Is there a double standard regarding plagiarism in the Franchise

[YMK_8000]

Why is it that when it was found that Kenji Yamamoto plagiarized a good majority of his soundtracks he was swiftly dismissed and cast into the abyss never to be heard from again. Yet, Trace *cough cough* I mean Toyotaro still walks amongst us when it’s been proven he copied exact poses for Goku from certain Marvel comics more specifically Captain America, panels from the OG manga and I’d go as far to say verbatim plot points, techniques, and character beats from Naruto (Sasuke, Granola?) especially in the last dreadful arc.

[JulieYBM]

Why do the Shueisha and Toei Animation executives still walk among us when they steal their employees money, provide inhumane production schedules and create inhospital workplace environments?

Because the system isn't about what's right, it's about what makes the powerful the most money with the least trouble.

[Hellspawn28]

The whole thing with Captain America was dumb since the body movement look a bit different. Even my art teacher felt like it wasn't 100% the same. Body moment is tricky considering that we all move and walk pretty similarity.

[YMK_8000]

The whole thing with Captain America was dumb since the body movement look a bit different. Even my art teacher felt like it wasn't 100% the same. Body moment is tricky considering that we all move and walk pretty similarity.

It wasn’t just captain america. The punch Goku did on Jiren copied the one Goku did against Piccolo in the 23 TB. When gas pulled out that wrecking ball weapon it’s the same composition when TenTen from Naruto pulled out her spike mace weapon.Like how are you a mangaka & you don’t have any cool original compositions that came from you and you alone.

I understand artists take inspiration but he doesn’t even try and make it his own like if you’ve seen it you can recognize what series he traced it from.

[YMK_8000]

Why do the Shueisha and Toei Animation executives still walk among us when they steal their employees money, provide inhumane production schedules and create inhospital workplace environments?

Because the system isn't about what's right, it's about what makes the powerful the most money with the least trouble.

Yeah those two definitely aren’t without fault either

We can say that it happens in Dragonball however I’m unsure if that happens to other series in regards to the inhumane production schedules etc when damn near every anime nowadays look movie quality. If the schedules are still inhumane why do a majority of anime look better now than in say they did in 2016?

[Xeogran]

Why is it that when it was found that Kenji Yamamoto plagiarized a good majority of his soundtracks he was swiftly dismissed and cast into the abyss never to be heard from again. Yet, Trace *cough cough* I mean Toyotaro still walks amongst us

I think Yamamoto was relatively safe when he only plagiarized stuff from like 80s or 90s, many of these band members were too old by then to care about that. It's only when he started taking music from new movies/albums is when he was fired because his companies could have been sued for millions by experienced lawyers.

Same with Toyo. If he's basing panels off original DB manga it's "fair game" (though still unprofessional), because Toriyama is next to him and doesn't even care. But if he's doing this with known properties like the Captain America incident, is when he was the most endangered.

[YMK_8000]

Why is it that when it was found that Kenji Yamamoto plagiarized a good majority of his soundtracks he was swiftly dismissed and cast into the abyss never to be heard from again. Yet, Trace *cough cough* I mean Toyotaro still walks amongst us

I think Yamamoto was relatively safe when he only plagiarized stuff from like 80s or 90s, many of these band members were too old by then to care about that. It's only when he started taking music from new movies/albums is when he was fired because his companies could have been sued for millions by experienced lawyers.

Same with Toyo. If he's basing panels off original DB manga it's "fair game" (though still unprofessional), because Toriyama is next to him and doesn't even care. But if he's doing this with known properties like the Captain America incident, is when he was the most endangered.

Which I’m surprised he came out that ordeal mostly unscathed Marvel doesn’t play around with stuff like that.

[JulieYBM]

Why do the Shueisha and Toei Animation executives still walk among us when they steal their employees money, provide inhumane production schedules and create inhospital workplace environments?

Because the system isn't about what's right, it's about what makes the powerful the most money with the least trouble.

Yeah those two definitely aren’t without fault either

We can say that it happens in Dragonball however I’m unsure if that happens to other series in regards to the inhumane production schedules etc when damn near every anime nowadays look movie quality. If the schedules are still inhumane why do a majority of anime look better now than in say they did in 2016?

Schedules are bad because episodes are being worked on the day of broadcast. Staff lists are out of control. People in the industry are outright saying that they are in hell.

You can squeeze out a decently animated episode even on bad schedules, just not forever. Something will give on a production or somewhere in the industry.

[Cipher]

Toyotaro wasn’t let go for tracing the V-Jump cover (and yes, it was traced, with elements slightly rotated here and there; there’s been enough 1:1 comparison to put that to bed) because it wasn’t a liability in the same way Yamamoto’s catalogue was, and it’s as simple as that. Obviously both are wrong.

The other things people are pointing out here—references to DB panels, action compositions that may be inspired by other works—aren’t in the same category, and you can spot the latter in any number of canonical Jump series.

[Aizamasu]

While I think the Captain America thing was pretty bad, I also think Toyotaro learned from it since I don’t think there has been a traced panel/scene in the DBS manga for a long time. It’s been so long since I read Naruto so I can’t comment on whether that was traced or not but Goku punching Jiren isn’t identical to Goku punching Piccolo so I don’t think it was traced. Toyotaro took inspiration from that scene (which is something he does a lot) but I wouldn’t call taking inspiration and tracing the same thing. Because a lot of the time I see people blame Toyotaro of tracing, it’s simply drawing a panel that is similar to an existing panel but also clearly different.

[YMK_8000]

While I think the Captain America thing was pretty bad, I also think Toyotaro learned from it since I don’t think there has been a traced panel/scene in the DBS manga for a long time. It’s been so long since I read Naruto so I can’t comment on whether that was traced or not but Goku punching Jiren isn’t identical to Goku punching Piccolo so I don’t think it was traced. Toyotaro took inspiration from that scene (which is something he does a lot) but I wouldn’t call taking inspiration and tracing the same thing. Because a lot of the time I see people blame Toyotaro of tracing, it’s simply drawing a panel that is similar to an existing panel but also clearly different.

Still it’s kind of like if you did it once and didn’t come clean about it then ppl will call into question your work everytime cause how can we be sure that it’s 100% from you. There has been tracing in the last arc also
Maybe not from manga but that whole stupid flying train fight scene from the last arc was straight from Spider-Man NWH.

[Cipher]

Still it’s kind of like if you did it once and didn’t come clean about it then ppl will call into question your work everytime cause how can we be sure that it’s 100% from you. There has been tracing in the last arc also
Maybe not from manga but that whole stupid flying train fight scene from the last arc was straight from Spider-Man NWH.

I suspect there was no statement made on it because of a higher-up decision about it being a liability. I don't know, but nothing like that is being decided on without some editorial+ level decision.

Where was this tracing in the last arc? Is this another case of spotting a similar sequence to something else and declaring it traced? Can we be more careful with wording?

Re: Trains: Aside from an action setpiece involving flying trains as a concept, the two scenes bear nothing in common.

[Magnificent Ponta]

With regard to the 'copying original Dragon Ball' part of this topic specifically:

I've always found it amusing (in the most bizarre way) when people levy the allegation of Toyotarou copying panels from original Dragon Ball like they're blowing the lid off some dark professional secret that decisively exposes him as a plagiarising hack or something, when the man has gone on record basically from the beginning of this series, saying he tries to imitate the style and feel of Toriyama's original as closely as possible, and that he deliberately tries to resemble Toriyama's style overall when using his characters in his work generally, right down to using the same poses from the original at times to convey similar characterisation, etc. And this is to be expected, as he's carrying on one of the all-time greats of the medium with new content. It would be stranger if he didn't make obvious artistic style and content references to the original.

But the idea that Toyotarou makes consistent close artistic reference to Dragon Ball in his work as both homage and general stylistic decision is something we know principally from him since at least as far back as when he was doing fan-work as "Toyble", not from intrepid fan journalists comparing panels all day long, or whatever. His own self-portrait clearly has him drawing Victory Mission by closely referencing from a stack of original Dragon Ball tankobon (and in the back of Super Volume 1, what he's drawing is changed to Goku's SSj transformation against Frost, from the Universe 6 arc):



I mean, really. When it comes to Dragon Ball, how much more open about his reference-based approach do you want the man to be?

In any case, character designs aside (which still trade quite strongly on Toriyama's artistic currency, for reasons that ought to be obvious), I've personally noticed much fewer significant close artistic references to Dragon Ball, let alone anything that could reasonably be called an instance of "tracing", in Toyotarou's work on Dragon ball Super in recent years - they seem to have been more in evidence when he was a less experienced artist (go figure) and when the arcs he was dealing with had more obvious, thoroughgoing connections to previous Dragon Ball material (thus providing more obvious scope for homages and reference detailing). Often, I find that continued allegations of copying stem from this less confident and experienced period when a lot of people already made up their minds on what they thought about Toyotarou's work more generally, and are still clinging to that idea because they want to bash him (this topic being a case in point). Newer attempts to demonstrate "tracing" tend to be reaching, and are really just brought up to re-validate entrenched opinions; that is, they tend to be made in bad faith, and are generally unconvincing.

The most recent close reference in the Super manga I detected that I can recall was in Chapter 80, where Bardock's final blast pose against Gas is basically the same as SSj Goku's final blast pose against Freeza, but that is a pretty obvious homage (and for very specific reasons particular to Toyotarou's own work) rather than "plagiarism"; and again, things like that are only to be expected from a successor series that in part trades on its connection to its classic predecessor while providing new content.

[JulieYBM]

I would definitely describe Toyo-Tarou as being a shitty artist and comic creator but I also don't think that it is a big deal considering the shitty workplace environment that his employer thrusts upon him is inhumane. You're going to make bad decisions when you work constant 8-16 hour work days for years on end.

[MasenkoHA]

Because there's a big difference between emulating and referencing other works through poses and copying music and passing it off as your own.

[YMK_8000]

I would definitely describe Toyo-Tarou as being a shitty artist and comic creator but I also don't think that it is a big deal considering the shitty workplace environment that his employer thrusts upon him is inhumane. You're going to make bad decisions when you work constant 8-16 hour work days for years on end.

I gotta pushback on that a great majority of manga artists work the same if not worse conditions/schedules & come up with fantastic character design/techniques/etc than Toyotaro has ever dreamt of. It’s not the schedule the dude has zero imagination or creativity.

I mean if someone said here you can write whatever you want based on this universe where you can time travel, hop different dimensions, has aliens, wizards,robots,androids,beast people,demons and gods that can throw energy blasts, do Kung fu, etc How does he still have an extremely difficult time with such a world that isn’t too restrictive on what’s possible.

[JulieYBM]

I would definitely describe Toyo-Tarou as being a shitty artist and comic creator but I also don't think that it is a big deal considering the shitty workplace environment that his employer thrusts upon him is inhumane. You're going to make bad decisions when you work constant 8-16 hour work days for years on end.

I gotta pushback on that a great majority of manga artists work the same if not worse conditions/schedules & come up with fantastic character design/techniques/etc than Toyotaro has ever dreamt of. It’s not the schedule the dude has zero imagination or creativity.

1. Creating good work under inhumane conditions still means those artists are getting fucked (and not in the fun way) by their employers.
2. Far more artists cannot work under those inhumane conditions.
3. All workers—even shitty artists like Toyo-tarou—deserve good work conditions and to not fucking traumatize their bodies working in bad conditions.

[YMK_8000]

I would definitely describe Toyo-Tarou as being a shitty artist and comic creator but I also don't think that it is a big deal considering the shitty workplace environment that his employer thrusts upon him is inhumane. You're going to make bad decisions when you work constant 8-16 hour work days for years on end.

I gotta pushback on that a great majority of manga artists work the same if not worse conditions/schedules & come up with fantastic character design/techniques/etc than Toyotaro has ever dreamt of. It’s not the schedule the dude has zero imagination or creativity.

1. Creating good work under inhumane conditions still means those artists are getting fucked (and not in the fun way) by their employers.
2. Far more artists cannot work under those inhumane conditions.
3. All workers—even shitty artists like Toyo-tarou—deserve good work conditions and to not fucking traumatize their bodies working in bad conditions.

In the case of Toyo he has a LONG history of awful work there is not one example of something good he has done with Dragonball. Even when he was on his own spare time DBAF was awful. His writing and style in Super has not changed at all since then it’s exactly the same. Whether he has an entire month for a chapter or 6 months. Better conditions or more time won’t give Toyo the imagination and writing skills he inherently lacks to make a good Dragonball story is all I’m saying.

[dbgtFO]

Why is it that when it was found that Kenji Yamamoto plagiarized a good majority of his soundtracks he was swiftly dismissed and cast into the abyss never to be heard from again. Yet, Trace *cough cough* I mean Toyotaro still walks amongst us

I think Yamamoto was relatively safe when he only plagiarized stuff from like 80s or 90s, many of these band members were too old by then to care about that. It's only when he started taking music from new movies/albums is when he was fired because his companies could have been sued for millions by experienced lawyers.

Still Yamamoto's "inspirations" were relatively contemporary weren't they? Battle point unlimited plagiarized tracks that was less than 10 years old by the time that Trunks episode aired.

And his inspirations for the soundtrack to the first budokai game were also not that old either, also less than 10 years(Stratovarius' Infinite album came out 2 years before the first Budokai, which plagiarized from that album among others).

He did draw inspiration for older tracks with Budokai 2 and 3, but also plagiarized from much newer tracks, so it was a mix.
I think the whole Kai fiasco was because the ones he were plagiarizing from were not obscure, relatively small-time artists, but big budget Hollywood soundtracks with lots of financial might.

[pixie_misa]

I would definitely describe Toyo-Tarou as being a shitty artist and comic creator but I also don't think that it is a big deal considering the shitty workplace environment that his employer thrusts upon him is inhumane. You're going to make bad decisions when you work constant 8-16 hour work days for years on end.

I gotta pushback on that a great majority of manga artists work the same if not worse conditions/schedules & come up with fantastic character design/techniques/etc than Toyotaro has ever dreamt of. It’s not the schedule the dude has zero imagination or creativity.

1. Creating good work under inhumane conditions still means those artists are getting fucked (and not in the fun way) by their employers.
2. Far more artists cannot work under those inhumane conditions.
3. All workers—even shitty artists like Toyo-tarou—deserve good work conditions and to not fucking traumatize their bodies working in bad conditions.

You going out of your way to constantly describe Toyotaro as a "shitty artist" repeatedly, contrasted with this whole pro-worker message is quite some whiplash

"He sucks, but only because the working conditions he's under are bad, but also even then it's on him because he sucks. What a shitty artist, he should have an easier schedule."