Dragon Ball has officially unearthed a 40-year-old page from the series’ first-ever Weekly Shonen Jump calendar, offering a rare historical find for fans. The official Dragon Ball website’s Toriyama Archives unveiled a page from the calendar featuring Yamcha and his shapeshifting companion, Puar, ready for a battle.
Yamcha is armed with a rocket launcher, a weapon that was mainly seen during the Red Ribbon Army arc, while Puar is shown right next to him, navigating a car equipped with machine guns. The official website highlighted Toriyama’s vehicle detailing, stating, “Despite being fitted with machine guns, the combat vehicle has a retro, sophisticated design that isn’t overly showy.”
These two desert bandits were chosen to represent the November and December months of the bonus calendar, with a young Goku also visible in the background riding his Flying Nimbus.
Dragon Ball Unearths 1st Ever Exclusive Shonen Jump Calendar
The exclusive pull-out calendar was originally included as a six-page full-color spread in the Weekly Shonen Jump 1986 No. 5 issue, released on Dec. 20, 1985. Each page featured a different artwork by Toriyama. While young Goku made an appearance in all the illustrations, it also featured other characters from the early arcs, including Shenron, Bulma, Oolong, Krillin, Master Roshi and the latter’s World Martial Arts Tournament disguise, Jackie Chun.
The 1986 release marked the very first time that Dragon Ball was featured exclusively in the annual Weekly Shonen Jump calendar. This milestone came merely a year after Toriyama initially began serializing the manga in the magazine. This was a huge achievement for the series, which was still in its nascent stages. For context, Fist of the North Star was chosen to headline the preceding 1985 calendar.
While Dragon Ball was relatively new, the series had rapidly cemented its status as one of the magazine’s hottest new serialized works at that time. It played a huge role in helping Weekly Shonen Jump reach an average weekly circulation of 4.5 million copies throughout that year. The series was so well received that it also appeared in the 1987 Weekly Shonen Jump calendar.
Driven largely by the Dragon Ball manga’s popularity, Weekly Shonen Jump experienced its golden age from the late 80s to the mid-90s, with circulation numbers consistently hitting new highs. Though the magazine’s numbers have dipped since Dragon Ball manga’s serialization ended, the series continues to be a global powerhouse even following Toriyama’s passing. It constantly generates massive revenue for its major stakeholders, including Toei Animation and Bandai Namco.
The series follows Goku as he gets roped in by Bulma to go search for the Dragon Balls. What started out as a group of misfits setting out on an adventure evolved into one of the best martial arts series, spawning gargantuan battles with universal-level villains. Dragon Ball is currently available to read on Viz Media.
- Cast
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Sean Schemmel, Laura Bailey, Brian Drummond, Christopher Sabat, Scott McNeil
- Created by
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Akira Toriyama
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