Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama died on March 1, although the official announcement was delayed a week to grant the family time to mourn privately. I'm glad that happened, if a little surprised no one blew it by just not being able to help texting a friend with the news.

I suspect if you are someone to which that information is significant, you already knew. It's a little staggering, to see Jackie Chan or the President of France, sharing their thoughts and feelings at Toriyama's passing. The reach of the characters and stories he created, the number of people that felt their lives enriched by his work.

This is going to ramble, I don't know. Like a lot of people in the U.S., I first encountered his work through DragonBall Z on Cartoon Network. The fighting, the transformations, the long sequences of powering up while screaming loudly. A lot of that was padding done for 22-minute episodes, rather than being like that in the actual story Toriyama wrote and drew. Example: When he powers up for the Kaioken x 3 against Vegeta, the powering takes over 75 seconds in the anime. In the manga, it's less than 4 pages, and most of two of those pages are other characters reacting to what he's doing (selling that yes, this is as dangerous to Goku as it is to Vegeta, as matter of establishing stakes.)

There's a post on Tumblr, talking about how Toriyama drew fight scenes. The clarity and simplicity of the action. The knowledge of when to remove the surroundings details so all the focus is on that kick, that punch, the impending beam struggle. That even when the character's attacks have big elaborate names - like Thunder Shock Surprise - it's still presented as a straightforward, easy-to-follow, movement. That's no small thing. If you've read many comics, whether Japanese, American, whatever, you've probably seen plenty with just awful fight scenes. Either the characters look static, like mannequins posing, or there's no sense of where anyone is in relation to one another or what's actually going on.

I've heard that DragonBall, in addition to drawing heavily for Journey to the West, was always Toriyama having some fun spoofing what were the conventions of shonen anime at that time. If true, crazy to think what he created became the new standard that so many others would draw from or emulate. It also points to what I didn't realize until I actually encountered DragonBall: As good as Toriyama was at action, he was a comedy guy first.

Dr. Slump is the most notable example (albeit one I haven't read), but going through the Akira Toriyama Manga Theater, most of the his shorter works, and especially the earliest ones, were comedy. Where there's action or violence, it's in service to a joke. The pilot in Wonder Island, so condescending and rude, who tries to show off his homemade wings, and falls flat on his face. Or one of the locals shouts so loudly the word strikes the pilot in the face as a physical blow.

And that carried over to DragonBall, with one of Goku's early attacks being the Rock-Paper-Scissors Attack, which he then uses successfully against Jackie Chun by yelling "Rock!", but doing a 3 Stooges eye-poke (i.e., scissors). Or Krillin beating a big smelly opponent by farting in the guy's face. Or the leader of the Red Ribbon Army just wanting the Dragon Balls so he can wish to be taller.

Which is also a little terrifying, that this guy formed an army that killed and pillaged, to get a magic dragon that could grant him anything, just to make him taller. But Toriyama was also good at making villains who had petty goals and grievances, but were ruthless about achieving them. Kind of a valuable life lesson, not to underestimate someone just because their goals seem small or limited to you. Those are the kinds of things a person might fight the most viciously for.

Although the lesson I try to take most to heart is the idea not to calcify, to withdraw and become stagnant. It's part of the Kame School creed to live well, eat well, study well, play well. To do whatever you do to the fullest, to not just accept a limitation imposed on you. But it comes up in Toriyama's other work. Characters that have isolated themselves. They're bitter or jaded, just going through the motions. But when they stretch themselves, go different places, or even see old places with a new outlook, their perspective changes. Things don't seem so hopeless or pointless. You aren't dead until you're truly dead, but you can let yourself drift into spiritual death so easily.