Akira Toriyama Designed Super Saiyan 4

While this is a fairly easy and straightforward question to answer — Super Saiyan 4 was designed by Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, not Akira Toriyama — fans are often confused due to some initial Toriyama designs that were indeed produced for Dragon Ball GT, as well as the fact that Toriyama later did provide a drawing of Super Saiyan 4 Goku.

Let’s dig in!

The Initial Dragon Ball GT Designs

Ahead of Dragon Ball GT‘s premiere, two colorful images by Akira Toriyama were shared in the 1995 No. 52 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump. The first shows the gang on Planet Mommath, hiding behind a giant glass bottle as giants curiously check out their ship; Planet Mommath and the giants appear in Dragon Ball GT episode 6. The next picture shows them on the desert planet Kahra; this picture strongly resembles Planet Ruhdeze, seen in Dragon Ball GT episode 15. Finally, Toriyama made a third GT picture for a double-sided calendar included in the 1996 No. 3-4 double issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump, featuring Goku and company beating up a bunch of aliens on a mysterious planet.

Toriyama certainly had additional involvement during the early stages of Dragon Ball GT, providing designs for the main cast and even the series’ logo!

That said, Akira Toriyama’s involvement effectively ended there: actual production duties carried over to proper staff members, including writers and character designers.

The Role of Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru

Following the departure of Studio Junio, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru of Toei Animation officially took over the roles of chief animator and character designer in episode 200 of the Dragon Ball Z television series, both of which had been held up to that point by Minoru Maeda of Studio Junio. Nakatsuru was already a stalwart of the franchise by this point, perhaps most notably serving as the original character designer for Bardock and his crew for the respective 1990 television special.

Following the success and popularity of the Dragon Ball Z series, Toei Animation decided to extend the franchise beyond just the scope of the original manga and immediately began production on its successor, Dragon Ball GT. The main staple of animation studios were retained for the new series’ production with only a few minor changes in staff: Toshiyuki Kan’no was promoted to animation supervisor for Studio Live, Noboru Koizumi was promoted for Doga Kobo, and Tadayoshi Yamamuro left Shindō Production to join Toei Animation. Both K-Production and Doga Kobo were retained as subcontracted studios to supervise the animation of a handful of episodes, while Shindō Production, Studio Cockpit, and Kino Production all left to work on other series. Toei Animation’s Naoki Miyahara was appointed as the series’ Chief Animation Supervisor and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru remained the character designer.

By this point, it should be no shock to hear that Super Saiyan 4 — which doesn’t make an appearance in the series until episode 35 — was designed by Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, a story recounted in his interview for the 2010 art book, The Golden Warrior:

Super Saiyan 4, which appears in the later half of GT, was one of your designs, but I was surprised at how unusual the design was.
There were a lot of varied opinions about that design. It was my idea to make the body red. GT was made as a continuation, and when the producers told me to draw Super Saiyan 4, I went “Ee———-h!?” (strained laughter) Personally, I felt that since they had gone so far as to use stuff like Fusion and merging in the original story, did we really have to continue even further? It was an incredible assignment. Goku’s transformations are an important part of the program, and so I agonized over what would be best to do.

The hairstyle and red fur all over the body are what really makes Super Saiyan 4 stand out.
The thought behind that hairstyle was to take it in a different direction than Super Saiyan 3, and make it wild. I made the fur red because it pretty much just seemed strong; I place a lot of importance on those sorts of impressions. (laughs) Right from the planning stage images, the idea had been to bring together Great Ape Goku and Super Saiyan Goku… “Goku with primal power,” that sort of thing.

So that’s why his entire body is covered in fur. In addition to the final design, were there any rough designs?
There was no design besides the single final draft. It was just that with the colors, and I also made a gold-haired version. However, I thought that black hair looked better, and decided upon that version. The combination of black and red is a more dynamic color scheme.

Alongside the interview, Nakatsuru’s “rough design” for Super Saiyan 4 is showcased, with a note that hardly anything was altered for its final version.

So how does Toriyama factor into this, exactly…?

Akira Toriyama’s Super Saiyan 4 Drawing

For the June 2005 release of the Dragon Ball GT “Dragon Box” DVD set, Akira Toriyama provided a new comment alongside a drawing of Super Saiyan 4 Goku (a comment that is far more often shared for its “grand side-story” verbiage than anything else!):

My sincerest gratitude to all those who bought this Dragon Ball GT DVD box.

Being a lazy bum by nature, I was absurdly happy when I managed to safely finish up Dragon Ball‘s serialization, and finally be released from Deadline Hell. The TV anime people wanted to continue for just a little bit more, but I just couldn’t do any more than that… And so, I left the Dragon Ball anime completely up to the anime staff, story and all. That was Dragon Ball GT.

In car lingo, GT means “Gran Turismo”: a fast, high-powered car, in other words. But in this case, I had GT mean “Grand Touring,” a great journey, since the scenario was that they’d be running around the universe.

For GT, all I did was just come up with the title, design the initial main cast and some of the machines, and also do a few images. However, I was able to rest easy handing things over to the excellent staff, who had continued on Dragon Ball for all this time. In particular, the animator Nakatsuru-kun is amazingly skilled, and mastered the peculiarities of my drawings in no time at all, to the point where there were even times when I couldn’t tell whether I had drawn a certain character design, or if he had. For instance, one of Nakatsuru-kun‘s designs was “Super Saiyan 4,” which appears in GT, and the picture above is a portrait that I drew looking off it. Did I draw it well?

Dragon Ball GT is a grand side-story of the original Dragon Ball, and it’ll make me happy for us to watch and enjoy it together.

That’s all it is: a comment and a drawing, one that even acknowledges the original design by Nakatsuru! At the time in 2005 without things like our larger “Translations” section here at Kanzenshuu, it is easy to see how a quick snapshot could make the rounds and through an international game of telephone have fans arriving at the (false) conclusion that Toriyama himself had designed the form.

Nakatsuru addresses this drawing in the same aforementioned interview from The Golden Warrior:

In the Dragon Ball GT DVD box booklet, Toriyama-sensei drew Super Saiyan 4.
I was deeply moved that sensei would be gracious enough to draw an anime-only character. At the time, there was a party commemorating the completion of the anime, and Toriyama-sensei was kind enough to draw kid Goku from Dragon Ball GT for me on color paper, so I’m quite attached to that Goku as well. I thought to myself “I’m such a happy fan.” (laughs)

Other Possible Sources of Confusion

Beyond this Dragon Box sketch, fans occasionally point to Toriyama’s early design possibilities for Super Saiyan 3 — one of which showcases a tail, as seen in the designs shared in the opening pull-out poster from Daizenshuu 4: “World Guide” — as some sort of definitive inspiration.

Episode 245 of the Dragon Ball Z television series also inserts an imagery-filled representation of Goku’s Super Saiyan 3 transformation that has some eerie, coincidental likenesses to what would show up with Super Saiyan 4, but in all of these cases, they are just that: coincidences, with perhaps a little later-inspiration-sourcing going on among designers.

It is important to note that nothing and no-one has concretely, on-the-record actually stated that these designs or images served as direct inspiration for Nakatsuru and Super Saiyan 4. A screenrant.com article by Francesco Cacciatore from December 2022 — which we will not directly link here, since that would appear to search engines as if we were validating their authority (which, to be clear, they do not have) — makes this leap without anything to actually back it up.

Conclusion

Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru says he designed Super Saiyan 4, and Akira Toriyama says Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru designed Super Saiyan 4.

It would appear that Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru did, in fact, design Super Saiyan 4!