Akira Toriyama might actually be a genius when it comes to character design and the craft of comics in general. He has an incredible eye for what will flow on the page, in terms of both humor and action. Most artists are lucky enough to master the execution of one or the other, and are lucky again if they can manage to weave a compelling narrative on top of that. Editor interviews have testified over the years to what a refreshing philosophy he brought to the largely static approach to illustration that plagued JUMP at the time (further honed under the critique of Torishima).
We make fun of him for being lazy, but his talents are enormous.
More than that, though, you can tell that even at his most burnt out with the process of writing and drawing a weekly series (which let's not forget takes an unfathomable amount of creative and physical effort), he's always out for his own amusement. That sort of enthusiasm is infectious.
From a writing standpoint, it always strikes me how, despite working within completely whimsical worlds and focusing on comedy and action genres that could easily obfuscate character-writing or narrative momentum, Toriyama always manages to find compelling arcs and treat his casts sincerely. It's common to see fans praise
Dragon Ball's choice to age its characters realistically, but beyond that, even at its silliest, it never treats them as anything less than real people with their own motivations. No one is reduced to a joke or a stereotype. Not even Oolong or Kame-Sennin. Not even in
Dr. Slump, a full-on wacky gag manga.* The humor very rarely targets characters as the butt of jokes, except when they're set up for a moral pratfall, coming instead from the interactions between them and breakneck pace of absurd dialogue exchanges. The dialogue and relatively dry humor are other elements of Toriyama's writing often overlooked, partially because they're almost invisible compared to his more overt visual jokes.
VegettoEX has written (spoken?) a few times about how much he loves a one-panel dialogue gag in
Jaco -- "I know what you are. You're a girl and that's a dog." -- and that's very emblematic of Toriyama's approach to humor and character-writing. It's funny. It's authentic. It's funny because it's authentic.
But yeah. Toriyama is one of my favorite comic creators of all time. I think he's fantastic. My favorite one-shot is "Pink," for what it's worth, which is about as pure an injection of Toriyama's sensibilities -- the cute, the well-characterized, the idiosyncratic mix of genre inspirations, the action and the humor -- as you're likely to find in the span of forty pages.
*Coincidentally, for anyone wondering, this is why I hated Super's baseball episode and argued vehemently for it being off the mark from Toriyama's sense of humor.
Bryesque wrote:I wouldn't call him lazy or remotely talentless... The guy is a massively talented serial storyteller, and his action scenes in particular are stunning, extremely kinetic and easy to follow. That takes a lot of skill.
Absolutely. It's almost unfathomable that, coming from a background in pure comedy, he managed to more or less develop an entirely new visual language for fast-paced action -- one whose influence is felt three decades later -- and did it all while plotting, scripting and drawing a weekly series, designing iconic characters, and providing ancillary art for other projects. Sometimes he was drawing two manga at once.
And as much as
Dragon Ball was an editorially mandated gambit coming off
Dr. Slump's success and Toriyama's interest in martial arts media, he absolutely fought for what was right for the series, including the abilities to age Goku up and shift into a more angular style befitting his evolving visual language for action. There's a real verve to it.
emperior wrote:I just want to say I love his recent designs for Dragon Ball Super and I also like his current art style.
I like his current art style too. I wish
Super looked anything like it.
