Synopsis: A pig with an intercom loudly announces from it's treetop perch that it's afternoon in Penguin Village, as a group of seven kids – two of them being winged babies, and one of them carrying a poop on a stick – walk home from school. Akane Kimidori loudly celebrates that their summer vacation is starting tomorrow, and Peasuke Soramame asks her if she has any plans for the summer. She says she plans to do absolutely nothing. She then asks the rest of them what they're planning to do, with her boyfriend Tsukutsun Tsun saying he plans to train in kung fu; Obotchaman plans to work even more hours to make money for cat food; and Peasuke says he's going to do all of the homework like they're supposed to. Akane scoffs saying all of their goodness makes her want to puke, but she finally notices a strange older man continually appearing behind them and giving a peace sign.
Akane asks Senbei Norimaki what he's doing, and Senbei laughs and shyly says that it's been so long since he appeared in manga, so he got a little too excited. Akane tells him to show some more class and not stick his ugly mug in from the corner of the panels, and Senbei scowls but ends up driving away saying that he's going to appear later on anyway. Just then, Taro Soramame drives up on his motorcycle with his girlfriend Tsururin Tsun (Tsukutsun's sister). Akane calls him out for just “happening” to show up now of all times, and asks him if he's playing hooky from his job as a police officer. Taro says he's on vacation as of today so he and Tsururin are going on a date, and realizing he didn't have anything else to say other than that, he drives off as well. Obatchaman suddenly realizes that Arale Norimaki has never said what she's going to do with her summer vacation, and she says she and the Gatchans (the winged babies) will be playing giant monsters all of the time, a thought that depresses Akane. The group drops Tsukutsun off at his house (where his parents give peace signs as well, with their son chastising them for being embarrassing) before doing the same with Peasuke at his house (he and Taro's dad doing the same and getting the same reaction). Supaman, King Nikochan, and Daigoro Kurigashira all appear and give peace signs as well, with Akane saying that she really has to get out of here at some point. When Arale leaves Akane at her house, Akane warns her sister Aoi not to embarrass her by giving a peace sign, but Aoi has no idea what she's talking about, while Kinoko Sarada drives by and insults them all. As Arale finally waves goodbye to Obotchaman, she notices two shapes moving fast through the air above the village. Goku shouts for General Blue to give him back the Dragon Balls, and Blue scoffs at how persistent the boy is being. He speeds up his jet and leaves Goku behind, and Arale on the ground below notes that both shapes have disappeared now. Goku in turn speeds up kinto'un and chases after Blue, catching up almost immediately. Blue says that's impossible as nobody can keep up with a rocket jet, but Goku says he has something else to show him as well. He brandishes the nyoibo at the ship and just narrowly misses hitting it when Blue makes a sudden U-turn. Blue tries to figure out some way to get away from Goku's pursuit, and cuts his engine suddenly. On the ground, Arale notices the shapes in the sky again just above her house. As Goku comes up behind Blue, Blue fires his jet's engine at full throttle, catching the boy in the stream and knocking him from kinto'un entirely. Blue gloats over his seeming victory over Goku, but turns around just in time to see the mountain in front of him just before his jet collides with it. Goku sees this and laughs as he lands on the ground before Arale and the Gatchans. The trio greet him and Goku says hello back, but he then calls for kinto'un and flies away, hoping that the crash hasn't broken the Dragon Balls as well. Arale thinks this all looks really fun and runs off after Goku, asking to play with him. Senbei meanwhile makes another peace sign from the window. Blue, battered but alive, walks away from his jet's wreckage and says that Goku is starting to get on his nerves. Review: Oh, man. Let's start this thing off right here with me saying that I have been just as excited to cover these next three chapters as I have been terrified to do so. Why is that? Well, I'm excited because I get to talk about Dr. Slump, and Dr. Slump is absolutely amazing. Toriyama's first hit manga series pre-dates Dragon Ball, and ran for a little over four-and-a-half years, from February 4, 1980 to September 10, 1984. It's also sadly a relatively unknown series in the west, with only small offerings from it popping up here and there over the years. Despite that however, it continues to hold a place in the hearts of Toriyama's biggest fans, myself included, based both on it's own merit as well as how important it is to Dragon Ball. Even without this crossover, without Dr. Slump, there is no Dragon Ball, because it's on this previous series that Toriyama cut his teeth on doing a serialized comic, and much of Dragon Ball's wackier beginnings owe a lot to Dr. Slump – though Dragon Ball at it's zaniest doesn't even begin to hold a candle to the sort of antics that Arale and her cohorts get up to. If the series is so amazing and fun, then why am I so scared to talk about Dr. Slump? Precisely because it's Dr. Slump. The series has so many sight-gags and so many jokes that generally only work as a visual medium that I was utterly terrified to try and talk about them in a written format. There's also the fact that again, outside of a rather small but ardent fanbase, Dr. Slump just isn't as well known as it should be to most Dragon Ball fans. So the question then became just how to cover it here. Well, thankfully writing about Dr. Slump's antics, at least the ones presented in Dragon Ball, has proven to be a little easier than I'd predicted, at least so far (watch the rug get pulled out from under me in the next two chapters). And this chapter actually features astonishingly little to talk about on the Goku and Blue front, so instead, I'm going to use this space to do a little primer on Dr. Slump and it's characters that have appeared so far, to better help fans who aren't familiar with the series get the most out of this crossover as they can. So buckle up guys – we're going Slump-ing. Dr. Slump primarily follows the adventures of Arale Norimaki, a cute young girl with purple hair and glasses who also happens to be a super-strong robot. Senbei Norimaki, the titular 'Dr. Slump', created her to win a bet that he could make a robot that was so functionally human that nobody would ever notice that she wasn't human at all. Nothing else on this bet ever comes up to the best of my recollection, but if it had, Senbei would have won because the entire population of Penguin Village is so over-the-top insane that nobody ever does seem to catch on to Arale's true nature, even when she displays such insane strength as breaking the Earth in half with a single punch (don't worry, it's always fine in the next panel), or doing something as weird as happily carrying around poop on a stick (sometimes the poop even has a face, arms, and legs, and can talk – don't ask why, just roll with it). Throughout the course of her story, Arale meets and interacts with a broad range of other characters, a good chunk of which make a cameo appearance in this very chapter. Almost always at Arale's side are the two Gatchan, flying babies with green hair and angel wings. The original Gatchan was found by Arale during a trip into the prehistoric era, but eventually it cocooned itself and emerged as two Gatchan instead. It eventually turns out that Gatchan is an angel originally sent by Kami-sama (not the one you're thinking of) to destroy the corrupt humans, but instead they spend their time eating anything and everything. Literally anything and everything – metal, the very ground, plastics, only rubber seems to be inedible to them. Arale's best friend is Akane Kimidori, a girl with a mischievous streak longer than her hair. She often plays pranks (particularly on Senbei) and is somewhat seen as a bad influence on Arale. By the end of the Dr. Slump series, she's dating Tsukutsun Tsun. Her older sister Aoi works at the local coffee shot, the Coffee Pot, a building literally shaped like a giant coffee pot. Another of Arale's friends, Peasuke Soramame, is even shorter than Arale even though he's the same age roughly as her. He's noted for always wearing his animal ear hat, and is often the voice of reason for the group – at least, as much reason as any of them ever have. His older brother Taro Soramame is also part of the group, but as he's older than any of them, he's graduated school by this point in time and is working as a member of the Penguin Village police, and is dating the younger sister of Akane's boyfriend, Tsururin Tsukutsun. His involvement in this crossover, at least in the manga, is just a cameo. Obotchaman is another robot, but rather than being created by Senbei, Obotchaman was created by the evil Dr. Mashirito, one of Senbei's greatest rivals. Obotchaman was originally created as 'Caramel Man 004' and was made with the goal of gaining revenge on Senbei and Arale for ruining Mashirito's plans and breaking the first three Caramel Men, but Obotchaman turned out to be a good boy instead and eventually turns on his creator, and now lives peacefully in the village where he continues to have a crush on Arale. Dr. Mashirito doesn't appear in this crossover, but his presence is all over Dragon Ball in some ways – he was based on Toriyama's original editor who he had a playfully hateful relationship with. Tsukutsun Tsun is another boy who attends Arale's school, though he and his sister Tsururin are introduced far later into the series. Their father built a rocket ship (that now serves as their house) but it was knocked from the sky by Arale, so now they live next door to the Norimaki's. He eventually begins dating Akane while his sister dates Taro. Though not shown in this crossover, Tsukutsun is an accomplished martial artist himself, and while he usually isn't as strong as Arale, if he becomes enraged he becomes even stronger than her. While his sister has various powers such as telekinesis (not unlike Blue) and teleportation, Tsukutsun is cursed with turning into a tiger whenever a girl touches him and being unable to return to normal until a guy touches him. Think a really weird take on Fruits Basket's zodiac curse mixed with Ranma ½. Senbei Norimaki himself is, as stated, the titular character of Dr. Slump and the creator of Arale. He's a genius through and through and makes some incredible inventions throughout the series, ranging from a time machine to a rice cooker than can create real items from pictures, and even a shrink ray. Unfortunately, he's also really stupid for a genius scientist, and a massive pervert to boot. He inexplicably has the ability to change from a dumpy short man into a handsome gentleman for a few brief moments, for some bizarre (but hilarious) reason. Other characters that appear briefly in this chapter include the Tsun parents, Tsuruten and Tsuntsunodanoteiyugoh (try saying that three times fast...or once, at all, period), a brilliant/perverted scientist and his wife; Taro and Peasuke's dad, Kurikinton, the town's barber; Supaman, a local “super”-hero; King Nikochan, an alien king who's been stranded on Earth for some time now; Daigoro Kurigashira, Arale's teacher with a chestnut shaped head; and Kinoko Sarada, a girl who can always be found riding her tricycle and spouting out insults to others that she deems less cool than her (spoiler: everyone is less cool than her in her mind). Phew. As you can see, there's quite a bit of background to these characters that, while those factoids might not play into Dragon Ball as a whole, flesh out this crossover and make it all the more fun rather than being 'that time Goku ended up in this really, really weird place for some reason' as I'm sure a lot of people view it. I've barely even scratched the surface though, as the only real way to fully get the most out of this crossover is to also be familiar with Dr. Slump. So what're you waiting for? Go read it! You can buy all of the volumes in English physically at various storefronts like RightStuf, or digitally straight from Viz, or if you have a Shonen Jump subscription, you can read it all on that website or app. With that last option, you can even read the first three chapters completely for free, even if you DON'T have a subscription, so what are you waiting for? Get to it! Until next time! Favorite Panel:
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About the AuthorAspiring author and big anime/manga fan, just trying to do my best in the world. For more details, go to About Me. Archives
September 2022
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