Would you feel confident in the series if it were left in Toyotarou's hands?

[Seekeroftruth]

Let us assume Akira Toriyama passes away and Toyotarou Is left as the captain for Dragon Ball franchise; with Toei supervision. Do you feel confident in him beginning able to make independent decision on his own without Toriyama's guidance?

[Yuji]

I have my gripes. He relies too much on callbacks and homages to the original series, his art isn't particularly great and he seems to have peaked as an artist, his original stories are somewhat formulaic. He's also heavily influenced by Toeisms sometimes to a fault.

I think he functions best as a companion to Toriyama. He gets him enough to translate Toriyama to the page, while also being enough of a fan to fix or point out issues or inconsistencies in the story. But I haven't seen enough yet to trust him with original stories.

[Alruneia]

Right now, probably not. I trust him with it more than I do Toei (even if Toyotaro also has some Toei-isms in him), but if Toriyama was to drop dead this instant and Toyotaro had to take over immediately, I wouldn't consider him "fully trained to take over". Personally I think he can still improve, though, at least, so maybe someday I'd be totally okay with it.

[MasenkoHA]

I have my gripes. He relies too much on callbacks and homages ....his original stories are somewhat formulaic.

Sounds like a worthy successor to Mr.Toriyama to me!


In all honesty, I've never read any Super manga aside from flipping through one at a public library. My knowledge of Super ends at the tv series and the Broly movie so I don't know.

[Zephyr]

I don't mind him being a presence in the Dragon Ball Room (if he is); he has some cool ideas, and being a Dragon Ball Fan™ he's got a good eye for deep lore cuts and "explanations".

But after giving the Moro arc a re-read over the last few days, I have to say no, I wouldn't really feel confident in the series left so squarely in his hands. Dragon Ball's always been formulaic, and the nature of this revival does mean that it's got one foot stuck in the past, but this arc was possibly the worst offender I've seen in this franchise of plucking all sorts of iconic moments and set-pieces from various arcs in the series' history and building an arc out of them.

Vegeta's also clearly a pet-character for him (yes, even despite the fact that he gets his shit pushed in all the time). That's fine, but coupled with the way he depicts Goku (someone who's worse at fighting, training, etc. than Vegeta) it's pretty grating and I feel very at odds with the way the two were depicted in both the original serialization, as well as in Super's anime.

When the anime was still going I enjoyed the manga as a companion piece to it, an adaptation that gave a different spin on various details. I'd even hoped for him to lay the groundwork for the anime going forward, for some greater degree of artistic consistency (the way the original anime was an adaptation of a manga). But seeing how he handles his own arc? I can't say I'm impressed or thirsting much for the prospect anymore.

[Jord]

It can't get much worse than under current Toriyama so I'm willing to give it a shot.

[JulieYBM]

I think that Toyo-tarou is pretty boring as a creator a lot of the time, and I think that it would be a terrible disservice to all of the other people who work on the franchise to make them all bend the knee to any one creator.

[Grimlock]

I would prefer for the "captain" role to be given to him and other artists as well. There's absolutely no reason to have just one man at the helm.

Ooishi Naho, that Yamcha manga artist that I always forget their name... All of them should be given the opportunity to come up with new stuff. All of them would naturally have their own "independent decision", without it, they'd be limiting themselves as "storytellers". Toriyama obviously supports this. So it's not like they need his guidance or anything.

But I have to ask, by the time Toriyama retires or passes away, will there be people to check these new material anyway? Because, you know, if they aren't by Toriyama, then they aren't good, aren't canonical (even though nothing of sorts was established)... Will they care about whatever is released at that time?

[Skar]

I've been curious how long Toyotaro will draw the manga. It's been eight years so one more arc and it'll be as long as Toriyama drew the original. I think there could be some burn out like what happened to Toriyama in his last few years. After the Granolah arc was the first time the DBS manga had a hiatus then followed by the prequel and adaptation of SH which was also the first time the manga fully adapted one of the films. I know some have had a hiatus as they prepared for their final arc. It could be what they're working on since the story is only a year or two from EoZ.

[Jord]

I've been curious how long Toyotaro will draw the manga. It's been eight years so one more arc and it'll be as long as Toriyama drew the original. I think there could be some burn out like what happened to Toriyama in his last few years. After the Granolah arc was the first time the DBS manga had a hiatus then followed by the prequel and adaptation of SH which was also the first time the manga fully adapted one of the films. I know some have had a hiatus as they prepared for their final arc. It could be what they're working on since the story is only a year or two from EoZ.

That is absolutely crazy to think of.

[MasenkoHA]

I've been curious how long Toyotaro will draw the manga. It's been eight years so one more arc and it'll be as long as Toriyama drew the original. I think there could be some burn out like what happened to Toriyama in his last few years. After the Granolah arc was the first time the DBS manga had a hiatus then followed by the prequel and adaptation of SH which was also the first time the manga fully adapted one of the films. I know some have had a hiatus as they prepared for their final arc. It could be what they're working on since the story is only a year or two from EoZ.

That is absolutely crazy to think of.

Much less crazy when you factor in Toriyama was releasing a new chapter of Dragon Ball about once a week. Dragon Ball Super's chapters only come out once a month

[Xeogran]

I've been curious how long Toyotaro will draw the manga.

Expecting it to be for at least a few more years. And then probably a sequel after a short break, because it's hard to imagine DBS ending for good

There will definitely be another arc after SH, and Toyotaro's exclusive arcs last around 1 to 2 years. If it's before EoZ, then I feel like he'd want to try making another one after EoZ too. Or maybe there will be a movie for that and he will adapt it again in his own way.

[Skar]

Expecting it to be for at least a few more years. And then probably a sequel after a short break, because it's hard to imagine DBS ending for good

There will definitely be another arc after SH, and Toyotaro's exclusive arcs last around 1 to 2 years. If it's before EoZ, then I feel like he'd want to try making another one after EoZ too. Or maybe there will be a movie for that and he will adapt it again in his own way.

I'm still waiting to see what happens once it reaches EoZ before expecting Toriyama to change his mind to be honest. It does seem less likely the longer it remains a midquel. The ToP was the last major arc then we had mostly recycled or reimagined ideas taking place only in U7 so maybe winding down. A rebooted Broly, Moro which had several references to previous sagas and old movie villains, last member of a race wanting revenge against the Saiyans, and return of the RR Army again.

[MrSatan2099]

To me the real question here is "how long do you want to see the original continuity dragged out?" Do I think he was be a good pick to continue creating side stories and sequels to the original series? Yeah for the most part.
Is that what I want for the characters long term? Not particularly.
I'm very happy with Super overall, but it will eventually get boring.

Let's see something brand new. If that means rebooting it or playing fast and loose with continuity that's fine. If they try something and it doesn't work? That's fine too, give it a rest and try again later.

I have no doubt that I'll probably enjoy whatever traditional thing that they decide to do, but honestly, from a creative standpoint I would feel completely satisfied with what exists as is and would absolutely love to see new artists come in and do something completely different.

If there are any TMNT comics fans out there, I would point to volume 1 of the original series as an example of what I'm talking about. Got some absolutely fantastic alternate takes on the material when guest artists were brought in.

[Majin Buu]

As someone who hasn't read the manga, Toyotarou feels like a nothing presence to me so it feels odd that he's being pushed as Toriyama's "successor". At times he feels more like a glorified assistant doing the heavy lifting stuff Toriyama doesn't want to do anymore.

It feels like his stuff hasn't made much of an impact too, but to be fair, part of that might be because his presence is limited the manga while the anime does its own thing, and I'm guessing more people in total have watched the anime than read the manga.

[YoungDefender]

After Super Toriyama lost his status as this infallible manga god in my view to the point where I am not particularly concerned with how much worse things can get given some of the decisions made to date. In some ways the damage was already done by Toriyama's own hand so his successor at least does not have to deal with as much pressure of being the one to take the series into strange and unappealing directions.

[Jiren The Alpha]

Toyotarou is as good at writing Dragon Ball as the fans are.....so no.

[Koitsukai]

I don't even think is safe in Toriyama's hands anymore, lol.

I really like Toyo's art, though. His storytelling is all over the place, but I have a hard time thinking that's all on Toyo, I'm not trying get him acquitted but he is not a lone wolf.
He can't even come up with the names of shitty little background characters, so I'll take with a grain of salt the whole "this is a Toyo arc" concept. And we've all witnessed that revisiting old stories to tell new ones isn't a Toyo-only habit.

As of now, I'd be happy to get a decent journey to EoZ, resolve the Black Freeza situation, and some vague post EoZ story with an open ending and let this rest. SDBH can carry on after that with crazy, mindless stories for all I care.

[LightBing]

No.

The main reason isn't is abilities is how little say, I assume, he has in the final product. Toriyama can say to his editors: I won't do X and it will stick. Toyotarõ probably just does what he's told.

If we remove the factor above my answer is likely still for many of the gripes already mentioned on this thread.

At the end of the day it's already difficult to know how much is his contribution or anyone's else(besides art), to make a proper judgement.

[Jord]

No.

The main reason isn't is abilities is how little say, I assume, he has in the final product. Toriyama can say to his editors: I won't do X and it will stick. Toyotarõ probably just does what he's told.

If we remove the factor above my answer is likely still for many of the gripes already mentioned on this thread.

At the end of the day it's already difficult to know how much is his contribution or anyone's else(besides art), to make a proper judgement.

That's the main problem. It's like when something's good, it's due to Toriyama and when it's bad, it's Toyotaro. I would really like to seen an in dept overview of who thought of what.
The only thing we can judge Toyotaro on, is Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission, and that one was received pretty positively.