Dragon Ball (3-in-1 Edition), Vol. 6

Dragon Ball Omnibus #6

by Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama's groundbreaking, iconic, best-selling series now in an omnibus edition!

Dragon Ball introduces a young monkey-tailed boy named Goku (a wry update of the classic Chinese "Monkey King" legend), whose quiet life changes when he meets a girl named Bulma who is on a quest to collect seven "Dragon Balls." If she gathers them all, an incredibly powerful dragon will appear and grant her one wish. But the precious orbs are scattered all over the world, and Bulma could use the help of a certain super-strong boy...

The Greatest Hero on Earth

Goku and Piccolo finally face each other down in the final match of the Tenka’ichi Budōkai! Piccolo is ready and willing to unleash all his power to win—something Goku may hesitate to do. Taking down Piccolo is going to take all of Goku’s skill and wits…and courage! But after the tournament is over, life goes on. There will be new enemies to face and even more surprising new allies!

Genres: Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Comics Manga, Adventure, Anime

552 pages, Paperback

First published September 2, 2014

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

[Khurram · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book opens up with the end of the 23 Strongest under Heaven tournament. A great final fight, that definitely lived up to its main event status. I do love that there are super moves are based in Martial Arts techniques. This books marks the end of the Dragon Ball series and the start of Dragon Ball Z. A new threat is coming and it is big enough for two mortal enemies work together. A really good collection again awesome action and great artwork. Good story as well, and the left out all the stupid parts great condensed beginning of the Sayian arc. All 36 covers are in the cover gallery.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The end of Dragon Ball and the start of Dragon Ball Z!

Goku vs Piccolo for the final showdown begins here. Who will come out victorious? Will Goku finally win a goddamn tournament or will Piccolo take the win? Then the next arc opens up Dragon Ball Z where Raditz, Goku's brother, arrives on earth to tell our hero some upsetting news. He's not a human after all, but a alien race called Saiyans! Goku must now rescue his son, Gohan, from the clutches of the madman Saiyan! Last but not least is the arc of the Saiyans, Nappa and Vegeta arriving on earth. With goku rushing back to help his friends after gaining new powers, the Z warriors must hold them off from destroying the world. Could they do it? Find out here!

Good: Love the hell out of the end of Dragon ball. I mean, it's so sweet to see Goku get what he deserves. Also, the fight is intense, and also really funny at times. It's probably top 3 arcs of the whole series for me. I also enjoy the mythos of Dragon Ball Z, and the Saiyans, reminds me a lot of Superman but a little bit more vicious. Vegeta and Nappa are also great villains, evil as hell, and they set up the series of bigger and more evil bads the Z universe gets used to.

Bad: Raditz coming out of nowhere def feels a bit of a retcon. The Dragon Ball Mythos was based off the money boy Goku, but now we changed it to there's a whole race of Monkey type creatures. So feels little off looking back on it. Also, the Journey to King Kai is still a bit longer than one expects even in Manga form.

Overall, this is great stuff. While not as good as the last volume it still finishes off Dragon Ball in a great way, and starts off DBZ in a good way. A 4 out of 5 for this title.

[Siona Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is were the story finally gets good. I'm most excited for the Cell arc since he's my favorite DBZ character. I wish I had the next volume so I could get started on it, but unfortunately I don't. Hopefully I can get it soon.

[rhysciar · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars, though the last volume of DB was a bit slump, but DBZ started off exciting. Great fight scenes, and good storyline too.
Such nostalgia.

[RG · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stuff here against the Saiyans

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

These just keep getting better and how am I supposed to read anything else until I finish the series?

[Bay · Rating 4 out of 5]

More beloved characters have emerged and the silly, pervy jokes have almost disappeared. This is how I like it.

[Ben Nealis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The end of classic Dragon Ball and the beginning of Z. Great final fights and setup for the Sayin Saga.

[Rory Wilding · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPOILERS AHEAD

Beginning with the conclusion of the Piccolo versus Shen fight – the latter fighter being Kami-Sama possessing a human body – this volume gives us the final fight of the 23rd Tenka'ichi Budōkai, which also serves as the climax of Dragon Ball: Goku versus Piccolo. Although the fate of the Earth is determined on who wins this fight, Goku doesn’t think of the bigger picture, but really as two fighters competing on who’s the strongest in the tournament. This may sound arrogant, but given how much we’ve seen of Goku through his adventurous childhood, you are still rooting for this guy.

I may sound like a broken record, but just as I think that Akira Toriyama conceives the best fight sequence in the series to date, the next fight just amps up the spectacle. With so many chapters devoted to this fight, Toriyama is always presenting twists and turns with new abilities thrown in, largely from Piccolo and how will Goku escape from this situation. Goku even gets his Superman moment of making sure that innocent bystanders don’t get killed in the crossfire, even if Piccolo destroys the entire arena.

Piccolo may be willing to kill him, but Goku will not kill Piccolo, knowing he will also kill Kami-Sama. After being pummeled and bloodied, using whatever strength he has left, Goku goes for an almighty headbutt and thus defeating Piccolo. Winning the tournament, but most importantly saves the world, Goku chooses not to kill his enemy as he even gives Piccolo a Senzu Bean that restores the consumer's energy and physical health when eaten. Goku promises Piccolo a rematch and so the latter departs. With Chi-Chi's hand in marriage, Goku is offered to be a god after Kami-Sama, but his only response is how boring it would be, pulls a face and rides on Kinto’Un with his future wife. Now that’s a perfect ending!

Now we come to Dragon Ball Z, the long-running story that became my favourite show during my youthful years watching Cartoon Network. Five years after the 23rd Tenka'ichi Budōkai, the alien Raditz arrives and searches for his younger brother Kakarrot, who just happens to be Goku. Right away, Toriyama changes up the mythos with Goku being part of the warrior race known as the Saiyans, hence the monkey tail he had at an early age, which turned him into a great ape. We also get some backstory about Goku crash-landing on Earth as a baby in a ship and is discovered, then adopted by Grandpa Gohan; not far off from Superman’s origin story.

After the long info dump, Raditz kidnaps Goku’s son Gohan, which compels Goku to team up with Piccolo, hopefully with enough strength to take down the powerful Saiyan. Another addition Toriyama brings to the series is putting numbers on everyone’s power levels as the Saiyans have devices that can read any being’s power level. This is placing Dragon Ball more and more into the realms of a battle manga and although I may not entirely agree with it, it still doesn’t negate Toriyama’s skills in illustrating great action sequences, including Goku and Piccolo together fighting Raditz.

The character I was most excited to see was Gohan, Goku’s four-year-old son with no desire to fight and dreams of being a scholar, only to be revealed later as actually being more powerful than his own father. As much as Goku will always be the main character of Dragon Ball, Gohan seems like a secret weapon that is waiting to be unleashed. It shows that Toriyama isn’t trying to make Gohan a carbon copy of kid Goku. The potential of Gohan’s hidden power becomes Gohan’s arc, especially when the unthinkable happens.

Goku sacrifices himself by clutching onto his evil brother, so that Piccolo can unleash his cool new energy blast: the Light of Death. Both brothers died, but not without the hope of Goku can be wished back to life by the Dragon Balls. However, the conflict isn’t over as after receiving Raditz’s transmission, the two other Saiyans Nappa and Vegeta travels to Earth, determine to gain the Dragon Balls for the wish of immortality. Also, these two are way more powerful. As Piccolo decides to take Gohan and train him for the impending invasion, so do Kuririn and the other fighters train for the threat.

Whilst the rest of the volume is all about the training, we get to see what the afterlife looks like as Goku is among a line of souls that are sent to the Great King Enma’s office where he decides whether a soul goes to Heaven or Hell. As brief as this moment is, it expands on Toriyama’s quirky world-building, which leads to Goku to travel on the never-ending Serpent Road that will take him to the small planet of Kaiō-Sama, the Lord of Worlds that can train Goku, in preparation for the Saiyan Invasion before he is resurrected. On a side note, as someone who still remembers the anime adaptation from years ago, the show itself was being made whilst the manga was still ongoing and surprised how lean the source material is compared to the show, which certainly had filler episodes.

Although when Goku does arrive at Kaiō-Sama’s planet, it may be another long subplot with a mentor with a strange way of training fighters, Kaiō-Sama is one of my favourite characters from his design to his jokey personality that fails to make Goku laugh. Even the training that includes Goku chasing the monkey Bubbles is hilarious. All of this is a witty starter before we get to the dramatic main course, as the two Saiyans finally arrive on Earth, the Z fighters are ready to battle, whilst Goku is fully trained, gets wished back to life by the Dragon Balls and has to rush back to King Enma’s office to get back home. A new era of Dragon Ball has begun and with so much happened already, this is some of the most fun comics that I would recommend to anyone!

[Matthew Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

This set of volumes sees the end of the first part of the series and the start of a new direction. In the US, the second portion of the series was titled Dragonball Z, although it was all part of the same Dragon Ball series when it was released in Japan. Anyway, the relaunch makes sense, since it marks a shift in direction for the series, reinventing some of the basic concepts and focusing on sci-fi battles rather than mythological stuff. Well, sort of; there's still some fantasy wackiness, with Goku dying and heading off to train with the god of all gods in the afterlife before his pals can use the Dragon Balls to resurrect him. But at the same time, we learn that Goku is a member of a super-powerful alien race, and he's going to have to fight against other bad guys who want to destroy the earth. It makes sense; after you become the most powerful person on Earth, you've got to introduce otherworldly threats to keep upping the scale.

So: there's more fighting, with Goku teaming up with Piccolo to take down a major threat, then lots of training in preparation for a greater threat to come. As of the end of this set of volumes, all the supporting characters are facing off against that threat, with Goku rushing to join them, with his powers hopefully having grown to the point where he can defeat them. We'll see how it goes; the battles continue to be pretty great, and Toriyama keeps coming up with new, crazy ideas, techniques, and wackiness. I'm not sure if he'll be able to sustain it for another few dozen volumes, but we'll see how long I can keep reading before I decide enough is enough.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The end of Dragon Ball and the beginning of the Z saga. I'm not sure if that distinction is made by the anime or not, I will need to find out. Here we have non-stop action. We have the introduction of the science fiction element in full-force. The story is changing from mythical to grounded space-fantasy. This is not to the detriment of the series, however the shift is very apparent.

Dragon Ball was full of adventure, fantasy elements, the absurd and perversion. All in all it was phenomenal and I can see why people like the original over the rest of the series. There are parts of Dragon Ball that I enjoy more so far. We'll have to keep reading in order to see what changes the most, but I would say the series is 'growing up'. Perhaps it is simply leaving the mystical stuff behind. The world is much bigger and so ours is made much smaller, so what was grand in Dragon Ball, is merely a foot note in Z.

Case and point - the lesser of the new Saiyan menaces, Nappa, cleans the house of the old Dragon Ball line up. Sure they scratch him up and even hurt him, yet it remains clear that here is a literal way of saying, 'out with the old and in with the new'.

I say that the mystical elements are gone and that's true, but the creativity is still there. The whole portrayal of the underworld is a testament to that. The story is moving forward. There is not a moment of reprieve in this volume. If nothing else, Dragon Ball is relentless. Five stars for the nostalgia, entertainment value, and shift in narrative. If you're looking for plot and character development (not strength ;) ), look elsewhere. Here be dragons, fighting dragons. On to the next!

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dragon Ball is such a solid series. The quality is consistent and Toriyama writes very well; he walks that fine line between pumping out volumes of the same stuff and taking the story in a wildly different direction. I personally like this because I prefer to feel like I'm reading the same series that I loved from the start, but just different enough that it doesn't stagnate and become boring. I do find myself wondering just how much more God-like Goku and Piccolo can become (and Son Gohan, when he joins them up there). It always seems like they've finally reached the top, but then they're forced to double their powers to even be competitive against their new opponents. What I liked specifically about this tome was having everyone back together again, but I do feel like the other characters are getting a bit short-changed so that Goku's storyline can develop. I miss the days when Tenshinhan, Kuririn, Chi-chi, the turtle master, Bulma and Yamcha were central parts of the story, but in the end, it is chronicling Goku's adventures, and he meets new people all the time that take up his time, and it's only natural that the others be relegated to the background after they've had their chance in the sun. Anyway, it was a promising start to the new series and I'm excited to see where Dragon Ball Z goes. I only ever saw about 2 episodes of DBZ as a kid so I'm going in pretty much blind and I can't wait to see what happens with Piccolo and God and Gohan and the Saiyans!

[Honeypie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

The fighting and trainings never ends! And we're only getting stronger characters.
Even in the "God world", there is always someone stronger.

Will there ever be the "ultimate" one?

Anyway, the action was just alright. Nothing super spectacular.
But I love the script and story in this omnibus!

A "light read", maybe. But not really.

---

"Your greatest weakness is your mortal sentimentality! So worried about Kami that you cannot bear to fight me full-on! I, however, can do whatever I please! That's the beauty of being evil!!"
- Piccolo (to Goku)


"If you think power is everything, then you're no fighter!"
- Goku (to Raditz)


"A-alone for six months at a place like this...?! I-I don't want to, I-I'll die of loneliness!!"
- Gohan (4 years old)

What a lovely boy. Hahaha!

[Marko · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a crescendo! This book finishes another "Greatest under the heavens" tournament, in which both Picollo and Goku compete. Once the tournament is done, we are introduced to another type of villain, which gives us a background on some of the characters. Without going into any spoilers, it's a great spin on the villains, and I look forward to where this is going to go.

While going through this omnibus, I realise that while Dragon Ball is a lot about the fighting, I really like the parts in between. Akira Toriyama has a great sense of humour, and it shows best in the conversations outside of fighting sequences.

[Steventhesteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I've been reading these omnibus editions for a little while, just putting them between other books. In this volume the story finally moves from the original Dragonball to the Dragonball Z story arcs I remember from the anime. The pace is fast, the (more than) slightly creepy undertones of the earlier volumes is gone and the art is great. I keep catching myself making explosion noises when reading through the fight sections....

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
The art is still really great, but it’s hard to take any threat towards the characters seriously. Sure, the Saiyans are powerful, but Goku and crew have already un-died before already so the consequences of fighting bad guys don’t feel all that weighty. It’s fun, but I’m concerned the power creep is only going to get worse as the space stuff becomes more prominent.

[David Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This contains the final chapter of the original Dragon Ball and the first 2 of Dragon Ball Z. There's a bit of thematic whiplash to see Piccolo go from the ultimate evil and a demon, to an uneasy ally who is actually a space alien. Also, this is edging into territory I'd seen on Toonami after school. I'm curious how much it lines up with my memory of the anime.

[Hew La France · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great 3-in-1 volume, this one delving into the DBZ territory. Seeing this early version of "Good Piccolo", leaving him still fairly villainous, is a fun thing to read, he's cruel and vindictive, and not at all the man he becomes later.

[Viggo Pedersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volumes 16, 17 & 18 contains chapters 181 to 216.
The Tenka'ichi Budökai finishes. Who won it?
Goku gets married, have a son, Son Gohan.
Piccolo continues tries killing Son Goku, but gets interrupted by ALIENS!!!
Great fun read, even if Goku was funnier as a kid.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for work.

[Brett Moody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, Gohan, werk

[Ruben Monteiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I forgot why Picolo was my favourite character as a kid. I did miss the silliness and adventures. This is getting to be just about the fighting. Have to decide if I keep on going with DB.

[Sam Pierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great finale to a great manga

[Sarah Reffstrup · Rating 5 out of 5]

VEGETA IS HERE ❤️ Muligvis mit ultimative girlcrush fra min opvækst hahaha

[Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not much of a review as much as it's me recalling that this upcoming arc is the one I remember the most from my watching the series more than 10 years ago.

[Jonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Saiyan arc is simple, but so good. All of Goku's goofy abilities and previously unexplained power (the series started by showing the dude is bullet proof for no reason) are now explained. He's an alien. Like superman. He was sent to Earth to conquer it because it's a fairly weak planet. But he rejects that lineage, and sacrifices himself to kill his brother Raditz. It hammers home the idea Roshi tried to teach at the first Tenkai-ichi Budokai - there's always someone stronger. Keep working, keep preparing. Toriyama just had to reach into outer space to give Goku a challenge this time.

Gohan is a great addition, and it's so funny to see the villain of the previous arc take a sort of father-like role (albeit abusive, but it works out).

The fights are great. Toriyama is great at making someone feel powerful. We don't even see Vegeta fight and he's menacing, all five feet of him.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

the end of the original DB saga--a masterwork by every measure, and about as weird a comic as can be imagined (Goku's "pat pat," for example, is worthy of a half dozen thinkpieces)--is YA shonen-style fight manga at its finest. the beginning of the DBZ saga, which features a surprising team-up between former foes, is a refreshing new direction for the series.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent end to the dragon Ball saga. On to the Z saga!

[Gillian Dawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Derryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love piccolo so much! 🖤🖤