Akira Toriyama, famed creator of Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball, wrote this manga for the 45th anniversary of Weekly Shonen Jump. Jaco the Galactic Patrolman is a comedic science fiction tale about an inept but eager alien named Jaco, who is, as you may have guessed, an officer of the Galactic Patrol. 

The Galactic Patrol has sent Jaco on a mission to Earth to stop an incoming hostile alien from taking over the planet. The problem is that Jaco is clumsy to a fault and colliding with the Moon has forced him to crash-land on an island inhabited by only a grumpy old scientist named Omori. Without a power source to radio his superiors, Jaco is stuck on Earth with the reluctant Omori being his only hope of helping him earn enough Sky Gold to power up his damaged spacecraft. There's more trouble when a government agent tells Omori he is forced to leave the island within a week. And there's even more trouble when Jaco and Omori shop for supplies at the city and Jaco gets too carried away playing hero. However, a chance meeting with a teenage girl named Tights may help change their situation for the better.

The artwork is really detailed. Compared to Toriyama Sensei's earlier work, the backgrounds are more intricate, the characters are consistently rendered and, as usual, the vehicles are impressive to look at. There's also a lot of grayscale tones used in the art, which is rare since Toriyama Sensei has admitted to not enjoying the process of applying screentone onto his pages. Since Jaco was drawn entirely through digital means, applying tones and black to the artwork is much faster and easier. Still, Toriyama Sensei had his work cut out for him, drawing everything by himself and working a weekly schedule when Jaco was serialized in Jump.

When reading Jaco, you may notice that each chapter title page has the code “DB-” with a descending chapter number next to the title. What does it mean and is there any significance to something even greater? I won't spoil it, but as you read Jaco, the answer becomes a lot more clear...

Jaco the Galactic Patrolman is available at vizmanga.com!

by Ray n.