The official Dragon Ball website’s 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 a two-page spread from the 1993 #12 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump (which itself also featured chapter 411 of the Dragon Ball manga), released 18 February 1993.

Most notable in this splash is a listing of results from a character popularity poll, with Akira Toriyama providing new color illustrations for the top five characters (all of which were later reprinted in Daizenshuu 1):

1. Son Gohan: 51,921 votes
2. Son Goku: 48,256 votes
3. Trunks: 29,627 votes
4. Vegeta: 17,383 votes
5. Piccolo: 9,454 votes
6. Kuririn: 7,438 votes
7. Mr. Satan: 1,892 votes
8. Cell: 1,769 votes
9. Bulma: 1,135 votes
10. Dende: 756 votes

The splash’s left box mentions the forthcoming release of the Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden soundtrack due out 27 March 1993. The bottom provides factoids about how long ago the first Dragon Ball manga volume was released, a mention of Toriyama’s one-shot Dragon Boy and its availability in the second short-works collection, and wraps up with a contest question asking the name of the Namekian killed by Freeza before Dende’s eyes (the answer being Cargo; this scene was adjusted in Dragon Ball Z episode 48 to have Dodoria be the one to carry out the deed). The far left includes a ¥100 discount coupon for the upcoming spring 1993 “Toei Anime Fair” (where the eighth Dragon Ball Z film was set to debut).

While not mentioned in the official website’s entry for today, this particular Weekly Shōnen Jump issue also included a special fold-out calendar featuring Dragon Ball artwork:

The backside of the calendar featured a special preview of the at-the-time upcoming spring 1993 “Toei Anime Fair”, which was being dubbed “Akira Toriyama: The World 2”, as it would be the second animation fair to feature an all-Toriyama movie line-up, with the first being the summer 1990 “Toei Anime Fair”. The two movies that premiered on 06 March 1993, as a part of the animation fair, included the aforementioned eighth Dragon Ball Z movie (the first to feature Broli) and the fifth movie of the Dr. Slump — Arale-chan series. A short blurb was also included promoting the second hour-long Dragon Ball Z TV special, which was set to premiere on 24 February 1993, less than a week following the release of this issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump.

The official Dragon Ball website’s 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 Akira Toriyama and Ei’ichirō Oda’s Dragon Ball x One Piece collaboration Cross Epoch, originally published 25 December 2006 in the 2007 #4-5 double-issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump.

The completely stand-alone manga chapter tells the story of the Dragon Ball and One Piece characters ultimately gathering together with Shenlong for a tea party. Check out the Cross Epoch entry in our manga guide for extensive documentation including all of the chapter’s puns, references (including Pandaman!), translated comments from its authors, and much more.

Cross Epoch was later translated into English and included by Viz in the company’s 100th issue (April 2011) of the Shonen Jump print magazine. It has since been collected in print and digitally a select few additional times by both Shueisha and Viz.

The official Dragon Ball website’s 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 a set of character design sketches for SONCHOH, an Akira Toriyama one-shot published in the 1988 #5 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump in Japan (released 18 December 1987).

In addition to the sketches of the title character and his Suzuki Jimny, a sketch of the logo is provided with a rough layout of the title page, along with various name candidates (for what eventually became “Tetsunoshin Kataiwa”) all with “rustic” surnames with an old-fashioned-feeling personal name:

• Gen Yamada
• Tomejirō Yamada
• Tomekichi Izumiyama
• Tomegorō(?) Satoyama
• Tomesaburō Yamada

SONCHOH was published alongside Dragon Ball chapter 155, the title page for which features an identical design to that of SONCHOH, with both protagonists atop a Jimny. As explained by Toriyama in the convenience-store exclusive Akira Toriyama’s _____piece Theatre: REMIX, Volume 3 (released 21 June 2004), he drew SONCHOH for the sake of being able to draw the Jimny, and that he considered the car itself, rather than the old man, the protagonist.

The official Dragon Ball website’s 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 a citation of Akira Toriyama’s interview from the January 2014 issue of Men’s Non-No magazine (released 10 December 2013). In it, Toriyama speaks about his early days of design work, breaking in to the manga business, and his then-recent work on Jaco the Galactic Patrolman.

Men’s Non-No is a fashion and lifestyle magazine for the young single male business professional. We previously translated the entirety of this interview.

The official Dragon Ball website’s 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 an illustration from the first of eight special “Dr. Slump Hoyoyo Cards” that came with Weekly Shōnen Jump issues 1980 #40-47. This particular card is from the 1980 #40 issue, which was released 02 September 1980; the website’s writeup lists this as 22 September, which is unfortunately a mistake/typo.

The front of each card had a full-color illustration, and the back had a character profile with a short interview with Toriyama. For this particular card, Toriyama pens an interview between himself and Senbei Norimaki from Dr. Slump.

[ top left ] “Dr. Slump Hoyoyo Card Special No. 1: Senbei Norimaki”

Birthdate: Boxfish (January) 17, 1952 (Age 28)
Address: 1 Flying Squirrel, Penguin Village, Diving Beetle Island

[ right ] “This is the Doctor!!”
“We had him write it out himself”

HEAD: Smart! Genius! Well-mannered!

FACE: Super cute and handsome!!

ARM: Moves at terrific speed!

STOMACH: A tight, flat waist!

[ arrow pointing to crotch ] I have one…

LEGS: Sooo~ long!

HEIGHT: 175cm

WEIGHT: 80kg

---

INTERVIEW:

TORIYAMA: Good mornafterevening!

DOCTOR: Oh, it’s you.

TORIYAMA: Er, now then, first off, are you single?

DOCTOR: I’ll deck you!!

TORIYAMA: Now, it’s been in question up to now, but what is your profession?

DOCTOR: Huh?!

TORIYAMA: I’m asking what you do for a job.

DOCTOR: Oh. Uh… let’s see… what should I say?

TORIYAMA: Why are you asking me? Well, whatever. Let’s move on to your hobbies.

DOCTOR: [happily and frankly] Looking at dirty magazines!

TORIYAMA: … Oh, uh… I see…

DOCTOR: It’s the same as you!

TORIYAMA: W- w- well then, i- is there anything you’d like to say about the comic?

DOCTOR: You bet there is! Judging by the title “Dr. Slump”, I should be the main character, so why is it always Arale? And on top of that, even though I got my hair cut, you couldn’t be bothered to draw it, so–…

TORIYAMA: B- bye now!!

The official Dragon Ball website’s 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 a Jump character card illustration from 12 January 1981. Weekly Shōnen Jump artists provided color illustrations for this card, which features Arale — of Dr. Slump and later Dragon Ball fame — wearing a US flag kimono.

Happy New Year 1981: dash through this year too!