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Translations Archive

Dragon Ball GT DVD Box: Dragon Box GT “Dragon Book” (15 June 2005)

A Message from Akira Toriyama-sensei

My sincerest gratitude to all those who bought this Dragon Ball GT DVD box.

Being a lazy bum by nature, I was absurdly happy when I managed to safely finish up Dragon Ball’s serialization, and finally be released from Deadline Hell. The TV anime people wanted to continue for just a little bit more, but I [just couldn’t do] any more than that… And so, I left the Dragon Ball anime completely up to the anime staff, story and all. That was Dragon Ball GT.

In car lingo, GT means “Gran Turismo”: a fast, high-powered car, in other words. But in this case, I had GT mean “Grand Touring”, a great journey, since the scenario was that they’d be running around the universe.

For GT, all I did was just come up with the title, design the initial main cast and some of the machines, and also do a few images. However, I was able to rest easy handing things over to the excellent staff, who had continued on Dragon Ball for all this time. In particular, the animator Nakatsuru-kun is amazingly skilled, and mastered the peculiarities of my drawings in no time at all, to the point where there were even times when I couldn’t tell whether I had drawn a certain character design, or if he had. For instance, one of Nakatsuru-kun’s designs was “Super Saiyan 4″, which appears in GT, and the picture above is a portrait that I drew looking off it. Did I draw it well?

Dragon Ball GT is a grand side-story of the original Dragon Ball, and it’ll make me happy for us to watch and enjoy it together.

— Akira Toriyama

English Translation: Herms