“The Anime and Me”¹

1. Hello, there. Just in case you don’t know who I am, I’ll go ahead and tell you that I am Akira Toriyama, who draws Dragon Ball. I was told to draw something, so I’ll grudgingly try and write about Dragon Ball.

2. While I was still drawing a manga called Dr. Slump, I especially liked the movies of Jackie Chan, and watched them on video again and again while I worked. When I sort of went and told my supervising editor about that fact…

3. He told me things like, “In that case, write a one-shot kung-fu manga”, and I casually drew this manga with the complicated title of Dragon Boy.²

←He looked almost identical to Goku, but instead of a tail, he had wings.

4. However, this Dragon Boy was unexpectedly well-received, so it was decided that I would end Dr. Slump, which I’d run out of material for, and start a new, kung-fu-esque manga serial.

5. That would be Dragon Ball. I’m not the type of person who thinks very hard about future developments to begin with, so I ended up starting with the setup that, at least to begin with, the main character Goku would get stronger as he searches for orbs called Dragon Balls, while also mixing in the atmosphere of Journey to the West.

6. I can’t say this too loudly, but when it began, I hadn’t even come up with the idea that Goku would transform into a giant monkey, much less that he was “actually an alien called a Saiyan!” or what have you. What even I admire about myself is how stupidly well I made the story fit together.

7. Going and saying it like this, you’d be inclined to think I’m a considerably arbitrary writer, and you’d be right… or rather, it might look that way, but I do actually think quite a bit about things, and fret over them. I am a pro, after all, so it’s a given…

8. However, making it up as I go along without deciding on the story down the line is pretty thrilling, and it’s not bad. That’s because I can deal with things as they come and change up the story freely, plus I can write it with quite a bit of heart-pounding excitement, not knowing myself how things are going to turn out.

(Toriyama) I wonder if he can win against the Saiyans… *heart pounding*

9. In the same way, I haven’t decided either on a setting for what era or what sort of location Dragon Ball takes place in. That’s so that I can have the freedom to draw anything I want.

10. For that reason, even I myself don’t know when Dragon Ball is going to end, or what’s going to happen down the line.

Perhaps Goku might even end up as an old geezer, like this…

11. Now then, thanks to you, even Dragon Ball, which I draw like this, became popular, and was made into an anime, which I am incredibly happy about. However, the staff who are making the anime of course re~~~~ally have it tough.

12. From time to time, people who don’t know much about the anime ask me outrageous things like, “It must be rough; you can’t have any fun when you’re drawing both comics and a TV show, can you?” But as a general rule, I hardly do anything for the anime. I leave it to the staff. I don’t want to die, after all…

(Toriyama) I’m gonna live to be 100!

13. For instance, this sort of cut, I can easily draw in a single panel, but if I want to make it move in animation, I have to draw an enormous number of pictures. (Maybe that wasn’t the greatest example…)

14. I think those of you who read the Dragon Ball manga that I draw will probably notice, but the TV anime will sometimes do stories that aren’t in the comics.

(Oolong) Huh? I don’t remember there being this sort of episode…

15. This because when a single chapter’s worth in the comics is made into animation, it’s over in under ten minutes, and in a half-hour program, it would catch up with the manga in no time. So, I let the members of the anime staff adjust the length by adding in original stories. Animation really is tough, isn’t it? My thanks to them for all their hard work.

(Toriyama) Please check out both the manga and the anime!