Its waaaay too unnecessary stretchy, also ccyz its focused for 1 villian, it makes it even worse. It's like I watch the same frame for 10 episodes long, it's hard to enjoy... like super hard to enjoy. It bore the fk outta me, I had to skip alot of episode to just finish it.
Toriyama never really "planned" anything. Dragon Ball was written from the seat of his pants from the start to end.
Ignoring that editors can't "force" anything, that really doesn't seem plausible to me. All the Espada besides Grimmjow and Harribel were killed off, and none of them besides for Grimmjow and Ulquorra had the popularity that would justify editorial interference. I suspect that whole story is just an urban legend used to justify the Arrancar Arc being padded out to hell, when the explanation makes relatively little sense and doesn't explain why so much time was spent on random fights with minibosses.
That last part specifically makes me think of CSM's Fujimoto. AT would probably be a fan.
I mean, I already knew about those comments. And the debate about "personality" is one I've discussed a fair bit, so yeah.
My point is, editors do have sway. Why do you think there was so many androids? Why do you think Cell had so many forms? AT specifically noted that he fully intended on Androids 19 and 20 as being *the* main androids, but his editor told him to make cooler androids, so he did that with 17 and 18.
As others have pointed out, it's more of an honor thing. Torishima (the one who didn't like many of the Androids) was a close friend of Toriyama as well as his first editor, so of course he'd listen to him.
It's not just that, though. AT was literally locked into a room by his editor until he met his deadline. In fact, AT had abysmal working conditions for the most part. Towards the end of DB, his assistant literally quit, and his wife was forced to assist him.
I think the ending of Chapter 6 is a better closing of the volume than the ending of Chapter 7. Chapter 6 ends of a note that looks into the future, making a promise of things to come. Chapter 7 ends with a villain cliffhanger, which is cool, but not as wistful and promising.
Toriyama has a very...strange relationship with Dragon Ball, and manga in general. From what I've gathered, he basically regarding doing manga as little more than a job rather than a creative passion, and basically just ended the biggest manga ever because he got sick of it, not because he felt it was appropriate ending it. He's an odd character, someone with both considerable creative imagination and natural genius with a lack of care towards his craft, is what I'm saying.
iirc that was one of his former editors who said 19 and 20 were lame, not his current one at the time. So it wasn't an editor-enforced decision so much as Toriyama just trusting the guy's opinion.
Fair enough, but locking him in a room and the name writing thing is a fair bit beyond that.
I mean, for all we know, Toriyama may be misrembering how the situation went. The man is infamous for having a horrendous memory.
About his series, not about personal accounts. Being locked in a room until you finish your job would mentally scar you.
That sorta thing always makes me think of Shinji Hiramatsu (Doberman Deka, Black Angels) and his weirdly dramatised biography of his time in WSJ called “I Become a Gedoh-man”. Like it literally has one of his editors beat the everloving shit out of him more than once, and has Torishima as a bit of a schemer, snidely manipulating creators into changing their work. It’s all exaggerated for drama’s sake, but there’s gotta be a kernel of truth to it all.
Right? And that’s the tip of the iceberg. Highly recommended series
