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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."
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