Dragon Ball Complete Illustration Enciclopedia

by Akira Toriyama

Dragon Ball: The Complete Illustrations

A seminal series from a legendary creator. Dragon Ball, a wry update on the Chinese "Monkey King" myth, introduces us to Son Goku, a young monkey-tailed boy whose quiet life is turned upside-down when he meets Bulma, a girl determined to collect the seven "Dragon Balls." If she gathers them all, an incredibly powerful dragon will appear and grant her one wish. But the precious orbs are scattered all over the world, and to get them she needs the help of a certain super-strong boy...

Genres: Manga, Art, Japan, Comics

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 1995

About the author

Akira Toriyama (鳥山明) was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball (his most famous work) and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.
He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen/shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended.
His next series, Dragon Ball, would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. Having sold 260 million copies worldwide, it is one of the best-selling manga series of all time and is considered a key work in increasing manga circulation to its peak in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Overseas, Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting anime's popularity in the Western world. In 2019, Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts.
In October 2024, Toriyama was inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

This is a hardcover book with a dust jacket. It contains almost 200 pages of full colour illustrations.

Right at the front is a multi-fold page that unfolds into a small Dragon Ball poster with a thank you note from Akira Toriyama.

Following on are illustrations from the weekly JUMP title covers as well as comic covers. Each is fully coloured and reproduced big. It really brings back memories of reading the comic, as well as anticipating weekly at the comic book store.

It's really great again to marvel at the uniform ink strokes and character designs of Akira Toriyama.

Every piece of work is annotated at the back of the book. Included is also the very unique sequential spine art for the comic, which at that time I thought was really cool. There are also mugshots of Akira Toriyama over the years, including photos and icons.

An interview with Akira Toriyama is also included to give this book some depth.

There's really nothing not to like about this book if you're a Dragon Ball fan.

This review was first published on parkablogs.com. There are more pictures and videos on my blog.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is just a nice enough collection of the complete "original illustrations" from the manga printing, decently priced at $25 - not too much of a rip off. It's a fine binding. My only gripe is it doesn't have the full Akira Toriyama interview in it, just a few pages, a fraction of it. I like comparing these pieces to the anime, which is how most people digested Dragon Ball. They look slightly different from the art in the manga or Shonen Jump slides. You can easily look up most of these online these days, in fact, it's what we would see when you'd google DBZ in the late 90's-early 2000's. So you don't need this, even if you're a dedicated, huge fan, your collection, if any at all, won't be missing anything too valuable or rare/exclusive if you don't add this coffee style collection to your pile. It's fun to flip through occasionally.

It was a good idea, but the final product seems rushed or like it lacks enthusiasm. They may have had all these cool features planned but scrapped most of them for what could be lack of time. Or maybe not. Another cool feature is it reads right to left instead of L-R.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a good little compendium of artwork. Not much reading involved but it’s just great to go on the journey from the old school days through to the end of the dragon ball z series.

It has a quick little interview with the author at the back but mostly he’s not very useful from an advice perspective - he mostly says “I dunno, it just sort of works”. Fair play though - Akira Toriyama is one of the greats and can say that.

I don’t think there’s anything in the book you couldn’t find online. But it’s a cool collectible for a die hard fan.

[Long Ng. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hồi tiểu học mà có cuốn Dragon Ball Đại Tuyển Tập này thì coi như cầm bảo bối rồi, ước mơ xa vời của những năm chín mấy. Thế mới nói, thời gian trôi, kí ức phai mờ, nhiều khi cầm “ước mơ” trong tay rồi còn không nhớ nó từng là ước mơ. Chỉ có cảm giác vui vẻ là vẫn nguyên vẹn như ngày nào.

[Sebastián Ubilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin dudas, el arte de Toriyama es rico en variedad de movimientos. Podrá parecer simple a la vista, pero carga con una profundidad estética a medida que uno va observando cada aspecto de las ilustraciones.

[Hasan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent artbook for Dragonball fans

[Krk]

Not really something to be read, but I'll put it in my reads anyway. I really love the manga art for Dragon Ball and this collection does not disappoint. The colors are so rich you feel as though you are looking at original pieces.