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Spotlight on Akira Toriyama: Part 1

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In keeping with the Monkey King's tale, Toriyama fitted out his supporting characters to stand in for Goku's traditional companions in the quest.  Bulma fits the part of Sanzo the priest, who harnesses Goku's power; Oolong stands in for Hakkai the pig; and Yamcha is Gojo, the river monster. The parallels are near exact fits, with slight variances—in the original Saiyuki legend, the Monkey King is bound to Sanzo’s service by a golden headband, which the priest can constrict with a word. In Toriyama's world, Oolong is the one to receive a "restraining" order of a somewhat different type from Bulma (PP candy). Even the group's goal of collecting the seven Dragon Balls harkens to the Monkey King and his companions' search for sutras sacred beyond price. The Dragon Balls have the power to fulfill dreams — certainly beyond price. But apparently, Toriyama's initial idea for Dragon Ball went no further than that first Saiyuki-like quest for the Dragon Balls. "In the beginning, I was planning to end Dragon Ball when all seven Dragon Balls had been collected."

martial arts and merchandising

Although Toriyama's success with Dr. Slump would have been acclaim enough for any artist to retire on, Dragon Ball was such a hit that it completely eclipsed its predecessor. Serialized in the weekly manga anthology magazine SHONEN JUMP (which sells from four to six million copies per week) from 1984-1995, Dragonball became one of the most popular and most widely known manga and anime series in the history of Japan, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Foreign editions of Toriyama's manga have been translated and published in countries all over Asia and Europe, such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Italy, France, and Spain, and the animated version of Dragon Ball has been seen in France, Spain, Belgium, Italy,

Greece, Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, Once you add CDs, video games, and mega merchandising all over the globe, sales of Dragon Ball-related goods are estimated at US$3 billion worldwide.

But how did all this happen? What sparked such runaway popularity? According to Toriyama, "The manga wasn't too popular before the Tenka-Ichi Budokai ("World's Ultimate Martial Arts Tournament"). Torishima told me one time: 'your main character is too quiet. That's why it's not so popular.' I wanted to win readers with the story this time around, and I had even made the effort to come up with a normally dressed main character, so I was peeved, and I told him, 'I'll do some 'crowd-pleaser material, then.'

“In the Dr Slump days, event and tournament stories like the Penguin Village Grand Prix were popular," Toriyama, continues. "So I decided to go with a simple tournament. That's how the Tenka-Ichi tournament came to be. All the characters except Goku got pulled out, Kame Sen'nin (The Turtle Hermit) came back, and the new character Krillin showed up. Immediately, popularity went up."

This "crowd-pleaser material" became the hallmark of the second animated series; the fight-fight-fight-oriented Dragon Ball Z. Toriyama took marital arts past even the most outrageous excesses of Hong Kong action films and into the far reaches of the realm of superheroes. In Dragon Ball, if you train hard enough, you can fly, firepower blasts, split into multiple bodies, teleport and even fuse two beings into one that combines the powers of both. That's if you train hard enough, mind you.

"When you think about the character Goku, the best description of him is that he wants to get strong, so I decided that should really show." But even so, Toriyama had to work at winning his audience over to Dragon Ball's new martial arts motif — super powers or no, not even Super Saiyans have it easy. "Goku only wins for the first time in the third tournament," he says. "People around me tell me that they all know Goku is going to win. I am so contrary that if people say that, I'll go out of my way to make him not win."

dinner and a TV show

As with most manga success stories, an animated series wasn't long in the making. The animated Dragon Ball TV series went on-air in Japan in 1986, the name of the series later changing to "Dragon Ball Z" in 1989. This second series, Dragon Ball Z, was a run away hit, producing literally hundreds of weekly episodes until its end in January 1996 — not to mention various animated movies and TV specials, plus a third TV series, independent of Toriyama's manga storyline, Dragon Ball GT, which started airing on Japanese TV  right after the end of Dragon Ball Z.

Toriyama remembers watching the animated Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z TV series while eating dinner or together with his own young son. He enjoyed the show (as did his son), but largely kept his own input to the show to a minimum.

"I don't tend to interfere with the animators’ process. I wanted a fantastic story, so I did tell them that, but the basic production was all up to them. I might put in a small word where I thought it'd really matter." Instead, the animation actually ended up having an affect on the look of Toriyama's own manga. "When I talked to the animation director Toyo'o Ashida and saw his drawings, I thought that it was more effective to depict fights with sharper lines," Toriyama says. "Until then, I had tended to use subtler colorings, but I changed to more defined colors, like in the animation. I learned that you can get the same effects as gradated colors if the coloring is done right. So I was able to do sharp colors, which were more suitable for a boys' magazine, and learned an easier way of coloring at the same time. This was the influence from both the animation and Mr. Ashida.

"I'm always impressed with the work of animators," Toriyama says. "You have to be able to draw the scenes' in-between movements. I'm impressed with the way they can do that — I don't think I could. Also, I envy animation for being able to show sudden movements and for places where they can use light. In animation, an explosion can flash, and light and sound will follow as effects. In manga, the sound has to be hand-written, so “ it's not as effective," he laughs. "I'm especially envious of animation's ability to use sound effects and music. Plus, I like animation's ability to make mecha move. Especially complex movements. There's a limit to that in manga, so I envy it."

With such limitations of manga in mind, does Toriyama ever feel that he wants to work not on manga but on animation? "You have more potential in animation. I always house ideas about coming up with a story idea for animation and getting that animated."