Very few people can create a world where talking animals
seem normal, or a world where a really old man gets buff in a blink of an eye.
Of course, this is a stunt that can only be done by a mastermind like Akira
Toriyama. Toriyama can create a fantasy world that feels real. In fact, you
will be wishing it was real. Akira Toriyama is a mangaka (a term used to call a
manga artist), whose work is worldly renown. He was born on April 5, 1955 in
Nagoya, Japan. Toriyama has a distinctive art style that can be easily spotted;
growing as a mangaka he found inspiration in Osamu Tezuka’s anime series Astro Boy. Of course, Toriyama was not always a famous
manga artist. Toriyama’s origin story shares a humble beginning that embodies
his creations to becoming one of the most influential and renowned mangaka.
As a kid, growing up in Nagoya, Japan, there were not a
lot of forms of entertainment for Toriyama. As a result, Toriyama and his
friends would draw manga characters and show it off to each other. He still
recalls his start as an artist in elementary school, “My first memory of
satisfactory drawing was that of a horse” (qtd. In Essak). Toriyama always had
a passion for drawing, but he never believed his hobby would lead him to become
a manga artist. Being interested in drawing manga results to being interested
in anime (what Japans calls their form of cartoons), which Toriyama was indeed
into as a kid. The one anime show Toriyama loved was Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy (also know as Mighty Atom in Japan), which is one
Toriyama’s influences, “I used to send out coupons to collect Atom stickers”
(qtd. In Essak). Another influence was Walt Disney. The thing that set
Toriyama’s manaka career was a drawing contest that was held at a local drawing
class. He generously laughs as he recalls the memory, “The kids would go there
and draw pictures. I remember drawing 101
Dalmatians and getting a prize. That must have gotten into my head and made
me what I am today” (qtd. In Essak). But this would simply be the start of
Toriyama’s life. It was not until 1978 when he would publish his first manga, Wonder Island, in the famous manga
magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. He would
publish another in 1979 named Highlight
Island and another titled Tomato Girl
Detective. All of them featured strange named heroes in strange worlds. However,
the start of Toriyama’s success would not start until 1980, when he publishes a
series labeled Dr. Slump.
Dr. Slump was a
manga that ran in the Weekly Shonen Jump
starting at issue 5 of the magazine and ending at issue 39. It was collected in
eighteen volumes by Shueisha and later translated and published for the west by
VIZ Media. This was Toriyama’s first big hit as Josh said, “Inspiring
243-episode animated series, a series of animated films and direct-to-video
special, and a vast array of merchandise, including toys and games”
(Hechinger). Dr. Slump was a
slapstick comedy manga that introduces a cast of interesting characters. Dr.
Senbei Norimaki is an inventor, whose inventions always seem to fail thus
earning him the nickname Dr. Slump. Norimaki invents a robot girl name Arale but due to technical difficulties Arale is nearsighted, requiring her to wear
glasses. Each story is a stand-alone installment, meaning every story has an
ending and never leaving at a cliffhanger. Most of the stories involve Arale trying
to understand human behavior in hopes to live a normal human life like the
others. This concept leads into a number of hysterical situations and ending
with some sort of moral. It is easy to see how Tezuka’s Astro Boy influenced Toriyama’s Dr.
Slump. The two main things that are noticeable are the protagonists Arale
and Astro. They are both robots and are both trying to understand the world around
them. Another concept that influenced Toriyama was Tezuka’s large eye style,
which is seen in Astro Boy. The
impact Dr. Slump had on the Japanese
culture was great by introducing the large glasses concept as Josh noted, “The
style of large glasses Arale wears in the series has come to be widely
associated with her” (Hechinger). It also raised the number of Weekly Shonen Jump subscription number
by 6.5 million between 1985 and 1995. It is no question that Dr. Slump launched
Toriyama’s career but this would be the start, for a spikey haired kid
name Goku would sweep the world by storm.
Immediately after finishing Dr. Slump, Toriyama started working on his next project. He would
go to his editor to bounce off ideas, “I always liked Jackie Chan and seen his Drunken
Master II many times. Torishima encouraged me to draw a kung fu if I liked it
that much. That was the one-shot Dragon Boy I drew” (qtd. In Essak). After
receiving positive feedback he found his next series. During the process of
turning Dragon Boy into what is now known
as Dragon Ball, Toriyama took a
different approach in style compared to Dr.
Slump. In an interview with Rumiko Takashi, another mangaka, Toriyama
stated, “I drew Dr. Slump in an
American-like style and am writing Dragon
Ball in a Chinese-like style” (Toriyama). He even went as far as looking at
Monkey King (Sun Wukong), a classic Chinese novel in which the protagonist sets
off on a journey to collect Buddhist sutras from India. Toriyama already had
the template for his story all he needed was his own twist, “I added the Dragon
Balls that grant your wish when you collect all seven of them. I thought I
could make a Monkey King type of
journey story” (qtd. In Essak). Dragon
Ball had a giant impact in the manga media. It was the first manga to
parody martial-arts, “Dragon Ball
effectively replaced the martial-arts manga it once parodied, inspiring the
creation of other comedic fighting manga” (Cantrell, Rachel). Another impact it
had was allowing the reader to witness the protagonist, Goku, grow up from a
child to an adult; no other shonen did that at the time. Dragon Ball became another success for Toriyama spawning an anime
series, merchandise, and even paving the way for him to expand on the Dragon Ball universe with Dragon Ball Z. This lead to a question
that even Toriyama asked himself: What comes next?
Being considered one of the fathers of Shonen manga,
Toriyama must have felt he needed to expand his work to a different outlet and
a wider audience. In 1986 a software publisher know as Enix publish a game
titled Dragon Quest a Japanese role
playing for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Yuji Horii, the creator of Dragon Quest, requested Toriyama to do
the character and monster design that would help the game standout from other role playing games on the market. Once released, Dragon Quest became a success in Japan allowing for multiple
sequels and spin-offs. One of the reasons of its success can be traced to
Toriyama as Jeremy Parish notes, “much of Dragon
Quest’s popularity in Japan can be ascribed to manga artist Akira Toriyama,
creator of the terrifyingly successful Dragon
Ball series” (101). As new Dragon Quest games was released Toriyama would come back to the series and design
new monsters, but Toriyama’s gaming career did not end there. Horii and
Toriyama would work along side with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, to bring one of gaming’s
beloved Japanese role playing game Chrono
Trigger for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Again, Toriyama would
be in charge of character design but his influence would have stronger impact
on the game as Sakaguchi stated, “There were times that I felt under pressure
to make as much of a Toriyama-style world as possible, but contrary to my
expectations I found that it was okay to play with Toriyama’s universe. It felt
like anything was possible” (Sakaguchi). Sakaguchi and Toriyama would
collaborate aging to bring Blue Dragon
for the Xbox 360. To this day Toriyama still does character designs for gaming
companies, and is able to expand his work along with his audience.
Akira Toriyama is seen as the father of shonen manga and
is praised equally as his role model Osamu Tezuka. Toriyama went through many trials
and errors like Dr. Slump did before creating a manga series that would stick.
He felt he needed to expand his creative canvas to a new outlet, so he set out
in new territory like Goku did when he set out for the Dragon Balls. If there
is one thing his creations have in common, besides the art style, is the sense
of wonder they have for the world Toriyama creates. To this day Toriyama still
lives creating new characters, and expanding on his universe.
Work Cited
“Akira Toriyama Interview.” About.com. Web. 02 Jul. 2014
Cantrell,
Rachel. "Dragon Ball." Critical Survey of Graphic Novels:
Manga. Ed. H. Beaty Bart
and Weiner Stephen. Salem Press, 2012. Salem
Literature. Web. 02 Jul. 2014.
Hechinger,
Josh. "Dr. Slump." Critical Survey of Graphic Novels: Manga.
Ed. H. Beaty Bart and
Weiner Stephen. Salem Press, 2012. Salem
Literature Web. 02 Jul. 2014.
Horii,
Yuji and Sakaguchi, Hironobu. “Chrono Trigger: The Perfect Talk Battle.”
Translated By
GlitterBerri. The Chrono Compendium. 28 Dec.
2013. Web. 03 Jul. 2014
Parish,
Jeremy. "Dragon Quest." Electronic Gaming Monthly 213
(2007): 100. Middle Search
Plus. Web. 03 July 2014.
Toriyama,
Akira and Rumiko Takahasi. “Toriyama/Takahashi Interview.” Translated By
Toshiakia Yamadaa. Rumic World. 1986. Web. 02 Jul. 2014.
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