Akira Toriyama, The Man, The Myth, The Antisocial Hermit (S1E11)

Jelli and Bekinney take a break form looking at the creations of Akira Toriyama and instead talk about the man himself! Who is Akira Toriyama? Where did he come from? How did he get into manga? 

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney try to escape the caves
• We talk about Derek Padula, an author who has crafted the first English-language biography on Akira Toriyama in his book Dragon Ball Culture Volume 1
• We talk about Toriyama's childhood life
• We learn about Toriyama's early obsession with drawing and animation
• The influences of a young Toriyama are discussed, especially his enjoyment of Showa-era television and movie entertainment including Godzilla, Ultraman, Osamatsu-kun, Astro Boy, Iron Man Number 28, Doraemon and some early manga by creators such as Osamu Tezuka, and Fujiko Fujio despite not being a big reader of manga himself.
• Toriyama's realization that to be a popular anime, you should have a popular manga
• Discussion of how Toriyama writes and creates while watching TV and movies
• We discuss Toriyama's initial years out of college in a salaryman job and how his non-professional attitude caused him to seek out something more fulfilling
• Toriyama's passion for building models and how that allows him to get a 360-degree view of things in order to learn how to draw them
• Toriyama's well-known antisocial tendencies and his desire to live as near a hermit lifestyle as possible
• Discussion of Toriyama's procrastination tendencies
• How a young, budding Toriyama got his first big shot from Kazuhiko Torishima, an editor with Shonen Jump
• The fusion of a manga-ka (Toriyama) who doesn't read manga, and an editor (Torishima) who also does not read much manga, and how that led the two of them to create a unique presentation
• Brief discussion of some of Toriyama's earliest publications in Shonen Jump including Wonder Island, Today's Highlight Island, Tomato Girl Detective, and ultimately, Dr. Slump
• How Arale-chan's glasses became part of her iconic look
• How Dr Mashirito, the villain, came to be designed after Torishima
• Discussion of Akira Toriyama's Crummy Manga Lab, a series of funny, short manga that were intended to semi-jokingly teach people how to be a manga-ka.
• How Toriyama creates Toribot, because of his desire to never be seen in pictures and avoid being recognized by people in public
• Toriyama falling in love, getting married, and how a snafu with press on his wedding day leads to his vow to never show his face in public
• An anecdote from Chris Sabat, the American voice of Vegeta, about meeting Toriyama in a public setting
• We discuss the pros and cons of Toriyama's near-hermitage and whether he owes his fans more
• A comparison between Stephen King's approach to writing and that of our titular manga-ka
• A comparison between Hideaki Anno's (creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion) approach to creation and that of Toriyama
• How Torishima had to push Toriyama along the way to be productive and ultimately create Dragon Ball
• How Yoshimi Kato, Toriyama's wife, helped create Dragon Ball with an off-hand comment to Torishima about the manga-ka's work habits
• A very brief discussion of how Dragon Ball Super is crafted, as a collaboration between Toriyama and his chosen successor, Toyotarou
• and more, including some general pop culture and editorializing, as usual.

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

https://bsky.app/profile/finalforumpod.bsky.social