Toriyama and the guidebooks

[Nazi Cola]

I was wondering how much involvement Toriyama had with the making of the daizenshuu. I've heard he supervised them, and I've heard he merely approved them. So can someone give me the low-down, please?

Actually, should go in the General section, shouldn't it?

[Vice]

Bird Studio Executive: "Mr. Toriyama, we're going to go ahead and commission a few guidebooks for your manga. Are you ok with that?"

Toriyama: "Do I get paid?"

Bird Studio Executive: "Yes sir."

Toriyama: "Alrighty. Have at it."

[Nazi Cola]

Bird Studio Executive: "Mr. Toriyama, we're going to go ahead and commission a few guidebooks for your manga. Are you ok with that?"

Toriyama: "Do I get paid?"

Bird Studio Executive: "Yes sir."

Toriyama: "Alrighty. Have at it."

Nice answer, but I'd like something a little more "official", if you don't mind.

[Fox666]

Toriyama has provided tons of information outside of the manga. That is, special issues, memos for the anime staff, interviews, etc. Mostly of the information avaliable on the new information available in the Daizenshuu are taken from there. In fact, I would even say that the Daizenshuu staff took care of not including information not provided by Toriyama, the manga or that should be obvious.

Besides I believe people underestimate Toriyama's involvement with this kind of derivated work outside of the manga.

[Gaffer Tape]

Bird Studio Executive: "Mr. Toriyama, we're going to go ahead and commission a few guidebooks for your manga. Are you ok with that?"

Toriyama: "Do I get paid?"

Bird Studio Executive: "Yes sir."

Toriyama: "Alrighty. Have at it."

Funny, but considering that "Bird Studio" is just a fancy way of saying "Toriyama and his assistant," you basically just described a conversation between Toriyama and himself.

[kaialone]

Bird Studio Executive: "Mr. Toriyama, we're going to go ahead and commission a few guidebooks for your manga. Are you ok with that?"

Toriyama: "Do I get paid?"

Bird Studio Executive: "Yes sir."

Toriyama: "Alrighty. Have at it."

Funny, but considering that "Bird Studio" is just a fancy way of saying "Toriyama and his assistant," you basically just described a conversation between Toriyama and himself.

Ha XD


About Toriyama, I remember that in the 4th Daizenshuu, (wich is the World Guide) he wrote that he worked together with the dev team, but he himself wasnt much of help since he pretty much made up most of the story as he went, and thus it was hard to make all the information from the manga fit into a plot-holess whole.

[p123]

That's one of the things I always found interesting. He went with his story as he wrote it, I mean he's not going to sit there and think of everything from all angles , you know? He's trying to get a point across and that's it. Manga interpretation almost takes on a life of it's own. You don't really here about other stories with this kind of scenario. I wonder why?

[RLZIII]

That's one of the things I always found interesting. He went with his story as he wrote it, I mean he's not going to sit there and think of everything from all angles , you know? He's trying to get a point across and that's it. Manga interpretation almost takes on a life of it's own. You don't really here about other stories with this kind of scenario. I wonder why?

Oh, trust me, every community has a tendency to look really deep into things that weren't meant to be put under a microscope. As a long-time Gundam fan, I have seen anything and everything picked apart by the English-speaking community. This isn't always a bad thing, but sometimes (actually, a lot of the time) the answer simply isn't there because the original author(s) didn't think that much about a certain aspect. Plot holes will always be present in fiction for the fact that it's impossible for one creative mind (or even a group of minds) to think about everything at countless angles. Sometimes guide books or other supplemental information is published at a later date that answer some questions (which are most always afterthoughts), retcons are put in place to fix some major plot holes, and other times a clear answer is never given.

[Herms]

I should probably give a more detailed, point-by-point answer, but I'm on vacation right now. Basically, some things in the daizenshuu were supplied directly by Toriyama: interviews, the "What I'm Up To Nowadays" comics, extra character info, comments on vehicles, the DB cosmos map, the covers and other bits of artwork, etc. Some things are said to have been "supervised" by him, whatever that means, such as the DB Earth map. Finally, the entire book series were approved by him: they're official products, have his name on the cover, his introductions to the different volumes praise the staff's work and say he wished he had the books around when creating the series, etc.

There's an old, crappy translation of Toriyama's Shenlong Times #7 interview that has Toriyama say his work on the daizenshuu consisted of only a "paragraph" so he's not busy. What he actually says is that his work on the daizenshuu has finished up, so he's not busy anymore. See, danraku=paragraph, but ichi-danraku means, not "one paragraph", as you might expect, but rather reaching a moment of pause or wrapping thing up. Now, all else aside Toriyama clearly drew the covers for the daizenshuu, and elsewhere in Shenlong Times #7 he complains about how much of a nuisance Daizenshuu 7's cover was (despite it just being a recoloring of the last page of the series), so obviously there's something wrong with him saying he's only writing paragraphs for the books. But don't take my word for it, here's TripleRach's translation.

[Adamant]

Some things are said to have been "supervised" by him, whatever that means, such as the DB Earth map.

Shueisha guy: "Hey Toriyama, we made this map of the Dragonball earth, does it look accurate?"
Toriyama: *shrug*
Shueisha guy: "Thanks for supervising it. Ready for print, guys!"