Akira Toriyama Super Database: Books



Introduction

Originally, this file was designed solely for holding the reviews of the seven "Complete Illustration" books. But, it's grown since then to contain descriptions of as many of the other books as possible. There is no need to include the various manga here, because they already have files of their own. Instead, I am using this file to describe the "supporting" books -- Dragon Ball Z Perfect Files, museum exhibit books, and The World books that complement some of the movies.

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Brief Descriptions of Various Books on Toriyama and Dragon Ball


Dragon Ball Bouken (Adventure) Special
(Shuueisha, December 1987,280 yen)
A soft-cover book that no one has never seen. May not have ever been printed.

Toriyama Akira The World
(Shuueisha, January 1990, 1000 yen)
Soft cover. Contains illustrations from Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, one shot stories like Pola & Roid, Chobit, Mr. Ho, etc. Total of 81 illustrations.

Toriyama Akira The World Special
(Shuueisha, September 1990, 3200 yen)
Hard cover, w/ case. A more comprehensive book containing many of the illustrations in Toriyama Akira The World, plus, newer Dragon Ball pictures, and illustrations not released in the previous book. Total of 83 illustrations.

Toriyama Akira The World Anime Special
(Shuueisha, October 1990, 390 yen)
Soft cover. Contains info on the movies, "Dragon Ball Z, Chikyuu Marugoto Choukessen," "Pink," "Kennosuke-sama," and "Kosuke-sama, Rikimaru-sama: Konpeitou no Ryuu (The Dragon of Konpei Island)." Plus, miscellaneous info and tidbits.

Other Books
(All from Shuueisha)
Including:
The Jump Comics Selections, which are the book versions of the various anime movies (AKA Jump Anime Comics, 690 yen).

Anime Kids Comics (450 yen).

Jump Mini E-hon (Picture Books) (300 yen).

Video game guides, etc.

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The Complete Illustrations seven book set

The Dragon Ball manga series has ended. The TV series wrapped up in Sept., 1995. The last of the DBZ movies have already hit the theaters and is now on the video rental shop shelves. The odds are that the Dragon Ball GT series will also have ended by the time you return to read this file.

So, what's a poor Dragon Ball otaku to do?

Buy the Dragon Ball Daizenshuu books, of course. (Daizenshuu translates roughly to "Big Complete Works." From this point on, I refer to all 7 books as "The Complete Illustrations books".)

The DB: CI consists of full color illustrations from the last ten years of the series. Inside the front cover of each book is a fold-out poster version of the cover illustration. Throughout, there are thousands of photos from the TV series, manga, and movies. There are more pencil sketches, and a HUGH amount of background detail on the attacks, items, vehicles, and characters that western fans occasionally ask about. We even get maps of the universe, and locations for Kame House, Karin Tower, Pilaf's Castle, and the Tenkai-ichi Budoukai. At the end of books 1-6, there is also a series of interviews with Toriyama himself.

However, the books are a bit pricey. In Japan, they cost 1500 to 1800 yen. To ship them to the U.S., and then to make a profit on them, the import shops like Nikaku Animart bump the prices up to about $35 - $50 per book.

This review file was created to help you decide which books you'd like to get, and promote them for what they are -- One of the greatest resources to Dragonball fans ever compiled.

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Book 1: Complete Illustrations

DB: CI consists of full-color illustrations from the last ten years of the series. Inside the front cover is a fold-out poster version of the cover illustration. On the other side of the poster is the pencil sketch used to create the last page of the manga, where all of the characters say "Arigato", and Toriyama thanks his readers for sticking with him. The next 12 sections are various splash pages, illos, and special drawings collected by year. Starting in 1984, when Dragon Ball first appeared in issue 51 of Shonen Jump, we get a wide variety of poses, gags, and artwork quality on up to 1995 and the final installment in Shonen Jump issue 25.

Each section starts with a "title" page; the title page contains three or four pages from the manga, highlighting the storyline at that time, and demonstrating part of the process of making manga (the artwork is finished, but all of the word balloons are blank.) The illustrations include indications of which publications they'd originally appeared in. Many are from Shonen Jump (WJ == Weekly Jump) of course, but many more were created for V-Jump magazine, calendars, "Toriyama Akira: The World" special, and a few other one-shot publications.

Chapter 13 consists of all the artwork from the covers of the collected manga volumes. As can be expected, the artwork quality varies widely over the years. Some of the covers look very, very cheap and rushed. Some of the others are highly detailed, and impart a feeling of high-energy action. (As a bonus, the cover of volume #42 is included, although 42 has not yet hit the shelves.) There is also a mural page showing all of the cover spine artwork in sequence. And, from a casual viewing, it certainly appears that Gokuu and Yajirobee are the only two characters to appear twice on the spines of the books. To round things out, all of the inside coverflap "pictures of the artist" are also included (Toriyama in his various incarnations, pictures of his baby son, and pet dogs -- with a tribute to a deceased pet dog.)

Chapter 14 shows all of the Weekly Shonen Jump volume covers on which DB characters appear on the cover (63: not many, given that there were over 520 issues of Shonen Jump during this time.)

Chapter 15 is a 4-page interview with Toriyama (this will take me a long time to read.) Chapter 16 wraps the book up with reprints of the volume covers, and special one-shot illos.

There are a few good gags that had appeared outside of the normal manga (in V-Jump, Vejiita finally gets to beat Gokuu -- while the two of them are playing a Super Famicom game; Kamesennin takes photos for an etchi calendar -- Buruma in the bath, Ranchi undressing -- and gets his own picture in the calendar after Ranchi shoots him full of holes.) There's also a fair bit of repetition, and cover artwork from each year gets run again in Chapter 13.

This is a good coffee table book, and can be fun to refer to off and on for the next few years. It's priced at an average 1500 yen (average price for 200+ pages of color artwork in Japan), and isn't all that bad a deal if you really like the series.

But, DB:CI is also pretty one-sided. It's just a collection of pictures, with no commentary, and no real coherence. Anyone expecting something beyond what they already own if they own the complete manga collection, will be very disappointed.

Therefore, it may be a good thing (depending on how you look at it) that DB:CI is actually the first of 7 volumes. Then again, at about $35-$50 per book, the entire collection will total well over $200. Only avid collectors will want all 7 books, but casual fans, and anyone that likes good artwork, should be able to locate at least *1* volume that appeals to them.

I like Complete Illustrations. It's obviously intended just to suck money out of people, but I think it's a good value, anyway. I'm tempted to get all 7 books, and see if I can summon Shenlon, but I'd have to find a way to get them mailed to America first (I may be returning to the States before the last 3 books come out.) Instead, I may settle for #3-5, and maybe pick up #7 later. If someone else manages to meet Shenlon, please get an autographed photo for me...

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Book 2: Story Guide

So, is Dragon Ball: Story Guide worth buying at 1800 yen?
If you're a DB fan -- Yes.

Because 42 volumes of the manga are being condensed down to 265 pages, it's natural that the editors had to do some serious sorting to decide what would be printed in this book. If you're expecting a reprint of everything ever released, you'll be disappointed. But, there's enough new material, and color pages from the original weekly Jump issues, to justify buying the Story Guide (on top of all the manga volumes you already own...)

There aren't any chapter numbers this time, and no real connecting pattern as there had been in Complete Illustrations.


First, we get a fold-out color poster of young Gokuu and Kuririn doing flying kicks (also used as the cover illustration). On the reverse side of the poster is a Family Tree, showing all of the major characters and their relations to each other (Buruma's mother and father are STILL not referred to by name. Beederu's mother is still NOT given, and there's a hint that Yajirobee has become Karin-sama's partner. Ranchi is identified simply as having lived at Kame House, and #17 and #18 are listed as having been twins before being turned into androids.)

Next is a reprint of the first Dragon Ball chapter (the first 8 pages are in color, which makes the background art look really good.)

"Before Dragon Ball, Part 1", is a one-page description of one of the short stories that Toriyama had experimented with -- Dragon Boy; Aug. 1983, Fresh Jump.

"Adventure History" is a 43-page presentation of the adventure side of the manga, in words and pictures. The selection of panels to highlight each phase of the story illustrates quite clearly that Toriyama's fight sequences are very high-energy.

"Before Dragon Ball, Part 2", is another one-page description of the sketches that Toriyama produced while experimenting with character designs. There is one female that looks like she could have been lots of fun -- Pinchi.

"Original Color Works", in 2 parts, are 32 pages of reprints of the color pages from the weekly Shonen Jump issues. Some of the pages look washed out, others look very good. The better looking pages are one reason for buying this book.

"Personal History" is a graph showing which volumes each of the major characters appear in.

Then, we get 24 pages of "Growing Up", showing the evolution of each of the major characters. There's even a special section dedicated to all of Buruma's different hair and fashion styles.

"Human Drama" presents the manga's emotional side, and the different personal fixes and psychological barriers that the heroes have had to face and overcome.

"Sub-Characters" gives the supporting actors a chance to be seen, and to be given a short background sketch.

"Battle History" is another graph, this time showing in which volumes the different battles took place.

"Final Battle" is a collection of the climaxes for each of the combats (Gokuu punching through Demon King Piccolo's chest, Gokuu defeating Piccolo Jr. in the Budoukai, Gohan killing Cell, and so on.)

For all of you Dragon Ball fans that wanted a list of the special attacks that each character uses, there is a 16-page section entitled "Special Attacks". This section is pretty complete, including #19 and #20's energy sucking trick, Blue Shogun's hypnosis, and Yajirobee's flying body slam.

"All Battles" discusses each and every conflict between everyone that ever appeared in the manga (187 by official count, including the bout between Gokuu and Uubu.)

The book is rounded out with a reprint of final chapter of the manga.

And, the book closes with another 4-page interview with Toriyama.


Story Guide is another good coffee table book, and can be fun to refer to off and on for the next few years. It's priced at 1800 yen and isn't all that bad a deal if you really like the series. I consider Story Guide to be more satisfying than Complete Illustrations. The artwork is very clean, the color pages are generally good (the older chapters suffer a little from aging of the original artwork), and there's enough additional information concerning the main cast that you can't really go wrong by getting this book.

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Book 3: TV Animation, Part 1

At long last, I have finally gotten around to checking out this volume (as well as #5: TV Animation, Part 2). One of the reasons that I held off so long was that I figured that I really didn't need to buy a book that merely records what had shown up in the TV episodes. After all, if I already have the tapes and the manga, why should I also get a book version of the tapes?

But, I broke down and bought this book mainly to review it before selling it to someone else. This said, I have to admit that there are a couple of good reasons for adding Books 3 and 5 to your collection. First, they contain highlights of ALL the major storylines, and are good for killing time looking at the nicely-made pictures. Second, the authors went so far as to list the original TV episodes that had been made solely for padding out the show (one-shot episodes that weren't based on the manga.)

As ever, the fold-out poster is a larger version of the cover art (Gokuu vs Demon King Piccolo), with a collage of Gokuu's on the back side. The rest of the book breaks up as follows:

Pages 16 - 119: Highlights of the episodes starting with the beginning of the series, up to Gokuu's and Chi Chi's wedding. Interspersed throughout are descriptions of the various opening and closing credit animations. These pages are all in color, and have lots of comments and episode numbers.

Pages 120 - 121: Descriptions of the episodes created strictly for the TV series and are not based on the manga.

Page 122: This page describes the Tsufuru-jin, and gives the background needed to explain part of the goings-on for the Baby storyline in Dragonball GT.

Pages 123 - 136: Pencil sketches of all of the major good guys, showing them in different clothing and stages of development.

Page 137: Opening and ending theme lyrics for "Romantiku Ageru Yo" and "Maka Fushigi Adobenchaa!"

Pages 138 - 153: Pencil sketches of the villians and supporting characters.

Page 154: Opening and ending theme lyrics for "Detekoi Tobikiri ZENKAI Powaa!" and "CHA-LA, HEAD CHA-LA".

Pages 155 - 177: Highlights of various battles, up to and including the first appearance and defeat of Prince Vejiita. For anyone that likes Radditz, there are several photos of him here.

Page 178: Eye Catches (commercial break markers) for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.

Pages 179 - 201: Highlights of the trip to Planet Namek, including the conclusive battle against Team Ginyuu.

Pages 202 - 207: Interview with Toriyama.

Pages 208 - 233: Episode titles and summaries, including all 153 Dragon Ball episodes, and the first 74 Dragon Ball Z episodes.



In summary, this is a great book if you really like the TV series, and hate the manga. It's a great resource for anyone trying to compile all of the episode titles, too. There's lots and lots of pictures. Unfortunately, none of the text is in English, so as a reference, this book is most useful to anyone that can read Japanese.

Curtis Bob-Briggs says "Check it out."

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Book 4: World Guide

This is a quickie review because, of the 4 books currently out, World Guide has the most amount of text, data, and sheer content, of the group.

We start out with sketches of various characters, and layouts detailing a variety of locations that have been featured in the manga and TV series in the past. Then we get into "Racial Groups", "Field: Places Besides the Earth", "Field: The Earth", "Grapple: Classification of Attacks", "Grapple: Competition", and Technology.

#4 is without a doubt, a must-have book for any fan of the series. It includes a world map, showing where Kame House, Penguin Village, Mount Frypan, and Uranai Baba's home are located (among other things.) There are names and faces for characters that have only been identified by reference (eg. The Kaiou-shin that was the basis for Fat Buu.) We also get a color reprint of the story where Gokuu chases Blue Shogun into Penguin Village (and the appearance of the Dr. Slump cast.) Each Budokai is identified by number (the last Budokai, with Uubu, is #28.) We have definitive proof that Buruma's father is named "Briefs", her mother is named "Buruma's Mother", and the announcer for the Budokai is named "the Budokai Announcer." Nearly every vehicle, weapon, and magic item that was ever drawn in the manga, is also listed. Further, if you wanted to know where the Gate to Heaven, Satan City, or the Namek Planet are located, you can find that information here, along with pictures of the people/aliens/ villians that live in those places.

All of the DB coffee table books have clear artwork, lots of details, readable (if you can read Japanese) text, and solid binding. Book #4 is 169 pages, for 1500 yen.

I consider this a good deal.

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Book 5: TV Animation, Part 2

Naturally, Book 5 is a continuation of Book 3. The cover shows Freeza and young Gohan. The fold-out poster is the same, with a group shot of Gohan, Gokuu, Young Trunks, Future Trunks, Goten, Gotenks, Vejiita, Mystical Gohan, and Vejit on the back side (all in SSJ form.)

Pages 16 - 35: The battle against Freeza, and Gokuu's going SSJ.

Pages 36 - 43, 52: Episode storylines that are original to the TV series, including the appearance of Garlick, Jr. from one of the earlier DBZ movies.

Pages 44 - 101: Highlights from the appearance of Future Trunks to the first battle against Stage 1 Cell. Then, including the battle against all of the androids, and Perfect Cell. Ending with the appearance of Mr. Satan and the defeat of Cell.

Page 68: Copies of Toriyama's memos, showing sketches and notes for the character designs to be used in the TV series.

Page 84: Stills from the opening credits used early on in DBZ.

Pages 102 - 103: A brief mention of the Future Trunks Special.

Pages 104 - 106: This section describes some of the differences between what Toriyama drew in the original manga, and what actually appeared in the TV anime. (Example: The way Fusion works between Goten and Trunks is much fancier and more colorful in the TV series. And the relative heights of the various Z Fighters are not the same; Yamcha and Kiririn became shorter in the anime.)

Pages 107 - 138: More pencil sketches for all of the characters that appear from the Freeza battle, up to the appearance of Majin Buu.

Pages 139 - 145: Highlights of the Budoukai that occurred in the afterworld, culminating in the battle between Gokuu and Paiku.

Pages 146 - 199: Gohan's first appearance as The Great Saiya-Man; Highlights of various Bodoukai's; comments describing how side storylines link up with the main plotlines; and the battle against Majin Buu.

Page 158: Stills from the opening credits where Gohan is the Great Saiya-man.

Page 170: Stills from the ending credits, where young Gohan rides Shenlon and gets scared by Piccolo.

Page 186: Stills from the ending credits, showing all of the heroes, and finishing with Gokuu wearing angel's wings, in the Other World.

Pages 200 - 202: "The Variety of DB": These are shots from two videos made in the past. One features a rare video game made for the Famicom game system. This equally rare video shows the Z Fighters going up against a mad scientist named Dr. Lychee, and the product of his Tsufuru science -- Hatchi-Hyakku (#800). The second video is a combination of cel animation and computer graphics, and was used to advertise one of the games that came out for the Super Famicom back in 1993.

Page 203: Lyrics for "Boku-tachi wa Tenshi Datta", and "We Gotta Power".

Pages 204 - 205: Pencil sketches showing a brief glimpse of True Buu, and the character designs for Gokuu, Pan, and Trunks to be used in Dragon Ball GT.

Pages 206 - 211: Interview with Toriyama

Pages 212 - 233: Episode titles and summaries, from Dragon Ball Z episodes 75 to 268 (Mystical Gohan vs Piccolo/Buu).



In summary, this is also a great book if you really like the TV series, and hate the manga. It's a great resource for anyone trying to compile all of the episode titles, too. There's lots and lots more pictures. Unfortunately, there's still no text in English, so as a reference, this book is most useful to anyone that can read Japanese.

Curtis Bob-Briggs says "Check this one out, too."

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Book 6: Movies and TV Specials

It's taken a long time for me to get to this review, and I apologize. I've been swamped, working on the Akira Toriyama Super Database. Most of the information that appears in this book can also be found in other sources, several of which have been incorporated into the Database already.

Of all of the Complete Illustrations books, #6 is the least useful. It does have lots of nice pictures from the movies and TV specials, and it compiles lists of all the characters, making it easier to find any given character from any given movie. But, if you've seen the movies, then this book doesn't add much more to one's understanding of what had happened.

Actually, the main reasons for getting this book are: To have pictures that you can scan into your computer; To see examples of all of the posters, advertising items, and promotional goods that accompanied the movies; And to get a complete listing of the staff and voice credits for all the films. The best thing about this book is that the staff and voice credits are very complete. They are in Japanese though, and if you don't know how to ready kanji, they won't be of much use to you.

Each movie gets about 8 pages of coverage, with brief descriptions of the storylines, pictures of the various characters, etc. The movies are usually paired up, with the staff credits and posters appearing after every other movie section. At the end, there is a short section for the Bardock and Future Trunks TV specials. Then, the characters are grouped together by type (magical beings, robots, etc.), and grouped by movie. Finally, there is another interview with Toriyama, and photos showing him creating an autographed picture of Gokuu.

Book 6 is recommended to collectors that want to have a copy of all of the Complete Illustration books. Note that summaries of the movies, and character guides, can be found in the DB/DBZ movies guide. One other interesting note is that the "Road to Greatest Strength" is mentioned briefly in this book, although it hadn't premiered at the time #6 went to press.

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Book 7: Dragon Ball, Daijiten (Big Encyclopedia)

When reviewing books like this, especially when I don't know my audience, it is very easy to become flippant and spend more time on trying to be clever, than in actually concentrating on the content of the book itself. It becomes more of a problem when I am faced with something like the Big Encyclopedia -- a book that is more text than pictures, in a language that requires I spend a lot of effort to figure out what's going on, and at a time when I feel very rushed with all of the projects that I'm trying to work on.

So, please bear with me when I say that the Big Encyclopedia can either be the biggest waste of money of the seven books, or can be the greatest treasure in your Dragon Ball collection.

As always, the Big Encyclopedia is a colorful hardback book, with over 300 pages of information. Most of this info is a rehash of what appears in the other six books, plus a preview of the (at the time) newly started Dragon Ball GT series (and the preview material can now be found in the below Perfect File.) The cover is a color version of the group scene that appears at the end of the manga. The inside fold-out poster is a larger version of the cover. On the reverse side of the poster is a massive collection of character images, showing the progression of character designs through the various storylines. Then, things get scholarly.

Chapter 1: Chronological Table of DB World
This section is a timeline for everything that happened in the manga, TV series, and movies, or happens behind the scenes and is spelled out here for the first time. In the background are color images from each storyline, used to illustrate these events. This timeline has been translated into English by a Dutch fan. The final page is an explanation of the 4 timelines that Future Trunks created when he used the Capsule Corp. time machine.

Chapter 2: World View for DB
This chapter is largely text. It is broken up into sub-sections entitled "Culture", "Society", and "Racial Groups". (According to the pie chart, the DB world is 1% Half-breeds (Gohan), 7% monsters (Pilaf), 17% intelligent animals (Oolong), and 75% humans (Kame-sennin). Planet Namek is 14% soldiers (Piccolo), and 86% healers (Dende). This section of the encyclopedia uses pictures from the manga to explain various elements of the universe, such as commerce, religion, and the construction of different buildings.

Chapter 3: Human Racial Dictionary
This is a listing of ALL of the characters (including from the movies), and a short description of who they are, where they are from, what race they are, and what they did in the story. This is useful if you are trying to learn more about one of the more obscure characters for a fan fic.

Chapter 4: Special Attack Dictionary
This section is exactly what the title says it is; an alphabetical listing of all of the special attacks used in DB, and who used them. I haven't tried checking every single one of these entries, but it certainly looks complete, including the gag attacks that Gotenks pulled against Majin Buu.

Chapter 5: Rare Illustrations
Here, we have a few of the image drawings used to set the tone for Dragon Ball GT, plus a few illustrations that appeared in other magazines, or advertising posters (includes one of a pissed-looking Freeza holding a pen like he's a manga artist; gag images of Vejiita bowling and rolling a gutter ball; Toriyama robot wearing the uniforms of the different characters; and so on.) There's some good stuff in here.

Chapter 6: Item Dictionary
An alphabetical listing of all of the weapons, furniture, vehicles, and other objects that appeared in the series. In the middle, a couple of pages are dedicated to the inventions from Capsule Corp. and Red Ribbon. At the end, one page shows the influences for some of the objects: The expanding bo, one fan, and Kintoun come from the Monkey King legends. Yamcha's skimmer first appeared in Toriyama's Pink manga. The flyers that Mr. Satan and Blue Shogun use are from Dr. Slump.

Chapter 7: Geographical Dictionary
An alphabetical listing of locations, when they appeared in the series, and maps for each place described. Note that in the DBGT TV special, Gokuu's old house is supposed to be located on Paozu mountain. Paozu Yama does not appear in the Geographical Dictionary. Gokuu's old house is mentioned, but there's no names for the mountains in the area.

Chapter 8: Particulars Dictionary
This may be the biggest waste of ink in the entire book: an alphabetical listing of sentences that the characters speak in the series. I guess that if you want to know who said "Dr. Gero-sama", this dictionary would be a helpful resource. But, I myself don't need something that can tell me when Gokuu said "Urenai Baba" instead of "Uranai Baba".

Chapter 9: Pictorial Dictionary For DB Goods
This section is good if you like collecting DBZ paraphenalia, or like to see what DBZ stuff looks like when it's sold in other countries. There's a timeline for when the manga, collectors cards, games, and other toys were released for sale. If you collect the books, there's a pictorial listing of the anime books, how-to game cheat books, and other specials. (In a self-referential loop, the Complete Illustrations books also appear here.) The movies have been released on tape and laser disc, and ordering information has its own section. I've never seen any of the telephone cards myself, but there's been 14 of them as shown on one page. Wuken is an avid CD collector, and he uses the CD dictionary to track down the most hard-to-find CDs. Of course, there's couple of pages dedicated to the video games, and more for the toys, key chains, and pen cases. I personally like seeing the examples of DB manga printed in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Italy, France and Singapore. Lastly, there's globe used to show where DB and DBZ are on TV (the entry for the U.S. states that the series is just about to begin airing.)

The Ten Years of Dragon Ball Splash Pages shows thumbnail images of the splash pages used in the weekly manga series. This is followed by a 100-question quiz that had appeared in 1993, plus the answers. Finally, there is a reprinting of all of the cover flap comments Toriyama had written for the 42 volumes of the manga.

Thanks A Lot, by Akira Toriyama
The last 2 pages have a picture of adult Gokuu waving "goodbye", and a humble Toriyama robot bowing. The text thanks everyone for everything they've done to make DB, and the books, so successful.


In summary, this is a useless book if you want pictures to scan, or reams of information that don't appear anywhere else. Further, if you can't read Japanese or can only afford to buy one volume, don't even bother thinking about getting this book (get books #4, #1 and #6 instead.)

On the other hand, if you are a hardcore DB fan, a collector, or a researcher that can read Japanese, this is the FIRST book you should buy. All of the information you could possibly want to look up has been laid out for you to locate quickly. There's lots of good tidbits, and of course the pictures of the CDs and games will come in handy if you want to buy them.

Completists will get all seven books anyway, and they'll be very happy with the content of this book as it complements the rest of the collection. Personally, I'm keeping my copy just to help me answer the questions that people keep asking me about the series.

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Books Added to the Complete Illustrations Set Later On

DB Daizenshuu Appendix 1
Dragon Ball Card Das Perfect File, Part 1 (Shuueisha, 980 yen)
A reprinting of all of the collectors cards.

DB Daizenshuu Appendix 2
Dragon Ball Card Das Perfect File, Part 2 (Shuueisha, 980 yen)
The second half of the reprinting of all of the collectors cards.

DB Daizenshuu Appendix 3
TV Animation Part 3 (Shuueisha, August 1996, 980 yen)
Picks up from the end of Book 5, and includes some new pictures from the last part of the TV series.
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Dragon Ball GT: Perfect File

The Perfect File is a Jump Anime Comics Jr. publication (ISBN4-8342-1524-5), which means that it was created based purely on the anime (which is reasonable since there is no manga for DBGT), and is aimed at children. Although the title implies that everything you want to know about DBGT will be found within its covers, this book is far from complete. We can expect to see one more "Perfect File", when the TV series ends (probably the summer of 1997.) Even though there's info missing (no mentions of the CD singles available for sale, nothing about the DB "Final Bout" game for the Play Station that is to go on sale in August, or how the battle with Super #17 will end), there is still a LOT of information in the 100 color pages here. Hiragana spellings for the names of all the characters and planets that appeared in the Baby storyline; descriptions of the various stages of SSJ and "Baby" possession; a sheet of stickers at the front of the book; flashbacks to the earlier DBZ episodes to show how the characters changed; copies of the "mood-setting" sketches that Toriyama created to give the animators a feel for how the DBGT universe should look; and a question and answer section that explains the meaning of "GT", and why Vejiita shaved his moustache (he thought the moustache made him look suave. But, Akira Toriyama's daughter said that Vejiita would look better without it. The scriptwriters heard about this, said "well, why not?", and decided to have Bra tell her father that the moustache looked bad on him.)

I have put together a DBGT FAQ for this book. In any case, I suggest that all fans of DBGT run over to the Nikaku Animart web page, get their phone number, and order your copy of this book right away. It's good stuff. (Unless some anime club wants me to buy 10+ copies of the book for them...)

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Dragon Ball GT: Gokuu's Biography
The #4 Dragon Ball is the Proof of Courage

This TV special had aired in March of 1997, and was printed as a Jump Anime Comics (ISBN4-8342-1525-3) in July. It is a color comic version of the TV special, and is aimed at children. It includes a sheet of stickers, a color fold-out mini-poster, staff credits, and a little background information. The background info covers Gokuu himself, and all of the character that appear in the special.

The artwork is good, with very few bad cel reproductions. The dialog seems to have been altered somewhat, and some of the scenes have been shortened (when Manba scares off the wolves with her gun, the wolves run in panic for about a minute, creating a good slapstick scene; the slapstick shots are missing from the book.) But, this is still a good book, and well worth buying if you can't find a copy of the TV anime.

I have put together a summary of the TV special anime. In any case, I suggest that all fans of DBGT run over to the Nikaku Animart web page, get their phone number, and order your copy of this book right away. It's good stuff. (Unless some anime club wants me to buy 10+ copies of the book for them...)

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Dragon Ball Books List

Volume Number and Title Release Date Price
#1 Complete Illustrations 07-04-95 1500 yen
#2 Story Guide 08-04-95 1800 yen
#3 TV Animation, Part 1 09-04-95 1800 yen
#4 World Guide 10-04-95 1500 yen
#5 TV Animation, Part 2 11-04-95 1800 yen
#6 Movies and TV Specials 12-04-95 1800 yen
#7 Dragon Ball, Big Encyclopedia 02-05-96 1500 yen
Dragon Ball GT: Perfect File 05-19-97 770 yen
Dragon Ball GT: The #4 Dragon Ball is the Proof of Courage 07-19-97 770 yen


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