Thoughts on Akira Toriyama?

As an artist, he's tough to fault even if he recycles designs (playing different Dragon Quest games can sometimes feel like deja vu). There's no denying the simply fantastic design work he's done over the years for things like Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and the entirety of Dragon Ball.

My big problem with him is that the storytelling skills just aren't there. When I watched DBZ, I found it almost impossible to sit through until the Android saga. Everything was just so flat and tedious, and it made me lament how good the designs were. Characters that well designed deserve better. Granted, I haven't touched a piece of DBZ related media for quite a long time now, but I just remember thinking "I can't believe how popular this is."

Thoughts?

He didn't do the art-work for Dragonball Z, that was animators working off his work.

His actual "visual" story-telling is incredible.

-

Even in terms of the anime I disagree. Because budget and artists vary, the quality will. But by and large the set pieces and art work are speculator. Especially compared to Super.

-

A good example of Akira Toriyamas influence is the difference between Broly and the other movies. He had a direct hand on that and it's closer to his visual style. It has the best action pieces and is generally the best movie feeling far more in-line with Z than Super where he generally just gives basic outlines for the new artists to work off.

Akira Toriyama is a legend. His artwork is so influential.

Crazy to think he created the art style of DQ and DBZ. Legend.

Love the manga I even used to collect all the volume when I was a kid but my mom threw them away. The problem with the anime is that the animators clearly try to stretch the plots, resulting in very slow pace in term of plot in the anime.

Yea with Z they had to pad it to coincide with the manga, Kai fixes alot of this but honestly, I find it loses a lot of it's appeal as a result. The Buu Saga is definitely improved, but most of the others specifically Namek/Freiza suffer, cutting out stuff like Bardock, which was actually the anime' invention Toriyama took because he and the fans like the character so much.

Like, in the original uncut Namek/Freiza saga their was a sense of grandeur and time spanning multiple generations that emphasize the importance of the fight Kai hasn't really got.

Mean, the dialogue is absolute ham, but when you're kid with the brain of a goldfish it's straight up Shakespeare.

All the planet exploding stuff in the Kai version is basically gone. Along with driving school, the most important arc.

I name my Dragon Quest protagonist after the Dragon Ball character his design was recycled from.

@turtlethetaffer:

It's not like he's not good at storytelling, I think he can do great stories if he want! but he seems not interested in that more than making his work fun and cheerful!

The fact that he made Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball which the later became the most influential manga/anime is enough to consider him a genius.

Needs to retire, then DQ can move forward.

Love DQ so he's great in my book.

Its kinda old school and its cool he isnt letting it go.

An artist that everyone looks up to when thinking about Manga & Anime for ideas and inspiration

I'm sure he's good at what he does but I've never liked the art style of any Dragonball stuff.

I always loved his artwork, I found the battles in DBZ always stretched on wayyyy too long though. Even as a kid it was almost comical how they dragged out a fight scene across multiple episodes.

I didn't know who he was - but reading the thread: yeah, DQ has a great charm to it. DB as well. So I like what he does.