The official Dragon Ball website’s twelfth 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 cover illustration to the first bunko volume of Jean-Henri Fabre’s “Souvenirs Entomologiques”, translated by French-literature scholar/critic Daisaburō Okumoto. The artwork features a dung beetle, which is named fun-korogashi (or “poop-roller”) in Japanese.

Okumoto contributed an essay — “Mechanisms, Beasts, and Reptiles” — to the “Akira Toriyama Exhibition” book series from 1993 and 1995. In it, Okumoto could not help but highlight Toriyama’s battle scenes alongside his actual topic of conversation:

In discussing the skill of Toriyama’s artistry, one cannot help but mention the intense sensation of motion and speed imparted by his battle scenes. And the thick, black delineations representing the ferocity of the explosions are incredible. It is impressive that he can create such an intense sensation of action within the boundaries of a single manga frame.

Okumoto also contributed a brief column for the sixth Daizenshuu‘s “Shenlong Times” supplemental pamphlet, conveying his entire family’s Toriyama fandom:

When I saw the color pages of Dr. Slump at the beginning of its serialization, I thought, “what beautiful artwork”. I’ve been a Toriyama fan ever since. The unexpected developments in Dragon Ball‘s story make me think, “Toriyama-sensei really is a genius”. Plus, the female characters are cute. Characters like Bulma are nice and sexy. (laughs)

Among the enemy characters, Demon King Piccolo felt fresh. I admired him—to think that villains could be done like this! Also, there’s Freeza. Even now, my daughter and I have fun imitating Freeza, with, “That one hurt!” (laughs) We watch the TV anime every week, too; the whole family are Dragon Ball fans.

The end of the column includes a message from Shueisha advertising Okumoto’s then-forthcoming translation of “Souvenirs Entomologiques” — indeed, with a new cover illustration from Akira Toriyama — due out in March 1996.

The official Dragon Ball website’s eleventh 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 artwork of the main character from the 2010 Nintendo DS re-release of Dragon Quest VI (originally released in 1995 on the Super Famicom). This particular piece was digitally colored.

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

Akira Toriyama has provided a wealth of character designs and illustrations for the Dragon Quest series from its inception in 1986, all the way through the game’s latest mainline entry, Dragon Quest XI (released last year in Japan, and due out internationally in 2018). While many character concepts come from game creator Yuji Horii, Toriyama is responsible for adapting them and creating additional designs with his own flair.

This entry follows up on last week’s Work #010 with the box art from Dragon Quest II.

The official Dragon Ball website’s tenth 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 key illustration and box cover art from the video game Dragon Quest II, released 26 January 1987 on the Nintendo Famicom in Japan (making today the game’s 31st anniversary). The game would later make its way to America as Dragon Warrior II on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

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

Akira Toriyama has provided a wealth of character designs and illustrations for the Dragon Quest series from its inception in 1986, all the way through the game’s latest mainline entry, Dragon Quest XI (released last year in Japan, and due out internationally in 2018). While many character concepts come from game creator Yuji Horii, Toriyama is responsible for adapting them and creating additional designs with his own flair.

In his 2016 interview with Forbes, Akira Toriyama’s original editor Kazuhiko Torishima explains his reasons for bringing Toriyama on board to the Dragon Quest projects:

At this time, Horii started his work at Enix, on games like Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken and Okhotsku ni Kiyu: Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin Jiken. In addition, myself and my team were crazy about role-playing games on Apple, like Ultima. So I thought we should do a role-playing game with Horii as the scenario writer. However, if we had just these things it would mean we wouldn’t have the justification to include it in Weekly Jump. This is why I decided to add Toriyama to the project for the character designs.

Akira Toriyama makes references to the game series in his original Dragon Ball weekly chapter notes as far back as May 1986. Along with Chapter 79, the author noted:

Dragon Quest is dangerous! It got to the point where I couldn’t get any work done, so my wife finally took it away.

Along with Chapter 108 in February 1987, the author noted:

Dragon Quest II on the Famicom is too much fun! Now I can’t get any work done!

Later that year in September, along with Chapter 141, he stated:

I’ve finally finished drawing all the monsters for Dragon Quest III. The game looks really fun!

Perhaps not coincidentally, 1987 marked special cameo appearances by Dragon Quest characters in the Dragon Ball manga. In Chapter 114, during the preliminaries at the 22nd Tenka’ichi Budōkai, three familiar faces are hanging out on the sidelines (from left to right: a Killer Tiger, Orc, and Shaman, all originally from Dragon Quest II).

A couple pages later in the same chapter, a Shaman makes a return appearance, as well as a Cyclops two people to his left. An Archdemon also hides out behind the trio of friends.

Finally, a little bit later on during Chapter 115, both Shaman and Killer Tiger make one last appearance:

The official Dragon Ball website’s ninth 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 title page and a brief overview of Akira Toriyama’s professional debut from the 1978 #52 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump (released 28 November 1978), Wonder Island.

Wonder Island tells the story of a stranded ex-kamikaze pilot, Flight Petty Officer 2nd-Class Furusu, who washes up on the titular island, but only wants to get back to Japan. The setting and the character of “P-Man” later reappear in Dr. Slump.

Akira Toriyama’s author comment from the 1978 #52 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump reads as follows:

Wonder Island was collected in “Akira Toriyama’s ______piece Theater” (Toriyama Akira [maru]saku Gekijō), the later “Akira Toriyama’s ______piece Theater REMIX” (Toriyama Akira [maru]saku Gekijō Aratame), as well as in the two-bunko release, “An Emperor’s Feast of Akira Toriyama” (Toriyama Akira Mankanzenseki).

In celebration of the Jaco the Galactic Patrolman collected manga volume release in April 2014, Shueisha began including new comments from Akira Toriyama on the obi (paper band surrounding the book, generally promotional in nature) of his seven other (non-Dr. Slump and non-Dragon Ball) manga volumes. For the first “Akira Toriyama’s ______piece Theater” volume’s obi, a drawing of Furusu was provided alongside an embarrassed reflection on his early work:

This is awful!
Even given the fact that I was still green, it’s awful!
I didn’t have the courage to read it.
This is Part 1 of my shameful history.
—Akira Toriyama

A month later, Wonder Island 2 debuted in the Shōnen Jump 25 January 1979 Extra Issue (released 27 December 1978). There is no “2” in the title prior to its being republished in Toriyama’s short-works collection; instead, it was originally Wonder Island: Detective Harry’s Big Panic. Furusu was also used in all the advertising and even this issue’s table of contents, despite not actually appearing in the chapter. In fact, the only character who carries over is P-Man. It may perhaps be better to think of this as a “second draft” rather than a true sequel, in that it shares little in common with the first except for the setting.

The official Dragon Ball website’s eighth 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 full cover illustration from the 2003 kanzenban-focused guidebook Dragon Ball Landmark.

The illustration is also included, condensed vertically to a single page, before the book’s table of contents. Released toward the end of the kanzenban‘s publication, Landmark — followed by Forever the following April — documented the manga re-release alongside extensive information about the series, its characters, and more.

Landmark contained an exclusive Q&A with original author Akira Toriyama exploring semi-innocuous tidbits about his personal life. The “Akira Toriyama on the Road” feature provides long-form answers from Toriyama about his early days in the industry, his work ethic (and occasionally lack thereof), and the stress of working on such popular series.

The book also collected ten of the “Dragon Ball Children” entries, illustrations and comments from other popular Shueisha and Jump authors originally included as pamphlets with every-other kanzenban volume. The ten within Landmark include:

• Ei’ichirō Oda
• Masashi Kishimoto
• Shin’ya Suzuki
• Yoshio Sawai
• Yūsuke Murata
• Tite Kubo
• Kentarō Yabuki
• Yasuhiro Kanō
• Mikio Itō
• Nakaba Suzuki