The official Dragon Ball website’s thirty-third entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is the design for the main character of 2016’s Dragon Quest Builders:
The game’s story follows the “bad” ending of the original Dragon Quest, in a ruined world where the concept of “building” has been lost. The hero character is responsible for crafting materials, rebuilding towns, gathering townsfolk, and defeating evil monsters.
The artwork was recently included in the “Akira Toriyama Dragon Quest Illustrations” hardcover book released in 2016.
Dragon Quest Builders was released for the Nintendo Switch today in Japan, making it an appropriate choice for the website’s daily entry. The game initially saw a release on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita in Japan in January 2016. An international release followed later that year in October. The Nintendo Switch port curiously debuted worldwide last month ahead of its Japanese release today. A sequel is due out this year.
As with prior games in the franchise — see previous citations in this series for Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest III, Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest VI, and Dragon Quest Heroes — Toriyama provided a number of character designs for Dragon Quest Heroes.