My little brother’s always been a better artist than me.
I can knock out a knock-off of Mario easily enough, just off the top of my head, but that’s about the extent of my artistic talents. Dan, on the other hand, can craft original characters out of thin air, with no trouble at all. Give him a piece of paper, a pencil and a general idea of what kind of character he’s aiming for, and he’ll sketch it out in seconds flat. It’s impressive!
And I think a lot of Dan’s creativity can be traced back to Akira Toriyama. The first piece I remember really being taken aback by, by Dan, was back when he was still in high school and he got the assignment to draw one of the gods of Greek mythology. Dan turned in this huge, colorful portrait of Hades, and he’d drawn him as a villain straight out of Dragon Ball Z: matching Toriyama’s style to a T, and even wrapping him in flames in the same way a fiery aura enveloped Goku when he powered up. (And to really sell the “god of the dead” part, Dan also added a symbol on a clasp of his cloak: the Black Mana skull from Magic: The Gathering.)
That kind of copying is so crucial for artists who are just setting out on their journeys to find their own style. Students naturally look to masters of the craft they’re pursuing as mentors, studying their techniques and emulating their methods until they reach such a point of confidence that they’re able to branch off and find their own path to originality. And I think for Dan and for an entire generation around him, Akira Toriyama served as that role model. Drawing their own Gokus or Cronos or Dragon Quest Slimes was surely the first step so many kids took on their own quests of creativity.
So, in this issue of NF Magazine, we honor that impact! We’ve put together a central feature that traces Akira Toriyama’s career — focusing on his contributions to the video game industry specifically, since we are a gaming magazine after all. We’ve also got previews of Toriyama titles that might be Nintendo-bound soon, a lead review of the final Switch game that saw release while he was still with us, and much more. I hope it all inspires you — artistically!
