Where to Start with Akira Toriyama
— Dragon Ball or Dr. Slump

This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, TokyoComic earns from qualifying purchases.

If you are reading Akira Toriyama for the first time, open volume 1 of Dragon Ball. Aim for volume 5 to begin with. The first martial arts tournament Goku enters ends in the first half of volume 5, and his next adventure starts right after. By then you will know whether this mix of adventure, comedy and fighting is for you. You do not need to plan on reading all 42 volumes.

What confuses people is less the number of titles than the number of editions. In Japan, Dragon Ball exists in three main print editions alone, with 42, 34 and 32 volumes, and their volume numbers do not line up. In English, Viz Media first split the same story into two series, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. Books such as Dragon Ball Super, which Toriyama wrote but another artist drew, sit on the same shelf. The anime Dragon Ball Super: Beerus began airing in Japan on October 11, 2026, so this guide sorts out which book to pick up now.

The best places to start

Pick the starting point closest to what you are in the mood for. You do not need to follow everything in order.

If you cannot decide, we recommend Dragon Ball. It is finished, and the whole series has been released in English. If you plan to read everything, the most natural order is Dragon Ball volumes 1–42, then Dr. Slump, then the one-volume works, then the short story collection. Readers who want publication order should start with Dr. Slump, but that means 18 volumes before the main event, so we do not suggest it for newcomers.

Books that are easy to mix up

There are many books connected to Toriyama’s work, and choosing by title alone can land you with a different book. Here are the common mix-ups first.

Dragon Ball: volume 5 tells you if it’s for you, and enemies arrive from space in volume 17

Dragon Ball ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from issue 51 of 1984 to issue 25 of 1995, for 519 chapters. The story follows the adventures and battles of Son Goku, built around seven treasures that grant any one wish when gathered. Worldwide sales were put at more than 260 million copies as of 2020.

At first the series was an adventure that added comedy and martial arts to Journey to the West. When its ranking in the readers’ survey dropped, the story changed course: Goku now trains to get stronger and aims for the martial arts tournament. Some readers love the early journey and others get hooked at the tournament, so we suggest reading straight through to volume 5.

Which edition to choose

If this is your first time, any complete edition will do. In English, the main choice is between Viz’s two-series edition and its later 3-in-1 edition. If you want color, the Full Color edition is an option for part of the story.

If you have seen the anime, where to pick up the manga

If you started with the anime, you can pick up the manga where the show left off. Here is how the TV series line up with the manga.

Read Dragon Ball Super knowing that someone else drew it

The Dragon Ball Super manga has a story by Akira Toriyama and art by Toyotarou. It started in the August 2015 issue of V Jump. Toyotarou expanded Toriyama’s plot into the manga, and Toriyama checked the storyboards for every chapter. It takes place after the battle with Majin Boo, so we suggest reading it after the main series.

There are 24 volumes so far, and the latest, volume 24, came out on April 4, 2025. Viz’s English volumes use the same numbers, and 24 had been released in North America as of March 3, 2026 (English release date). The serialization has been on a long break since partway through 2024, and a one-shot chapter ran in 2025. The series is not finished, so read it expecting to wait for more.

If you want to know what happens after the anime, you can pick up partway through volume 9. The January 2026 announcement did not say when The Galactic Patrol will air.

Dr. Slump: the gag classic you can read a chapter at a time

Dr. Slump ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from the combined issue 5/6 of 1980 to issue 39 of 1984, for 236 chapters of gag comedy. It centers on Arale, a girl robot built by the inventor Senbei Norimaki, and daily life in Penguin Village. Chapters are mostly self-contained, so you do not have to worry about order the way you do with Dragon Ball. It won the 27th Shogakukan Manga Award.

For reading order, one thing is worth knowing: chapters 81 to 83 of Dragon Ball are set in Penguin Village, and characters from Dr. Slump appear. Reading a couple of volumes first makes that story more fun.

Every edition contains all the chapters, but the 2007 special Dr. Mashirito Abale-chan is not collected in any book. Also note that some art was redrawn between older and newer printings.

Five works that finish in one volume

After Dragon Ball, Toriyama mostly drew short series. Each one fits in a single volume, so they also work as a break between long series. Toriyama named Cowa!, Sand Land and Jaco the Galactic Patrolman among his favorite works.

Neko Majin and Jaco the Galactic Patrolman are more fun after you have read Dragon Ball. On August 4, 2023, a kanzenban of Sand Land came out in Japan with the color pages from its original run. A film opened in Japan on August 18, 2023, and the streaming series Sand Land: The Series added a new story Toriyama came up with, “The Story of the Angel Hero.” That story is not part of the 14 chapters of the original manga. The series began streaming worldwide on Disney+, and on Hulu in the United States, on March 20, 2024.

For short stories: Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater

Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater is a short story collection published in Japan in three volumes, with seven stories in volume 1, nine in volume 2 and five in volume 3. This is where you can read his debut, “Wonder Island,” and “Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe,” which led to the creation of Arale. In English, Viz released it as a single hardcover on December 7, 2021 (English release date). The ○ in the Japanese title is a blank for readers to fill in with any character they like, turning the title into, for example, “masterpiece” or “flop.”

If you are reading everything, go in this order

For readers who have decided to dive in, here is the order to buy in. Japanese counts use Jump Comics, and English counts use Viz’s editions listed above.

Leaving out the separate entry, that is 68 volumes in Japanese. Reading a few volumes of Dr. Slump (number 2) before number 1 makes the Penguin Village chapters even more fun.

If you want to see the art itself, there is the Japanese art book Dragon Ball Chōgashū, released on May 9, 2013. Toriyama also designed the characters and monsters for Dragon Quest, starting with the first game in 1986. That art is collected in the Japanese book Akira Toriyama Dragon Quest Illustrations, released on May 27, 2016.

When you finish, try the artists he worked with

Akira Toriyama was born in 1955 in the town of Kiyosu (now the city of Kiyosu) in Aichi Prefecture. After quitting his design job, he started drawing manga to win prize money, and he debuted in 1978 with the one-shot “Wonder Island” in Weekly Shōnen Jump. He died on March 1, 2024, at the age of 68.

For a next book, there is Katsura & Akira Short Stories (Katsura Akira in Japanese), a collection of his work with Masakazu Katsura. Toriyama wrote the stories and Katsura drew them. We could not confirm an English edition of the collection. You could also move on to One Piece by Eiichiro Oda, with whom Toriyama made the crossover one-shot “Cross Epoch.” It appeared in English in the April 2011 issue of Viz’s Shonen Jump.

Whichever starting point you choose, one book is enough to begin. If it’s tonight, open volume 1 of Dragon Ball. The first chapter, where a boy living deep in the mountains meets Bulma, will tell you whether you want to keep reading.