Dragon Ball Super Reveals the Characters Akira Toriyama Created Most Recently
Dragon Ball Super is one of the biggest stories to tackle Goku, and the Saiyan is still going on [...]
Dragon Ball Super is one of the biggest stories to tackle Goku, and the Saiyan is still going on missions even while the anime is on a break. For those who read the manga, you will know the series has kept its pace since its publication began, and that hasn't changed in 2021. And now, the creator of Dragon Ball is opening up about his most recent work on the manga.
The update comes with the newest volume of Dragon Ball Super as it just went live in Japan. Volume 16 was made public to the delight of fans, and it was there Akira Toriyama shared some behind-the-scenes info on the series. As it turns out, Toriyama did design two things for Granolah's arc, and you will recognize the characters with ease.
From DBS vol.16, we learn that Toriyama designed Granolah’s Namekian roommate Monaito and the Sugarians. Toriyama’s original name for Monaito was “Slug”, but this was changed to avoid confusion with the movie villain pic.twitter.com/sHn8cuiVK8
— Todd Blankenship (@Herms98) August 3, 2021
According to Toriyama, he did the character designs for Monaito - the elder Namekian living on Cereal - as well as the Sugarians. As you can imagine, Toriyama has worked with tons of Namekian designs in the past, so it didn't take much for him to create Monaito. However, the artist did struggle with a name. It turns out he wanted to name the elder Slug, but Toriyama opted for Monaito after the editorial team asked whether the name would confuse fans. After all, Dragon Ball has featured another fighter name Slug who was a villain, but Monaito is nothing like that.
As for the Sugarians, the axolotl-looking aliens were drawn up by Toriyama. The species looks cute for the most part, so the Dragon Ball creator hasn't lost his touch. In fact, the Sugarians are doing well, and fans are loving their punny name. After all, Toriyama designed the aliens with heads that look like wrapped hard candies. So if you thought the aliens had a weird name, well - just know it was all for the sake of theming.
What do you think of this Dragon Ball update? Are you surprised by his work on Granolah's arc? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB.