Akira Toriyama Special Interview

All right. please do.

Actually, the characters of “Beerus, God of Destruction” and “Super Saiyan God” existed from the very first stage of making the movie. So that simply became the title, Battle of Gods.

You’re right. (laughs) In my stories, “gods” and “aliens” have been a given since way back. But, I don’t want to make them too exaggerated or argumentative. I enjoy ones who are worthless, and no different from humans.

Well, with Beerus… the catalyst was me thinking, “I’ve brought out a lot of different gods up to now, so why don’t I do something catlike instead of humanoid?” And when it comes to cat-gods, there’s Egypt. So that’s how I decided on his costume.

He’s a bit eerie, and at first glance, he doesn’t seem strong at all, so I like him quite a bit. He even makes cute cat-like gestures. In my works, “guys who seem like they ought to be strong are actually weak.” ……Like Nappa. (laughs)

A sign of the times, I suppose….

“Guess it’s about time I brought out a good-lookin’ feller¹, too!” …I thought. (laughs) And so Whis was born. Well, more so than a “good-lookin’ feller”, he became a character who’s sort of naïvely oblivious, but as a result, I came to like this one quite a bit too. So, Beerus and Whis. Bringing them out in sets of two might also be a characteristic of my stories.

That way, I’m able to explain the characters and their relationship to each other through their interactions. In my case, I feel that it isn’t good to insert too much narration. I suppose Goku and Bulma are representative of that.

As a child, Goku doesn’t know anything [of the world], so without Bulma, he’d be a character who didn’t say anything. (laughs)

For parts like where he wakes up for the first time in 39 years, Whis clarifies things for the sake of exposition. No narration necessary.

When I decided, “For this movie, let’s go with the whole cast!” I thought, “What era would be best?” If it’s a few years after the “Majin Boo arc”, then almost all the cast members are at MAX strength…. And also, you know, in the final chapter, where Oob appears, I made [characters like] Bulma and Kuririn pretty old, so honestly, I thought, “Maaaybe it’s a biiit difficult” [to make the time period any later]. (laughs)

I am not at all particular about things like hair styles and colors. Especially with women, changing their hairstyle or color is a bit too commonplace, don’t you think? With people like Bulma, I actually don’t even know myself what their natural hair color is. (laughs)

I’m not at all particular about things. Er, well, I am particular about things I should be particular about, like the dialogue. (laughs)

Let’s see. Well, it hasn’t changed from when I was drawing Dragon Ball. At the time, since it’s a boys’ magazine, the readers are boys, so I was particular about “not making it too convoluted”. So it was the same with the movie: I was particular about kids being able to enjoy it.

Yeah, about that. (laughs) Originally, they were just going to be petty thieves. But since we were going to have the entire cast, I thought [it wouldn’t be great if] some unknown characters just suddenly showed up. So I made them into the Pilaf gang. But you know, thinking long and hard about it after making that decision, they were all getting pretty old. (laughs)

So I came up the idea that if I made them younger, they’d be just right.

Ah! Well, anyway, that’s the Pilaf gang for you. If they were to keep on appearing as villains, they’d just be easily defeated. So I figured, “maybe if I inject a little romance, the later developments will come more easily~”. (laughs) I hardly ever draw romance.

No, no, no! I’ve been bad with emotional plot developments since way back~. (laughs) So much so that there are even times where I deliberately try not to make it emotional. But all the same, if you ask me, “why are you so particular about that?” I don’t know.

That’s right. It’s embarrassing. I’m not good about making it really serious, either, so I make it feel a bit clumsy…. Even in this movie, there were more parts that were “moving scenes” at first, but I got flustered, and altered them. There are already plenty of people in the world who are good at doing stuff like “making people cry” and “moving people”. Really, I think simply being devoted exclusively to entertainment is probably “my style”.

They themselves might not realize that. (laughs)

The design for Beerus’s castle was fun to come up with. When I’m thinking up a story, somehow, I want to make things consistent. No matter if he’s a God of Destruction, it would be bad if he just showed up for no reason and went on a rampage, wouldn’t it? Even I myself think that feels wrong.…. So, even if it’s not expressed within the work, I always work to come up with a convincing background story within myself.

I don’t think she does~. I mean, Goku & co. are always scattered far and wide, aren’t they? So occasionally, Bulma holds one in order to have an excuse for everyone getting together. With super-lavish prizes. (laughs)

“If it’s this extravagant, they’ll probably come,” she’d say. …But I didn’t think the castle would fit inside a warehouse. (laughs)

No, I don’t do that. That’s why I keep on forgetting things. If I don’t forget stuff, new ideas won’t come to mind. For example, you know how there’s “Super Saiyan 3”?

I didn’t know that. (laughs) The whole time, I thought that was “Super Saiyan 2”. (laughs)

And I drew that myself. (laughs) Anyhow, I thought “2” was the one with long hair. It was like, “Man, I’ve really forgotten stuff…”.

Whis says this too, but I thought, “‘Super Saiyan God’… if you ask me, that’s an exaggeration.” (laughs) Anyway, I re-read the work for the first time in ages, and you know how Super Saiyan just keeps getting flashier? When it gets to “3”, the hair even gets longer. So, I decided to pare it down as much as possible.

Yes. It’s the God of the Saiya, So I decided to go in the opposite direction, taking it to the limits of simplicity.

It was enjoyable. If I’m only coming up with the story, I don’t have to draw any artwork. (laughs) Manga is something you draw and complete by yourself, but when you leave the story to people other than you, there’s the possibility that something greater than you had imagined will come into being, don’t you think? With this movie, it was the battle scenes! They were even more amazing than I’d imagined. I don’t mind one bit about my work being tweaked. There are people who are particular [about that sort of thing], but I’m incredibly happy to have other people’s revisions make it more interesting!!