AT's income from Dragon Ball

[peter291]

I'm interested how profitable Dragon Ball was/is for Akira Toriyama.

As far as I know, AT was creating one chapter of the manga once a week. He didn't have any other job, right? Did he make a good salary from drawing the manga?
Then we had anime, movies etc. Did all this staff bring income to Toriyama?

Does he still make money from Dragon Ball, nowadays? For example, if a new DB game is introduced, does it mean some cash for AT from copyright?

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Everything I see has Toriyama's name in copyright section. So, I guess he's still making money from all these products, right?

[B]

Typically, manga artists are paid by the page, and get residuals from volume sales. It's also reasonable to believe he's getting a cut of merchandise(anime, games, toys, shirts, frying pans, etc.). Not sure if he sees overseas sales, though.

Just judging from manga sales alone, I would say he's pretty well off. It's the second best-selling series of all time.

[Hellspawn28]

Won't most of the money that people buy in Japan go to Shueisha? Seeing that Akira Toriyama has not been apart of the series for a long time, I would imagine that he does not get that much off of the series. I'm pretty sure the oversea sales goes to the company that is the distributed of the manga in the country. I'm pretty sure most of the Manga sales in the US would go to Viz.

[TripleRach]

He didn't have any other job, right?

Actually, he did. He drew some one-shots during Dragon Ball's run, and he did character designs for some video games during that time, too.

[Fox666]

Typically, manga artists are paid by the page, and get residuals from volume sales. It's also reasonable to believe he's getting a cut of merchandise(anime, games, toys, shirts, frying pans, etc.). Not sure if he sees overseas sales, though.

Just judging from manga sales alone, I would say he's pretty well off. It's the second best-selling series of all time.

Knowing Toei, I expect they actually threat the original authors of their copyrighted material worst than recorders threat musicians.

[Corporate_Nothing]

Typically, manga artists are paid by the page, and get residuals from volume sales. It's also reasonable to believe he's getting a cut of merchandise(anime, games, toys, shirts, frying pans, etc.). Not sure if he sees overseas sales, though.

Just judging from manga sales alone, I would say he's pretty well off. It's the second best-selling series of all time.

Knowing Toei, I expect they actually threat the original authors of their copyrighted material worst than recorders threat musicians.

Treat*. I don't mean to police your grammar, but the intended meaning of your post is completely lost otherwise.

However, Toei Animation has nothing to do with the manga itself - Shueisha published the manga.

[Saiga]

Typically, manga artists are paid by the page, and get residuals from volume sales. It's also reasonable to believe he's getting a cut of merchandise(anime, games, toys, shirts, frying pans, etc.). Not sure if he sees overseas sales, though.

Just judging from manga sales alone, I would say he's pretty well off. It's the second best-selling series of all time.

They have licensed Dragon Ball frying pans?

[AgitoZ]

They have licensed Dragon Ball frying pans?

Yup.



You must seriously doubt the amount and variety of merchandise there is for the franchise.

[Saiga]

They have licensed Dragon Ball frying pans?

Yup.



You must seriously doubt the amount and variety of merchandise there is for the franchise.

That is seriously cool.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

You must seriously doubt the amount and variety of merchandise there is for the franchise.

That is seriously cool.

Without trying to sound even the tiniest bit racist, that is Japan for you. lol They've probably already made any obscure product you could possibly want, anything to make a buck off of the franchise.

Personally, I want Piccolo's rice cooker they had a while back. lol

[Corporate_Nothing]

You must seriously doubt the amount and variety of merchandise there is for the franchise.

That is seriously cool.

Without trying to sound even the tiniest bit racist, that is Japan for you. lol They've probably already made any obscure product you could possibly want, anything to make a buck off of the franchise.

Personally, I want Piccolo's rice cooker they had a while back. lol

I had to.

[batistabus]

Not only do I want those frying pans, but now I'm hungry.

[TRL]

Dragonball has probably generated a lot more money than one man can spend in his entire life.

But still I find it kind of sad that Toriyama probably sees only a small percent of all that generated wealth that wouldn't be there without his original manga.

[Corporate_Nothing]

Dragonball has probably generated a lot more money than one man can spend in his entire life.

But still I find it kind of sad that Toriyama probably sees only a small percent of all that generated wealth that wouldn't be there without his original manga.

True, but all of that generated wealth wouldn't be there in the first place if Shueisha, Toei, Namco Bandai, et al. didn't employ all of their limited time and resources into blowing up Dragon Ball into the enormous worldwide franchise that it is today. It goes both ways. Toriyama didn't work the printing presses at Weekly Shonen Jump; he didn't animate the anime; he didn't develop the video games, or mold the frying pans for that matter; he didn't negotiate the terms to have Funimation and Viz license the anime and manga (respectively) in North America, etc.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

I don't really see or care about the issue. lol The man is obviously doing well enough from DB's success. I mean, he isn't struggling to try to get another long running hit manga in Jump so that he can pay his bills. These days, he basically just seems to do art for videogames (Dragon Ball Online, Blue Dragon, Dragon Quest, etc.) and the occasional one-shot (Kintoki).

[TRL]

Yeah I'm sure he doesn't need the money. Still it's something to think about. Like how the heads of jump magazine and shueisha probably saw more of that wealth coming their way just by riding the back of the creative man. It just seems unfair to me.

[Eire]

I'm afraid that's how the business works. Somebody gives ideas and abilities and others provide him the possibility to polish and publish that for the lion share of the hypothetical incomes. Also they gave many things from their side risking that they would never see a yen for that- editing, proof-reading, whole business with printing, selling and advertising- you expected them to work pro publico bono?

[TRL]

No ofcourse not. You're right. Just when you think about it, it doesn't make much sense.

Another thought though, by the time Toriyama was discussing his percentage on Dragonball merchandise and publishing, he had already done something called Dr. Slump. So he might have been able to bring some valid points to the negotiation table.

[Super Sayian Prime]

It's over $9000 for sure.

Toriyama's likely one of the richer, if not in the class of richest manga authors. He had two huge series in Dr. Slump, and Dragon Ball as well as a bunch of work on Dragon Quest, and others. At this point it's clear that whenever he does a one-shot or something he's doing it either as a favour, or just an artistic relief.