Akira Toriyama was the manga artist of Dragon Ball. At the beginning of his career, he not only created the drawings for his own manga but also illustrated the covers of video games. However, in the West, these were coldly replaced.
Why were there different images for the West? Outside of Japan, Toriyama’s drawings were replaced by 3D models. At that time, the manga artist was probably still too unknown for his drawings to be a good selling point. It wasn’t until years later that the big wave of anime and manga arrived in the West.
The video games include:
- Dragon Quest
- Dragon Quest Monsters
- Tobal No. 1
- Dragon Ball
A user on X named DougDinsdale is said to have served as a translator for some of the video games. He supposedly asked Square Enix why they replaced the drawings. The company allegedly responded that they found the cartoon style too childish.
The curious thing is: In the video game for Dragon Ball, the entire franchise was simply swapped out. Instead of Son Goku, we play as a human with a monkey face. Son Goku is also no longer seen on the packaging, instead, a Kung-Fu master kicks towards us.
The appropriate image for this can be found further down in the embedded post from X.
One of the last works that Toriyama worked on is Dragon Ball Daima. The anime will start in Fall 2024:
Toriyama’s drawings are still being replaced today
Is the problem still present today? In fact, there are still some cases today where there are two different versions of a game. As user Zalman writes on X, especially the versions on Nintendo Switch use Akira Toriyama’s design. As examples, he mentions Dragon Quest Builders and Dragon Quest 11.
In the PS4 versions, however, 3D models are used instead. The Ugly Otter mentions that the PS4 version exists in both versions, but in any case, the publisher wants to offer fans an alternative variant to Toriyama’s drawing.
According to user alexfkraus, Toriyama’s drawing style is said to have only been seen in the USA starting in 2001. The first game featuring his drawing was Dragon Quest 3 for the Game Boy Color. But there is one exception: Chrono Trigger for the Super Nintendo already had the Dragon Ball creator’s drawing style on the cover.
By now, Toriyama is so well known in the West that many of his drawings have been featured in various video games. Unfortunately, there will be no more images from him in the future: Akira Toriyama drew one last picture before his death, showing a new series by the creator of Dragon Ball
