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Akira Toriyama. The Man, The Myth, The Legend
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Many sites don't usually have much of anything on Dragonball & DBZ's creator, Mr. Toriyama, so I figured why
not. So here is some information I have gathered on the creator of Dragonball Z.
As most Dragonball Z fans watch and enjoy the various episodes of Dragonball or Dragonball Z, they usually have little clue of how it was created or by whom.
It started as a simple Japanese manga (mayng-ah), or Japanese comic book, a creation of the mangaka (mayng-ah-ca), a person (usually from Japan) who draws manga, of Akira Toriyama, who had already created other mangas like Dr. Slump. Featuring a small 12 year old boy with a tale, who in actual Japanese is called Son Gokou, it developed into a world wide craze as devoted fans watch the many episodes of the Dragonball through GT anima, or animated cartoon. But first of all, it all started with one man, Akira Toriyama.
He was born on April 5th, 1955 in Aichi Prefecture, the outskirts of Nagoya. He then entered the Prefecture Industrial High School in 1974 to study art specializing in publicity, and a few years later graduated from the design department. He started work at an advertising firm as a graphic designer, but he grew tired of his job in 1977 and decided to draw mangas instead. So at age 30, he entered Shueisha, the biggest manga publisher in Japan, and began to draw professionally. His time was fully taken up on his new job, usually around 14 was spent working.
Soon, in 1978, in Shuukan Shonen Jump, a manga magazine that appeared weekly, his first manga, Wonder Island, debuted. It was short, and wasn’t a big success, but he learned that people liked his manga, so he continued to draw. Following Wonder Island, came Wonder Island 2, Today’s Highlight Island, and Tomato, Girl Detective. Then 1980 he started drawing a new manga, Dr. Slump.
It was an instant hit, and Akira’s first major success. It soon became a show after several volumes of the Dr. Slump comic were published, and began airing in 1981. There were seventeen to eighteen total volumes of Dr. Slump comics published before ending in 1984, and the anima TV series of Dr. Slump ending shortly after in 1986.
Akira stopped Dr. Slump in 1984, in order to start drawing a new manga, Dragonball. At the time, he was interested in Jackie Chan movies, so he decided to make the new manga feature kung-fu. It was supposed to be a short manga based on a Chinese legend of a monkey-man who goes up to the sky to defeat the evil Demon King who is created havoc and chaos on earth. He planned on having the main character, Goku, and his friends getting all the Dragonballs, and then ending it, but due to popular demand, continued the story.
Soon Dragonball aired on TV, beginning in 1986, and continued to run until 1989. Then Akira started drawing the second part of Dragonball. He kept the name the same, Dragonball, but when it arrived in America a ‘Z was added on as to not create confusion.During the Frieza Saga, he originally planned on ending it after the fight with Frieza, but was urged to continue, and did so.
Akira continued the Dragonball manga for 42 more volumes of comics, and Dragonball became one of the most popular mangas of all time. Finally, around 10 years later in 1995, Akira ended the Dragonball manga, one of the reasons being that he had to work a very hectic schedule, leaving him little time to spend with his family of wife and child.
However, when Dragonball ended, the Dragonball legacy continued in Dragonball Grand Tour or as it is better known Dragonball GT. Bandai created the a new Dragonball series for younger audiences, with totally new animators and story line. Akira worked as a consultant for Dragonball GT, helping out here and there as a character designer, but toward the end, as the story line was getting a little too wacky, he finished it himself.
Right now, he is redo-ing the covers to the old Dragonball manga has done, and I think still working on a relatively new manga called Sand Land. When he is not drawing manga, he spends time at home with his wife, two kids, and his cat.
Oh, by the way, here's some things he's actually said:
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The setting in which the adventures in Dragon Ball take place seems to be China, but is not limited to China. The time at which they occur is not defined exactly either. The argument is simple and has been , in general, planned ahead of time. However, the ultimate details and the ending I improvise as I go along. This fact allows me to feel enthusiasm in seeing how the story develops and I feel more free to draw whatever crosses my mind. This is what makes it so much fun!
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Lately I don't feel like doing sports. I even use my car or motorbike to get around the neighborhood! I've realized that, in being such a lazy person, I have started to grow a large belly. As I don't like that, I have decided to work out on my bike to become fit, but as I go so slowly to see all the girls that go down the street, it is not doing me a lot of good.
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I have already mentioned that I don't like cold weather. If I turn the heater on, my pen doesn’t work correctly. That's why when the cold weather starts I don't use my motorbike or my bicycle; I only use my car. As a driver I am not very brave. I would even dare to say that I would like to hibernate and remain all winter thinking how desperately I would like spring to come.
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Cool huh? For a wrap up, here's an actual interview on him.
Interviewer (IN): The fourth book of the Perfect collection is the World Guide, so I think I'ld like to ask your opions about the world. To start with, the world in Dragon Ball is different from the real world, isn't it?
Toriyama Akira (TA): Yes, all the manga I've written until now are worlds that don't exist. That's the way it's been from the first work I ever drew. In Penguin Village too, they call the world "Earth," but it's some Earth in some place where we don't know....Cashman (Published in Bui Jump) is kind of on the real world, but it takes place in a nonexistant country.
IN: Why do you choose to use nonexistant worlds?
TA: Because it's really much easier that way. It's because I choose the fundamentally easiest standard. If I chose to use the real world, I'd have to look at real-world things before I drew anything. Like buildings and vehicles and the like. If I change it a little bit, people could complain.
IN: I would think that just thinking about real-world things and drawing that be a bit easier, though, wouldn't it?
TA: Do you think so? Even if you don't look at real things, you can be free to create whatever you want and draw that, that's why I choose to use nonexistant worlds.
IN: Don't you even look at real things when drawing the landscapes?
TA: Normally I don't. At first I used to look at Chinese buildings and the like, though. When I first started getting Dragon Ball published, I wanted to completely change the image I used with Dr. Slump. Because I felt that Dr. Slump was American/Western-like, I wanted to make this one more Eastern. At that time, my wife was really interested in China, and I drew stuff like I had seen in some photos of China she had bought. After that, I drew pretty much everything from stuff I thought up, including the World Martial Arts Tournament's fighting stage. Before I started getting it published, I went to Bari Island with my family and assistant. I modeled the island the World Martial Arts Tournament was on, Papaya Island, on Bari Island. I thought up the types of buildings and the like from looking at pictures I had taken on trips. But it was really difficult. (Smiles) And afterwards I used the World Martial Art Tournament's fighting stage several times. I really had to go on that trip. (Smiles)
IN: Did you use any other landscapes you'd seen before?
TA: Hmm...After that, not really...Oh, that's right, I patterned the land that Babidi's spaceship was in after some photos I had seen of Africa. I thought that there were some really great fields, and I arranged that to draw. In the latter half, there was nothing but fields, so it was really tough. That is, it was tough to get through drawing.
IN: When I think about it, fields are a totally different landscape aren't they.
TA: That's right. I decided to make a different lanscape than I have ever used. I changed from using rocky areas, from using high mountains and the like. I really thought hard about that place. I had to figure out a type of place that I hadn't used before, because I thought if used a place like I always had before, it would be boring.
IN: You use lots of places like fields, where nobody lives, don't you?
TA: If I had Goku and the others fight in towns, it would really be difficult. I'd have to draw all the people who lived in the town, and buildings being destroyed and the like. Therefore, I always have them fight in places like unpopulated fields. (Smile) Or else I have them zoom and use the flying technique to fly to a place like it. Come to think about it, since all of Goku's friends learn to fly and come to be able to fly, it makes it a lot easier to advance the story.
IN: What do you mean?
TA: Well, because anyone can fly to any place they need to quickly. It makes it easier to think of plot advancement, and the story can proceed speedily, plus in terms of pictures, I can use birds-eye-view angles and the like to draw the scenery. That's the main reason I brought the Flying Nimbus in in the beginning. Having to use vehicles like cars and planes all the time gets tedious.
IN: I suppose you used the Instant Transmission for the same reasons.
TA: Right, right. Since I needed to have people go all the way to Kai's and New Nameck. Since he learned to use the Instant Transmission, the way Goku fights got lots more variation.
IN: When I think about battle scenes, I'd think they'd be difficult all the time, wouldn't they?
TA: Yes. As you might expect, that's because I can't make the fights be the same every time. At the beginning when Goku was little, it was pretty good, but in the second half where there began to be more and more fights, I really had to think up some amazing techniques and the like. It was really fun to draw the fight between Majn Buu and Gotenks. I thought up special attacks in gag-manga style. (Smile)
IN: How do you think up the names for special attacks?
TA: Actually, I don't like thinking up names for special attacks that much. In a real life-and-death fight you wouldn't say the names of your attacks, would you? While you're sitting there saying the name of your attack you're liable to get killed. (Smile) But it's said that it's good to give them names. My wife is the one who named the Kamehameha. Because I was worrying and saying "Master Roshi's special attack sould be called something-ha, something-ha..." my wife said "Why not Kamehameha?" That was great, it sounded really silly, and it just sounded right for Kamesennin. I thought of all the other technique names other than Kamehameha, though. Usually I make a name that the chararacter who uses the technique is likely to choose. Like wouldn't Vegeta be likely to name his techniques in English? (Smile.) And Piccolo would use techniques in Kanji(Japanese characters).
IN: When you first created Piccolo, did you plan from the beginning that he would be an alien from Nameck?
TA: I didn't think of it at all, of course. (Smile) Same thing with the Saiyans. When I gave Goku a tail, I was thinking about him being a big monkey; I didn't plan on Goku being an alien at all. Same thing goes for Piccolo. I was thinking about him being like Kami when I created him. I tried to think the stuff I thought up afterwards consistently. For example, Nameck's Guru was sitting in a chair. It was exactly the same as the chair we saw Piccolo-Daimao sitting in when he first appeared. The only difference was that they were sitting in different chairs.
IN: Really! Now that you mention it, they looked the same.
TA: I'm sure that Piccolo still had a few memories left of Nameck and created that chair. Also, I patterned the Nameck buildings and spaceship after the design of King Piccolo chair. I was told that it was a mistake to put space in a Shonen Jump Manga when I made the part about going. So I really had to think to make Namek be consistent with what I did before.
IN: You make the story to go to places other than Earth, like Nameck, afterwards, and the Other Dimension. How did you think up the way that the Other Dimension would be?
TA: I felt it should look kind of like Kami's palace, and sort of mysterious too, and I wanted to make it look totally different than the real world. Therefore, I made King Enma and the Oni's guys in suit like a Salaryman. I think that if you read in this book as it's printed the map of the entire world, you'll be able to see how Heaven is just some floating place. I made it so that everyone who goes to heaven gets there by plane. I was asked by the anime people to draw this map, but I didn't currently have a place in the picture to fit in Supreme Kai's planet, so I had to fit it in too. Actually, I had to make this map so it would fit in the story. (Smile) Usually, I think of the place beforehand, and write the story so it fits in with the place. I think most manga writers do the same; they decide the places first and then write the story to fit in with the place. That way, they don't have to think too much. But I had a vague image of it before I wrote the story. (Smile)
IN: Normal people can make a story consistent, but it's not very often. From listening to you, you've given us the opportunity to look into your mind a little bit. Thank you very much.
*Hey here's a cool fact. On December 6, 2002, I actually met Akira Toriyama myself! No joke! I went to the Shonen Jump Convention on Chelsea Piers, where I not only saw him, but got to talk to him too. The only problem was that he doesn't speak any English, so everything had to be translated...which was kinda long. But hey, that's something that very few people that I know of have done! ^_^
  
Picture 1: Akira feeding pigeons (I think his son is in the background).
Picture 2: Akira just standing around.
Picture 3: Akira when his baby Suska was just born.
© Copywrite 2003. All information given above is origanal, and was not copied. All Right Reserved.
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