Lets me start off by saying yes, this is redundantly redundant as Julian often says. There really is no reason for this kind of product. It's a manga based on the anime which was based on the manga. Just read the manga or watch the show.
Alright lets get started. First thing you'll notice is the size, this thing is really small.
Even though its smaller then all those in the picture I think it's about the same size as the original Japanese tankobon editions (not shown). I was kind of expecting this thing to be magazine size. I guess this is to mimic the whole manga experience? They try to mimic the whole manga layout throughout this book. For example, in the manga when they show the characters that have been appearing and there current status. They do the same here:
Chapters are just like episode title screens. The DragonBalls in the background with the name of the chapter\episode centered in the middle. This is kind of confusing because they don't change the title\chapter title when a new episode starts, perhaps it's to be more like the manga.
And not that it matters but, the title page to the ani-manga is a shot from somewhere in the book put into a DragonBall. Eh, who cares? Are you still reading this? *Yawn*
The only good thing I can think of. Which is kind of a stretch is a lot of the scenes that were panned across in the anime are usually shown in full...
Is that it? Is that really the only good thing I can find about this... thing? Yea, I guess so. But, then again, I don't think I'll ever hear someone saying "Dude, I gotta get that ani-manga for the awesome pan shots!". What I don't understand is why did they try to mimic the manga so much? If they wanted to release a manga then re-release the manga (or don't). I think it would have helped if they didn't try so hard to make it a manga. I would have liked to see some background on the episodes that were used in the book like air dates, some production notes... something. They sometimes do that with the movie ani-mangas which are kinda understandable because there is no corresponding manga for those films. I don't know man, this just seems really pointless.
