Manga Review: Dr. Slump Volume 6 by Akira Toriyama
Dr. Senbei Norimaki is an eccentric inventor who lives in the isolated Penguin Village. Because his machines are often defective or goofy-looking, he has the nickname Dr. Slump. One day, he decides to create a robot girl, which he names Arale. She’s remarkably human-looking (and needs glasses!) but super-strong and fast, and has the personality of a cheerful and naive child. Senbei passes her off as his younger sister, but is really more of a father figure.
Arale soon goes to school under teacher Midori Yamabuki (who Dr. Norimaki lusts after) and meets an assortment of wacky villagers, aliens, robots and other weirdos. After a time travel adventure, the Norimaki family adopts Gatchan, a winged toddler that can eat anything.
This gag manga ran from 1980-1984 in Shounen Jump, and also had an animated adaptation from 1981-1986. (Plus sequels and remakes.) It was immensely popular, even if later overshadowed by Toriyama’s next project, Dragonball.
The volume at hand, #6, begins with Arale and Gatchan temporarily joining the Fly Milk Gang. This gang looks like bikers and has pictures of motorcycles on their base walls, but are actually milkmen. They have a rivalry with the Mosquito Milk Gang, and rumble over territory.
The big event in this volume is the introduction of Dr. Mashirito, an evil mad scientist who is a self-proclaimed rival of Dr. Slump’s and wants to take over the world. To this end, he has created a robot, Caramel Man 001 (which strongly resembles Tetsujin #28 (Gigantor), and his first mission is to prove his superiority over Dr. Norimaki by destroying Arale. You can guess how well that goes.
Dr. Mashirito would go on to be the main villain of the series, which is kind of amusing as he was visually based on Toriyama’s editor at the time, Mr. Torishima (there’s a specific disclaimer that the two have nothing to do with each other.)
Also introduced is Chivil, a little devil who wants to kill people for money. This being a gag manga, it is extremely difficult to kill anyone permanently, so he doesn’t make much cash. Outside his job, Chivil is friendly and sometimes helpful.
Later, Senbei is invited to Metropolis Island to appear on a television show and talk about one of his inventions. Naturally, the kids invite themselves along and chaos ensues. It turns out the television people had planned to mock Dr. Slump by showing off a big city inventor’s cool robot against his whatever, but Dr. Norimaki has a much better invention. Unfortunately, there are technical difficulties, so no one back in Penguin Village gets to see Senbei being awesome for once.
And the volume concludes with a time travel tale in which famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi discovers he has much to learn from Arale in the awesomeness department.
Between chapters, there are activities like coloring and mazes for good children.
This series is absurd and often very funny, with imaginative characters. However, I hope you really like poop jokes, because they’re inescapable. There’s also a lot of pop culture references, like obnoxious Superman knockoff Suppaman (“Sourman”) who wants people to worship him as a hero despite being a weak coward. Some of the references are out of date so parents may need to step in.
Content note: Lechery and peeping are played for humor. Dr. Slump himself is well-known for his interest in seeing pretty women either naked or in skimpy outfits.
Overall: Should be suitable for tweens on up, keeping in mind the content note. If you liked the early part of Dragonball, this has a similar but zanier feel.
