Dragon Ball fans realize just how many mysteries were dependent on Toriyama's whims

Modified Nov 23, 2024 12:30 GMT

Dragon Ball fans realize a new element of Toriyama's writing style (Image via Toei Animation)

Dragon Ball has stood out for cementing several battle shonen tropes, its dynamic battle sequences, charismatic characters, and mainly, the peculiar creative decisions. Moreover, these decisions were often determined by the fact that author Akira Toriyama simply wanted to have fun with his manga and created many characters and concepts out of whims.

This was recently evidenced on X when a person asked why King Kai had a car when he was living on a very small planet and someone mentioned how 80% of Dragon Ball can be summed up by the comment "Toriyama thought it was funny." While it can be quite entertaining and stated simply to be funny, there is a lot of truth in that comment and several moments in the franchise can be defined by that.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and the people quoted and not Sportskeeda as a publication.

Akira Toriyama's whims were a major factor in most creative decisions in Dragon Ball and fans are realizing now

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As mentioned earlier, the idea of King Kai owning a car was mostly due to Akira Toriyama loving those vehicles and having a huge passion for driving machines, as evidenced by his long list of art pieces featuring them. Moreover, there are a lot of decisions in the series that were made out of whims and highlight the author's desire for constant creative freedom.

Perhaps a good example of that was how the Android Saga was heavily inspired by the Terminator franchise, with Future Trunks serving as this story's Kyle Reese and the threat of the androids filling as the T-800. There were also several instances throughout the story where he took major inspirations from Western fiction, such as Frieza's third form looking quite similar to the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise.

Naturally, there are a lot more lighthearted elements in the story that happened because Toriyama simply wanted to have fun with it. Prominent examples include Goku sending Monster Carrot and his men to the Moon with his Power Pole, Gohan becoming sentai hero as the Great Saiyaman, or making Majin Buu a fat individual with a kid's mentality.

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It is interesting to look back at these decisions and see the different opinions of what makes Dragon Ball the iconic franchise that it is. However, a section of the fanbase claims that the series has lost a lot of serious and somewhat dark edge, which was mostly dominant during the Saiyan, Namek, and Android/Cell sagas.

It is understandable that many fans have this view because that was the most popular portion of the story, but it is also worth pointing out that Toriyama started as a gag writer and this manga was also mostly comedic from the beginning. It can be argued that the author's whims and aims for something funny are key elements of his writing style that some fans might not grasp.

"Also, Toriyama seemed to really like drawing machinery and vehicles," someone said.

"People be adding more complexity and he just wanted to go. 'Haha monkey boy' lol" another person said.

"The man’s sense of humor shaped a whole universe—logic optional," someone else said.

Therefore, decisions such as the King Kai car is something that makes a lot of sense with the author's mindset. This is an element that a lot of other fans have accepted and even embraced, which is also helped by projects such as Super and Daima where Toriyama's comedic and improvised style is quite notorious.

"A lot of his writing he's just writing by the seat of his pants and doing whatever, which is kind of a fun vibe," another person said.

"In this case specifically: toriyama has said countless times that cars are his favorite thing to draw. He'll use any excuse to draw a car," someone else said.

Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1 of this year, with the entire world mourning his loss. However, his legacy as one of the greatest and most influential mangaka of all time will last forever.

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Edited by Meenakshi Ajith