If one had to describe Dragon Ball, the series that many consider to be the late Akira Toriyama's magnum opus, in the simplest of terms, they'd likely refer to the sheer amount of fighting in it. That's not a slight to those people, either. In the world of Dragon Ball, combat is often quite literally everything. It's a method of self-expression, connection, and competition. It is a pursuit that can lead to ruin just as easily as it can lead to the world (or the universe) being saved. It is the language shared by most of the cast, and spoken most fluently by the main character, Goku, who has his entire ethos supported by the will to train and fight and never give up.
Despite this, the Dragon Ball franchise relishes in a kind of sincere humanism. It's what ultimately makes it a very graceful, optimistic work. The manga itself is definitely a spectacle of fantastical combat - few are more adept than Toriyama at battle manga pacing and the illusion of movement between panels. However, it's the thematic throughlines that carry Dragon Ball's most promising features, and the franchise is far from simply being "The Goku Show." Instead, it's about how much we need one another to survive and the bonds that we form through trial.
