鳥山明・村上隆 TORIYAMA Akira ・MURAKAMI Takashi

MURAKAMI Takashi 村上隆 admired TORIYAMA Akira 鳥山明, who passed away this March the 1st (The news came out today, several hours ago).
Murakami wanted to become a Manga-ka 漫画家 (Cartoonist). As he noticed that he has no talent in creating Mangas and Anime アニメ, he tried hard to get into the Tokyo University of the Arts 芸大.
Because oil painting 洋画 was too difficult to comprehend, he entered the department for easy-to-learn Nihon-ga (“traditional” Nihon-ga 日本画 painting).

To appreciate the Japanese art worker Murakami, the lineage between TORIYAMA Akira and him should be analysed, understood by the foreign audience.

Toriyama admired Osamu Tezuka’s “Astro Boy” and was impressed by Walt Disney’s “One Hundred and One Dalmatians”, which he remembered for its high-quality animation. He was a fan of Hong Kong martial arts films, especially Bruce Lee films such as “Enter the Dragon” (1973) and Jackie Chan films such as “Drunken Master” (1978), which went on to have a large influence on his later work.

The artist also cited the science fiction films “Alien” (1979) and “Galaxy Quest” (1999) as inspirations. Toriyama stated he was influenced by animator Toyoo Ashida and the anime television series adaptation of his own “Dragon Ball”; from which he learned that separating colors instead of blending them makes the art cleaner and coloring illustrations easier.

“Dragon Ball”, serialized from 1984 to 1995, was a huge hit, selling over 260 million copies and spawning a franchise that included anime series, films, video games and toys.

When “Dragon Ball” began, it was loosely based on the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West”, with ‘Goku’ being ‘Sun Wukong’ and ‘Bulma’ as’Tang Sanzeng’.
Together with his wife Mikaminachi みかみなち and his editor TORISHIMA Kazuhiko, Toriyama went to China in April 1984 to do research on the martial arts like Kung-fu. In November 1984, “Dragon Ball” began with its serialization at the publishing house Shueisha. It can be acknowledged that his wife Mikaminachi, who was herself a Girl’s comic cartoonist (Shōjo Manga-ka), inspired her husband to create a Japanese version of the Chinese novel “Journey to the West”, which tells the story about the Monkey King ‘Sun Wukong’ and his journey to escort a Buddhist monk to India and back to recover Buddhist sutras.

In a rare 2013 interview, commenting on Dragon Ball’s global success, Toriyama admitted, “Frankly, I don’t quite understand why it happened. While the manga was being serialised, the only thing I wanted as I kept drawing was to make Japanese boys happy.” He had previously stated in 2010, “The truth is, I didn’t like being a manga artist very much. It wasn’t until relatively recently that I realised it’s a wonderful job.”

In 2008, Oricon conducted a poll of people’s favorite manga artists, with Toriyama coming in second, behind only “Nana” author Ai Yazawa. However, he was number one among male respondents and among those over 30 years of age. They held a poll on the “Mangaka that Changed the History of Manga” in 2010, Toriyama came in second, after only Osamu Tezuka, due to his works being highly influential and popular worldwide.

TORIYAMA Akira, Resta in Pace.

Tokyo, 2024/3/8
亜 真里男 Mario A

凄い。中国の年明けドラゴンボールショー、こんなに盛沢山のステージだったのか。どっかでフルで見れないかな
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