You must surely be puzzled as to why I’m reviewing a manga released decades ago and is so universally loved that everyone must have already read it ? It’s simple, really – the Japanese deluxe edition of Dragonball features some really stunning colored pages and I wanted to share it with those who might not have seen it before.

A little backstory – as a kid growing up in Singapore during the 90s, the only source of Dragonball that I could get my hands on were bootleg, poorly printed B&W editions imported from Taiwan. Imagine my delight and sheer astonishment many years later on when I discovered the original Japanese deluxe edition while living in Tokyo. The print quality is significantly superior to the bootleg editions I use to read, but the biggest surprise yet were the gorgeous colored pages.

I understand that editions from some other countries besides Japan also feature these colored pages, and so if you’ve been reading these editions your whole life and they’re nothing novel/special to you, I apologize, and I hope you’ll just indulge me just a little.

I had previously reviewed Vol 1 back in 2021 as well as Vol 18, and I am still in the process of collecting the entire set, but I picked up these 2 books ( Vol 19 + 20 ) because the Frieza arc is my favorite.

In summary – yes, I know everyone has read Dragonball, but you haven’t really read it until you see the stunning colored pages from the Japanese deluxe edition ! I certainly haven’t ( not all of them ), and I am still excited to discover those from the books I have yet to pick up. I’ve read the regular edition ( with just black and white art work ) countless times, but reading this deluxe edition with the colored pages is almost like a re-discovery of the manga all over again. Recommended.

You can purchase the Japanese deluxe editions of Vol 19 here and Vol 20 here.

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