Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball might have excelled in almost every industry, from manga to anime to gaming, but the one place where the series could not earn the recognition of fans was the live-action adaptation. In its entire timeline, Dragon Ball has only had one live-action adaptation, and that too was a major flop.
The series could not properly explore the fantasy adventure theme of the original series, and even though they tried to add their own spice to it, the movie was just not able to connect with the Dragon Ball fans. It was one of the first live-action adaptations that started the curse of adapting an anime or manga into a live-action film.
While the movie did not profit the franchise in any way, it did manage to bring Toriyama back to the industry, as the mangaka was so disappointed in the movie that he decided to get involved with every project from there on. It was one of the reasons why Toriyama started working on Dragon Ball Super.
Akira Toriyama Came Back With Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods
When Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods first came out, Toriyama was approached by Asahi Shimbun for a written interview which was shared by Kazenshuu, where the mangaka was asked about his role as a scriptwriter for the first time. The Dragon Ball creator revealed that although he was impressed with the story’s outline, a few things were missing from the entire narrative.
Toriyama stated:
I was told about a project for Dragon Ball in its first animated film in a long while, and I read the story outline. while the beings “Beerus, God of Destruction” and “Super Saiyan God” (which goes above Super Saiyan) were interesting, the themes were heavy, and I felt that the world was a bit different from Dragon Ball.
Talking about overcoming the plotholes in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, Toriyama stated:
Rather than telling them about this or that problematic spot, I thought it would be faster if I just wrote it out concretely, and while I had intended just to give them a model―”for example”―my hand wouldn’t stop, and ultimately, I ended up writing almost everything, including the dialogue.
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods followed a unique storyline that was never seen before in the series. Thus, it got Toriyama so interested that the mangaka decided to write almost everything, from the plots to the dialogues, and ultimately he became the scriptwriter for the first time.
Akira Toriyama’s Motivation for Getting Involved with Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods
While talking about the things that motivated him to join Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, Akira Toriyama mentioned that when he first saw Dragon Ball Evolution, he could not find anything interesting about the movie at all. This is why he suggested some major changes that, in hindsight, could have worked in the favor of the movie.
Toriyama explained:
Also, at the time of the Hollywood movie, the live-action Dragon Ball, the script had too little of a grasp on the world and its characteristics, and on top of that, it had a conventional content that I couldn’t find interesting, so I cautioned them, and suggested changes; but in spite of that, they seemed to have a strange confidence, and didn’t really listen to me. What came out in the end was a movie I couldn’t really call a Dragon Ball that lived up to my expectations.
However, the showrunners of Dragon Ball Evolution took Toriyama’s advice for granted and thus created the biggest failure in Dragon Ball’s portfolio. The movie was shunned by Dragon Ball fans.
And it forced Toriyama to get back into the industry, even though he left the manga world in 1995. When he worked on Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, he decided to take the story further and expand it into another sequel that came to be known as Dragon Ball Super.
You can watch Dragon Ball on Crunchyroll.
