We are keeping up on a regular basis with all of the new guides and databooks — such as this year’s Chōzenshū — but we also want to dip into the past whenever we can spare a free moment!

The first guide ever to come out for the Dragon Ball franchise was the Bōken Special (“Adventure Special”), released in late 1987 around the time of the battle with Piccolo Daimaō. It was, in fact, one of the very few supplemental books that came out during the series’ actual serialization! A complete overview of the book has been added to our “Databook Guide”.

The book also contains a special Q&A session with original manga author Akira Toriyama entitled “Is That So?! The Dragon Balls”, which was originally translated on Kanzentai, and has been cleaned up and added (appropriately enough!) to our “Translations” section. Toriyama is in prime perverted form here back in 1987, providing some potentially-shocking insight into his home life, but more importantly, some fun details (as he saw them at the time) surrounding many of the characters in the early parts of the series.