Dragon Ball has received 20+ theatrical films, some more popular than others. Akira Toriyama is sometimes deeply involved with the production of the films. He even writes the plots for some of the theatrical releases.
One such movie Toriyama has worked on extensively is Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. Other than this, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ and Dragon Ball Super: Brolly also received heavy involvement from the author.
In a 2013 interview, Akira Toriyama talked at length about the Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods movie.
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods Featured Surprisingly Good Battle Scenes
Dragon Ball Z_ Battle of Gods Fandom
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods serves as the first part of the Gods of the Universe Saga. Beerus, the sphinx-cat lookalike God of Destruction, first debuted in this movie and served as one of the toughest antagonists of the franchise.
So, you can only imagine how legendary the fights between Goku and Beerus were. In this movie, Goku had to achieve quite a number of transformations before he could even come close to matching Beerus.
The movie featured many battle scenes, some of the most severe being Beerus’ one-on-one fights against Vegeta, Goku, and Gotenks. In an interview, even Akira Toriyama admitted that the movie was enjoyable. The parts that he likes the best were:
With this movie, it was the battle scenes! They were even more amazing than I’d imagined.
Despite writing the story himself, Akira Toriyama seems to be astonished by the quality that Toei delivered with Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.
Akira Toriyama Recounts the Movie Creation Process
On top of finding the movie enjoyable, Akira Toriyama, also indirectly admitted that he feels relief when working with movies, in comparison to the manga. His reasoning is simple and to the point:
If I’m only coming up with the story, I don’t have to draw any artwork.
Obviously, the author who made Goku blonde because he hated inking his black hair, has no qualms with having to work a bit less. According to Toriyama, creating a manga is harder because it is a one-man show where you draw and complete the manuscript yourself.
However, for movies, he can just write the script and leave the rest to the movie staff. In fact, he thinks that:
When you leave the story to people other than you, there’s the possibility that something greater than you had imagined will come into being.
Immediately afterward, Toriyama expressed an almost childlike fascination with the battle scenes of the movie. He also added that he does not mind anyone tweaking his work. Tweaking the original work that inspired something is a big no-no for fans. Wars have been fought just because an anime or movie wandered away from the original plotline.
Yet, here is Toriyama, easily accepting that he is incredibly happy to see other people’s revisions on his works.
You can read Dragon Ball on Viz Media and watch the anime on Crunchyroll. The Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods movie is available to stream on Prime Video.
