Dragon Ball Super Artist Explains the Difficulties of Mimicking Toriyama's Style

Dragon Ball Super is one of the most intriguing entries in the Dragon Ball franchise. Continuing on with the series' canon with original series creator Akira Toriyama's involvement, but without him directly creating the new entry, fans have seen how both the anime and manga have offered their own interpretations on the story. Taking on the manga is an pretty huge endeavor for artist Toyotaro, who must be feeling the pressure from filling in the shoes of one of the most popular manga creators of all time. Toyotaro recently addressed this in an interview with French magazine Mickey Parade Geant.

With translations from @JacklchanDB on Twitter, Toyotaro opened up about what he does to adapt Toriyama's style and try to fit it as best he can for the manga releases of the series. As it turns out, it's about making sure the characters can stand out in each panel.

As Toyotaro explained, Toriyama's characters are easily recognizable, "You can recognize Toriyama's characters at first glance: the eyes, the expressions, the hair...What he masters to perfection is clarity: he makes what's important stand out in his panels. His characters stand out very well from the background, for example. So, I try to bring as much as much care as him in the details."

Toyotaro's been a big fan of the series for a long time, and even drew fan art of Goku in his elementary school days. It's this fandom that eventually led him to drawing a special manga for the Dragon Ball Heroes arcade game, and that led him to getting a job drawing the manga officially. It's this fandom and attention to detail that's not gripped fans as the manga ventures into new territory.

The current arc of the manga has been involved in a completely new arc taking place after the events of the Dragon Ball Super anime and Dragon Ball Super: Broly film. It's been a huge hit with fans thus far as they have been introduced to a powerful new villain, Planet Eater Moro,

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block on Saturday evenings, and is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese-language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. The manga has chapters that can currently be read for free thanks to Viz Media, and Dragon Ball Super's big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.