Dragon Ball Dragon Ball Super may be the creation of Akira Toriyama, but even he doesn't know everything there is to know about the series. Luckily, he had the help of one of Dragon Ball's biggest fans during the run of Dragon Ball Super, and now the series can be in the hands of that longtime fan – his artist, Toyotarou.
Toyotarou has been a known Dragon Ball fan for decades now, as he is believed to be responsible for the popular 2000 Dragon Ball manga, Dragon Ball AF. Toyotarou began working with Toriyama on Dragon Ball Super in 2015, initially as an artist but gradually taking on more writing and storyboarding duties while working from an original story created by Toriyama. Toriyama became very confident in Toyotarou's skills and would allow him to make some changes to the story, usually for the best.
Now, after Toriyama's passing, it looks like Toyotarou will be leading Dragon Ball Super himself.
Toyotarou is even more knowledgeable about Dragon Ball than Toriyama
Toriyama praises Toyotarou's encyclopedic knowledge of the series
In an interview from Dragon Ball Super volume 4, translated by Kanzenshuu, Toyotarou was asked about adding his own ideas to Toriyama's original draft of the story. Toyotarou said, “In the end, everything needs to move towards the conclusion indicated by Toriyama-sensei's original draft, but in the process, I wanted to give various characters things to do… … At times like that, I strayed a bit from the script, but I guess you could say that I stayed true to its essence.” Toriyama, in response, then said, “I welcome that! You know more about Dragon Ball than I do anyway.”
Toyotarou, as a fan, has a deep knowledge of the series, allowing him to help properly portray important character moments. For example, Toyotarou specifically mentioned Vegeta, saying that showing his stubbornness helped emphasize the character's appeal. He has an understanding of the characters, allowing him to go beyond Toriyama's original draft of the story and add moments that help Dragon Ball Super feel like Dragon Ball. Knowing that Toyotarou was responsible for many of these moments certainly eased some of the fears about continuing the manga after Toriyama's passing.
While no one can ever fully replace Akira Toriyama and his unique perspective as the creator of Dragon Ball, having an incredibly devoted fan take over, especially one who spent nearly a decade working alongside and learning from Toriyama, is essentially the ideal situation. Even the biggest Dragon Ball fans can admit that Toyotarou clearly knows his way around Dragon Ball lore, and his involvement in the series has clearly led to some of its best moments – for example, later in this same interview, Toyotarou explains that he was responsible for Goku and Vegeta fusing to defeat Zamasu.
Toyotarou is well equipped to take on the role. Dragon Ball Superunique creative voice, learned directly from Toriyama while possessing detailed knowledge that only true fans would know.
