Two new additions to our translation archive may feel a little familiar: the content has been referenced in several guides and articles across Kanzenshuu already! It turns out we never actually posted these in full, and it took the Toccio the Angel note this week for us to realize that!
From 2002 to 2004, Shueisha produced a kanzenban re-release of the Dragon Ball manga. The kanzenban — “Perfect Edition” — condensed the original 42 volumes into 34, with each volume containing approximately 15 chapters. Unlike the tankōbon, the kanzenban retained all of the colored pages originally printed in Weekly Shōnen Jump. The kanzenban are also slightly larger in size than the tankōbon, although are still smaller than the original Weekly Shōnen Jump magazines.
New guide books were released to accompany the kanzenban release. The first of these, Dragon Ball Landmark, was published midway through the kanzenban‘s release, and covers the beginning of the series up until the Freeza arc. Dragon Ball Forever, published following the end of the kanzenban release, includes information on the rest of the series, with some features on the series as a whole, including the results of polls from Japanese fans on their favorite characters, battles, etc. Each also included interviews with original author Akira Toriyama.
Landmark‘s “Akira Toriyama on the Road” interview and “We suddenly asked him in the middle of dinner!” short Q&A are already archived here on the site; today, we formally add Forever‘s “Akira Toriyama with Dragon Ball” interview and “We Asked Toriyama-sensei!” short Q&A.
Akira Toriyama with Dragon Ball
In Forever‘s longform interview, Toriyama touches on how moving to Tokyo (and therefore being closer to the publication source) likely would have been detrimental to his workflow, some of the secrets behind the various fight locations throughout the series, rumors about modeling villains after his editors, and some of his post-Dragon Ball projects and hobbies.
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We Asked Toriyama-sensei!
In Forever‘s short Q&A session, Toriyama answers a series of “What If?” questions, ponders the fates of certain characters, and discusses his thoughts on being a cartoonist.
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Both of these items have been archived in our “Translations” section.