Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 18 (Volume 18): Gohan vs. Cell

Good book my son loves it

Must’ve re-read several times.

Great book

Happy with purchase

One of my all time favourite manga

So we finally began the climax of the Cell Saga with the start of the Cell Game (covered in this volume and in DBZ volume 19) created by Cell to give the people of Earth a chance to save itself and so he can have some fun. Having already admitted that Cell is most likely his superior in strength, Goku goes into his fight with Cell with everyone wondering what plan has Goku got up his sleeve...?While the Saiyan/Freeza Saga (Yes most people generally tend to have the Saiyan and Freeza Sagas down as two separate Sagas, I personally see them as one huge story arc) is my favourite Saga as a whole, The Cell Games is easily my favourite part of the series. The focus here is very much on the action, with a lot of drama in-between and damn, it's hot! The fight that transpires between Goku and Cell is an awesome one, but it is beyond that when the twists and turns starts and, while some of them were hinted at in the previous volume (or indeed, as far back as the start of the Z era of DB), they're staggering! Here's a slight hint; let's just say a character who's been a mainstay for some time now comes of age and comes full circle from since he was introduced.It's actually quite hard to write a review for this volume because, as I've said, it covers my favourite part of the series and I'm just bursting at the seams to tell everybody who reads this why I love this part of the series so much, but doing so would spoil most, if not all of the story. One thing I'm going to say though is that the last chapter of this volume is mind-blowingly awesome, you'll see what I mean when you get there, but once you've seen it, I think you'll agree with me. This volume along DBZ 19 are quintessential DB volumes and I can't recommend them both highly enough.

I brought this book to see if it was as good as the tv episode, It was excellent. The way Akira Toriyama has drawn the characters is brilliant especially Gohan, and the story is great. I think this is the best episode out of all the dragonball z series. I would have prefered it in colour but the length of the book was the right size. In this volume Gohan trasforms into ssj2 which has a cool picture of him, then the real fight begins between Gohan and Cell read this book and find out what happens in this excellent volume. You get really involved in it like you do with the episode and its a really great read. In japan they read this book from right to left instead of left to right. When you open it on the wrong side it says 'you are reading in the wrong direction' and has a picture of Goku running towards the right page, thats a bit unusual but you soon get used to it. I have other volumes of the dragonball z mangas they are all great and i will defenetly be buying more, i recomend this book to anyone who is a big dbz fan it's great.

Volume 18 picks up with Son Goku stepping into the ring first with Cell and right away I was thinking that something was up. The guy who goes first never wins, and Son Goku’s the hero of the story, so it was an interesting choice of Akira Toriyama’s to open with the unexpected.And, y’know what, Goku’s fight with Cell is awesome. It’s great, it’s exciting, it’s everything readers of this series have come to expect from Toriyama. So why wasn’t I as engaged as I usually am with Dragon Ball Z?It comes down to repetition, which is a major factor in this series. It’s a fine line too because some repetition works really well - Cell as the unstoppable villain like Freeza and Vegeta before him, the Strongest Under the Heavens tournament model - but some of the repeated stuff in this book just didn’t click.Goku suddenly calling a halt in the middle of the fight because he knows he can’t beat Cell, rather than be shocking, felt inevitable and reminded me of the final battle he had with (I think?) Tenshinhan in the original Dragon Ball series. Of course that’s why he went first. Then Cell unleashes a bunch of mini-Cells to fight the rest of the Dragon Ball cast to keep them busy and that felt a lot like Volume 2 of the series when Vegeta sets loose a bunch of monsters.And then, of course, Son Goku’s son, Gohan, steps in, and you know what’s going to happen: Gohan’s going to beat Cell. It all seems very rote, predictable, and done-before. It’s not that this book is bad, it’s just that at this point, 34 volumes in, we might’ve come to the extent of Toriyama’s invention - he now can’t do anything new and has to go back and redo everything with different characters.So it’s up to Gohan to defeat Cell and… I don’t really care! You know he’s going to, and then Goku will step back and the series focus will shift to Gohan and blah blah blah. I’ll keep reading of course but this whole Cell story arc has been very weak and it might mark the beginning of the downfall of the series - will it pick up after this or is it all downhill from here? Volume 18 is a decent continuation of the series but nothing overly surprising or special.

Colours were white, pages were stitched perfectly, it is absolutely incredible.

Inside this volume there's the most epic transformation of all DBZ for me!! Goku put his fait in his son! Epic!

I did not read it; it was for a student. He liked it very much. He read it in one day.

I was very happy to receive on time and as expected this product, thank you

Besst