[Dragon Ball]

Dragon Ball

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Dragon ball’s setting has a shade of Chinese influence to it even though it isn’t dominant. The setting of Dragon Ball was the "Journey to the West" (Legend of the Monkey King), which was considered one of the greatest Chinese work for all time. Comparatively, Dragon Ball is relatively simple. Son Goku is the name of the Monkey King (if you read the Kanji). Besides Goku, many of the other characters and places were inspired by the Legend as well. Gyuu Maou, the Demon Cow Lord was one of the villains the Monkey King fought against in the Legend. The Heaven and Hell in the Dragon Ball universe also shared many similarities. In the world of the Legend, heaven has the North, East, South and West gates. Similarly, the Dragon Ball Heaven is divided into four sections, each controlled by a Kaiou-sama.

Dragon Ball is mainly a two part series Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. That was followed by Dragon Ball GT.

This is the original series by Akira Toriyama, which was launched in 1985. The story line was similar to that of Dr. Slump, with an innocent character (Goku in Dragon Ball and Arale in Dr. Slump) confronting the rest of the world in a comical manner.

During the early chapters of Dragon Ball, Goku demonstrates his good-hearted nature by helping out people who were in need en route his quest for the Dragon Balls. That slowly developed into a combat oriented story with less and less humour, which could be to save lives, for competition or for both. The serious nature of the story fully unfolds into Dragon Ball Z.

This part of the series has a totally different atmosphere than that of the first. Similar to the latter half of Dragon Ball, the basis of the story is Goku’s challenge against powerful villains. Four major villains set the corner stones of the Z series. They are Vegeta, Freeza, Cell and Majin Buu, each one more powerful than the previous. Although the plot and setting of this part may be simple, what captures the audience is the relationship between the characters. Even though we could have all predicted the outcome, it is difficult to predict the shift of relationship between characters. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends and new characters enter the story as the offspring of other major characters.

Akira Toriyama wanted to conclude the Z series to make room for new ideas. Not only is he beyond surprised that the series had never lost its tremendous support over the years, but he is also very grateful to the Dragon Ball fans around the world.

The latest release of the Dragon Ball saga. The story line reverts back to that of the original series. Goku starts off in a quest for the Dragon Balls again, but at a much larger scale (implied in GT - Grand Tour). Instead of searching for Dragon Balls spread across a planet, Goku searches for Dragon Balls across the entire universe.

The Series finally ended after 64 Episodes on Nov 19th, 1997.

About the Author

Akira began his career as a graphic designer and started working on Manga at the age of 23. At age 30, he has become a full time Mangaka and extremely busy. Although he doesn’t particularly enjoy being busy, he doesn’t feel focused while he is not working and only to find himself asleep in his free time.

Akira expresses his inner desires and frustrations into his own work. From a very young age, whenever Akira desired something that he was unable to obtain, he would incessantly draw the object until he became tired with it. He had wanted a horse as a child, so he kept drawing horses until he no longer desired it. Even today, this habit still lives in him.

He had regarded himself as someone who gets bored quickly, someone who is in constant need of new and exciting things to stimulate his mind. After devoting to Dragon Ball for more than ten years, he had to rethink this aspect of himself.

Akira at work

Akira works "college" hours. His typical day goes as follows: He gets up at 12 noon, works with his assistant Matsuyama until 7pm, eat dinner, take the dog for a walk, exercise until 9. Then he watches TV and work at the same time until 11, takes a shower and then work until 4 am before going to sleep.

He enjoys working besides a television in the office as well as at home. Akira will often get quite distracted by certain programs, yet he feels desolate without it. Therefore, he had trained himself to only periodically glance briefly at the TV screen.

Akira considers himself the "weaker" of the Mangakas, because he cannot handle cold weather at all. On one hand, he hates the cold, yet when the heaters are turned on his mind becomes unclear and groggy. But there is not much of a choice for him, however. Because of his strong dislike of the cold and winter, he wished that he could hibernate like the bear during winter. Fortunately, he can always immerse himself in the warm summer through setting nearly 100% of the story either in the tropics or in the summer.

Like many of the Mangakas, Akira was no exception to the mystique of Walt Disney. He liked the characters so much that he went to Disneyland more than than 6 times. He was deeply inspired by the magnificent portrayal of nature and wildlife in many of the Disney animation. Akira’s love of nature is reflected through Cyborg #16.

His constant work for the Shonen Jump in the past years have almost totally exhausted him. Besides rushing out work for the Jump, he also has obligations for Nintendo as well as V Jump. With all that work, he felt like he was going to go insane without some free time. The energy he used to have has weakened quite a bit. He wanted to allocate more time for himself and his family. He is now a father of a son and a daughter.