Has anyone read the work of Toriyama's wife, Mikami Nachi?

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LoganForkHands73
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Has anyone read the work of Toriyama's wife, Mikami Nachi?

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:02 pm

It fascinates me that Toriyama's wife Mikami Nachi is also a mangaka, yet few people seem to know or talk much about her and her work. I found out about this some time ago but have never been able to find much info on her own shojo manga titles. Since people's interest in her seems to only extend to "oh, I didn't know Toriyama married a fellow mangaka, neat", I hope to take a deeper look into her work and pick the brains of any Kanzen scholars on here who have experienced it themselves.

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Thanks to Derek Padula for doing the digging on some of her work, namely: The Top and Bottom of Rock and Roll in 1977, The Confusing Legend of St. Mephisto in 1985, and Rock and Rollers' Story: The Queen Story. As you can tell, there's an emphasis on rock themed stories, seemingly about the histories of real bands like Queen, which is pretty baller. Judging by these covers, she has a really neat art style! However, I can't find much more about them than that (googling the Mephisto story expectedly tends to only bring up the Marvel Comics dickhead who ruined Spider-Man's marriage, and quotations don't help much either). :problem:

Nachi gave up her mangaka career after marrying Toriyama in order to support her husband. Perhaps her most famous contribution to her husband's Dragon Ball series is coming up with the name of the Kamehameha, in reference to the Hawaiian king... *deep breath* Kalani Paiʻea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiʻikui Kamehameha o ʻIolani i Kaiwikapu kauʻi Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea I. I'm not sure if there's any documentation about whether she contributed anything in particular to Dr. Slump, though it's more than likely considering she married Akira in the middle of that comic's run. I'm slightly more interested in learning about her own independent work than her contributions to her husband's in this case, though any contributions would be greatly appreciated!

Oh yeah, one more thing...
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Seeing as the mythical Kanzenshuu Wiki will supposedly have a huge range of articles on stuff very tangentially related to Dragon Ball, how much will be dedicated to Nachi? Thanks.

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Re: Has anyone read the work of Toriyama's wife, Mikami Nachi?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:15 pm

Given that at the time her and Toriyama were married, Dr. Slump had already been in serialization in Jump for two years at that point and it ran for another two years (ended in September 1984, Dragon Ball started a couple months later in late November/early December) i wouldn't be surprised if she had contributed to it in some form even though there hasn't been official documentation on that so far. It would be interesting to learn whether Nachi did have any ideas or something that he used later at some point.

It's interesting to hear that the Kamehameha's name (based off said king's name) came from her, given it's the signature beam attack of the series.
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Re: Has anyone read the work of Toriyama's wife, Mikami Nachi?

Post by jjgp1112 » Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:11 pm

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:15 pm Given that at the time her and Toriyama were married, Dr. Slump had already been in serialization in Jump for two years at that point and it ran for another two years (ended in September 1984, Dragon Ball started a couple months later in late November/early December) i wouldn't be surprised if she had contributed to it in some form even though there hasn't been official documentation on that so far. It would be interesting to learn whether Nachi did have any ideas or something that he used later at some point.

It's interesting to hear that the Kamehameha's name (based off said king's name) came from her, given it's the signature beam attack of the series.
He said she used to draw all of the backgrounds in Dr. Slump before he hired an assistant for it. It's from a blurb in one of the last couple of Dr. Slump volumes where he broke down his drawing process.
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Re: Has anyone read the work of Toriyama's wife, Mikami Nachi?

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:13 pm

jjgp1112 wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:11 pm
He said she used to draw all of the backgrounds in Dr. Slump before he hired an assistant for it. It's from a blurb in one of the last couple of Dr. Slump volumes where he broke down his drawing process.
Oh yeah, I think I remember reading that somewhere now that you mention it.

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Re: Has anyone read the work of Toriyama's wife, Mikami Nachi?

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Thu Jul 29, 2021 1:04 pm

Fascinating.

I hope she's doing okay.
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Re: Has anyone read the work of Toriyama's wife, Mikami Nachi?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:53 pm

Never knew she was a manga-ka. Where can I read her work?
fadeddreams5 wrote:
DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:31 am I'm just about done with the concept of reboots and making shows that were products of their time and impactful "new and sexy" and in line with modern tastes and sensibilities. Let stuff stay in their era and give today's kids their own shit to watch.

I always side eye the people who say "Now my kids/today's kids can experience what I did as a child!" Nigga, who gives a fuck about your childhood? You're an adult now and it was at least 15 years ago. Let the kids have their own experience instead of picking at a corpse.

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