The official Dragon Ball website’s thirty-seventh entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is the final transformation design of Freeza’s older brother Coola from the fifth theatrical Dragon Ball Z film, “The Incredible Strongest vs Strongest”.

The movie’s character designer, Minoru Maeda, discussed Toriyama’s designs for the film in the 2005 “Dragon Box: The Movies” DVD set:

Toriyama-sensei drew all the enemy characters, such as Coola and Neiz, up to and including a height-comparison chart. They even came with colors, so there was no need to change them. There would be no point in changing them. (laughs) It made it a breeze being the one making them, so I was grateful.

The film debuted at the Toei Anime Fair on 20 July 1991. Coola returned as “Metal Coola” in the following film, and has subsequently been included in various video games and minor features over the years (such as in “Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans” and its various remakes).

Coola’s name is one of only a handful in the series that legitimately has multiple layers to its pun. While the “cold” association (following Freeza and King Cold) rings true, as explained in Daizenshuu 6, a different meaning was intended as the reference:

You’d normally think that since his younger brother is Freeza (Freeza=freezer) that his name would be Coola (cooler), but it’s not that simple. The truth is that it involves the Shizuoka dialect. The producer Mr. Morishita, who is from Shizuoka, was worried that “Cooler” would be too direct, and remembered that in the dialect of his hometown one said “meshi demo kuura” [editor’s note: sort of equivalent to “Let’s chow down”] when eating. Because of this, they used the Shizuoka dialect… and so they decided on the name Coola!! To think that it was so complicated a process…

The official Dragon Ball website’s thirty-sixth entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is a citation for and the title page from the 2007 Dr. Slump special chapter “Dr. Mashirito — Abale-chan“.

The special chapter was published 06 March 2007 in the April 2007 issue of (the now-defunct) Monthly Shōnen Jump. In the story, the son of Dr. Mashirito (the fictional evil scientist version of Toriyama’s original editor Kazuhiko Torishima) builds an evil version of Arale named “Abale”. A five-minute animated adaptation was created and ran alongside the eighth theatrical One Piece film (“Episode of Alabasta”) just a few days prior beginning 03 March 2007. Toriyama’s author comment alongside the chapter in Monthly Shōnen Jump may be referring to its adaptation into an animated feature:

The title page artwork was recently included in the 2013 Dragon Ball Chōgashū: Super Art Collection.

The official Dragon Ball website’s thirty-fifth entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is Toriyama’s advertisement announcing the return of Masakazu Katsura’s Wing-Man in the 1984 No. 40 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump following its hiatus due to the author’s illness.

Toriyama’s handwritten note at the bottom reads:

The fact is that Masakazu Katsura needs to get a good night’s sleep everyday or he’ll die, so he didn’t have time to draw this preview. Frankly, he owes me his life! (Buy me a motorcycle!!)

Wing-Man — Katsura’s debut serial — was published in the 1983 No. 5-6 through 1985 No. 39 issues of Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump. The main character, Kenta Hirono, transforms into the titular Wing-Man in order to fight bad guys while wrestling with his feelings for the two main girls in his life. During the series’ run, Katsura fell ill and the series was put on hiatus; meanwhile, a corner entitled “Hang in there! Hang in there! Katsura-kun” by Toriyama provided illustrations wishing for him to get well soon. At the time, Kazuhiko Torishima served as the editor for both Toriyama and Katsura.

Toriyama referenced Katsura multiple times over the years in his weekly author comments. In the 1984 No. 23 issue (alongside chapter 220 of Dr. Slump), Toriyama mentioned Katsura’s hospitalization:

Toriyama’s friendship with manga author Masakazu Katsura (DNA², Video Girl Ai, I”s, Zetman, etc.) spans decades, and this friendship has seeped into Dragon Ball itself in subtle ways: it was Katsura himself who supposedly came up with the idea of fusion, for example. The duo’s friendship and collaboration continued through two specific works of interest to Dragon Ball fans: Sachie-chan GOOD!! in 2008, and JIYA in 2010. While Dragon Ball fans may know the Galactic Patrol by way of Jaco, the space organization actually began with these two prior one-shots.

Incidentally, the 1984-85 Wing-Man television series served the as the voice acting debut of Ryō Horikawa, who would later go on to voice Vegeta in the Dragon Ball franchise.

The official Dragon Ball website’s thirty-fourth entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is Toriyama’s illustration for the KochiKame guide book Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo Daizenshuu KAMEDAS (released 09 March 1993), depicting the series’ main character Kankichi “Ryō-san” Ryōtsu in Goku’s dōgi.

The strongest guy in the universe might be this guy…

A chapter in volume 69 in the original KochiKame manga (serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump 1990 #17, alongside Dragon Ball chapter 268) features a scenario where Ryō-san is reassigned to Planet Namek. Over sixteen years later, Toriyama collaborated with KochiKame‘s Osamu Akimoto on “This is the Police Station in Front of Dragon Park on Planet Namek” for 2006’s Chō-KochiKame, effectively a nine-page sequel to the original crossover hilarity. Toriyama also provided a special congratulatory comment in the same publication.

The official Dragon Ball website’s thirty-third entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is the design for the main character of 2016’s Dragon Quest Builders:

The game’s story follows the “bad” ending of the original Dragon Quest, in a ruined world where the concept of “building” has been lost. The hero character is responsible for crafting materials, rebuilding towns, gathering townsfolk, and defeating evil monsters.

The artwork was recently included in the “Akira Toriyama Dragon Quest Illustrations” hardcover book released in 2016.

Dragon Quest Builders was released for the Nintendo Switch today in Japan, making it an appropriate choice for the website’s daily entry. The game initially saw a release on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita in Japan in January 2016. An international release followed later that year in October. The Nintendo Switch port curiously debuted worldwide last month ahead of its Japanese release today. A sequel is due out this year.

As with prior games in the franchise — see previous citations in this series for Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest III, Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest VI, and Dragon Quest Heroes — Toriyama provided a number of character designs for Dragon Quest Heroes.

The official Dragon Ball website’s thirty-second entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is the author’s design for the main character of 1991’s Super Sense Story, “Neo”:

Super Sense Story — illustrated by Toriyama — was a collaboration between the car manufacturer Honda and Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump. Through its whimsical collection of characters, robots, and landscapes on Planet Neo, the picture book promotes proper traffic safety via its characters’ titular “Super Sense” ability.

In many ways, the logo on Neo’s hat and spaceship feels like an early draft for the evolving Galactic Patrol symbol that would later be seen in Sachie-chan GOOD!, Jiya, and Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. It also shares similarities with the Ginyu Special-Squad logo, which would have been roughly concurrent with this publication.

Thanks to Nickolaus for the additional image!