”I sometimes feel like they get it wrong”: Even Akira Toriyama Admitted How Dragon Ball's Anime Couldn't Match The Manga

Summary Toriyama feels Goku is difficult to draw, and even professional animators struggle to portray Goku accurately.

Manga creators, like Toriyama, often feel disconnected from anime adaptations.

Toriyama believes the Dragon Ball anime portrays Goku as more heroic than his vision intended.

Dragon Ball fans will often debate about the anime adaptation versus the original manga, and which version happens to tell the story better. Akira Toriyama had his own feelings on the matter, however, and he felt that even the professionals creating the anime couldn't get Goku quite right.

Akira Toriyama had minimal involvement with the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime, aside from occasionally providing character designs for original characters, mostly for movies. This is pretty typical for mangaka; once the manga is picked up for anime adaptation, it's generally out of their hands, aside from possibly being consulted for clarification from time to time. As such, many mangaka, including Toriyama, don't feel much ownership over the anime adaptation, viewing it as something else entirely.

This can be a bit of a surprise to fans, who often view anime and manga as two sides of the same coin.

Akira Toriyama Feels Goku is Difficult to Properly Portray

Toriyama Was Critical of the Anime's Take on Goku

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In an interview from the release of the Dragon Ball Super manga's first volume, Akira Toriyama and Dragon Ball Super artist Toyotarou, translated by fan site Kanzenshuu, Toyotaro was asked about what aspects of Toriyama's art were most difficult to draw. Toyotarou says that the simple art style made it feel like anyone could draw like Toriyama, but in practice he found it extremely difficult to draw a "real" Goku. Toriyama agreed, saying that "even when professional animators draw it, I sometimes feel like they get it wrong." He goes on to say that while his style may be simple, "Perhaps only I truly understand it."

Toriyama has made similar comments about the anime version of Goku in the past. In an interview with Wired Japan from 1997, Toriyama stated that he was unhappy with the anime adaptation, as "once Dragon Ball got animated, at any rate, I’ve always been dissatisfied with the 'righteous hero'-type portrayal they gave [Goku]." This gives the impression that Toriyama felt that the anime captured neither Goku's appearance, nor his character properly, something that clearly bothered him to some extent. The interviewer in this case pointed out that the anime might be more child-friendly, which Toriyama conceded.

Toriyama emphasized that "Son Goku from Dragon Ball doesn’t fight for the sake of others, but because he wants to fight against strong guys." This also factors into Goku's desire for fair play, as his tendency to help out injured villains is reflective of the fact that he's after a good fight, not to save the day. This particular view of Goku is one that Toriyama held quite closely, feeling it was an essential element of the character which had somehow been lost in the transition from manga to anime.

Toriyama made sure to include this element of Goku's character in Dragon Ball Super as well, particularly in the Tournament of Power, where Goku inadvertently puts the fate of the multiverse at risk by suggesting the tournament to Zeno out of his desire to battle strong warriors from other universes. Toriyama's Goku isn't a fool; he just has a different set of priorities than it sometimes appears, and the anime simplified this aspect of his character too much in an effort to make him easier to understand. That's not to say that Dragon Ball's anime is bad, but its more heroic take on Goku just didn't fit Toriyama's vision of the character.