Creator / Toyotarō

Toyotarō (とよたろう) is an artist working at Shueisha, responsible for being the artist behind the Dragon Ball Super manga, alongside other projects.

Toyotarō started out as a doujinshi artist under the name of Toyble, as he was responsible for the Dragon Ball AF fan comic before being hired by Shueisha to work on the manga adaptation of Dragon Ball Heroes. He later worked on the manga adaptation of Dragon Ball Super, even helping Akira Toriyama design characters like the Gods of Destruction.

He is a Promoted Fanboy of the franchise, considering it his life since he was a kid.

Works done by Toyotarō

As Toyble

• Dragon Ball Zero: The Origin of Raditz
• Dragon Ball AF

As Toyotarō

• Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission
• Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' (three-chapter manga adaptation)
• Dragon Ball Super (writer and artist of the manga adaptation; character designer)

Tropes associated with Toyotarō:

• Author Appeal: Toyotarō appears to be a fan of underdog characters, characters who are largely outclassed but still do their best to fight a much stronger opponent.
  • In his AF days, it was Kibitokai and Dende fighting off against Xicor and the Supreme Kai of the west. His Origin of Raditz even focuses on Raditz and tries to portray him as an underdog kind of character.
  • While in Super, Shin fighting off against Zamasu despite how outclassed he is in the Future Trunks saga, Cabba sacrificing himself to help Kale fuse with Caulifla against the Pride Troopers in the Universal Survival saga, and Merus fights with Moro in the Galactic Patrol Prisoner saga. He even avoided the anime route of giving Trunks a power boost so his conflict with Goku Black would still be an underdog route.
• Homage Shot: A trait of him. Toyotarō will draw panels while making clear references to the work of both Akira Toriyama and Toei Animation countless animators. A compilation here.
• Info Dump: He will stop the fights to explain what is happening quite frequently, and will offer explanations to unexplained things in the anime, while also giving more background to certain characters (for example, Zamasu's past as a North Kai or Jiren's master name). This is a divisive thing for the community. For one, he will give more information about characters for the benefit of Worldbuilding, but on the other hand, it will disrupt the pacing and tell rather than show.
• Self-Plagiarism: In the Super manga, Toyotarō has drawn panels based on his fan work of Dragon Ball AF. As seen here.
• Signature Shot: Toyotarō is known in the manga community for his repetitive use of panels and poses in the same way as Tadayoshi Yamamuro is to the anime community. To give a brief summary:
  • A panel between two characters, one in the defensive and the other attacking facing to the right is very frequent. A compilation here.
  • Reaction panels.
• Traced Artwork:
  • Toyotaro is known for being a fan of Dragon Ball, to the point where he takes inspiration from the multiple works in the franchise for his own work. In the Dragon Ball Super series, he has been caught drawing multiple panels inspired by the work of Akira Toriyama and affiliated. Some of these panels, however, cannot be interpreted as a Homage Shot:
    • A panel of Frost's reaction to pain is traced from Goku's reaction to pain from chapter 197 of Dragon Ball (or chapter 3 of the DBZ VIZ Select edition)
    • A panel of Goku and Fused Zamasu about to strike their fists is identical to a frame of Gogeta fighting Omega Shenron in Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi by Shinichi Kurita and corrected by Tadayoshi Yamamuro.
    • A panel from both chapter 33 and chapter 38 have Jiren and Kefla going out against other fighters. The panel is identical to one from Jiya, written by Akira Toriyama and illustrated by Masakazu Katsura.
  • However, Toyotaro was caught in a controversy when users online discovered the collaborative cover he did for V-Jump was traced from a Captain America illustration by Dexter Soy, from Captain Marvel: First Flight. Rather than pursuing legal action, Dexter Soy would find himself confused over why Toyotaro would trace from his work. Neither Toyotaro nor Shueisha have ever given a comment regarding this situation.