Dragon Ball Super #88 // Review
With the recent release of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero to rave reviews from the fandom, it was a certainly bizarre choice for the manga Dragon Ball Super to take a brief hiatus. It was even stranger for the manga to do so after revealing the menacing threat of Black Freeza and how easily he took down Goku and Vegeta at the same time. However, the artist Toyotaro said he was doing so to better improve his work, and he had some ideas for the next storyline.
Chapter 88 of Dragon Ball Super is here, and it is a drastic but welcome change to the world. Akira Toriyama takes credit for the writing, while Toyotaro is credited for the art. English credits also add Caleb Cook’s translation and Brandon Bovia’s lettering to the credits.
After an epilogue scene in glorious full color where Vegeta and Freeza vow to train harder, we time jump ahead several years. Goten and Trunks have finally broken out of their short man height and have hit their Saiyan growth spurt. In fact, the two of them are attending high school, akin to Gohan’s time once chapter 421 hit in the original manga. And like Gohan’s time in high school before them, Goten and Trunks have a new hobby!
Enter Great Saiyaman X-1 and X-2! They’ve taken to protecting West City from various thugs and crooks, with the theme of cleaning up the town. This includes putting their weapons in garbage bags, which is a neat and neurotic touch you’d expect from Toriyama. When Capsule Corp’s newest autonomous robots start to run amuk, it’s up to the Great Saiyamen to save the day!
Or at least free up the development team from constant repairs to Trunks can take one of them out on a date.
This chapter is a monster at over 50 pages. Toyotaro says he spent the time off refining his art style, though, and it shows. The art has a nicely rounded style that feels like a blend of early Dragon Ball art and the later art international fans associate with the Z version. Combine that with some incredible character designs and fantastic facial expressions? You’ve got one light hearted chapter of Dragon Ball that feels like the slice of life filler episodes fans of the anime love so much.
It’s no “Goku and Piccolo learn to drive a car,” but it’s still very good.
It’s also nice to see time having moved forward for Goten and Trunks in more than just their physical appearance. Goten has a bit more of a spine now, and is more willing to be confident and do what needs to be done. Meanwhile, Trunks has finally matured out of his little brat stage, but also doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. It’s a nice change to the two kids whose only development for the longest time was “kids who become a guy.” We get a chance to see their daily lives, with Trunks pulling a variation of “kid sneaks into school,” while Goten seems to be as good as student as Gohan was. It’ll be interesting to see how things evolve as the new story unfolds.
While not every fan of Dragon Ball loves the slice of life comedy, it’s a nice return to form after such an action-packed ending and a hiatus. The fact that this chapter takes place before the movie Super Hero also allows Toyotaro and Toriyama to flesh out the setup for the movie while also letting the readers see lesser-used characters. It’s a solid start to what could be a fresh new chapter of Dragon Ball… and it’s free if you don’t mind using the Shonen Jump application.
