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

[LoganForkHands73]

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.



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).

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...


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.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

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.

[jjgp1112]

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.

[LoganForkHands73]

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.

[DragonBallFoodie]

Fascinating.

I hope she's doing okay.

[DBZAOTA482]

Never knew she was a manga-ka. Where can I read her work?