The manga that has come to define what shonen manga is has got a new coat of paint. Dragonball Z, colorized and reprinted in glossy paper, rekindles the legend that started so much! Maybe you’re reading the print version for the first time. Maybe you just wanna flash back to the day you first picked up Akira Toriyama’s masterpiece from the rack or the shelf. It’s all the same—you’ll get blown away every time, guaranteed!

Months have passed since the last volume. Earth’s greatest martial artists, be they in the desert, the jungle, or even the afterlife, have spent the better part of a year training for the arrival of the Saiyans, Nappa and Vegeta. All have completed their training, yet none are ready for the elite warriors. Then again, it’s hard to be ready for invaders at all when they arrive a full month early. To make matters worse, Goku still needs a full day to return to earth even after the Dragon Balls restore him to life, leaving Gohan, Piccolo, Kuririn, Tenshenhan, Chaozu and Yamcha to face the threat without him.

I will say right now that I absolutely love Nappa and Vegeta. Seriously, they do not mess around. Like most of you, I’ve seen a ton of flashy character entrances featuring mass destruction, but this is probably the one that stuck with me the longest. It just doesn’t get much better than vaporizing a city just by lifting two fingers.

It takes them about three seconds to find the heroes on their scouters and roughly half that time to get to them. And, since wanton mass-destruction apparently didn’t meet their quota for pointless cruelty, the two twist the knife even further when they send out artificial life forms called Cultivars. Each of these ugly little guys are as strong as Goku’s late brother Raditz! Quick recap—Raditz was so powerful, it took Piccolo's strongest attack to defeat him and Goku ended up with a big hole in his chest. 

I know, we all want to get to the part where the heroes actually fight the Saiyans, but I actually kinda dug the Cultivar fight. This way we get a chance to see how far the not-Goku heroes have come since we last saw them. The battle itself is costly, but it also doesn’t immediately become a slaughterhouse either, and the heroes get some legitimately crazy shots in while they’re at it.

Which only makes it even worse once a bored Nappa proves that this was merely a brief flash of hope at the bottom of a deep, dark pit. A quick exchange of attacks between heroes and alien villain prove  that none of them ever stood a chance to begin with. Not Piccolo, Goku’s supposed rival. Not Gohan, Mr. Come-From-Behind himself. Not Yamcha, or Tenshenhan, or Chaozu, or even Kuririn. (Okay, so Kuririn’s failing hard is not really a surprise, but still.) Actually, for a good hundred pages, it looks really bad for the heroes. All bets are off, any of them can die, several do die, and Goku’s still missing. There’s nothing the heroes can do and it is epic.

This whole playing-for-time-till-Goku-arrives actually has some pretty tight pacing. Every scene counts, even the brief ones away from the fight that help build things up. There are even a few genuine nail-biters with the non-combat crew back at Kame House. If anything, seeing things from their side just drives the direness in even further—they’re mere mortals who can only watch, wait and hope.

The worst, though, is definitely seeing that bundle of sunshine, sinew and optimism that is Son Goku nearly begging the universe to let his friends survive until he gets there. And this is after we’ve spent dozens of pages watching said friends bend and break.

Naturally, this ramps the rush of his actual arrival to the maximum. Talk about the darkest hour! It’s hard not to punch the air when Goku arrives, ready to deal a serious whupping to his enemies. While the battle’s far from over, things still heat up and you’re just begging for more even as the pages run out. There’s a reason Dragonball Z continues to set the standard for much of Shonen Manga, and its punch hasn’t faded even now. Seriously, just grab a copy of this volume, cuz DBZ is still here. It’s here to stay.

To see if Goku's got enough tough stuff to take down th Saiyans, pick up your copy of Dragon Ball Full-Color 2 right here! 

by Chris Turner