Issue #318: All About Akira Toriyama
Two things that happen to me often are being at a loss for words and becoming morose and self-reflective when an artist whose work I enjoy dies. The first, you might not believe. But you have only the counterexamples to judge me by. What I’ve left unwritten, or been unable to write, dwarfs even this prolific weekly publication. Speaking of self-reflection, it feels like even 3,000 words on Akira Toriyama, who died on March 1st, is too few. I am a bit short, perhaps, of producing the kind of memorial writing that truly captures his overwhelming contributions to our culture. But it’s what I got and what you have in front of you today.
The Undying Legacy of Akira Toriyama
In Dragon Ball Z (1989), one thing is certain: they fighting. This anime adaptation of the latter part of Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball (1984) manga has defined Toriyama’s legacy, despite the title being a necessary departure from the previous 1986 Dragon Ball anime. For Toriyama, there is no Dragon Ball Z — just Dragon Ball. Toei approached the two series the same way, too. Daisuke Nishio directed both the entirety of Dragon Ball and the first 199 episodes of Dragon Ball Z. Across the two productions, the studio retained every creative contributor they possibly could. They had a winning team for realizing Toriyama’s vision.
There’s some (colloquial) irony to this reality. The thing that Toriyama is most known and remembered for is a story he created — yes — but a title he didn’t come up with. The work is represented and remembered often without the preceding story of Dragon Ball. Like me, many children woke up early to catch episodes of the Saban and Ocean Group dubbed series unceremoniously broadcast on Fox, without any accompanying programming block and minimal promotion. But the show just looked so cool, whatever commercials I would see during Power Rangers compelled me to wake up at 6am every morning… and continue doing so until the series was more favorably scheduled on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block.
If Dragon Ball Z as Toriyama’s most enduring work is just the first in a series of misapprehensions of his life and career, it is one that spans more widely than the title. Toriyama is peerless as an author of martial arts manga, with the dynamism and movement on his pages making the move to animation feel seamless. The powerful association between Toriyama and the animated adaptation of his work speaks to just how good of an adaptation it is. Director Nishio’s understanding and appreciation of Dragon Ball makes Dragon Ball Z less adaptation and more embodiment. Toriyama’s art is lively enough, but Nishio, at least, gives them a voice.
Toriyama excelled at writing much more than violence, however. In the latter half of the Dragon Ball manga, characters spend a lot of time in the same environments. But the journey, sense of adventure, and collection of the titular MacGuffin is where the “magic” of Dragon Ball comes from, and probably the ideas that drew Toriyama to Dragon Quest (1986), for which he would work as the sole artist and work either as the sole artist or lead artist for every subsequent game in the series. Perhaps this is part of why he drew vehicles so exquisitely and why Piccolo’s Driving Exam — a Dragon Ball Z arc he had nothing to do with — is so fondly remembered.
While I didn’t realize it at the time, Dragon Ball Z wasn’t actually my first exposure to Toriyama’s work. Instead, it was Dragon Quest, released in the U.S. as Dragon Warrior in 1989. I didn’t play it that year, but much later, probably 1994. By the time I played Chrono Trigger (1995) in the late 90s, I recognized Toriyama’s distinctive art style. Chrono Trigger, like Dragon Ball’s latter half, deals with a theme crucial to Toriyama’s work: the inevitability of death. Or, lack thereof. In Chrono Trigger, heroes reset time again and again to achieve a desired result. In Dragon Ball, subverting death doesn’t even require time travel. Heroes die and are wished back to life using the Dragon Balls. They die and are able to visit Earth — complete with halos — with temporary corporeal form. Dragon Ball takes the convention of U.S. superhero comics to the most absolute and absurd extreme. Maybe that’s why when Goku and Superman duke it out in the minds of fans across the message boards of yesteryear and social media sites of today, Goku so often comes out on top. He’s unbeatable — made stronger by near death experience and ready to hop down from King Kai’s realm and fight again after death.
There are no Dragon Balls to revive Akira Toriyama. While characters defy death in his worth, the real world is one where death is final. If Toriyama is to defy it, it will be through his work that exercises an influence far beyond any contemporaries or successors.
If Osamu Tezuka is the grandfather and origin point of manga, Toriyama is the father of every currently working manga author. In some cases, the point of reference back to Toriyama is a matter of public record. Tite Kubo, author of Bleach (2001), was initially rejected by Shonen Jump when submitting the manga for serialization. Toriyama wrote Kubo a letter suggesting he re-submit. Shonen Jump approved Bleach the second time around, spawning a hugely successful manga and anime franchise.
Eiichiro Oda, author of One Piece (1997) and Masashi Kishimoto, author of Naruto (1999), were closer to Toriyama. Oda writes in his reaction to Toriyama’s death, “For manga artists of my generation who have stood on the same stage, the closer I get to Toriyama’s works, the more I realized that they had a greater presence.”
In a mediated discussion between the two, Oda called Toriyama “god” to his face. The discussion is full of brilliant insights from Toriyama himself, including how he draws musculature, “I thought too much about how the muscles looked [stylistically], so if you look at them as real muscles, it isn't accurate.” Oda’s closing words to Toriyama hit even harder now, “Please, be free and do whatever you want to! No matter what you do, I will be happy so long as you keep drawing illustrations, Toriyama sensei. However, I'm sure the editorial staff will say something like ‘Draw a series!’” The encouraging words from Oda and the reference to Toriyama’s editors references the fact that Toriyama was heavily pressured to continue writing Dragon Ball. Though specifics of when Toriyama may have wanted to end the series exist only as fan speculation, he clearly alluded to editorial pressure in a number of his public statements. At the launch celebration for the U.S. version of Shonen Jump, transcribed in the March 2003 edition of the magazine, Toriyama says:
I worked on the series for almost 10 years. When I reached about the third year, I was really pushing my limit, but the original editors of “Weekly Shōnen Jump” in Japan made me continue the story. I have to thank them, because it was then that I really started to appreciate and enjoy creating the manga. I was able to continue for ten years, but ten years really was the limit.
He likewise left an equally melancholy comment alongside the final chapter of Dragon Ball in 1995:
I truly thank you for faithfully reading Dragon Ball for so terribly long. I’m very grateful for how you all supported me up until the very end. The truth is that I decided on this a long time ago but a lot happened, so please forgive me for announcing this so suddenly. For this new step in my life, I’ve asked a big favor of everyone concerned and am ending this manga. Of course, I humbly apologize to all you fans too. I’m very sorry. From now on, I think I will take a little break, and then leisurely draw one-shot works. You’ll definitely see me again. I think it (should) certainly be interesting, so look forward to it! Well, until that day, this is goodbye. Let’s meet again.
The message is clear: let me take a break from Goku. Oda wished for such a break for Toriyama, even if it never came to fruition.
Like Oda, Kishimoto is a fan-turned-friend to Toriyama. In his statement on Toriyama’s passing, he writes:
It was when I was a university student. Suddenly, the Dragon Ball that had been a part of my life for so many years ended. felt an incredible sense of loss and didn't know what to look forward to. But at the same time, it was also an opportunity for me to truly understand the greatness of the teacher who created Dragon Ball. I also want to create works like yours! I want to be like my teacher! As I followed in my teacher's footsteps and aspired to become a manga artist, that feeling of loss began to disappear. Because making comics was fun. I was able to find new fun by following my teacher. My teacher has always been my guide. I admired it. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I would like to express my gratitude to the teacher. For me, he was the god of salvation and the god of manga.
Aside from personal loss, Kishimoto laments the stories from Toriyama we’ll never get to read, “Everyone around the world was still looking forward to seeing your work.” Like Kishimoto, I feel like I took Toriyama’s continued contributions to the world of manga for granted. He was ridiculously prolific, with a huge library of one shots and two short serializations in the form of Sand Land (2000) and Jaco the Galactic Patrolman (2013), a Dragon Ball spinoff. Jaco coincided with the relaunch of Dragon Ball as a franchise, with the release of the Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods movie where Toriyama developed the story. In 2015, Toriyama would write Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’, serving this time as screenwriter as well as developing the film’s concept and story. Both films were adapted into TV anime and manga with Dragon Ball Super. Toriyama wrote the manga, but handed off illustration duties to Toyotarou, a manga artist suspected to be the author of several Dragon Ball unofficial fan comics.
I always looked forward to what Toriyama would do next, but I was riveted by his work with Dragon Ball through the most recent Dragon Ball Super arcs. He would develop and write two more Dragon Ball films, Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018) and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022). These last cinematic efforts from Toriyama were fantastic though, for some reason, only Super Hero was adapted into the Dragon Ball Super manga, with Broly not making the cut — though the events from it are referenced. Even the hilariously titled “Granolah Saga,” where a new character named Granolah from the planet Cereal felt perfectly Toriyama. In the tradition of the Dragon Ball’s monkey’s paw quality, Granolah wishes to be the strongest person in the universe, but is only granted a narrow margin of higher strength from the next strongest. Quickly, Goku and Vegeta are able to exceed their limits and out power Granolah, the universe’s strongest only momentarily.
In Super Hero, which was a phenomenal film, Toriyama finally realized the ascendency of Gohan, Goku’s son often teased as a ridiculously powerful character but rarely reaching potential Toriyama suggests. It is a bittersweet but mercifully fitting end for what Toriyama will contribute to the story — outside of any notes he left behind for Toyotarou.
Even Inoue Takehiko, panel for panel my favorite manga artist of all time, author of Slam Dunk (1990), Vagabond (1998), and Real (1999), gave a heartfelt tribute to Toriyama:
I just can't accept it.
Thank you, Mr. Toriyama.
This insufficient summary just covers one part of Toriyama’s art. His work on Dragon Quest may be less widely appreciated than Dragon Ball, but is nonetheless hugely significant. Toriyama designed the slime. This slime.
Yuji Horii, Dragon Quest creator, reflects on the background of the slime:
Originally when we thought up the slime it was a pile of goo and we gave it to Toriyama-san to draw a picture of and make it a proper monster. We had imagined it an icky pool of slime, but when he came back with that perfectly shaped tear-drop monster we thought it was perfect. That’s part of Toriyama’s power to take something like a pool of slime and use his imagination to make it a great character
Horii worked with Toriyama on every Dragon Quest game and even Chrono Trigger, where the duo joined forces with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy (1987), in what Square apocryphally called the “Dream Team,” inspired by the U.S. 1992 Olympic basketball team. Horii’s statement on Toriyama’s passing is simply heartbreaking:
Toriyama also influenced games he didn’t personally work on, with Seiichi Ishii following Yu Suzuki’s directive to emulate Dragon Ball characters for his designs in Virtua Fighter (1993).
He reviewed Final Fantasy VII in V Jump:
He left teases for his children in the games he worked on, most notably in Chrono Trigger.
And there’s the endless number of allusions to Toriyama’s work across American animation, of which the below is only a small sample:
By way of tribute to Toriyama, many have shared their favorite Dragon Ball panels and other pieces he drew.
And of course, no retrospective of Toriyama’s career would be complete without a reflection on the massive cultural footprint of his art in Latin America, Mexico in particular. The Mexican government hosted an outdoor viewing party for the final episode of Dragon Ball Super with tremendous attendance.
There’s a wide range of cultural, economic, and social factors that drove Dragon Ball’s popularity in Mexico. Dragon Ball’s television premiere, the one that stuck (like in the U.S., the second go around), followed in the wake of the enormously popular Saint Seiya (1986). Saint Seiya premiered on over-the-air TV in Mexico as Los Caballeros del Zodiaco in 1993. In 1996, Bandai, the Latin American licensor for Dragon Ball, contracted Cloverway Inc., the same company responsible for Saint Seiya’s Latin American Spanish dub, to bring Dragon Ball to the same audience. Cloverway handled the first 60 episodes of Dragon Ball before handing off the reins to Intertrack, who dubbed the remaining Dragon Ball episodes as well as Dragon Ball Z.
Cloverway and Intertrack’s work on Dragon Ball and Z were smash hits and like Saint Seiya aired on over-the-air TV and reran frequently. The Latin American Spanish dub had some key differences from the U.S. version. It retained the original soundtrack, did not include any edits for content, and is generally viewed as a more faithful translation.
The Dragon Ball Super viewing party wasn’t that long ago, but the Dragon Ball franchise is no less relevant today. Azteca 7 even abruptly changed their programming on March 8th to run a Dragon Ball marathon.
While the U.S. Dragon Ball Z theme song holds a special place in my heart, it is vastly inferior to Hironobu Kageyama’s “Cha-La Head-Cha-La.” In another example of deference to the source material, the Latin American Spanish dub had it’s own version of “Cha-La Head-Cha-La,” instead of a du jour theme.
There’s a certain image, I think, that is one of the most resonant when it comes to considering Toriyama’s work, and it’s nothing that he drew. Across the world, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z inspired imaginative playground games, gelled hair, poses in the mirror, and furious power up cries. These activities were universal among young people and have certainly been indulged in by a share of adults, too, who grew up with Toriyama’s manga. I hate valorizing a commercial, but this one for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (2020) might as well be a short film about Toriyama’s impact.
Even with the commercial’s focus on Japan, these moments are indistinguishable from ones that have played out in households in nearly every country on Earth. His power over the collective imagination was just enormous.
At the risk of sounding like a naive superfan mourning a titan, I believe Akira Toriyama is the single most influential visual artist of all time. There is no one who ignited more imaginations putting a pen to paper. No one. His cultural impact is unmistakable and, I think, singular. The proliferation of Toriyama’s work across the globe has changed it in more ways than we can imagine across the mediums of comics, animation, film, and video games. For most people, the words “anime” or “manga” bring his work to mind before anyone else’s. His highly idiosyncratic style is so assimilated to culture, it has become paradigmatic of an entire nation. He inspired and moved audiences with characters created while his tongue was firmly in his cheek, named after vegetables and undergarments. He was uncompromising, but unassuming, making manga for manga’s sake and transforming into a global icon by accident.
I value his work so much and devoured every bit even from my youthful encounter with Dragon Ball Z. Still, I took for granted that we would have another 10 or 20 years of stories by Toriyama to enjoy. Even if it might not matter, I regret feeling that way now. It has made me all the more devastated at his loss. The only silver lining is that I know I am not alone. All of the play and speculation and imagination he inspired, part of Toriyama’s legacy is the friendships his work helped forge by our shared investment in it.
I went to Dave and Buster’s on March 8th, the day after the late evening announcement of his death on the 7th, wearing a Dragon Ball Z shirt Erin had bought me for Christmas a few years ago. I ordered a soft drink, something stupid involving a light up ice cube, and the bartender handed it to me saying “it’s a sad day” starting a quick exchange about Toriyama’s greatness and the enormity of his loss. He didn’t charge me for the drink, either. The part of his work that is universal and connects people is only more powerful now. RIP Akira Toriyama.
Weekly Reading List
https://www.thirdeditions.com/en/rpg/97-the-legend-of-final-fantasy-vii-9791094723555.html — I am playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024) right now and hope to write about it soon.
With both Remake (2020) and Rebirth, I turned to Nicolas Courcier and Mehdi El Kanafi’s book which includes a summary of every event in the Final Fantasy VII franchise timeline in chronological order, including Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII (2004), a free to play phone game now considered lost media, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy (2007), and Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (2006) — all three of them steeped in the over complex plot, absurd jargon, and staggering number of belts characteristic of Tetsuya Nomura. As a custodian of the franchise, including Remake and Rebirth, it could be in better hands. But I digress. Courcier and El Kanafi provide a much needed recap of Nomura’s labyrinthine and esoteric lore.
Until next time.