Dr. Slump, Vol. 02

Dr. スランプ [Dr. Slump] #2

by Akira Toriyama

Robot girl hijinks from the creator of Dragon Ball !

When goofy inventor Senbei Norimaki creates a precocious robot named Arale, his masterpiece turns out to be more than he bargained for!

It's business as usual in Penguin Village: an alien arrives on Earth in hopes of becoming a superhero to the weakling humans, a bank robber tries to kidnap Arale and baby Gatchan, and Arale wrecks the town police car--again!

Genres: Manga, Humor, Comics, Comedy, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 1980

About the author

Akira Toriyama (鳥山明) was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball (his most famous work) and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.
He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen/shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended.
His next series, Dragon Ball, would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. Having sold 260 million copies worldwide, it is one of the best-selling manga series of all time and is considered a key work in increasing manga circulation to its peak in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Overseas, Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting anime's popularity in the Western world. In 2019, Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts.
In October 2024, Toriyama was inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Subham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a fun volumes yet again as we see Arale and the crew go on even more fun and wild adventures and it's so funny like the one where they travelled to the last and called volcanoes fireworks lol or the one with the robber and how after seeing Arale and her strength he wanted to give up LMAO and then the case of the you know in the end ..with Doctor making plans to .. i don't even know what to say lol but his plans are insane. A mad scientist really. But I laughed out loud so many times reading this volume and it had some great pin ups and info about tools Toriyama sensei used when he drew it and I love those.

[Laura (ローラ) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forgot how funny this was!

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sep 23, 2018: More cuteness and belly laughs. The great strawberry panty caper is gold. The flyman from outer space needs to be a recurring character. New haircut for Senbei.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick and cheesy. Ten different story shorts. Some 1 chapter, others 2. 'Kidnapped!?' was my favorite. Barbershop was my least, and was one of the longest in this volume. Some of this is too over the top and pointless for me. There is a reason I rarely read the comics page of newspapers. This is the sort of thing you would find there. Only instead of a short strip, this are just a bit longer. The overall story-line is lacking. The get-to-know the author bonus pages were less than impressive but I liked the page where we see all the art supplies used to make this.

[maggie ✶ ࣪˖࿐]

i morally can't rate this bc the doctor is a creep but this is also my childhood

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I'm giving this five stars since this is the first manga I was able to complete in Japanese waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~. I wasn't able to understand every word but I'm much better at looking them up and being somewhat orientated with casual speech and now I have one ton of new vocab I need to start working on. There isn't an overarching story to Dr. Slump like there are in other manga; this seems more like a collection of episodes featuring the same crazy crew. I really enjoyed it though! The art is adorable and crude and so aesthetically satisfying. The jokes and shenanigans are great too! Since this manga seems to be somewhat on my level, I'll try my best to read all the volumes I can get my hands on. Will take me a while though since my strategy is 1. read without assistance but maybe write some words down that I don't understand 2. go back and look up what I didn't know so that 3. I can read it again.

Yay me!

[Iman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Menurut saya karya ini adalah legenda. Dr Slump terbit tahun 1980 & 40 tahun kemudian masih tetap membuat tertawa. Saya pertama kali membaca sekitar tahun 1995/96, saat itu diterbitkan oleh Rajawali Grafiti (entah, legal atau tidak). Humor orang-orang di desa Pinguin ini tak lekang oleh waktu. Karena 99% dibuat dari imajinasi, bukan dokumentasi artefak-artefak jaman pada masanya. Menurut saya, konten plot komik ini tipikal "your reference is your luck". Saya melihat IP-IP (intellectual property) sains-fiksi yg terkenal pd masanya (Alien, Star Wars, Godzilla, Ultraman, dll). Jika saya lebih paham budaya (esp, pop culture) Jepang, pasti saat membaca lebih : " aha!!! "

[Trever Polak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mean, it's Dr. Slump—if you've read one chapter, you know what you're getting, in the best way possible. I'd actually say this volume is stronger than the first, probably because the characters have been fleshed out more, and Toriyama had a better idea of what he could work with. Ultimately, though, it's more of the same, and I can't complain about more of a good thing.

[Hachimaru · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this volume, I was especially impressed by the design of the author himself imitating H. R. Giger 's alien with drawing pen head and of a disposable-lighter-style spaceship (cheap and innovative at the same time!).
And also I'm afraid that this manga could not be read someday as it includes scenes like smoking, drinking and undressing by teenagers depicted so casually.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'avais oublié à quel point c'était idiot et loufoque mais ce petit retour 20 ans en arrière était sympa !
Akira Toriyama est doué, il n'y a pas à dire.
Et je suis toujours épatée de me souvenir que c'est sorti en 1980 au Japon !!!

[Ady Weasley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me sorprendo con este título, porque es muy divertido pero a la vez pienso como e posible que encuentre divertido este tipo de humor, porque tiene ciertas cosas que son un poco tontas pero que quizás por eso mismo son entretenidas

[Diogo Muller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a varied, somewhat funny volume, with some things that didn't age that well, and some things that are still fun.

Thankfully, this being a gag manga, if one joke doesn't work, the next one comes soon, but... unfortunately, this is not the strongest volume.

[Cherish · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very hilarious read from start to finish. I'm quite glad I read it as it has been a very long while since I read the first volume.

[Bryson]

i liked the book it was very funny and siilly

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was actually really funny lol, also for a kids manga there's lots of rude stuff. My pure eyes cant handle it

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entretenido

[Coco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super cute. A booklet full of childhood memories

[Syafiq Segaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vol 2 sama absurdnya dengan vol 1, tapi rasanya kayak lebih lucu.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this. It’s all so fun and silly. I definitely think I would have been obsessed with it if I read it when I was younger. The charm is unmatched.

[Omar Villafane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Use your genius for good Mr. Slump lol

[Jesús Pérez · Rating 5 out of 5]

gracioso

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arale wants to be able to fly. Dr. Slump invents a plan powered by shaking a huge can of cola and then opening it. They end up on a cloud with an oni who controls the weather and immediately they start to cause problems.

The police of Penguin Village, where Arale and the others live, are terrified of Arale's strength.

There's also various activities in the book like coloring in a page.

There's a funny lunch scene, and a scene where Akane ties a rope to Arale, gets on a skateboard and has Arale pull her fast. Arale then gets a tummy ache and Senbei (Dr. Slump) has to open her up and extract the lunch she 'ate.'

Bubibinman makes his appearance. He's from outer space, has wings and fake insect eyes. A bunch of funny things happen and the fly-like Bubibinman ends up eating poop and enjoying it.

Senbei invents a machine that allows you to put in a picture and it will make it turn into reality. Then Arale gets her turn with it.

A crook takes Arale and Gatchan captive. His mistake. Big mistake.

Arale's teacher is coming to visit so Senbei invents a barber machine to cut his hair. It doesn't go well, of course. Arale and Gatchan dress up in monster costumes.

Then there's a section on catching frogs. Yep. And Arale catches Senbi by using a picture from a girlie magazine. He then invents the Ponpoko Morph Gun. It can change things into other things. Arale gets hold of the gun and turns Senbi into a monster.

The next story's about the kids going back into the past and seeing really neat things and having lots of fun. The bank robber then makes another appearance and so do the police, one of whom is wearing a Stormtrooper helmet. The robber takes Senbi and another guy hostage but when Arale and the others come in he runs off, begging the police to save him from Arale.

Then a TV guy shows up and it gets wilder from that point on. Arale literally splits the moon in two.

The next thing up is when Senbei works very intensely on figuring out a way to see Midori's strawberry panties. Yes, he's a pervert. But a very scientific pervert. He fails at his first attempt to constructs a second Rube Goldberg-type device.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good, but I'm starting to think I don't want to continue collecting physical volumes of this manga. The jokes are good, and it makes for decent reading on the toilet, but I'm running out of space in my room and this manga is rather long and probably not really great enough to warrant eating up more floor-space, as much as I enjoy Toriyama's work.

Quite interesting, there's a surprising amount of continuity within this volume: Peasuke and Senbei both get haircuts that steadily grow back throughout the chapters!

Weird thing: the chapters aren't numbered. I'm too lazy to check my Volume 1 to see if its chapters were numbered. I mean, yeah, it's a gag manga, so storyline isn't as important as e.g. Dragon Ball, but it's weird not to have chapter numbers at all. Makes me think VIZ may have been censoring shit by removing full chapters and masking it by removing chapter count. They censor tits and Popo's lips in DB, so why not cut out chapters? Maybe I'm being too paranoid....

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as cute as the second one, and there wasn't as much of the characters as I'd like. But it was still a funny read for those that love manga.

[Anthony Rewak · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books are fun.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories are so wacky and random! Think Looney Tunes behaviour - grabbing the exclamation points off of word bubbles and beating each other with them! Great facial expressions!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading these