Photo: Images of the game Dragon Ball FighterZ for Sony Play Station
Call him Goku, Son Goku or Kakarotto , we are talking about one of the most beloved characters in the world of manga and anime, a face recognized even outside those circles. Many people will have heard his name or would be able to recognize it if they saw an illustration without ever having seen an episode of the series and, such is its popularity, that in Japan it has a national day of celebration: May 9.
Born from Akira Toriyama’s pencil in the year 84, the Dragon Ball manga was published in the magazine ‘Shonen Jump’ for eleven years. More or less in the same period the anime was broadcast, with more than 350 chapters , and they say that many of them were “filler” material: the anime adaptation was going faster than the publication of the manga, so the chapters were parts not present in it to give Toriyama time to advance the story.
Dragon Ball tells us about the life of Son Goku, a boy inspired by the Chinese legend of the monkey king who has an ape’s tail, a flying cloud and a magic staff and who accompanies Bulma around the world in search of the Dragon Balls: seven spheres capable of granting any wish by bringing them together and summoning the dragon Shenlong. During this journey he will improve his skills as a fighter and he will meet the characters that will accompany him during most of the series: Krillin, Yamcha, Ten Shin Han, Muten Roshi or Piccolo.
This first part of the series was characterized by being very comical and carefree, the initial objective with which Toriyama would create Dragon Ball, although later he took a radical turn in this sense.
Son Goku grows
Dragon Ball Z takes place a few years after Dragon Ball: Son Goku has grown up, he has married Chi Chi and has had his first son, Son Gohan. In four arcs he tells us how the earth faces several enemies who have only one objective: to destroy it or rule it. The first of these enemies will end up becoming an ally and one of the most popular characters in the series: Vegeta, who for many will rival in prominence with Son Goku himself. After him, the greatest villain that we have been able to enjoy in the series appeared, so much so that decades later he is still a vital part of the storyline of the saga: Freeza. Finally we have Cell and Majin Boo, good enemies of Goku, but without the same charisma as Vegeta and Freeza, something that denotes the author’s fatigue with respect to the series.
Photo: Images of the game Dragon Ball FighterZ for Sony Play Station
At first Akira Toriyama only planned to take the story until Goku’s confrontation with Frieza -the first arc of Dragon Ball Z-, at which point Son Goku becomes the legendary warrior, a Super Saiyan and defeats the greatest tyrant he had ever known. the universe. But, due to the worldwide success that both the manga and the anime were having, the author was forced to continue with the series, focusing more and more on the fighting. Due to his fatigue he was forced to take ideas from other sites to continue, mainly from well-known films such as ‘ Terminator ‘, ‘ Star Wars’ , ‘ Superman ‘ … Even so, during the Cell arc he had a lot of problems to be able to create new enemies for the saga: first he created Dr Maki Gero, then C16, C17 and C18 and finally found the key in Cell, although he went through three different versions until he found one that the publisher liked .
Dragon ball super
After the Boo arc, Toriyama took a well-deserved break to re-collaborate with Toey Animation a few decades later and create Dragon Ball Super. Here it was noticed that he wanted to expand the story again, as great characters such as Goku Black or Jiren emerged. With the anime on the air, the manga of the series also began to be published, but this time drawn by Toriyama’s disciple, Toyotaro. As a curiosity we must say that the manga takes the luxury of changing small details of the series and increasing the information about characters and stories that are not much emphasized in the anime.
The series has also had 19 films that would expand the main story, and in these we were able to meet who is surely Son Goku’s second biggest rival in Dragon Ball, Broly, who will not be canon until this December with the new film. In this last film we will also see the change that Toriyama made to Goku’s origins, in addition to knowing more about his father, Bardock, and his mother Gine.
Even with the fatigue that Toriyama had with the series, the author was able to continue creating stories and characters in Z that people could love, suffer with and live those epic battles full of energy. Few followers have been able to avoid getting excited in many moments: Goku’s Kamehameha using the Kaioken technique against Vegeta (neither life wave nor Kaito technique, please …), the moment in which he transforms for the first time into Super Saiyan in Namek (we refuse to call him super warrior), Vegeta sacrificing himself to try to finish off Majin Boo or Goku and Freeza fighting together against Jiren in the Tournament of Power (Chikara, not Taikai).
The best Dragon Ball games
Thanks to this second (or third, or fourth…) youth of Dragon Ball we are enjoying great products within the video game sector.
Although Toriyama’s characters and stories have been linked to the world of video games almost since its inception (the first one that featured Son Goku is from 1986 ), the different deliveries and styles have meant that his fans could always choose between some titles whose main element was the fight in the purest anime style . The one that until now was considered the best Dragon Ball video game was ‘ Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 ‘, a title that Sony launched in 2004 and that the company became a benchmark of what its video games would be from then on . But since then it has rained a lot, and some hopefuls may have emerged to qualify for the title of champion in the world tournament.
Arc System Works has given us the fighting game that most fans of the series have waited for decades, a 2.5D fighting arcade that graphically rivals a real anime and has frenetic gameplay. In the game we can enjoy 3 vs 3, 1 vs 1 and 1 vs 3 matches, with a squad of fighters that has grown to satisfy everyone and will continue to grow over the next year with eight more fighters.
Photo: Images of the game Dragon Ball FighterZ for Sony Play Station
On mobile we find two games with quite a good reputation and very popular: Dragon Ball Legends, and Dragon Ball Dokan Battle. The first is a mix of a card game with arcade touches where we can move our fighter freely and which results in a surprisingly good adaptation of the fighting. The second also has the cards as a base element, but the combats are developed by pressing on colored spheres that represent the attacks of the rivals. And, if we still want more games from the franchise, soon we will be able to enjoy Jump Force, the game that brings together the most popular characters in their manga in 3 vs 3 combats, among which we can find Goku, Vegeta and Freeza.
Seeing the good health that the saga is enjoying right now, more than 30 years after it first appeared, we cannot help but admit the good work that Toriyama did when creating what was to be his greatest work, and we hope that Goku and company keep giving us good stories and games for much, much longer …
