This is definitely a very different kind of Dragon Ball manga. It follows the adventures of a bunch of kids who have read the old DBZ stories and just want to have fun with their arcade machine. What they do not realize is that these adventures are more real than expected. The series ends rather quickly with there only being 30 chapters and the first half of the series is comprised of 5 page chapters.

The story enters around a kid named Beet who is rather good at Dragon Ball Heroes. He’s been training under Sora for a long while and is finally ready to start entering tournaments professionally. He gets to go up against some of the greatest players in the world. The best part? Beet is actually holding his own! Unfortunately the tournament is interrupted when a mad scientist activates the dragon balls and accidentally summons the 7 Shadow Dragons. Beet and the other tournament contestants will have to destroy them, using their temporary super powers thanks to their forms within the game. This won’t be easy but Beet is not the kind of guy to give up without a fight!

It’s always an interesting twist to make it so that the DBZ characters are actually real. That being said, I do think the writing could be a little weak at times. For example, Beet has been playing this game for a long time and knows various characters across the mythos. How does he not immediately recognize characters like SSJ4 Broly and Baby from GT? There are a few times where it just feels like shock value that wasn’t taking the context into consideration.

Additionally, it can be a little cheesy that Beet doesn’t know a lot of the rules or players within the game and yet he is already a top 5 fighter in the world. I guess you can make the argument for natural talent but that can really only account for so much. I would have not escalated the stakes to being that of a global tournament so quickly. I get that the pacing had to be fast but Beet’s wins didn’t always feel earned. He’s a nice guy and all but you need some strategy.

It’s why I was able to root for Note a whole lot more. She is someone who has lived her whole life with studying the decks and getting a proper strategy in. It’s easy to see how she has found a whole lot of success here. Despite that, Beet surpasses her almost immediately. I was glad that Note still got a big fight at the end of the series along with her rival though.

She certainly did more than the mentor Sora who just dips when the going gets tough. It’s implied that he had to head off to stop some other threats but it’s still a rough look to see him leave all of the kids alone to deal with evil monsters that are trying to murder them. It’s made clear that if you die in the game, you die in real life. So these stakes are really quite real and the kids may be familiar with the video game, but their combat experience is minimal.

Also the series does have an ultra rushed ending here. We don’t get to see the final fight and then there is a giant time skip that comes out of nowhere. Not the ideal way to end the series so the climax is really weak but at least before that it’s just a bunch of nonstop fights. Pretty much every chapter has a bunch of action going on so that’s fun. Even if the various DB characters are soulless avatars, it was also nice to see all of them mixing it up.

The side characters probably take the brunt of the damage from the series being so short. It feels like the author had clear character personalities and dynamics in mind for all of them but they just don’t have a chance to do a whole lot. I still liked them for what it’s worth. Note’s rival was definitely a worthy foe who was always ready. Then you have the #1 fighter in the world who is very calm and does his research on everyone. He ended up being a super strong opponent.

That guy has his own rival who is rather strong as well. Then you have the Main kid who is super timid and doubtful of himself but gradually learns to get past all of that. Even the Shadow Dragons get little moments here and there. So as long as you’re mainly reading the series for the vibes and action, then you should absolutely walk away satisfied.

The artwork is really good, the fights definitely stand out. The character models are always on point and there is a good amount of variety here. It’s always easy to understand what is going on as well so the artwork certainly didn’t feel rushed. On the whole I would say that the series didn’t really have any technical issues here. If they ever revived this series for more of a longform adaption, I would definitely be on board. With the references to the Supreme King of Time, you could easily have this merge into the more traditional Heroes stories. Have Beet and Note actually team up with the real Goku and friends like in the animated trailers.

Overall, This was a pretty fun manga. It does end up feeling incomplete because of how much progress it had to go through and how quickly this had to happen. A whole lot feels like it was skipped over and this should have been a proper 7 volume series. You could have really gotten a whole lot of adventures in it if that had been the case. I would still recommend checking this one out though. The artwork is solid and I did enjoy the action scenes. The DB Heroes game always seemed like it would be a whole lot of fun and I definitely enjoyed playing the console port on the Switch.

Overall 6/10