Source: @NetEase Game Channel column

In 1984, Akira Toriyama gave Dragon Ball a new meaning, and 30 years later, the memory of the name is still so clear.

Among the many Japanese manga, there are countless works that were smash hits during the serialization period, but they are still popular for many years, and they can even be called works that can influence an era, after all, there are still only a handful. But no matter what the standard is, Akira Toriyama and his Dragon Ball are definitely one of them.

From Arrai to Dragon Ball

In 1984, Akira Toriyama wanted to finish the manga "Aralei," which he had been serializing for four years, but this request was immediately rejected by the editorial-editorial department — readers familiar with the serialization system of Weekly Shonen Jump knew that the end of the manga magazine was largely not up to the author. The highly popular works have been dragged on and on, and the low-popularity works have been cut in half, this is the general ecology of the industry, as for the "Alalei" at that time, it was obviously not the latter, in fact, it was the number one popular work of the magazine for two consecutive years, one of the absolute trump cards.

In the end, the result of a compromise between the author and the editor-editor was that Akira Toriyama had to launch a new serialization within three months of the end of "Aralei". The style of the new work was first decided in advance, and it was decided in advance to absorb the important elements of the two previous short comics: "Chinese flavor" and "kung fu", and transformed from the previous unit comedy of "Aralei" into a typical JUMP-style long-form adventure work.

In the ensuing further discussion with the editor-in-charge, Kazuhiko Torishima, the two men continued to add important ideas from the two classical masterpieces to the work. One is China's "Journey to the West", Akira Toriyama originally hoped to interpret a version of the modern Journey to the West story in the style of science fiction, but was vetoed by Torishima, and the final outline was revised several times, only borrowing the names of some characters, etc.; The second is Japan's "The Legend of the Eight Dogs of Minami Satomi", from which Akira Toriyama was inspired by his decision to set the main line of the new series: the protagonist embarks on an adventure in search of the beads scattered all over the world, defeating enemies and gaining 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 never thought that this work would later surpass the previous "Aralei", which was already a huge success, in all aspects, from the serialization time to the sales of single books, or the worldwide popularity, and the final end is far more complicated and difficult than "Aralei".

The early adventure plot of "Dragon Ball" was not as popular as expected, and once its popularity fell to the dangerous edge of a dozen, at this time the editor-editor Bird Island stood up again, thinking that the theme of "pursuit of power" should be added to the work, and the manga then began the "world's first martial arts competition" that we are familiar with, and sure enough, the popularity rose sharply after that, and the broadcast of the animation was even higher, and since 1987, "Dragon Ball" has regained the number one trump card position of the magazine, And keep it that way until it's over.

At that time, "Weekly Shonen Jump" can be described as a heyday, a large number of works are thunderous classics today, including "Beidou God Fist", "Orange Road", "City Hunter", "Saint Seiya", "JOJO Bizarre Adventure", in the early 90s, there were "Slam Dunk" and "Yuyou Hakusho", but in the face of "Dragon Ball", these works eventually had to bow down, according to statistics at the time, more than 80% of the magazine's readership preferred "Dragon Ball" As the number one support work, it is no exaggeration to say that in the entire manga market, there are only two types of works: "Dragon Ball" and "Other".

From 1984 to 1995, the year when "Dragon Ball" was serialized, it was also the history of "Weekly Shonen Jump" that completely established its hegemony. In 1984, the magazine sold an average of about 3.5 million copies, and since then it has continued to grow every year, surpassing 5 million copies in 1989, 6 million copies in 1991, and in 1995, when Dragon Ball ended, Weekly Shonen Jump officially reached an unprecedented 6.53 million copies, more than double the number of other competitors. Considering the overall decline in the Japanese manga market (JUMP sold only 2.6 million copies in 2014), this record is probably unprecedented. And most of the credit is also mainly due to Akira Toriyama and his "Dragon Ball".

An unprecedented finish

According to Akira Toriyama's own ideas, the story of "Dragon Ball" would have ended after defeating Piccolo in the world's first martial arts tournament, but it is clear that the editorial department asked the story to continue, just like "Aralei" at that time. So the new plot introduced the setting of Saiyans, the stage developed from the earth to the universe, and the most exciting Namek star chapter began, and the Super Saiyan who fought with Frieza made the manga's popularity among readers climb to a new peak again, and it was even more difficult to finish. So after Frieza, there were androids, and there was Shalu, even if Akira Toriyama let the protagonist Sun Wukong temporarily receive a lunch box and quit after Shalu played, the meaning of the editorial-editorial department is that the story must continue to be drawn.

In fact, whether the "Dragon Ball" manga was over at that time or not was not only a matter of affecting the sales of the magazine "Weekly Shonen Jump", but also the Shueisha Publishing Group behind it, and a number of big-name companies such as Bandai Company, Fuji TV, and Toei Animation related to the adaptation of animation and peripheral products would have a chain reaction, so that the editor-in-chief of JUMP had no right to call the shots in this matter, and had to report all the way to the Shueisha Board of Directors to make a final decision, and then they had to greet the senior management of the above companies in advance. Be prepared to minimize the negative impact of the end of a work under the premise of secrecy - Dragon Ball is also unprecedented in the history of making the end of a manga so complicated.

Despite all these troubles, Akira Toriyama's resolute attitude played a decisive role, after all, the author is still irreplaceable. After all parties agreed on this, it was decided that the Majin Buu chapter of the new plot would be the final chapter of the manga at the beginning of the serialization, but the initial secrecy was done very thoroughly, and even the then incumbent JUMP editor-in-chief Nobuhiko Horie only knew about it in the second half of the serial. In 1995, the magazine began to gradually reveal the news, officially announcing the end of the "Dragon Ball" manga. Finally, in 1995, in the 25th issue of "Weekly Shonen Jump", "Dragon Ball" published the final episode 519, which ended the ten and a half years of serialization, with a total of 42 volumes in a single book, which was one of the few ultra-long-form works in JUMP at that time.

The impact of the end of "Dragon Ball" is most intuitively reflected in the change in sales of "Weekly Shonen Jump". With the end of "Slam Dunk" in 1996, magazine sales fell back to 4 million copies in 1997, and it was the first time in many years that the competitor "Weekly Shonen Magazine" was firmly suppressed in sales, and it was not until another two or three years later, after the official rise of the new generation of ace "One Piece", that this situation was reversed again. (By the way, in the years between Dragon Ball and One Piece, the number one hit by JUMP magazine was Rogue Kenshin)

And "Dragon Ball" also consumed all the enthusiasm of Akira Toriyama as a manga artist, and the fatigue of his body and mind made him hope for the end of the morning, and he admitted that the rest of the story was only serialized for the sake of serialization. At the end of "Dragon Ball", Toriyama, who was born in 1955, will only be 40 years old next year, which is far from the age of retirement for manga artists, but in the nearly 20 years since then, Akira Toriyama has not written any full-length manga again, just because of his interest, drawing some short works from time to time, or adding some settings to the world view of "Dragon Ball".

Of course, as a gamer, you should know that Akira Toriyama has another important job in addition to being a manga artist, and one of the most classic is naturally the Japanese national RPG "Dragon Quest" series, since 1986 Akira Toriyama was invited to join the original game, Yuji Horii, Koichi Sukiyama and Akira Toriyama, the trio is a fixed lineup in the production group, and Akira Toriyama is inevitably indispensable for each generation. So much so that some players often say that Akira Toriyama has earned enough money just by relying on the long-term meal ticket of DQ even if he has no Dragon Ball income over the years...... In addition to the DQ series, Akira Toriyama has mainly participated in games such as "Macross Wheel", "Planetary Fighting 1&2", "Blue Dragon" and several "Dragon Ball" adaptations.

Thirty years later, the legend continues

Unlike many works that became popular all over the world when they were serialized and quickly faded after the end, the popularity of "Dragon Ball" continued after the end of the manga, and the circulation of single books continued to accumulate, and the cumulative sales of various versions in Japan have exceeded 156 million copies, making it one of the few "100 million copies" in Japanese manga in the early days, and before being surpassed by the rising star "One Piece", it was undoubtedly the No. 1 selling work of JUMP, with nearly 300 million sales worldwide.

The "Dragon Ball" manga came to an end in 1995, and the story of "Dragon Ball" continued after that, with the TV version of "Dragon Ball Z" airing its final episode on January 31, 1996, but then continued to broadcast "Dragon Ball GT", and this completely independent and original anime that broke away from the manga plot also caused a lot of controversy among fans, with most of the focus on whether it should be counted as an authentic work of "Dragon Ball". In the final analysis, the birth of "Dragon Ball GT" itself is the product of Fuji TV and Bandai hoping that the anime will continue after the end of the manga, and they came up with a project to ask Akira Toriyama to complete part of the setting, and the official completed the authorized "doujin" work.

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 craze of "Dragon Ball" at that time, and after many years, the rebooted 2013 theatrical version of "Gods and Gods" has regained the setting of Akira Toriyama, and it still sells 3 billion yen at the box office. The official also said that a new theatrical version will be launched again in 2015.

In terms of games, since the launch of the first game in 1986, it has continued to land on major models of various eras, FC, GB, PS, PS2, NDS, Xbox360, and the latest PS4 works, "Dragon Ball: Super Universe", which is scheduled to be released on February 5, 2015. According to rough statistics, there are currently more than 50 adaptations of the "Dragon Ball" series, with sales of more than 40 million units, although most of them do not have the participation of the original author Akira Toriyama, but the production zuò group has also played a more or less creative role, adding many characters imagined by players, so that many fantasy duels can be realized.

And the value of the name "Dragon Ball" is more than what these numbers can reflect, if you just look at the various records in terms of sales, JUMP's new generation of ace "One Piece" has achieved a comprehensive surpass of "Dragon Ball" in all aspects, and even the current JUMP on Cheng dù is more dependent on pirates than Dragon Ball back then, which means that the future end of the pirates will probably be stricter than in the Dragon Ball era...... But the influence of "Dragon Ball" is more comprehensive, and its success proves that the shonen manga mode chosen by JUMP is an unbreakable king, and a whole generation has grown up watching "Dragon Ball", and too many elements have been deeply imprinted into their minds, such as dragons, tournaments, shockwaves, combat power, Super Saiyans, and mergers...... the names left by "Dragon Ball" have long been familiar to their ears and eyes, and the fixed memories that come with them are far more than two-dimensional.

Around the world, "Dragon Ball" has gained more supporters, and European and American countries are no less fond of "Dragon Ball" than Japan, not to mention domestically. It is no exaggeration to assert that Dragon Ball has changed more than just the manga industry, and that the value of the name goes far beyond the manga itself, enough to become a separate culture, and 30 years ago and 30 years later, when children become adults, it will still be remembered by the generation of the world who lived the same time as us.