Akira Toriyama’s short manga from the late ‘70s to mid ‘90s was previously collected in three omnibuses and this new hardcover edition collects all three omnibuses. I love Toriyama’s Dragon Ball books (except almost all of Super - what a misnomer!) so it’s weird how everything he did outside of that series wasn’t even half as good. I’ve tried Dr Slump, Cowa, Jaco, Sand Land, and now Manga Theater, and they’re all stinkers!
The biggest problem is that they’re basically all comedy shorts and Toriyama is not funny. The best manga here were the ones that weren’t going for out-and-out silly comedy all the time, like Karamaru and the Perfect Day, which is basically about a young Goku-like kid, as is Dragon Boy, which reads like the early Dragon Ball books I love (Z is fantastic but I think I prefer the young Goku stories better).
It is interesting, as a Dragon Ball fan, to see Toriyama working towards his most famous series, starting in the ‘70s, slowly inching towards the winning formula, working out his ideas in these shorts. Most of his male protagonists begin to resemble Goku until he basically gets there with Tangtong who takes a Chi Chi lookalike back to her home at the behest of Master Roshi (that’s actually the character’s name but he’s much younger here than Dragon Ball’s Master Roshi) who appears on a flying cloud (like the Nimbus!). Unlike Goku with his monkey tail though, Tangtong has wings.
The adventures of Tongpoo was also a short I liked that was similar to Dragon Ball where we see an early version of Bulma in the form of Plamo, and the capsule houses, vehicles, etc. that were a feature of the early Dragon Ball books. Also like Dragon Ball is the uncomfortable perviness, particularly given how sexualised Plamo is - even after we’re told she’s 14 years old! Ugh…
What’s amazing is how good Toriyama’s art is right from the start. His late ‘70s stuff is more cartoony (even back then he was naming his characters after food) but it’s still very accomplished for someone just beginning their manga career. It’s also fascinating to see it develop over the years, though he seems to have a very limited number of character designs. Cashman, Soldier of Savings, is basically Cell from DBZ, while Go Go Ackman is an Addams Family version of Trunks (both characters feature in multiple, increasingly tedious stories unfortunately).
There are a LOT of stories here so obviously I’m not going to go through each one but suffice it to say most aren’t worth bothering reading and are instantly forgettable, unfunny, just godawful trash. I love Dragon Ball but it’s literally the only good title Akira Toriyama seems to have created - which is still a helluva accomplishment, but also means everyone, even Dragon Ball fans, can skip anything else by this creator, including the bloated bore of a book that is Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater.
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