The Toriyama Ear
(Updated on Feb. 7, 1997, by Curtis Hoffmann)


Who is Akira Toriyama?
----------------------
   Toriyama started out as a graphic designer, before selling his first
short story manga.  He had several one-shots published before hitting the
big time with Dr. Slump.  Eventually, Dr. Slump ended, and was replaced by
the smash hit -- Dragon Ball.  The Dragon Ball manga ran for 10 years, and
finally wrapped up in the spring of 1995.
   Along the way, Toriyama has acted as character designer for: all of the
Dragon Quest home computer games; Toraneko's Great Adventure; and
Chronotrigger (all designed for the Nintendo game system).
   Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump have both been animated as TV series, TV
specials, and theatrical movies.  The movies have been released on video
tape, but the TV series hasn't.
   "Toriyama" translates to "Bird mountain."  This is the origin for the
name of his studio "Bird Studio."


More Information
----------------
   If you want more information about Toriyama's background, or a
bibliography, try reading the review of the Toriyama Art Exhibit
(located on my web site, in the Toriyama section.)


Toriyama stuff that is still running
------------------------------------

   There is nothing right now, that I know of.

   In 1993, V Jump, a magazine dedicated to computer games, was created.
At that time, V Jump carried two manga titles by Toriyama -- "Dub and
Peter 1", and "Dr. Slump".  Dub and Peter 1 was pretty bad, and was soon
replaced by "Go go! Ackman".  "Dr. Slump" is actually a revival of the
earlier series, with a couple of new characters, and consists of
full-color one-shot gag stories.  "Go go! Ackman" is a gag series
revolving around a demon that gets points for killing people and
collecting their souls; Ackman's biggest enemy is a diaper-wearing angel
set out to stop him.  Both "Dr. Slump" and "Go go! Ackman" are no longer
in V Jump (as of the end of 1996.)


What next?
----------
   To mark the ending of the Dragon Ball manga, Jump publishing decided to
release 7 coffee-table book-sized full-color volumes entitled "Dragon Ball:
Complete Illustrations."  The reviews for these books are available here 
in my website.
   The books came out one per month, on the 4th of each month (book 7
came out on Feb. 5, 1996).  The books were actually ghost written by other
writers, and a lot of the artwork came from existing sources -- the manga,
TV episodes, the movies, etc.  There was a "sequel" book, which is
nothing more than a reprinting of all the collectors cards that have
been released in the past.

   In any case, there's been NO mention of what manga Toriyama will be
working on next.  He did state that he would take a vacation before
starting up as a manga artist again.  As of Feb. 1997, Toriyama has
released a couple of one-shot stories, but he has not returned to the
manga scene seriously yet.



   ijou.