Akira Toriyama

AKIRA TORIYAMA (Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, 1955-2024).
"Dragon ball."
Celluloid, background and drawing on reverse.
The three pieces are adhered.
Measurements: 23 x 27 cm (background); 24.5 x 27 cm (drawing).
Drawing and celluloid simulating an explosion. The celluloid shows Gohan, a Dragon Ball character, running away from it.Gohan's name comes from the Japanese word "gohan", "cooked rice" or "food of any kind"), a continuation of Toriyama's food naming scheme. In the conceptualization for Gohan's character, Toriyama originally included glasses or a jacket to his outfit, and commonly, his hair is spiky as seen in the final design. With the end of the Cell arc, Gohan was meant to replace his father as the main character. However, Toriyama decided against it later, deeming the character unsuitable for the role compared to his father.
Creator of "Dragon Ball" and "Doctor Slump", Akira Toriyama is considered one of the artists who changed the history of manga. His leap to fame came with Dr. Slump, a saga published between 1980 and 1984. Thanks to it, he received in 1981 the Manga Award granted by the Shgakukan publishing house. The acceptance of the manga was massive. In total, 18 manga volumes were collected (40 in Spain, published by Planeta de Agostini) and the television series surpassed 240 episodes. Dr. Slump narrates the ironic and crazy adventures of Professor Senbei Norimaki and his creation, a robot in the shape of a 10-year-old girl, and the other inhabitants of a strange place called Penguin Village. Torishima suggested that since Toriyama liked kung fu movies, he should create a sh?nen kung fu manga. This resulted in the two-part Dragon Boy, published in the August and October 1983 issues of Fresh Jump. Dragon Boy was well received and evolved into the Dragon Ball series in 1984. In terms of his style, 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 those of Bruce Lee, such as Enter the Dragon (1973), and Jackie Chan, such as Drunken Master (1978), which greatly influenced his later work. He also cited the science fiction films Alien (1979) and Galaxy Quest (1999) as influences. Toriyama stated that 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 rather than mixing them makes art cleaner and coloring illustrations easier.