“He makes you do completely unbelievable things”: Akira Toriyama’s Editor Forced Dragon Ball Creator into Pushing Past His Limits
While manga serves as an escape from the hardships of our daily lives, it is also important to note that manga artists don’t actually live privileged lives. Manga artists like Akira Toriyama, Eiichiro Oda, and Masashi Kishimoto gave us series like Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Naruto, but the manga industry is heavily exploited and overworked. The artists are subjected to intense work schedules which produces high levels of stress.
Akira Toriyama, the mangaka behind the popular Dragon Ball franchise, revealed the intense physical cost manga artists have to face. Although he maintained a cheerful face while recounting the abuse he faced at the hands of his former editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, it still paints an unflattering picture of the manga industry. Worse still, the culture still considers such grueling treatment of manga artists to be a part of the course of becoming a mangaka.
Akira Toriyama Was Forced To Work On Five Consecutive Weeks Of Colored Pages
In a moderated discussion between Akira Toriyama and Eiichiro Oda, Akira Toriyama said that he was forced past his limits by his editor, the infamous Kazuhiko Torishima. The interview, which was contained within the One Piece artbook, Color Walk 1, started with a light-hearted discussion between the two popular mangakas. It was apparent in the interview that both held each other in high regard. When Oda was asked how he felt about Toriyama, he promptly replied by saying that he thought of Toriyama as a ‘God’.
Toriyama and Oda exchanged brief stories about their character designs and complimented each other’s work. The interviewer asked Oda’s opinion on Toriyama’s best illustration, and Oda replied that the cover for Volume 2 of the manga collection was one of his favorites. According to him, the illustration had a nice, ‘earthy’ feeling color and looked very cool. Toriyama mentioned that he drew that on colored paper because he was working on five consecutive weeks of color pages. Toriyama explained:
“I was forced to do it! By Torishima san. He makes you do completely unbelievable things!! (laugh)“
Oda replied that five straight weeks of working on colored pages was tough and that he already had his hands tied up with just two. Although Toriyama laughed while stating that he was forced to work past his limits, it shows how harsh and demanding the manga industry is in reality.
Akira Toriyama Exposed The Manga Industry’s Flaws
In another interview with Akira Toriyama, held in 2018 to celebrate Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 50th anniversary, Toriyama shared a few anecdotes about his work as a mangaka along with fellow mangaka Takehiko Inoue of Slam Dunk. While they admired each other’s work and swapped stories, some of their comments were telling of what they had to put up with in their early days. Toriyama said:
“I replied that I could barely move my hands due to inflamed tendons. [Torishima] told me to try writing my name, and I said, ‘Of course I can write my name!’ Then he said ‘If you can write your name, then you can draw manga!’ What kind of logic is that?!“
Toriyama’s first editor, Torishima, demanded the Dragon Ball creator to draw two chapters in one week. While the two had laughed it off as a story of the bygone days, the manga industry still demands a harmful level of output from the artists. It is a known fact that Eiichiro Oda sleeps 3-4 hours at night and lives separately from his family to focus on his manga series. Tite Kubo was hospitalized many times due to pain and overwork involved in making Bleach. Meanwhile, Yoshihiro Togashi had to take multiple breaks due to his persistent lower back pain.
