It is undeniable that Akira Toriyama will always be remembered for creating the Dragon Ball manga series. The first Dragon Ball manga came out in 1984. It eventually went on to become one of the most successful manga series of all time. After the success of Dragon Ball, Toriyama became a source of inspiration for other manga artists.
After the Dragon Ball manga became widely popular, it paved the way for several anime adaptations. The first anime had 153 episodes and aired from 1986 to 1989. Since then, four other Dragon Ball anime have been made with the last release being Super Dragon Ball Heroes. Fans will soon get to see a new series called Dragon Ball Daima which was announced last year.
Toriyama’s Dragon Ball manga had the elements of martial arts, and demons, which made it a perfect fit to be adapted into a video game. We got to see the first game being released in 1986 called Dragon Ball: Pilaf no Gyukushu. There was no looking back from there. As of today, we have a library of more than fifty Dragon Ball video games.
Why did Akira Toriyama start designing characters for Dragon Ball games?
While the Dragon Ball series saw several games being made, Toriyama wasn’t involved in all of them. His first project was Dragon Ball: Shenlong no Nazo in 1986, where he designed some characters for the game. He later went on to create characters for other games like Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon.
While we remember him for creating iconic characters in video games, fans may not know of the person who pushed him into the world of video games. In an interview from 1995, Akira Toriyama shed more light on how he started designing game characters.
During the interview, he was asked about how he got started with designing video game characters. Interestingly, Toriyama revealed that it was Torishima-san who pushed him to do so. He further added,
“At first, I did it grudgingly, but as a result, it really came in handy, like, “I had no idea this sort of world existed.”
For the unknown, Torishima-san was the first editor of the Dragon Ball manga series. He worked for Dragon Ball manga publisher Shueisha. During the same interview, Toriyama also spoke about his role in the Dragon Ball films. He went on to add,
“I check the plot and script that gets sent to me from Toei Animation. I also do some character designs and touch-ups, as well as altering the names and such.”
He also mentioned that, for him, the stories in the movies are set in a different dimension from the story of the manga. He further added that when it comes to Dragon Ball movies, he is just a regular audience.
The upcoming Dragon Ball game
Since the last game in the long-running series came out in 2020, Dragon Ball fans have some good news. The series will be getting a new game called DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO. The game was announced by Bandai Namco and will be a Budokai Tankaichi series game after many years.
After the announcement was made, the joy of fans knew no bounds. We also got to see an initial trailer of the game. However, as of now, the release date of the game hasn’t been confirmed yet. As such, we need to wait for an official announcement to come out.
All we know is that it will be a multiple-platform game and will come to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam. Players can wishlist the game now, so as to get it as soon as it comes out.
