Following the tragic passing of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, fans and anime creators alike joined together to pay homage to the artist responsible for Goku, Vegeta, and the other Z-Fighers. One prime example of a creator in mourning was Eiichiro Oda, the manga artist who spawned Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirate crew, who praised the work of Toriyama. Now, the One Piece creator has released a new testament to Akira Toriyama and revealed the major influence that the Dragon Ball creator had on his life.
Recently, Oda praised Toriyama by recalling his discovery of Dragon Ball in his early life, “Before I discovered Dragon Ball in fourth gradeArale-Chan (Dr. Slump) was already airing on TV since my early elementary school years, but my strict parents judged Arale -chan as being ‘vulgar’ and didn’t allow me to watch it. Well, it did have a lot of poop jokes, after all. Not only my parents, but even I myself viewed it as ‘dangerous.’ This might be different now, but back then, it was normal for each household to have only one TV In the living room. In other words, if I said I wanted to watch Arale-Chan, the whole famil would end up watching it too.”
Oda continued, “If something ‘vulgar’ came on, it would affect my standing within the family. Like ‘so you like stuff like this, huh?’ That’s why I didn’t actually read Arale-Chan until much later. If I remember right, I bought the whole set of comics at once when I was in high school.”
Toriyama’s Influence on Oda
Eiichiro Oda then proceeded to reveal just how influential Toriyama was in his career, stating that there was no artist that had more of an impact on his art, “The existence of Toriyama-sensei is greater to me than anything else. I had never seen anyone who could draw so well and I was captivated at first sight. Of course, I was also influenced by many other artists I discovered after Toriyama-sensei, and they all helped shape who I am today, but when it comes to art, the influence of Toriyama-sensei is by far the greatest.”
The One Piece creator then revealed that Toriyama was the person responsible for his original manga submission, setting the stage for Oda to become a shonen legend, “The reason I submitted to Shonen Jump’s newcomer award was purely because I wanted to go to ‘the place where Akira Toriyama was.’ Not once did I ever consider applying anywhere other than Shonen Jump. I didn’t make it in time for Dragon Ballbut after One Piece began, not long after that, Toriyama-sensei’s series COWA! also started. That made me incredibly happy. To be running a series in Shonen Jump alongside Toriyama-sensei was like a dream come true.”
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Via Pew Piece
