Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga: DragonBall

[Herms]

Over on Anime News Network, Jason Thompson has an article listing 5 reasons DB is great, and just going over the series in general. Thompson used to be one of the main editors at Viz, and worked on Viz's DB/Z in its comic book and early GN stage, but he left Viz shortly after the launch of Viz's Shonen Jump in order to write and draw his own comic series. Strangely, Thompson never mentions his connection to Viz and its DB/Z release in the article.

It's a pretty good article on the whole. Some things I noticed though:

The article never flat-out explains that the entire run of the manga was originally just "DragonBall", and that in Japan 'Z' is an anime-only marker. The closest he gets is mentioning how Toriyama came up with the 'Z' name for the later part of the anime. But elsewhere he says stuff like "by the time the series became DragonBall Z" or refers to Viz translating the DB and DBZ manga, without any clarification that this is merely how Viz divided up the manga.

Thompson says Dr. Slump is Toriyama's personal favorites out of all the ones he's done. I'm not sure where he says this.

Apparently Fist of the North Star editor Nobuhiko Horie has taken credit for getting Toriyama to do a battle manga. As Thompson notes, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense (Horie wasn't even Toriyama's editor).

Thompson refers to "Her'cule/Mr. Satan" without any further explanation, but calls Boo "Majin Boo" was than "Djinn Boo".

Thompson uses the phrase "Ultra Super Saiyan" to refer to Trunks' beefy form.

He refers to "an interview in the old kanzenban art books". He probably means the daizenshuu (there are no Toriyama interviews in the kanzenban release of the manga, for the record). He also says that Toriyama claimed to have made the Super Saiyans' hair light because he forgot to black them in. This sounds like a mangling of how Toriyama has said (in the SEG: Story Volume for instance) that he left their hair purposefully light because it was easier than having to black it in.

Oh boy...Thompson says that "Apparently Toriyama wanted to end the story after the Freeza arc, and probably at other times as well, but his editors forced him to keep going because the series was so successful". OK, so that's not as bad as it could be; as I've gone over before, the basic kernel of Toriyama continuing the series long past what he originally intended due to it popularity is true. But the emphasis on the Freeza arc as an ending is unwarranted and misleading: Toriyama has said he originally planned to end it after the first search for the dragonballs, then after 10 volumes, then 13, and was wanting it to end soon right when the 'Z' portion began. Him wanting to end it with Freeza too is speculation, but as usually happens, the speculation is treated as fact and the actual confirmed times he originally wanted to end it are ignored.

Thompson says Toriyama hired more assistants as the series went on, but he actually only had one, Matsuyama, who assisted him from the later portion of Dr. Slump throughout all of DB.

[penguintruth]

I noticed some of those mistakes, too, but it's otherwise a pretty decent article.

[CODii]

Still making my way through the article. Had to stop and write something before continuing. What the heck is he talking about when he says that DragonBall was like an 8-bit video game?

[Chuquita]

The inaccuracies made me cringe a little bit, but it wasn't that bad an article overall. It was alright.

[SonGokuGT]

I liked it a lot, inconsistencies aside.

[CODii]

The inaccuracies made me cringe a little bit, but it wasn't that bad an article overall. It was alright.

"Alright" is a pretty good word. One thing I noticed is that he is all over the place in this article. He'll be saying one thing, then all of the sudden he'll be talking about an entirely different thing only to drop that topi and return to the first. (Case in point his comment about SSJs looking Caucasian.) The ending was also kind of baffling. How do you go from saying why DragonBall is great, to bashing Hollywood and the comic book industry?
Oh well, at least it was nice to see someone profess their love for the series.

[Michsi]

I've actually wondered if he would do an article about DB.

The only thing that bothered me had nothing to do oppinion on the manga or inaccuricies but a statement that caught my eye :

Torishima is sometimes credited with being the driving force behind Dragon Ball. On the other hand, at a press conference for the American Raijin Comics re-release of Fist in 2002, Horie claimed that he was really the one behind the success of Dragon Ball.

I always suspected that Toriyama's ediors played an important role in making Dragon Ball what it is today (asking him to continue the story not included ) - I'm pretty sure had Toriyama done everything 100% DB would have a stayed Dr. Slump-ish like gag-manga. I doubt if would've made it as an international (or even japan wide) phenomen in that case.- but never to this extent.

I actually planned on making a thread regarding the editor/artist relationship for DB and how it influenced the story. Sometimes I got the impression that Toriyama just let himself be led by whatever his editors decided, kinda confirming the rumour that AT himself wasn't that invested in DB. But then I read in an interview that the only time DB was in danger of being cancelled was when Toriyama threatend to end it if they didn't let him have Goku grow up into an adult. This made me feel like he really cared about what HE wanted to do with his story,

[Ahiru77]

I read this article.
It's really nice. Sometimes he does throw a little "opinion" here and there, but in general it's a good article.

I give all the credit for Dragon Ball to Toriyama. (the editors can go ride a bike.)

I'm really glad he used Ultra Super Saiyan, cause the other is just really unfortunate wording. Something the jokers wouldn't overlook.

[SonGokuGT]

I read this article.
It's really nice. Sometimes he does throw a little "opinion" here and there, but in general it's a good article.

I give all the credit for Dragon Ball to Toriyama. (the editors can go ride a bike.)

I'm really glad he used Ultra Super Saiyan, cause the other is just really unfortunate wording. Something the jokers wouldn't overlook.

Well, editors do tend to steer the ship a lot of the time to follow reader surveys. That's one of the reasons I've started to not like Jump so much, it's become formulaic for the most part and only care about the readership rather than the author's artistic freedom. Oh well, it's a business after all...

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

If the guy can get why Dragonball is good spot-on and clearly has a lot of background knowledge, I can let information slip-ups pass.

[Piccolo Daimao]

If the guy can get why Dragonball is good spot-on and clearly has a lot of background knowledge, I can let information slip-ups pass.

Agreed. He explained why Dragon Ball's great well.

[MCDaveG]

Great review, but it's a pitty from guy writing articles to have information from non-realible source.
It kinda pisses me off more on ''All manga sites'' where there are people not familiar with the franchise and lot of fans are spreading bullshit info on message boards
and video commentaries like: Did you know..... that SSJ design came from Toriyama forgetting coloring hair of Goku??

[NeoKING]

Ironically I caught this last night and read it. What really made me relieved was that it wasn't one of those editorials where the writer just talks about how Dragon Ball is "overrated" and went on about how it's just "baby stuff" compared to "real masterpieces" like Code Geass or something.

[Hellspawn28]

I noticed some of those mistakes, too, but it's otherwise a pretty decent article.

Yeah I was going to say the same. He seems like a awesome guy though.

[The Time Traveller]

Has anyone contacted him about his mistakes?

[penguintruth]

I pointed out a few mistakes in the Talkback thread for it.

[Mewzard]

This actually isn't my first time reading one of his 1000 Manga articles (my third). Upon looking back at the first one I did read, I found it rather interesting:

"I could spend years writing about Saint Seiya, but it would be pointless. A better way to spend that time is reading it. There are other shonen fighting manga which are more sophisticated, smarter, better drawn, but there might be no shonen fighting manga that's more sincere. Saint Seiya is a manufactured hit, but it's perfect at being what it is. Artists like Akira Toriyama and Yoshihiro Togashi had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing fighting manga, when all they really wanted to produce were gag manga (and in Togashi's case, horror manga), but Masami Kurumada loves the fighting and friendship, the tears and blood-splatters and screentone, with all his heart."

In some sense, I agree. Toriyama always loved the gags, even when his manga got serious. He was still a gag manga guy at heart, but Kurumada spent 36 years doing all sorts of different battle-focused manga for a reason. Good on Toriyama to try something new to him (at the time), because I loved the result. Though, I do dislike the writer's popshot on SS's art, after his tirade on the importance of artists in the DB review (he's one of my favorite artists, along with Toriyama).

Also:

"When I was working at Viz and tried to hook up a crossover between Dragon Ball and Superman (don't ask), DC was sort of interested, but Shueisha replied "You can't have Dragon Ball unless Akira Toriyama draws it." "

But, Toriyama didn't draw Dragon Ball SD or the tie-in comic to the Special, did he? Hypocrites, taking away my joy... Tatsunoko vs Capcom didn't have the original artists on their works, nor did Marvel vs Capcom in their game. For comic companies a lot of creators just aren't around anymore. His personal attacks due to differing business practices pissed me off because it really ignored, even with the crappy practices of the past, that there were many fantastic creators in American Comics (like Jack Kirby writing, penciling, and editing Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, The Forever People, the New Gods, and Mister Miracle all at once to create his own little pocket of the DCU, which was beautifully written and drawn).

But my rants about the other portions are now behind me. Now to the meat of things:

The reasons he lists in his article are all right. The art is fantastic and really draws the eye. I like the more gritty art of Fist of the North Star, don't get me wrong, but Toriyama's art has it's own style that I've always enjoyed. It can emphasize comedy one moment, and violent action the next, and not feel too out of place. And he's write about all those little things fans latch onto. Whether it's character traits, little bits of history, interesting ways they train, etc.

And the world, who can't love the world of Dragon Ball. Yes, it's A Earth, but the shape of things is different, and we have some people living in primative, past ways while others live in super advanced, capsule having cultures. Dinosaurs still exists, and so do werewolfs, mummies, humanoid animals, and more. And while the universe sounds somewhat similar to our own, the whole afterlife set up, and division of the universe is quite different. It leaves a lot of fun places for events to take place.

As for the action, I can't deny that it's been one of my favorite action series for about half my life. Well done battles between beloved heroes and their interesting opponents are always appreciated, and Toriyama's not one to just leave with one or two tricks, everyone gets many special attacks, and the actual hand to hand tends to look quite nice on panel. In regards to playing with fan expectation, part of that is effected by Toriyama coming up with some stuff on the spot. It's easier to stay out of the predictable areas when you just go with a new idea, even if sometimes, it can be jarring.

Overall, errors and bias aside, I can appreciate a lot of what the article says.