creator was having a lot of fun. I like to tell people, if you don’t like Dragon Ball, you don’t understand comics--because it is some of the best work ever put to paper.

Hey, I'm starting to sound like a Dragon Ball fanboy! Haha! Oh, and these color editions are really nice! They’re American comic book graphic novel size, feature the original Japanese sound effects, and have an effect glossary! 

You can become a Dragon Ball fanboy by picking up Dragon Ball Full Color Freeza Arc vol. 1 available here! 

by Urian Brown