CaptGoro's Blog
Akira Toriyama is a Japanese manga artist.
He debuted in 1978 with the story Wonder Island, published in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and gained fame for Dr. Slump, serialized weekly in Shonen Jump from 1980 to 1984. In 1984, he was responsible for developing Dragon Ball that became serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump. In Japan, it became a record-breaking best seller with over 120 million copies sold. Aside from the Japanese success the show was equally successfull in the U.S. as well.
He is mostly known for his series Dragon Ball. This work was one of the linchpins for what is known as the Golden Age of Jump. Its success "forced" Toriyama to work on Dragon Ball from 1984 to 1995. During that eleven-year period, he produced 519 chapters, collected into 42 volumes. Each volume has an average of 200 pages, so the entire Dragon Ball storyline extends to almost 9,000 pages. Moreover, the success of Dragon Ball led to an animated television series (in two parts, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z), feature-length animated movies, video games, and mega-merchandising. He chose to end the Dragon Ball series so he could "take [his] next step in life," as he put it. However, due to the success of the series, the anime still continued with Dragon Ball GT and Akira Toriyama was still involved a little bit in this project, although in a limited way.
His clean line and design sense led to jobs designing characters for the phenomenally popular Dragon Quest series of role-playing game (formerly called Dragon Warrior in the United States). He has also served as the character designer for the Super Famicom/SNES RPG Chrono Trigger and the fighting game Tobal No. 1 for the PlayStation (as well as its sequel, Tobal 2, released only in Japan), and continues to produce the occasional manga story.
His works after Dragon Ball tend to be short (100-200 page) stories, including Cowa!, Kajika, and Sand Land, as well as one-shots, like the spoof Neko Majin Z.
He has most recently been the character designer for Dragon Quest Swords for the Wii and Dragon Quest IX for the Nintendo DS.
He recently worked on a one-shot called Cross Epoch, in cooperation with One Piece's creator Eiichiro Oda.
The name of Toriyama's studio is Bird Studio, which is a play on his name, meaning "Bird Mountain".
Bibliography
Manga
- Awawa World (1977, unpublished)
- Wonder Island (1978-1979, 2 one-shots)
- Today's Highlight Island (1979, 1 one-shot)
- Tomato (1979, 1 one-shot)
- Hetappi (1982, 1 tankōbon, drawing lesson)
- Dr. Slump (1980-1985, 18 tankōbon, kanzenban)
- Escape (1981, 1 one-shot)
- Pola & Roid (1981, 1 one-shot)
- Pink (1982, 1 one-shot)
- Mad Matic (1982, 1 one-shot)
- Chobit (1983, 2 one-shots)
- Dragon Boy (1983, 2 one-shots)
- Tongpoo (1983, 1 one-shot)
- Toriyama Akira's Manga Theater Vol.1 (1983, 1 tankōbon)
- Dragon Ball (1984-1995, 42 tankōbon, later reassembled into 34 kanzenban special editions)
- Mr. Ho (1986, 1 one-shot)
- Lady Red (1987, 3 one-shots, adult gag manga)
- Kennosuke (1987, 1 one-shots)
- Sonchoh (1987, 1 one-shot)
- Mamejiro (1988, 1 one-shot)
- Toriyama Akira's Manga Theater Vol.2 (1988, 1 tankōbon)
- Karamaru (1989, 1 one-shot)
- Wolf (1990, 1 one-shot)
- Cashman Saving Soldier (1991, 3 one-shots - 1998, 1 tankōbon)
- Dub & Peter 1 (1992, 4 one-shots)
- Go!Go!Ackman (1993, 11 one-shots)
- New Dr. Slump (1994, 3 slim tankōbon, nothing to do with the 1998 anime)
- Chotto Kaettekita DR Slump ( third manga )
- Tokimecha (1996, 1 one-shot)
- Alien X-Peke (1997, 1 one-shot)
- Bubul (1997, 1 one-shot)
- Toriyama Akira's Manga Theater Vol.3 (1997, 1 tankōbon)
- New Cashman Saving Soldier (1998, 1 tankōbon)
- Cowa! (1998, 1 tankōbon)
- Tahi Mahi (1998, 1 tankōbon)
- Kajika (1999, 1 tankōbon)
- Sand Land (2000, 1 tankōbon)
- Neko Majin Z (2000-2005, 5 one-shots, 1 tankōbon/kanzenban)
- Kochikame (2006, 1 one-shot, omake)
- Cross Epoch (2006, 1 one-shot)
Video games (Character design)
- Dragon Quest series: Role-Playing Game (RPG)
- Dragon Quest Monsters series: Role-Playing Game (RPG).
- Chrono Trigger: Role-Playing Game (RPG)
- Tobal: Two fighting games.
- Blue Dragon: Role Playing Game (RPG)
Children's Books
- Toccio the Angel
I have been think about my favorite movies. The reason I started thinking about this was from a talk with a friend on this subject. Here is what I ended up with in no particular order and the top five.
Favorite:
1) Finding Forester
2) Secondhand Lions
3) Empire of the Sun
4) Rudy
5) Sound of Music
Sci-fi/Fantasy
1) Star Wars (1-6)
2) Lord of the Rings
3) Indiana Jones (1-3)
4) E.T.
5) Close Encounters
Anime:
1) Ghost in the Shell
2) Tenchi Muyo
3) Record of the Lodoss War
4) Naruto
5) DragonBall
TV:
1) Simpsons
2) Seinfield
3) Family Guy
4) South Park
5) Whose Line is it
War:
1) Patton
2) Saving Private Ryan
3) Gettysburg
4) Flags of our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima
5) Patriot
Scary/Horror:
1) Aliens (1-4)
2) Predator (1-2)
3) Jaws (All)
4) Gremlins (1-2)
5) Resident Evil (1-2)
Of course there are many other movies I enjoy but these are the top in each category given.
"Animation company Production I.G. has acquired rights from publisher Kodansha to sell the anime classic "Ghost in the Shell" for a live-action remake. Kodansha published the "Ghost in the Shell" manga by Masamune Shirow in 1989. Production I.G. then made it into a cult hit animated feature in 1995..." (full details).
"Sir Sean Connery has confirmed he is considering returning to the silver screen to reprise one of his most popular roles in Indiana Jones 4.
The actor told UK Teletext he will read the script for the fourth movie and, if he likes what he sees, will appear once more as Indiana's father, Dr Henry Jones.
Connery said: "At the moment there's nothing decided. I haven't got the script. Everything depends on the script."
"We are writing him in whether he wants to do it or not," Lucas said on an American TV show recently." (Dark Horizons)
Both movies sound oh la la. Can't wait for them. I do hope Connery will do Indiana Jones IV, because it looks like the last movie of that series. Hope it does well and is produced well.
I am a big fan of the Ghost in the Shell series. I have every movie, tv series, and manga. It would be interesting to see the live action movie, since most of the subject matter deals with a futureistic cyperpunk time, where cybernization is part of life. I would see it just to see how it turns out.
" Presently shooting his directorial debut "Trick 'r Treat", scribe Michael Dougherty ("Superman Returns", "X2") tells Sci-Fi Wire that the upcoming "Superman" sequel will feature at least one villain drawn from the DC Comics franchise.
"We're talking... We're bouncing ideas around with Bryan. Big ideas. Action-packed ideas" says Dougherty who confirmed its likely he and 'Returns' co-writer Dan Harris will once again collaborate on the script.
Acknowledging the disappointment fans felt with the first film's lack of action and slow pace, he adds that "I know that Bryan has said he's going to Wrath of Khan it, and by that he means, 'Let's take what we've already established--we've gotten that out of the way--and let's just make it shorter, tighter and more action-packed"." - Dark Horizons
I hope so that the rumor is true. There are so many Superman villions to use. Bizzaro could be real fun.
