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10.02.2022
Dragon Ball-ism Toriyama Showcase #10: Karamaru and the Perfect Day!
Welcome back to Dragon Ball-ism: Toriyama Showcase—the series where we discuss Akira Toriyama's various short stories and one-shot works. This time, we're introducing a light-hearted tale about a little ninja named Karamaru, "Karamaru and the Perfect Day"!
Karamaru and the Perfect Day
Published in Weekly Shonen Jump 1989, No. 13.
Karamaru and the Perfect Day is a one-shot manga that was published in Weekly Shonen Jump's commemorative 1,050th issue.
As you can probably tell from the cover illustration, the story is set in a unique world that crosses elements of samurai-era Japan and the modern day. Toriyama set out to create an action-comedy manga starring an energetic young boy as the main character, and that sentiment was fully realized with all the agile excitement of Karamaru the ninja's tale!
Karamaru the Boy Ninja & His Thrilling First Mission!
As mentioned above, the protagonist of this one-shot is a young ninja named Karamaru.
One day, he heads out to collect some matsutake mushrooms for his grandfather, and being that he's a ninja, he forages for fungi not with gloves and a basket but with some slick katana moves!
The way he trains while helping out with daily chores is reminiscent of the way Goku and Krillin studied under Kamesennin in Kame School martial arts.
("Dragon Ball" Tale 32)
Since his grandfather can't get around as much as he used to, Karamaru then heads into town to sell the mushrooms for him.
Along the road, he encounters a man who turns out to be a fellow ninja!
The man mistakes Karamaru for some kid playing dress-up rather than the great ninja that he truly is and decides to show off a little by showing the boy what a "real" ninja is made of...
Not only does every shuriken he throw miss its mark, but his ninja concealment technique is about as effective as hiding behind a glass window!
He's a pretty sorry excuse for a ninja with such a low standard of ninjutsu—not at all dissimilar from the Red Ribbon Army's Sergeant Murasaki in Dragon Ball!
("Dragon Ball" Tale 60)
Worse still, while Karamaru is distracted by the bumbling shinobi's shenanigans, a crew of bandits show up and make off with his hard-earned mushrooms!
At first he tries to get them back without revealing the fact that he's a ninja, but Karamaru soon finds himself unable to abide their bald-faced arrogance and flies into a rage!
Fueled by anger, Karamaru unleashes his true ninja strength and takes out the bandits one after another!
The way he's able to take on much larger opponents as merely a boy is just like a young Gohan!
("Dragon Ball" Tale 222)
Karamaru and the Perfect Day is another of Toriyama's tales that's packed to the brim with Dragon Ball-isms.
If you want to see more of Karamaru's Gohan-esque hidden power rise to the surface in his adventures, be sure to check out the comic for yourself!
*All comic images are from the Japanese version.
This site includes machine-translated texts. Please be aware that you might find some unusual expressions that are difficult to understand.
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