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Toriyama Q and
A!
The main event
was
comprised of Toriyama introducing himself
and drawing (doing a demonstration) a image of Goku with the
empire state building in the background
for the city youth and NYC schools. The
fact that Toriyama was there and that he
drew for us was great; I wouldn't have
missed it for the world. I was, however
disappointed that the event coordinators
did not allow fans who were not part of
the schools visitors to ask a few
questions. A once in a lifetime thing
having Toriyama-san come all this way in
the US only to have 5 or 6 kids who really
did not care for Dragonball asking
questions.... whatta waste I say! But if
you read Toriyama-san's responses, you'll realize that many of them are for
the real fans indeed. I'll admit not all
of the questions were that bad, but some
of them could have been better. I reworked
some of the questions and catered them to
Toriyama-san's answers so they would make
better sense.
A note to all web
owners out there: PLEASE DO NOT
COPY THE INFORMATION BELOW! It took allot
of work to write down all the q and a, and
then type it up again.
Thank you for your understanding!
Below are some
of the questions asked and the answers he
provided. I was surprise to find Toriyama-san
with such a great since of humor:
Q: Why (or
how) did you
start drawing Manga?
A: I used to
work at a design company and I didn't like
it very much, so I lelt and I began to run
out of money. Weekly Shonen Jump had a
monthly contest for amateur Manga artists
and I really wanted to win that prize!
Q: Where did
you get your ideas from?
A: Obviously I
was an adult at the time, but what I would
do is think back to when I was a child and
tried to imagine what I enjoyed or what
I wanted to see back then.
Q: I have a
question about Lunch. I noticed she
disappeared once the series reaches the
Raddiz saga. What ever happened to her?
A: To tell you
the truth I totally
forgot about the character Lunch at one time. But when I
remembered her again, I had to think of a
reason why she disappeared. So I made it
seem that she was chasing after
Teinshinhan all the time she was gone.
Q: Who is you
favorite character?
A: It would be Son Goku... but I'm actually
quite fond of Piccolo and Mista Saatan.
Mista Saatan was very easy to draw so I
liked him allot!
Q: Which is
your favorite Manga series (among all his
work: Dr. Slump, Dragonball, Sand Land,
etc) among all your work?
A: You probably don't know about this
title but my favorite of all my work is
Neko Majin
(a Manga series that was a parody
of Dragonball; it has yet to be officially
translated).
But Dragonball is my longest work. I have
more memories with Dragonball than with
anything else.
Q: Is this
your first visit to NY?
A: Actually this is my 2nd visit to NY,
but this is the longest I've ever been
here. Today would be my 5th day here.
Q: What do you
like about NY?
A: I don't go
overseas much and when I do I would rather
warmer climates! But when I arrived at
NY I was amazed by how each building have
its own flavor; each building has a
character on its own. Ever since I got
here I have been constantly looking around
at everything in amazement. Its a
wonderful city!
Q: What does
the Z in Dragonball Z stand for? (Most of
us know that the Z was only used in the
anime and it was just an index to separate
Goku as a kid and Goku as an adult. But
check out the response from Toriyama-san).
A: I was
starting to run out of things for
Dragonball and I really wanted to finish
the series. So I thought that if I put a Z
at the end of Dragonball, people would
think that it was going to end soon!
Q: I was
wondering if you really wanted to end the
series where it ended? Do you want to
continue to write for the series?
A: I worked on
the series for nearly 10 years and I
really wanted to end the series at year 3.
But... well... Shonen Jump (the original
publishers) made me continue the series.
But I'm glad the they pushed me to
continue it, because I would not
have appreciated it as much as I do now.
But 10 years is really my where my
limit is (and he does not want to do it
anymore)!
I am against anyone copying my material
and putting it on their site. Under no
circumstances should anyone copy the
written material on this site!
