Torishima's Harsh Take on Akio Iyoku and DB Store

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball is mostly just doing what it did in the 1980s and 1990s: a weekly anime and movies and video games were all tied together to sell various merchandise. Dragon Ball had as much creative ambition as the staff of the animated projects were allowed to have when juggling the production committee's demands and Toriyama's demands and that's true both then and now.

The primary difference post-Toriyama is that there's no defference to a creative lead anymore. Even though, Toriyama was never someone with a ton of creative ambition, so it didn't really feel like there was a big difference. Toriyama had a decidedly limited view of how a story and characters should be crafted and that's always been Dragon Ball's greatest weakness, because for all his talk of hating the more heroic take on Gokuu in the anime, his alternative ultimately never amounted to much because he never wanted to commit to consequences or character conflict.

Creative minds like Nagamine and Ishitani are what Dragon Ball needs to be good, but slaving away in the IP mines under capitalism was far too unfair to either of them, even if they led the best Dragon Ball episodes and film. Iyoku's greatest failure as The Guy in Charge of Dragon Ball will be not realizing that giving a strong creator actual creative control will ultimately just make soulless dreck like Daima.

[FinalForumPodcast]

Dragon Ball is mostly just doing what it did in the 1980s and 1990s: a weekly anime and movies and video games were all tied together to sell various merchandise. Dragon Ball had as much creative ambition as the staff of the animated projects were allowed to have when juggling the production committee's demands and Toriyama's demands and that's true both then and now.

The primary difference post-Toriyama is that there's no defference to a creative lead anymore. Even though, Toriyama was never someone with a ton of creative ambition, so it didn't really feel like there was a big difference. Toriyama had a decidedly limited view of how a story and characters should be crafted and that's always been Dragon Ball's greatest weakness, because for all his talk of hating the more heroic take on Gokuu in the anime, his alternative ultimately never amounted to much because he never wanted to commit to consequences or character conflict.

Creative minds like Nagamine and Ishitani are what Dragon Ball needs to be good, but slaving away in the IP mines under capitalism was far too unfair to either of them, even if they led the best Dragon Ball episodes and film. Iyoku's greatest failure as The Guy in Charge of Dragon Ball will be not realizing that giving a strong creator actual creative control will ultimately just make soulless dreck like Daima.

Pretty much agreed...though I think there's a shift. It's subtle, and hard to really explain, but Dragon Ball hasn't been DRIVEN by the weekly anime/manga in a LONG time. It's been DRIVEN by the merch and tie-ins, and the manga and anime get to exist because of that drive. It's a subtle distinction, but important, and you're absolutely right about Iyoku. Every time I've ever heard him speak (actually, technically I've read the translated words he's said, and not HEARD HIM, explicitly) he talks like a slick producer waving around buzzwords. I hate how before I even read his interview discussing Daima I thought "I bet he just panders to nostalgia, talks about how important fans are, and subtly admits they're going after families, to try to get money from adults and breed new young fans who will give them their money when they become adults," and lo and behold he almost literally said that word for word.

This is just corpo marketing gobbledygook and it's upsetting/disappointing that Dragon Ball has very officially joined the ranks of nostalgia pandering, weaponized fandom that so many other franchises have fallen to. I just hope that whenever things start back up again, they at least allow Toyotarou to finish what he started, and don't just scrap it and move on like the very worst franchises have been doing. Whether I LIKE it or not is whatever, but just hitting the Dump button because algorithmic data says a different avenue will be more profitable will be a true disappointment.

[The Dark Knight]

Dragon Ball has shifted, as most (all?) franchises at this point have.

What's going on with Dragon Ball is by no means exclusive to it; it happens to any franchise that either goes beyond its original intended ending, or is brought back decades later. Modern Star Wars is nothing like the era of the original trilogy, nor is Boruto compared to Naruto. Halo is another franchise that has fallen off a cliff since its Bungie moved on. Just about any franchise you can think of has taken a nose dive following the conclusion of its original run. This is why I prefer when companies allow something to just be what it is and move on. Dragon Ball as a story did not need GT, Super, Daima, and whatever else they have planned; it was perfect the way it was.

It's not about creating a story first and then building a marketing machine around it with merch and tie-ins. It's about creating all that merch and all those tie-ins and a vast transmedia empire and maximizing profitability and using the story piece as a (flimsy) excuse to keep it all going and retain legal power over the intellectual property.

I don't think anyone can describe the difference between the two Dragon Ball eras better than this; bravo my friend.

That almost entirely negative aspect aside, there's still a lot that I like. It's okay to allow yourself to enjoy things.

This is why I'm frustrated with modern Dragon Ball, because there's so much potential buried under all its mediocrity. They keep introducing these great concepts that go absolutely nowhere.

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball is mostly just doing what it did in the 1980s and 1990s: a weekly anime and movies and video games were all tied together to sell various merchandise. Dragon Ball had as much creative ambition as the staff of the animated projects were allowed to have when juggling the production committee's demands and Toriyama's demands and that's true both then and now.

The primary difference post-Toriyama is that there's no defference to a creative lead anymore. Even though, Toriyama was never someone with a ton of creative ambition, so it didn't really feel like there was a big difference. Toriyama had a decidedly limited view of how a story and characters should be crafted and that's always been Dragon Ball's greatest weakness, because for all his talk of hating the more heroic take on Gokuu in the anime, his alternative ultimately never amounted to much because he never wanted to commit to consequences or character conflict.

Creative minds like Nagamine and Ishitani are what Dragon Ball needs to be good, but slaving away in the IP mines under capitalism was far too unfair to either of them, even if they led the best Dragon Ball episodes and film. Iyoku's greatest failure as The Guy in Charge of Dragon Ball will be not realizing that giving a strong creator actual creative control will ultimately just make soulless dreck like Daima.

Pretty much agreed...though I think there's a shift. It's subtle, and hard to really explain, but Dragon Ball hasn't been DRIVEN by the weekly anime/manga in a LONG time. It's been DRIVEN by the merch and tie-ins, and the manga and anime get to exist because of that drive. It's a subtle distinction, but important, and you're absolutely right about Iyoku. Every time I've ever heard him speak (actually, technically I've read the translated words he's said, and not HEARD HIM, explicitly) he talks like a slick producer waving around buzzwords. I hate how before I even read his interview discussing Daima I thought "I bet he just panders to nostalgia, talks about how important fans are, and subtly admits they're going after families, to try to get money from adults and breed new young fans who will give them their money when they become adults," and lo and behold he almost literally said that word for word.

This is just corpo marketing gobbledygook and it's upsetting/disappointing that Dragon Ball has very officially joined the ranks of nostalgia pandering, weaponized fandom that so many other franchises have fallen to. I just hope that whenever things start back up again, they at least allow Toyotarou to finish what he started, and don't just scrap it and move on like the very worst franchises have been doing. Whether I LIKE it or not is whatever, but just hitting the Dump button because algorithmic data says a different avenue will be more profitable will be a true disappointment.

I don't remember which panel it was, but Iyoku Akio did a panel for promoting Daima that was streamed and it was the most scripted thing ever. Which is to say, he absolutely sounds the same, whether in a written interview or on camera lol.

To use an analogy: If creators—writers, directors, animators, musicians, actors, et cetera—are the weird gay goth kids, Iyoku is the conservative, uptight cishet school principal. The best art comes from the former, not the latter.

[Grimlock]

To use an analogy: If creators (...) are gay, Iyoku is (...) cishet. The best art comes from the former, not the latter.

Just so we can understand: what exactly do you mean? Care to elaborate this "analogy"?

[JulieYBM]

To use an analogy: If creators (...) are gay, Iyoku is (...) cishet. The best art comes from the former, not the latter.

Just so we can understand: what exactly do you mean? Care to elaborate this "analogy"?

The former doesn't play by rules, the latter is obsessed with maintaining the status quo.

[SupremeKai25]

Pretty much agreed...though I think there's a shift. It's subtle, and hard to really explain, but Dragon Ball hasn't been DRIVEN by the weekly anime/manga in a LONG time. It's been DRIVEN by the merch and tie-ins, and the manga and anime get to exist because of that drive. It's a subtle distinction, but important, and you're absolutely right about Iyoku. Every time I've ever heard him speak (actually, technically I've read the translated words he's said, and not HEARD HIM, explicitly) he talks like a slick producer waving around buzzwords. I hate how before I even read his interview discussing Daima I thought "I bet he just panders to nostalgia, talks about how important fans are, and subtly admits they're going after families, to try to get money from adults and breed new young fans who will give them their money when they become adults," and lo and behold he almost literally said that word for word.

Broly is the most successful Dragon Ball movie ever and it's not even close. The whole movie is nostalgia pandering in its purest, most childish, and unfiltered form.

Is there any particular reason why the directors wouldn't mandate more nostalgia pandering content? I mean that's clearly what folks want.

For the record, that's not what -I- want. And I have always maintained this:

Future Trunks saga | Tournament of Power saga | Moro saga >>>>>>>>>>> Broly/Super Hero

I firmly believe that Super excels when it's coming up with new storylines and new antagonists instead of rehashing the old stuff. I mean, Freeza actually fighting on the team of the protagonists? Amazing stuff.

Also, I think we should acknowledge that, at the very least, say what you want about Super... the Dragon Ball "Revival" was handled much better than the "revivals" of other franchises.

[FinalForumPodcast]

Broly is the most successful Dragon Ball movie ever and it's not even close.

To be fair, the bar for "most successful Dragon Ball movie" is pretty low and the only REAL contenders are Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Broly and Super Hero. The other movies weren't given ACTUAL theatrical releases.

Is there any particular reason why the directors wouldn't mandate more nostalgia pandering content? I mean that's clearly what folks want.

Sadly pretty true. Terminally online people often think "People don't really want all this nostalgia pandering. Look how many people are sick of it!" but the reality is that internet discourse is not an accurate reflection of wider reception, as much as a lot of people might think otherwise (I fall into this trap myself quite often, admittedly).
The Dragon Ball franchise is not an isolated area of this occurring, either. Look at internet reception to various Star Wars projects vs actual box office takes. Look at the Avatar movies doing gangbusters while the internet rages that "nobody remembers the characters." Look at casual wrestling fans loving WrestleMania for trotting out geriatric old timers for little bump spots vs the internet wrestling community raging about storytelling and match quality.

For the record, that's not what -I- want.

I'm with you there. A little nostalgia pop or callback can be solid when it's warranted, but when it's used IN PLACE of storytelling, I often find myself thinking "I could just be watching the thing that this is constantly reminding me of instead of this thing." The newer Ghostbusters movies are a good example of that. Especially....the one...that had Gozer as the main antagonist again. I remember just being like "This movie wants me to constantly remember the first Ghostbusters. I already do. I should just watch that instead."

Also, I think we should acknowledge that, at the very least, say what you want about Super... the Dragon Ball "Revival" was handled much better than the "revivals" of other franchises.

I'd agree with this too. While the overall Dragon Ball franchise has become an excuse to slop merch, luckily, the people telling the stories (mostly Toyotarou, if we're talking about non-Toriyama storytellers) haven't lost sight of the CORE of Dragon Ball.

I contrast that with the Godzilla franchise (my other favorite franchise) where newer movies function as military propaganda, trivialize the use of WMDs, advocate for the re-armament of Japan, and talk about people being excited to go to war, which is the EXACT OPPOSITE message the original creators were going for (and I actually loved Godzilla Minus One, but it's got some ugly subtext)

[FinalForumPodcast]

To use an analogy: If creators—writers, directors, animators, musicians, actors, et cetera—are the weird gay goth kids, Iyoku is the conservative, uptight cishet school principal. The best art comes from the former, not the latter.

Great analogy. The only tweak I'd make is that Iyoku tries to ACT cool and everyone who's actually cool can see through it immediately.

[The Dark Knight]

A little nostalgia pop or callback can be solid when it's warranted, but when it's used IN PLACE of storytelling, I often find myself thinking "I could just be watching the thing that this is constantly reminding me of instead of this thing."

I second this. If you're going to sell me a copy of something, and a cheap copy at that, then I might as well just watch the superior original instead. Super's Broly movie looked amazing visually, but narrative wise ? I'm better off watching the Bardock Special, Z's first Broly movie, and Fusion Reborn.

Is there any particular reason why the directors wouldn't mandate more nostalgia pandering content? I mean that's clearly what folks want. I firmly believe that Super excels when it's coming up with new storylines and new antagonists instead of rehashing the old stuff.

This is the biggest issue I have with the Dragon Ball fan base: they just want more of the same. "Which classic movie villain should become canon next", "Which other aspects of GT should be modernized", "How should (insert villain name here) be brought back", etc... How about no to all of these ? Why not just go watch the original movies and GT instead if you like them so much ? I may have my issues with Super's original arcs, but I completely agree with you that they're far superior to the nostalgia pandering ones.

[JulieYBM]

To use an analogy: If creators—writers, directors, animators, musicians, actors, et cetera—are the weird gay goth kids, Iyoku is the conservative, uptight cishet school principal. The best art comes from the former, not the latter.

Great analogy. The only tweak I'd make is that Iyoku tries to ACT cool and everyone who's actually cool can see through it immediately.

Oh, for sure! "Power tries to Act Cool" is that Fed shit from that Steve Buscemi meme.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

The primary difference post-Toriyama is that there's no defference to a creative lead anymore. Even though, Toriyama was never someone with a ton of creative ambition, so it didn't really feel like there was a big difference. Toriyama had a decidedly limited view of how a story and characters should be crafted and that's always been Dragon Ball's greatest weakness, because for all his talk of hating the more heroic take on Gokuu in the anime, his alternative ultimately never amounted to much because he never wanted to commit to consequences or character conflict.

I feel like this is the main reason that Gohan got dumped in such an unceremonious manner. Because Gohan is a fundamentally different character to Goku he can't be written in the same way, nor could his conflicts. I think Toriyama didn't like the idea of having to change his writing approach (especially so late into serialization) and went back to his creative comfort zone because it was easier that way.
Also if you read Torishima's book there are several anecdotes from Toriyama that show that he was a very reactive writer. He always wrote Dragon Ball how he felt it had to be to keep being published because his original interest in making an adventure story flopped. He said that he never wanted to write a "fighting manga" and that "there's a difference between liking something and wanting to draw/write it."

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

Torishima and Iyoku should sit down over a cup of tea/coffee and sort their differences like mature men. There's no need for this petty drama and "back in my day" rambling when we have both to thank for a lot of things we love about Dragon Ball old and new.

"Secret society" is a slippery slope that would make me worry about Torishima going down a conspiracy rabbit hole. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

In a better world, there'd be less bizarre tribalism from it. Just earlier I came across a tweet from someone that said you're on Team Torishima if you're a GT fan and Team Iyoku if you're a Daima fan, which made me audibly chuckle because I don't give a damn about any of these people. It's also a stupid generalization.

If this is what a post-Toriyama fandom looks like, I want no part of it.

Needs to be said even if you prefer the post-Torishima stuff it also went in that direction because Torishima told Toriyama to ditch the road story format and go Fist of the North Star. Toriyama also respected Torishima’s opinion enough to drop 19 and 20 as the main villains for 17 and 18 and then the latter for Cell even though Torishima had no editorial authority over Toriyama at that point. Which was absolutely the correct decision to make on Toriyama’s part.

I believe the pressure from Torishima on changing Dragon Ball's format from a road manga to a battle manga happened very early on in the series, essentially forming the impetus for the initial Tenkaichi Budokai arc onward. Toriyama later pushed back on this a little with the Red Ribbon arc, then ultimately relented for good going into the following arc. Source is this interview.

My preference for the post-Piccolo arcs have more to do with their manner of storytelling, to be honest; no doubt because Toriyama had more creative freedom to focus on it. It's impossible for me to judge a hypothetical Androids arc without Cell because I didn't read it. Even with Cell, Toriyama did the bulk of the heavy lifting to build and craft a story around all of that.

Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure Torishima has also criticized that era of the series. The man just does not tend to express favorability towards anything that didn't have his direct involvement, which I guess is natural behavior for a stringent, often boastful editor. Doesn't always make him right.

If I'm remembering right I think he praised the Battle of Gods movie quite a bit (at least privately). There's some sit down between the two men where Toriyama jokes that it was the second time that Torishima ever complimented his work. I think that it's mentioned somewhere in an interview on this site, but I could be misremembering so don't just take my word for it.

[The Dark Knight]

If I'm remembering right I think he praised the Battle of Gods movie quite a bit (at least privately). There's some sit down between the two men where Toriyama jokes that it was the second time that Torishima ever complimented his work. I think that it's mentioned somewhere in an interview on this site, but I could be misremembering so don't just take my word for it.

Believe it or not, it was Resurrection F that he praised, which I assume was due to him being both high and drunk when he read the script...if you could even call it that.

[goku the krump dancer]

If Torishima ever got put on as Toyotaro’s editor he’d probably make the poor guy cry, but he’s definitely the drill sergeant he needs to improve his overall month to month drawing and paneling quality.

Deja Vu though because I definitely feel like I wrote this before. Lol

[The Dark Knight]

If Torishima ever got put on as Toyotaro’s editor he’d probably make the poor guy cry, but he’s definitely the drill sergeant he needs to improve his overall month to month drawing and paneling quality.

You're completely right. I don't think fans realize just how important it is to have a good editor, especially one as strict as Torishima. It was his idea to focus more on combat once the Pilaf arc didn't stick with readers. It was his second editor's idea to introduce a new villain on Namek, who ended up being Freeza. It was his third editor's idea to give Toriyama more breathing room during the Buu arc after how burned out he got from Freeza and Cell. An editor who understands their writer's strengths and weaknesses is just as important as the writer themselves knowing how to write.