THE MAN BEHIND DRAGONBALL - Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama was born on April 5th, 1955 at the Aichi District, Japan. He graduated and became a graphic designer. In 1978, he published his first manga called Wonder Island.
Later that year, he started "Highlight Island" followed by "Tomato Girl Detective". In the year 1980, he started "Dr Slump", which brought him success and fame. Then the Dragonball series.
Dragonball was the most successful comic in Japan, it got such a high level of respect and reputation Toriyama continued on and created Dragonball Z also the latest Dragonball GT. Altogether they sold over 200 million copies...(?) (this included DB, DBZ & DBGT) worldwide...mostly Asian countries actually.
Toriyama was also the character designer for the popular Dragon Quest series and Chrono Triger video games. He was indeed the most respected Anime and Manga artist of all time.
Akira began his career as a graphic designer and started working on Manga at the age of 23. At age 30, he has become a full time Mangaka and extremely busy. Although he doesnˇ¦t particularly enjoy being busy, he doesnˇ¦t feel focused while he is not working and only to find himself asleep in his free time.
Akira expresses his inner desires and frustrations into his own work. From a very young age, whenever Akira desired something that he was unable to obtain, he would incessantly draw the object until he became tired with it. He had wanted a horse as a child, so he kept drawing horses until he no longer desired it. Even today, this habit still lives in him.
He had regarded himself as someone who gets bored quickly, someone who is in constant need of new and exciting things to stimulate his mind. After devoting to Dragon Ball for more than ten years, he had to rethink this aspect of himself.
Akira at work
Akira works "college" hours. His typical day goes as follows: He gets up at 12 noon, works with his assistant Matsuyama until 7pm, eat dinner, take the dog for a walk, exercise until 9. Then he watches TV and work at the same time until 11, takes a shower and then work until 4 am before going to sleep.
He enjoys working besides a television in the office as well as at home. Akira will often get quite distracted by certain programs, yet he feels desolate without it. Therefore, he had trained himself to only periodically glance briefly at the TV screen.
Akira considers himself the "weaker" of the Mangakas, because he cannot handle cold weather at all. On one hand, he hates the cold, yet when the heaters are turned on his mind becomes unclear and groggy. But there is not much of a choice for him, however. Because of his strong dislike of the cold and winter, he wished that he could hibernate like the bear during winter. Fortunately, he can always immerse himself in the warm summer through setting nearly 100% of the story either in the tropics or in the summer.
Like many of the Mangakas, Akira was no exception to the mystique of Walt Disney. He liked the characters so much that he went to Disneyland more than than 6 times. He was deeply inspired by the magnificent portrayal of nature and wildlife in many of the Disney animation. Akiraˇ¦s love of nature is reflected through Cyborg #16.
His constant work for the Shonen Jump in the past years have almost totally exhausted him. Besides rushing out work for the Jump, he also has obligations for Nintendo as well as V Jump. With all that work, he felt like he was going to go insane without some free time. The energy he used to have has weakened quite a bit. He wanted to allocate more time for himself and his family. He is now a father of a son and a daughter.
His works
Dr Slump: Approximately 100 volumes in total. A story on a robotic girl. This was Toriyama's first successful Anime, which brought him respect and fame. This series of comics are very funny and a good read.
DragonBall: There are 42 volumes. The storyline is great along with sick looking characters. Although the story gets a little predictable later on and the drawings gets poorer when it reaches the end of the series. However overall is still excellent.
This is the original series by Akira Toriyama, which was launched in 1985. The story line was similar to that of Dr. Slump, with an innocent character (Goku in Dragon Ball and Arale in Dr. Slump) confronting the rest of the world in a comical manner.
During the early chapters of Dragon Ball, Goku demonstrates his good-hearted nature by helping out people who were in need en route his quest for the Dragon Balls. That slowly developed into a combat oriented story with less and less humour, which could be to save lives, for competition or for both. The serious nature of the story fully unfolds into Dragon Ball Z.
DragonBall Z: More Dragonball. The Z stands for Zen. The main reason that they they put that there is because this dragonball series is where Gokou has exelled (or will eventually excell) many high masters of the arts. This is the newer version of DragonBall, with more enemies and a few different characters. The new characters look absolutely awesome.
This part of the series has a totally different atmosphere than that of the first. Similar to the latter half of Dragon Ball, the basis of the story is Gokuˇ¦s challenge against powerful villains. Four major villains set the corner stones of the Z series. They are Vegeta, Freeza, Cell and Majin Buu, each one more powerful than the previous. Although the plot and setting of this part may be simple, what captures the audience is the relationship between the characters. Even though we could have all predicted the outcome, it is difficult to predict the shift of relationship between characters. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends and new characters enter the story as the offspring of other major characters.
Akira Toriyama wanted to conclude the Z series to make room for new ideas. Not only is he beyond surprised that the series had never lost its tremendous support over the years, but he is also very grateful to the Dragon Ball fans around the world.
DragonBall GT: More Dragonball. DragonBall GT stands for Grand Tour. The drawings are very much different compared to the other Dragonball series. GT wasn't created by Akira Toriyma, but probably by his Bird Studio artists. DragonBall GT is a totally different story with MORE cool looking characters. The story is about how Gokou is turned back into a little kid again. At that time, the seven magical balls (or dragonballs) are spread across the universe, and the search continues. From comments I've received, I believe this series of Dragonball is not as great and is changing the way what Dragonball used to look like. I haven't seen the GT series yet so I cannot really express any sort of comments right now.
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