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Among the many Japanese manga, there are countless works that were extremely popular during the serial period, but after many years of popularity, they are still popular, and even works that can be called influential in an era, after all, there are still only a few. But by any measure, Akira Toriyama and his Dragon Ball are definitely one of them.
From Aralei to Dragon Ball
In 1984, Akira Toriyama wanted to finish the manga Alare, which he had been serializing for four years, a request that was immediately rejected by the editorial board—readers familiar with the Weekly Shonen JUMP serialization system knew that when the manga magazine's work ended did not depend largely on the author himself. High popular works have been delayed again and again, low popular works have been cut off, this is the general ecology of the industry, as for the "Alare" at that time, it is obviously not the latter, in fact, it has been the number one popular work of the magazine for two consecutive years, one of the absolute ace main forces.
As a result of the compromise between the author and the editor, Akira Toriyama had to launch a new series within three months of the end of Alare. The style of the new work was first decided in advance, drawing on the important elements of the two previously acclaimed short comics: "Chinese Flavor" and "Kung Fu", and transforming the unit comedy drama of the previous "Alare" into a typical JUMP-style long-form adventure work.
In further discussions with responsible editor Kazuhiko Torishima, the two men continued to add important ideas from two classical masterpieces to the work. One is China's "Journey to the West", Akira Toriyama originally hoped to perform a version of the modern Journey to the West story in the style of science fiction, but was rejected by Torishima, and the final outline was revised several times, only borrowing the names of some characters; the second was the Japanese "The Legend of the Eight Dogs in Minami Tsukasa", from which Akira Toriyama got inspiration that he decided to set the main line of the new series as: The protagonist embarks on an adventure in order to find the beads scattered everywhere, defeating the enemy and obtaining companions along the way.
This manga is naturally the "Dragon Ball" that began to be serialized in the 51st issue of "Weekly Shonen JUMP" in 1984, and even Akira Toriyama himself probably did not expect that this work would later surpass the "Alare" that had been a huge success before, from the time of the series to the sales of the single book, or the worldwide popularity, and the final end was far more complicated and difficult than that of "Alare".
The initial adventure plot of "Dragon Ball" was not as popular as expected, once the popularity fell to the dangerous edge of more than a dozen, at this time the editor Torishima stood up again, thinking that the theme of "pursuing power" should be added to the work, the manga then began the familiar "world's first competition", and sure enough, after this popularity rose rapidly, with the broadcast of the animation is even more rising, from 1987 "Dragon Ball" once again regained the number one ace position of the magazine, And maintain this status until it is finished.
At that time, "Weekly Shonen JUMP" can be described as a heyday, a large number of works to this day are like thunderous classics, in the 80s began to serialize including "Big Dipper God Fist", "Orange Road", "City Hunter", "Saint Seiya", "JOJO Wonderful Adventure", in the early 90s, there were "Slam Dunk Master" and "Youyou White Book", but in front of "Dragon Ball", these works finally had to bow to the wind, according to the statistics at the time, more than 80% of the magazine readers preferred "Dragon Ball" As the number one support work, it is no exaggeration to say that in the entire comic book market, there are only two types of works: "Dragon Ball" and "Other".
From 1984 to 1995, the year of the Dragon Ball serialization is also the history of weekly shonen JUMP to completely establish hegemony. The average magazine sold about 3.5 million copies in 1984 and has grown every year since then, surpassing 5 million copies in 1989 and 6 million copies in 1991, and in 1995, when Dragon Ball was over, Weekly Shonen JUMP officially reached an unprecedented number of 6.53 million copies, more than double that of other competitors. Considering the overall decline in the Japanese manga market today (JUMP sold only 2.6 million copies in 2014), this record is probably a no-brainer. Much of the credit is also mainly due to Akira Toriyama and his Dragon Ball.
An unprecedented finishing work
If Akira Toriyama had thought it himself, the story of Dragon Ball would have ended after defeating the piccolo at the world's first tournament, but it was clear that, as in the days of Alare, the editorial board asked the story to continue. So the new plot introduces the setting of the Saiyans, the stage develops from the earth to the universe, and the most exciting Name nemesis begins, and the Super Saiyan who fought with Frieza made the popularity of the manga among readers climb to a new peak again, and it was more difficult to finish. So frieza followed by artificial people, there was Sharu, even if Akira Toriyama let the protagonist Sun Wukong temporarily take the bento after Saru's game, the editorial department still means that the story must continue to draw.
In fact, at that time, the end of the "Dragon Ball" manga was not only a problem that affected the sales of a magazine "Weekly Shonen JUMP", but also a number of big-name companies such as Bandai Company, Fuji TV, Toei Animation and other big-name companies related to animation and peripheral products, so that the jump editor-in-chief had no right to decide on this matter, and had to be notified all the way to the shueisha board of directors to finally make a decision, and then had to greet the senior management of the above company in advance. Be prepared for secrecy and minimize the negative impact of the end of the work – dragon ball can make the end of a comic book so complicated, and Dragon Ball is also unprecedented.
Despite all these troubles, Akira Toriyama's own resolute attitude played a decisive role, after all, the author is always irreplaceable. After all parties agreed on this, the new plot of the magic man Buo chapter had already decided at the beginning of the series that it would be the final chapter of the manga, but the initial secrecy work was done very thoroughly, and even the then-serving JUMP editor-in-chief Nobuhiko Horie was only known in the second half of the series. In 1995, the magazine began to gradually reveal the news, officially announcing that the "Dragon Ball" comic was about to end. Finally, in the 25th issue of "Weekly Shonen JUMP" in 1995, Dragon Ball published the 519th episode of the final word, which ended the ten-and-a-half-year serial, with a total of 42 volumes, which was one of the few super long works in JUMP at that time.
The impact of the end of "Dragon Ball" is most intuitively reflected in the sales changes of "Weekly Shonen JUMP". With the end of Slam Dunk Master in 1996, magazine sales fell back to 4 million copies in 1997, and it was the first time in many years that the previously suppressed competitor "Weekly Shonen MAGAZINE" oversold in sales, until two or three years later, the new generation of ace "One Piece" officially rose to the top of the situation. (Incidentally, in the years between Dragon Ball and One Piece, JUMP Magazine's number one hit was "The Heart of the Ranger Sword".)
And "Dragon Ball" also consumed all the enthusiasm of Akira Toriyama as a manga artist, and the physical and mental fatigue made him hope to finish early in the morning, admitting that the story behind it was only serialized for the sake of serialization. At the end of Dragon Ball, Toriyama, who was born in 1955, will be only 40 years old next year, far from the age of retirement as a manga artist, but in the nearly two decades since, Akira Toriyama has not written a single full-length manga again, just because of the excitement, drawing short works from time to time, or adding some settings to the worldview of Dragon Ball.
Of course, as a gamer, you should know that in addition to the role of a manga artist, there is another important job is to serve as a game character, the most classic of which is naturally the Japanese national RPG "Dragon Quest" series, from 1986 to Akira Toriyama was invited to join the original game, Horii Yuji, Koichi Akira Akirayama and Akira Toriyama The trio is a fixed lineup in the production team, and each generation is bound to be indispensable to Akira Toriyama's personality. So many players often say that Akira Toriyama has earned enough money even without Dragon Ball's long-term meal ticket alone over the years... In addition to the DQ series, Akira Toriyama has been involved in the main games of "Timeless Wheel", "Planetary Fighting 1 &2", "Blue Dragon" and several "Dragon Ball" adaptations.
Thirty years on, the legend remains
Unlike many works that became popular all over the world at the time of serialization and quickly de-heated after the end, the popularity of "Dragon Ball" continued to continue after the end of the manga, and the circulation of single-line books continued to accumulate, and the cumulative sales of various versions in Japan have exceeded 156 million copies, becoming the only "100 million copies" level in Japanese manga in the early days, and before being surpassed by the rising star "One Piece", it is undoubtedly the first-selling work of JUMP, and it has nearly 300 million sales worldwide.
The Dragon Ball comic came to an end in 1995, the story of Dragon Ball continued after that, the TV version of Dragon Ball Z aired its finale on January 31, 1996, but then went on to broadcast Dragon Ball GT, and this completely independent and original anime that was divorced from the plot of the manga also caused a lot of controversy among fans, mostly focusing on whether to count it as an orthodox work of Dragon Ball. In the final analysis, the birth of Dragon Ball GT itself is fuji tv and Bandai hope that the anime will continue after the manga is completed, and they will come up with a plan to ask Akira Toriyama to complete some of the settings, and the official completion of the authorized "fan".
In addition to GT, common adaptations derived from the Dragon Ball series include theatrical versions and games. Starting from the first theatrical version of "Legend of the Dragon" in 1986, "Dragon Ball" has launched 17 theatrical versions in a row in ten years, and two films have been released every year for six consecutive years from 90 to 95, which is enough to imagine the boom of "Dragon Ball" at that time, and after many years, the restarted 2013 theatrical version of "God and God" has regained Akira Toriyama as the setting, still selling 3 billion yen at the box office. The official also said that it will launch a new theatrical version in 2015.
In terms of games, since the launch of the first game in 1986, it has successively landed on major models of various eras, FC, GB, PS, PS2, NDS, Xbox360, all the way to the latest PS4 works, "Dragon Ball: Super Universe" scheduled to be released on February 5, 2015. Rough statistics "Dragon Ball" series of adapted games currently more than 50, sales of more than 40 million sets, although most of them did not have the original author Akira Toriyama involved, but the production team also played a bit of creativity, added a lot of players imagined the role, so that many fantasy duels can be realized.
And the value of the name "Dragon Ball" is not only reflected by these numbers, if only with various records in terms of sales, JUMP's new generation of ace "One Piece" has achieved a comprehensive transcendence of "Dragon Ball" in all aspects, and even to some extent, jump's dependence on Pirates is even worse than that of Dragon Ball, which will lead to the future completion of Pirates, which may be more serious than the Dragon Ball era... But the influence of "Dragon Ball" is more comprehensive, and its success proves that the juvenile comic mode chosen by JUMP is an unbreakable king, and a whole generation has grown up watching "Dragon Ball", and too many elements of it have been deeply imprinted into their minds, dragons, tournaments, shock waves, combat power, super Saiyans, fusion techniques... The names left by "Dragon Ball" have long been heard, and the fixed memories that come to hand are far more than the second dimension.
Around the world, "Dragon Ball" has gained more supporters, and European and American countries love "Dragon Ball" no less than Japan, not to mention Domestic. It is no exaggeration to assert that Dragon Ball has changed not only the comic book industry, but the value of the name goes far beyond the comics themselves to become a separate culture, 30 years ago and 30 years later, when children became adults, it is still remembered by the generations of people in the world who lived the same time as us.
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