Izanagi wrote: Fri May 08, 2026 9:44 pm
I didn't take any photos as it's often restricted or discouraged. But I have a summary of what Torishima said throughout the interview. He has some interesting, refreshingly blunt takes about the current state of the industry and doesn't mince words.
- He was strongly against making Goku an adult. He was seriously worried it would kill DB's sales.
- He hated how Toei handled the Piccolo Daimao fight. The team was the same one from Dr. Slump who are great at comedy but sucks at fight scenes. This was one of the low points.
- Because of that mess, they decided to rebrand the franchise with Dragon Ball Z and bring in a new team.
- The team who worked on Z is the same one that worked on Saint Seiya.
- Torishima considers these two moments the toughest in Dragon Ball's entire history.
- The actual reason it's called Z is because Toriyama thought Z was the last letter of the alphabet, so nothing more would come out after it.
- When DB ended, the manga industry crashed down. According to him, GT was made because otherwise half the industry would lose their jobs.
- Battle of Gods came out due to a promise Torishima made to his dying best friend: "If I somehow survive, let's make a Dragon Ball movie."
- Torishima thought the first draft of Battle of Gods sucked. So Toei asked Toriyama, who wrote the current version of the movie.
- On the subject of Dragon Ball Daima, Torishima made it no secret to express his disdain and said: "Daima is shit. Everyone at Toei hates me. Daima betrays Dragon Ball; it's slow, stupid and the first episode is useless. I have no idea how it was approved in the first place."
- Torishima thinks old manga are much better than modern manga.
- Torishima says today's manga suck because they rarely take the actual print into account. They don't take into consideration the two pages of a spread and he blames smartphones for it.
- Torishima also criticized modern manga heavily. He says most current series are overloaded with narration and explanations. A proper manga page should be readable in just 3 seconds, echoing the philosophy of the Father of Manga, Osamu Tezuka.
- According to Torishima, Weekly Shonen Jump (and manga in general) became much wordier as the readership aged. Mangaka began writing for adults instead of kids, changing the whole style.
- He thinks One Piece sucks because it's no longer really a manga for kids due to that.
- He thinks One Piece became famous thanks to Luffy being an extremely relatable protagonist.
- He claims Oda was smart in introducing even more relatable protagonists, and singled out Zoro, Nami and Usopp for being amazing characters. Especially Usopp for being the most normal.
- He calls Oda a massive comic/manga nerd with a genuine passion for the medium.
- He doesn't consider being a huge manga fan a good trait.
- He says the big difference between OP and DB is that Oda is too in love with manga and his own story, while Toriyama hated drawing manga.
- According to Torishima, Toriyama hated manga, so he made them as synthetized as possible. But that's exactly why Dragon Ball became such a masterpiece: anyone can read it easily. One Piece, on the other hand, is too heavy and unapproachable to kids.
- Torishima doesn't think there's a single good manga today.
- He called Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer and especially Chainsaw Man crap.
- He also dislikes Blue Lock.
- He thinks Hirayasumi is the only modern manga worth reading and considers Touch one of the best manga ever made
- Torishima complimented the interviewer for talking about the kishotenketsu story structure.
- He thought Naruto was very good at the start. He wanted Masashi Kishimoto to kill off Sasuke and keep Kakashi dead.
- He thinks Pain was the last good Naruto arc.
- Torishima thinks modern manga has two problems: 1.) Manga is written by adults for adults, making them too wordy and unappealing to kids. 2.) Manga is too expensive for kids.
- He says this cycle must stop because if kids aren't reading today, there won't be mangaka tomorrow.
- Torishima thinks only Japanese people can make manga.
- He specifically laughed at Kodansha's worldwide manga contest.
- Torishima told the interviewer about a "secret announcement" that he can't disclose yet.
- Finally, when Toriyama died, Torishima felt the need to come out of retirement and tell the world about his late friend and Dragon Ball. This is why he started going to conventions more often.
You can find the original thread on my Twitter.
https://twitter.com/XMathemagicianX/sta ... 6143386716
