Artist: Akira Toriyama

I was never the biggest manga fan, but the value of Akira Toriyama's work is obvious.   

Toriyama is the comic artist most known for creating Dragon Ball. You can see his personality reflected in his art.

Dragon Ball is still fantastic because, apart from its great art, it never lost its light and humourous roots. Check out Dragon Ball before the "Z." The same kind of boyish adventure as knights on quests to slay dragons, or pirates and astronauts exploring sea and space. 

I love Toriyama's style for its optimistic energy. DBZ had its moments of intensity (Future Trunks springs to mind; he and his story was always too edgy and angsty for my liking) but despite all of the dramatic battles, when I think of Dragon Ball, I think of lightness, if that makes any sense. 

Look at the smiling faces, confidence, and energy in the image above. There's real "flow" to it, and not just how the elements of the drawing are arranged to lead the eye. 

The airplane exudes charm, too. Toriyama chose not to draw anything sleek, dangerous, or overtly powerful looking like a jet; he has real love for "analogue" tech: big, chunky vehicles filled with personality. Toriyama loves drawing vehicles and devices so much and so often I've wondered if he has training in industrial design. Plus, just like his characters, Toriyama's vehicles have distinctive design. Look at the rounded "capsule" look in the following image to see what I mean.

I also love Oolong's "worker" uniform, complete with cap.

Terrific Tanks: I loved reading "Sandland" when I was a boy. Everyone got around with tanks, and the mechanical design was equal parts futuristic, functional, worn, and charming: essential elements for contributing to a story's charm and soul, as well as mechanical design. 

A famous one, and a favourite. Toriyama seems fond of drawing Goku, his flagship character, riding motorbikes.

Toriyama fully deserves his success, because he is a genuine artist: a superb storyteller who enjoys drawing for drawing. The detail he puts into his work happens to be impressive; it's not injected to impress. And while there's an intensity to it (check out the detail on that bike!) it's not cranked to an uncomfortable degree, like the art of another manga series, Berserk.  

Episodes of Dragon Ball are still being made to this day, including movies and a TV series; "Dragon Ball Super." I had a vacation recently and, in perusing art sites, saw art of the new characters populating the new series (leading me to reflect on Toriyama's art, hence this blog post). I can't say I'm especially impressed by "Super," most probably because they're not done directly by the man himself. But after seeing a few clips of this new series you can tell Toriyama has a role in the creative direction of the show: specifically, its light tone. (And good for him for keeping it so: after all these years, if the show was intense or took itself too seriously it'd be embarrassing.) 

While the art of "Super" isn't fantastic, it prompted me to look up clips of DBZ, something I enjoyed from childhood. There were three major "sagas" to that program: the Saiyan Saga, the Cell Saga, and the Buu Saga. All were good, but my absolute favourite is the original Saiyan Saga. The art, at this point, had become less round from the Dragon Ball days but has not yet morphed into the ultra-angular style that would come to define current iterations of Dragon Ball, like the design of our angsty friend, Future Trunks. By the time of the Buu stories, the art process had become streamlined, but in these early days, there was a more "organic" feel to the art. 

Check out these designs of Vegeta to see what I mean. 

Early DBZ still had intense moments like this one, but they were rarer, making them more dramatic.

I mentioned "flow" and energy earlier, and I get the same feeling from Vegeta's early design, especially in this last one. It's organically drawn; not yet (overly) streamlined, copied from a computer scan, or too angular. The neck muscles, small nose, and black hair make him look young, but also strong. The armour too contributes a special charm; it's science fiction-y in an antiquated, "Flash Gordon" kind of way. (The Saiyans were invading, evil aliens, after all...)

Vegeta was an expressive and iconic character, and Goku, too: I know there're still stories being told with them as the heroes, but only this early part of Dragon Ball strikes me.  

Anyway, those're my thoughts on Akira Toriyama: iconic and genuine artist.