How Toriyama Became A Manga Artist

When he was just a small child, Akira Toriyama was a troublemaker in school who loved to draw. His favorite types of things to illustrate were animals and cars, and he drew them an awful lot, especially during school time. It wasn’t until he saw the Disney film 101 Dalmatians that he realized he was serious about drawing though, as this completely blew him away, and gave him massive inspiration.

Every day Akira would get through a tiresome day of causing trouble at school, then go home and spend hours drawing, this was his hobby and something he enjoyed an awful lot. One day, whilst at a female friend’s house he spotted a pile of her brother’s manga, which is basically the Japanese version of comics. This was the first time he had ever noticed these magnificent books, and was amazed that they even existed.

Despite being deeply into the manga during elementary school, he neglected to read them as much when he moved up to high school. He enjoyed TV and movies far more during that period of time, although he still drew on numerous occasions, littering his notes and books with countless sketches. During this time he would stay out until it got extremely dark before finally returning home. It was a great time for young Toriyama.

Due to his love of drawing, Akira went to a high school that specialized in design. Although his passion for drawing was immense, he enjoyed playing around even more, and every day on the way home from school he would make a temporary stop somewhere. This ranged from going bowling to going to the ramen restaurant, he always had to drop by one of these places, never going straight home. During this certain period the amount of manga he read was scarce, although he had started drawing a few of his own. He came to a point in his life where he had a choice between continuing his education and delving into the job market. To quote a Toriyama, he chose to quit school because he was an "arrogant little punk". This gave him fewer choices for the future, and his parents were deeply against it, but this didn’t stop him at all. He believed his drawing skills were competent enough for him to easily get a good job, and besides, he was sick of studying.

Toriyama got a job at a design company within hardly any time at all, and as he was pretty skillful at the tasks in hand, his diligent work showed. The problem was that he had real trouble waking up on time, and was late on many occasions. He’d also get shouted at for wearing unsuitable clothes, and rapidly became sick of his job, quitting after two and a half years. He believes that this experience assisted his final choice of job perfectly, as without he probably would have never became a manga artist, as he wouldn’t have properly understood it.

Due to the fact that he had recently quit his job, Akira Toriyama was often at a loss for money, and it wasn’t until he noticed an advert in a coffee shop that he realized any good ways of raising some. It was advertising a manga drawing contest, and offered a fairly good prize that he desperately wanted. This was the first time that he actually drew a serious manga, which he sent in, confident of success. Unfortunately though it produced no winnings what so ever. Stubbornly, he created a new one, and sent that in too, but again this granted him no prize. He later got a call from, as he described it, "an angel" in the form of Mr. Torishima, the editor of the comic that hosted the contest (I assume this is jump comics, but I can’t be 100% certain). The call told him that he still wasn’t particularly great, but if he kept on trying then something might come of it. So that’s exactly what Toriyama did, sending off a few more pieces of work before eventually making his debut in the comic.

Since that event he has been creating brand new mangas for jump comics on a regular basis. He salutes the man who gave him his big break, Mr. Torishima. A summary of his latest manga – Neko Majin Z – can be found elsewhere on this site, along with summaries of some of his Dragonball/Z works.

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Information researched from Toriyama's World