Akira Toriyama – Farewell to a Shonen Manga Legend

Hello and welcome to Japan Media Tour,  I’m your host Stephen T.M., and today   we’re talking about one of the most influential  manga artists in Japanese history, Akira Toriyama  -Like many of you, I was raised on the work  of Akira Toriyama, racing home from school  

To watch Dragon Ball Z, or sitting on the  floor watching my older brother play Chrono   Trigger on Super Nintendo -And like many of you,   I was saddened to hear of his recent passing -And so I thought it was only fitting that I pay  

My respects to Mr. Toriyama, and reflect on his  life and the brilliant works he left behind for us  -He left an indelible mark on Japanese  art and culture and our Japan Media   Tour would never be complete without him -It all started in Kiyosu, Aichi Prefecture,  

Just Northwest of Nagoya, where a young Akira  Toriyama could be found drawing pictures of   the animals and the vehicles that he loved -He actually kept a lot of pets throughout   his life, and his dad once owned an auto shop, so  clearly he had a lot of exposure to these subjects 

-Like so many young mangaka in the 1950s and 60s,  Toriyama was inspired by Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy,   which is beyond legendary, and was adapted into  what many call the first true Japanese anime  -Of course there were other animations  before this, but Astro Boy created the  

Style we’ve come to know and love today -The respect and admiration between Osamu   Tezuka and Akira Toriyama was mutual, with the  former dubbing the latter his “heir apparent”   and Toriyama saying, “without Tezuka’s work, I  don’t think I’d have become the artist I am.” 

-Some other early influences that Toriyama  has credited are Disney’s 101 Dalmatians,   as well as the Ultraman TV series  and kaiju films like Gamera,   which is a series of movies about a giant  turtle which was dreamed up by Daiei Film  

Company in order to compete with Toho’s Godzilla -I actually loved both Gamera and Godzilla when   I was a kid – kaiju films were one of my  first introductions to Japanese movies,   along with Studio Ghibli classics like  Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service 

-So after graduating high school, young  Toriyama got a job designing posters for   an advertising agency in Nagoya -He worked there for 3 years,   but he really wasn’t cut out for office work  – he didn’t like waking up early or wearing  

A suit every day, so he ended up quitting -And I can’t really say I blame him – the   life of a salaryman isn’t for everyone -So now he was in his early 20s and he   took the leap that we all wish we  had the guts or the talent to take 

-He decided to pursue his  passion for drawing cartoons  -He submitted his work to a few different  magazines, and Kazuhiko Torishima, then editor   of the legendary Weekly Shōnen Jump took notice  of a Star Wars parody comic Toriyama had sent in 

-He wrote to Toriyama telling him how much  he liked it and that he wanted the young   artist to continue to send him manga -Toriyama’s first published work was   called Wonder Island, which unfortunately  ranked last place in a reader’s choice poll 

-His subsequent few offerings also failed to  impress fans of Shonen Jump in the late 70s  -However, Toriyama struck gold in  1980 with his hit manga Dr. Slump  -The manga, which originally ran from 1980 to  1984, is about a robot girl named Arale Norimaki,  

And her creator, a kind of mad scientist  named Senbei Norimaki, AKA Dr. Slump  -Arale’s name, by the way refers to Japanese  rice crackers wrapped in nori, or seaweed  -Toriyama had a habit of giving his characters  funny names like that – one of his previous  

Heroines was actually called Tomato, or Tomato -So even though the manga is called Dr. Slump,   the main character is actually his prized  invention, the super strong and speedy Arale-chan  -And although she’s strong, she lacks a  little common sense – I think you could  

Say that’s how Goku is in Dragon Ball  as well – a strong, yet naive character  -Originally, Arale was just supposed to be  a little joke in one volume of the series  -But Torishima convinced Toriyama  to make her the focus of the manga 

-Toriyama and Torishima actually became like a  team, with Torishima acting as a kind of coach   or like the Master Roshi to Toriyama’s Goku,  encouraging Toriyama to draw the same scenes   over and over until they were perfect -Apparently he drew the intro  

Scene to Dragon Ball thousands of times -I can picture an Akira Toriyama biopic complete   with a montage in which Torishima is training  Toriyama to be the best mangaka of all time  -By the way, are we saying bio-pic or biopic? -Anyway, Dr. Slump is a really silly manga  

With a perverted doctor, and lots  of scatalogical humour – one of the   recurring jokes is that Arale-chan will chase  people around with a piece of poo on a stick  -And this poo actually has  a little smiley face on it 

-It’s widely believed, if not accepted that this  was actually the inspiration for the poop emoji  -And just in case you didn’t know, emoji  is a Japanese word, emoji, and the emoji   style is very much based off of manga drawings -You’ll notice a lot of emoji are of Japanese  

Things that aren’t really common in  the West, such as the tengu mask,   which most people probably just think  is a demon, or the carp streamers, which   are flown to celebrate Children’s Day in Japan -So if you look at Arale-chan’s character design,  

You’ll see that she often sports  a red hat and blue denim overalls  -Does this sound like someone else we know? -Well apparently Arale was an inspiration   for Shigeru Miyamoto’s Mario –  a character we all know and love  -Arale was also drawn in a very cutesy,  kawaii type style that has of course  

Inspired innumerable characters since -This style is often referred to as Chibi,   or SD style, and is characterized  by rounded edges, and miniature   versions of everything from cars to people -So the manga is set in Penguin Village,   a place where humans live alongside  animals and strange creatures, like  

Kappa which we talked about in our Yokai episode -It’s a sci-fi comedy, and a lot of the plot is   based on Arale-chan misunderstanding human society -Now, although Dr. Slump was a massive success in   Japan, it didn’t garner the level of international  success that some of Toriyama’s later works would 

-That being said, very few manga were  big outside of Japan in the early 80s  -And the same can be said for anime too  – we take the access we now have to an   incredible array of international media for  granted these days, but it wasn’t always so 

-By the way, if you’re not a huge anime  or manga fan, you may not realize that   most anime actually come from manga, and that  magazines like Shonen Jump are the first step   in a system that eventually leads to anime  and video games and movies being created 

-I guess it’s kind of like how being a standup  comic back in the day might eventually land   you a spot on Saturday Night Live, and  then maybe you’d get a movie after that  -Dr. Slump was successful enough to become  an anime, which ran from 1981 to 1986 

-And of course people in Japan absolutely  adore anime, but I think we in The West   overlook just how huge manga is there -It’s not just for kids either, you’ll   see salarymen reading manga on the subway, or  school teachers reading it on their lunch breaks 

-The Dr. Slump manga has sold around 35 million  copies, which is a ton, but pales in comparison   to the 300 million+ that Dragon Ball has sold -Toriyama was already a household name in   Japan after the success of Dr. Slump, but  I don’t think anyone could have imagined  

How much further he would take his career -So in 1983 it was time for something new,   and of course it was Shonen Jump editor Kazuhiko  Torishima who suggested to Toriyama that he make   a kung fu manga, seeing as Toriyama was  such a huge fan of martial arts movies,  

Especially Drunken Master with Jackie Chan -And actually, Jackie Chan has stated   that he was a huge fan of Dr. Slump, and in  Dragon Ball when Goku’s sensei Master Roshi   goes undercover at the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai  tournament, he assumes the alias Jackie Chun 

-I’ve recently seen a few photos of the  real Jackie Chan and Toriyama floating   around online, which made me happy -So Toriyama developed a two-part   manga called Dragon Boy, which evolved  into the legendary Dragon Ball series 

-A lot of people may not know this, but Dragon  Ball is actually based off of a classic work of   Chinese literature called Journey to the West -It’s kind of a silly parody of this novel,   and Dragon Ball’s protagonist Goku actually  gets his name from the main character – Sun  

Wukong in Chinese, and Son Goku in  Japanese – also known as the Monkey King  -And you may have noticed, Goku  of course has a tail like a monkey  -Goku also turns into a giant ape sometimes –  an homage to the kaiju Toriyama loved so much 

-That’s actually one thing I really like about  Toriyama – he’s a true fan, and you can see the   things he loved reflected in his work – you  can understand who he was as a person when   you read his manga and watch his anime -There are tons of other similarities  

Between Dragon Ball and Journey  to the West, including some of the   characters like Yamcha, or Oolong the pigman -Toriyama’s hero Osamu Tezuka actually made   his own adaptation of Journey to the West,  an animated film called Saiyūki in Japan,   or Alakazam the Great in English -So the Dragon Ball manga was serialized  

In Weekly Shonen Jump and ran from 1984-1995, and  Akira Toriyama poured his heart and soul into it  -From this we got numerous anime adaptations,  video games, action figures, and pretty   much anything else you can think of -And this was a worldwide phenomena,  

Not bound to the maritime borders of Japan -I actually remember playing a Japanese language   Dragon Ball Z game on an emulator when I was a  kid. I didn’t understand anything, but I still   played because I wanted to be Goku that badly -I’ll give a very brief rundown of the story  

Of Dragon Ball, as I’m sure a lot  of you are already familiar with it  -It follows a young boy named Goku who lives  in the countryside. He meets a teenage girl   named Bulma, and the two of them embark  on a quest to find the seven Dragon balls,  

Which will summon the dragon Shenron to grant  three wishes to whoever collects them all  -Sounds pretty standard right?  But it’s the charming characters   and beautiful artwork that made millions  fall in love with Toriyama’s Dragon Ball  -Goku and Bulma are the first of many  pairs of characters to appear in the manga 

-Toriyama said he liked to introduce characters  in pairs so that he could instantly build them   off their relationships to one another -As I briefly mentioned earlier,   Goku is powerful, but kind of dumb -He provides a lot of good action,   but also some comic relief -Bulma is the daughter of a  

Scientist, so she always has cool gadgets  and stuff like that – cars and motorcycles  -Actually Akira Toriyama is renowned for his  drawings of machines, and I’ve recently heard   a lot of people lament the fact that  Dragon Ball started to include less  

And less of these mech elements over time -I have to say I agree, his machines were   so sick – you can see a lot of this type  of stuff in his work from Chrono Trigger,   which I’ll get to in a bit -And just a head’s up – I  

Won’t be going into too much depth on any  of Toriyama’s projects – I’ll give them   their own episodes later on – I just wanted to  show the breadth of his work in this episode  -Anyway, Bulma and Goku are your  classic odd-couple – an intelligent  

City girl and a naive country boy -She teaches him about the world,   and he often protects her from danger -All right, just a little warning here,   I’m going to give a few spoilers up  ahead, so consider yourselves warned 

-As you can imagine, Goku and Bulma are not  the only ones searching for the dragon balls,   and this is where most of the  conflict in the show comes from  -Some of their main adversaries are  Emperor Pilaf, Piccolo, and Tien, with  

The latter two eventually becoming Goku’s allies -I like when that happens in manga and games –   like when Magus joins your squad in Chrono Trigger -So the first half of the Dragon Ball manga   corresponds with the Dragon Ball anime,  and the second with the Dragon Ball Z anime 

-See, Dragon Ball Z was never a manga on its own -So the Dragon Ball anime is much more of an   adventure, with Goku’s crew searching  the world for the dragon balls,   whereas Dragon Ball Z is focused more on the  martial arts – less adventure and more battles 

-I think I actually prefer Dragon Ball now, but I  watched a lot more Dragon Ball Z when I was a kid  -By the way, I’ll mostly be using the English  pronunciations from the show as I watched the  

Dub when I was a kid – it’s one of the only  anime dubs I’ve really watched actually,   along with Pokemon and Gundam Wing, as  those were on TV a lot when I was young  -I remember Inuyasha being on as well, but I  think it came on late at night or something,  

So I didn’t watch it much -By the way, if you were on   a schoolyard back in the day you’d be  lucky not to get hit with a kamehameha,   which is Goku’s signature attack where he  shoots a powerful blast of energy from his hands 

-It was either that, or some kind of pro wrestling  move that every boy would be doing at recess  -Dragon Ball Z actually has a lot in common with  pro wrestling, and they’re both huge in Japan  -Watching Dragon Ball Z also made me want  to train martial arts – I remember doing  

Push-ups and running up and down the stairs,  and fighting my brothers after watching it  -It was pretty inspiring – totally different than  anything else I’d been exposed to at that time  -It was all about becoming  the best version of yourself,  

And evolving as a person – perhaps into a super  saiyan, or saiya-jin as it’s more correctly   pronounced – I grew up with saiyan though,  so it’s hard to let go, you know how it goes  -It’s actually in Dragon Ball Z that a  now adult Goku discovers he’s not human,  

But rather, a saiyan – a species  of alien – hence the simian tail  -I believe it’s his older brother Raditz  who tells him this – and also that Goku’s   real name is Kakarot and that he was sent  to earth as a baby to conquer the planet 

-The drawing in Dragon Ball Z is less cute, and  is aiming for a slightly older audience – it’s got   lots of jacked dudes training and fighting  each other, and it’s more action-oriented  -Maybe even more like a martial arts movie, and  less like a 17th century Chinese novel – though  

I haven’t read too many of those -So let me catch you up a bit more   on Goku’s life – he’s married to Chi-chi, whom  he met at a martial arts tournament – one of   the three major tournaments in the original anime -The two have a son named Gohan, who becomes one  

Of the main characters in the series -I’m going to skip a bunch of the   storyline though, and get into some  more of the vibe of Dragon Ball Z  -One thing that might irk some viewers is that  battles in this series can last for episodes at  

A time – even some of the training sessions  do – so it can be a slow burn – it really   builds up the intensity though, and maybe  that delay of gratification is good for us  -I also think I should mention Vegeta – he  was always one of my favourite characters 

-He’s the classic villain-turned-hero, and he  actually ends up marrying Bulma – and they have   a son named Trunks, and daughter named Bulla (bra) -Toriyama had a lot of fun naming his characters  -Another notable enemy that stands out  to me after all these years is Frieza 

-I remember it seeming like the heroes  would never be able to defeat this foe,   with a power level over 1,000,000 -I think the fact that they put a numerical value   on the strength of different characters was really  fun for kids – you know how kids are always asking  

“who’s the strongest?, who’s the biggest?” and  stuff like that – this just answered the question   for us, while also making a victory over a villain  with a much higher power level seem extra special  -Now, one massive theme in Dragon  Ball Z is that of transformation 

-From the saiyans hair going blonde when they  power up, to adversaries like Frieza and Cell   shape shifting as long battles draw on -I think it had a lot to do with the   audience growing up alongside the manga  and anime, entering new phases in our lives 

-And maybe that gives some insight into just  why Akira Toriyama was such an important   figure to so many people all around the world -We grew up with him – he guided us through   our youth, a time that defined who we  are today – we’ll never get it back,  

But we can always look back at it fondly -So after Dragon Ball Z there were a few other   anime that bore the Dragon Ball name, but weren’t  directly based off Toriyama’s original manga  -These included Dragon Ball  Gt and Dragon Ball Super 

-Honestly, I watched these a little  bit, but never got into them as much   as Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z -What I want to talk about next   is Toriyama’s foray into video games – and he  was involved with a couple of the best ever 

-It was once again Kazuhiko Torishima who pulled  Toriyama into the world of RPG video games with   the 1986 classic Dragon Quest -Yes, it was dragons again  -And I don’t really think you can understand  how massive Dragon Quest is in Japan if you  

Haven’t been there before – I certainly  didn’t realize it until I lived there  -I was teaching English in Nagoya a few years  back and one of my students would always show   up to class exhausted, and whenever I  asked why it was always the same answer:  

She was playing Dragon Quest all night -And she was probably about 60 years old,   by the way, and she’d been working her way  through the Dragon Quest series since the 80s  -So unlike his manga, Toriyama wasn’t involved  in writing the Dragon Quest storyline,  

Instead he was tasked with creating  the character and world designs  -What he came up with basically  shaped our idea of what a JRPG is  -Not just his designs, but also the writing and  the battle systems that the team at Enix came  

Up with – it revolutionized gaming, and took it  to a completely different level, with games like   Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana following suit -This is when playing a video game started to feel  

Like reading a great novel – I know that might  sound terrible to some, but I really do mean it in   the best way – RPGs are my favourite type fo game -The most iconic character from Dragon Quest   is probably the simplest, the Slimes –  basically a little smiling drop of goo 

-It was actually a collaboration between  Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii and Toriyama  -Horii thought up the idea and  Toriyama brought it to life  -It’s a bit similar to the poop emoji, really -The main characters change in each Dragon  

Quest game, with some of them making appearances  in multiple games throughout the series – most   notably Erdrick, known as Roto in Japan -In fact, the first three games are sometimes   referred to as the Roto Trilogy -He’s got the spiky anime hair  

That lots of Toriyama’s characters have -The stories in the Dragon Quest games   vary to some degree, but usually involve  a young hero from a small town embarking   on a journey to save the world – there’s  really no better type of story than that 

-I’m not going to delve any deeper into the plots  than that almost offensively shallow overview as   Toriyama didn’t write the stories for these games -At the time of this recording there are 11   main-series Dragon Quest games, with  a 12th announced, but not yet released 

-There are also a number of  spin-offs and related games  -So Akira Toriyama was recruited  for another famous video game I   want to talk about – some say it’s the  greatest game ever conceived – and I   wouldn’t argue with this – It’s easily  in my top 3, and could even be first 

-Of course, I’m talking about the 1995  Super Nintendo classic Chrono Trigger  -I actually remember when I was a kid  and someone told me that the creator of   Dragon Ball also designed the characters  for Chrono Trigger and my mind was blown  -In this game Toriyama really got  the chance to show off his range 

-What really sticks out to me are the  mech drawings in the game – there are   some really cool machines and robots  and factories and stuff like that  -The creatures are so sick too though  – goblins and dinosaurs and demons 

-When i was a kid I always loved the Frog  character the most – he was born human but   transformed into a frog – he wears medieval  armour and wields a legendary sword called the   Masamune – named in honour of a swordsmith  from the Kamakura Period, 1185 to 1333 CE,  

Said to be the greatest in Japanese history -The main character in the game, Crono, looks   more or less like he could be in Dragon Ball,  with his spiky red hair and martial arts stance  -He’s joined by Marle, a bored rich  girl looking for adventure, Lucca,  

His childhood friend who is also a genius inventor -She kind of looks like Arale-chan actually – big   glasses, purple bangs, and  lots of high-tech gadgets  -Arale is like a chibi style version of Lucca -So there’s also Robo, a robot whom Lucca repairs,   Ayla, chief of a prehistoric tribe,  the aforementioned Frog, and Magus,  

A dark lord who wields a scythe –  he’s kind of like Dracula or something  -The story is almost too complex to even  talk about now, but I’ll just say it’s   about time travel, and there are multiple endings  depending on the choices you make throughout the  

Game – very cutting-edge stuff for the time -I’ll do a full breakdown in a later episode   so stay tuned for that, even  if you don’t like video games  -This is one of those special  tales that everyone should know  -Playing Chrono Trigger is like reading  Shakespeare or watching Ozu’s Tokyo Story 

-So despite all his success, Toriyama  lived a rather simple and private life  -He didn’t like to go out much, and spent most  of his time working in his home studio in Aichi  -There was a sense of mystery about the man  – even when he drew caricatures of himself,  

They would often be wearing a gas mask, or  sometimes as a bird, a play on the “tori”   part of his name – tori meaning bird in Japanese -He married a woman from Nagoya, Yoshimi Katō,   who was also a manga artist, and sometimes  helped him with his manga if he was busy and  

Needed to make a deadline -And Toriyama was always   busy – right up until the end -Anime and video game adaptations   of his manga Sandland were still in  production at the time of his death  -Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1st, 2024  and his family held a private funeral for him,  

Releasing news of his passing one week later -And it wasn’t just the anime world that was   devastated by the news – tributes to Toriyama  poured in from all corners of the world,   from Canada, to Argentina, to China, and Australia -Even the French president Emmanual Macron posted  

An autographed Dragon Ball drawing from Toriyama -Just think of how huge manga and anime are now,   worldwide – pretty much every city has  some sort of festival celebrating it,   with people showing up dressed as their favourite  characters, buying all sorts of related merch 

-Toriyama is one of the biggest reasons for this -It’s got some roots in American cartoons,   but the manga style is a uniquely Japanese  artform, and Akira Toriyama was a uniquely   talented individual who shaped our  image of what manga should look like  -Just ask the creators of manga  like One Piece and Naruto,  

Which owe so much of their style to Toriyama -Even for me as a kid, every character I   drew pretty much had the Goku hair -And you’ll hear a lot of people   nowadays reminiscing about how 80s and  90s anime just looked so much better,  

And it’s true, it did, and a lot of that is  because of the influence of Akira Toriyama  -Now he’s left us all with a whole lot of  nostalgia in our hearts for his creations,   and we’re lucky he was so prolific,  as we can enjoy his huge collection  

Of works for the rest of our lives -That’s it for my little tribute to one of   my childhood heroes, but don’t worry, we’re going  to talk about him a bunch more times throughout   the course of our Japan Media Tour -Now stay tuned for this week’s Bonus Topic

-This week’s Bonus Topic could probably have its  own episode – it easily could – in fact, you could   make a whole podcast series dedicated to it -And the topic is Weekly Shonen Jump  -I obviously talked about this earlier in the  episode, but I wanted to say a bit more about it,  

And how instrumental it has been  in bringing manga to the masses  -It started in 1968, and is still going  strong to this day, more than 50 years later  -Weekly Shonen Jump is now the highest selling  manga magazine of all time, and it’s no surprise  

That its most successful era was during the  80s and 90s when it featured Dragon Ball  -In fact, the decline in readership is largely  attributed to the conclusion of Dragon Ball   and of the popular basketball manga Slam Dunk -I recommend Slam Dunk to everyone, sports fans or  

Not – it’s just a good manga, and a good anime too -It’s original run from 1990 to 1996 coincides   with Michael Jordan’s legendary run with the NBA’s  Chicago Bulls, and this is reflected in the manga  -The players in the manga also wear  real basketball shoes, like Jordan 1s,  

And many more which is pretty cool  for all the sneakerheads out there  -I actually remember when I first  saw the magazine section in Family   Mart in Japan – Shonen Jump was the only one I  recognized at the time – and I remember seeing  

All kinds of people reading it right there in  the store – salarymen, high school students,   whoever – everybody loves it, despite the fact the  original target audience was boys and young men  -The word ‘shonen’ actually means ‘young boy’ -A young girl is a shōjo, as in Chiemi Manabe’s  

1982 album, Fushigi Shōjo, meaning Mysterious Girl -Weekly Shonen Jump is an anthology magazine,   and has featured some legendary manga in the past -Some of their biggest hits include: Dr. Slump,   Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball, Jojo’s  Bizarre Adventure, Slam Dunk, Yu Yu Hakusho,  

One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, and Naruto -And that’s barely scraping the surface – there   are so many more that I didn’t name -So pick up a copy if you’re in Japan,   could be a good souvenir, maybe a good  way to learn Japanese, although I tried  

Learning Japanese from the Inuyasha manga  and started speaking a like warlord from the   Sengoku Period, so just be careful about that -Now stay tuned for our weekly recommendations -So I’m actually going to give  you two recommendations today,  

And neither of them have anything to do with manga -I just thought this was a good opportunity to   show off Nagoya’s culinary scene, seeing  as Akira Toriyama was from the area  -The first is Misen Ramen, famous for inventing  Taiwan ramen, which is obviously a bit of a  

Misnomer, seeing as it’s a Nagoya specialty -it’s kind of like a tantanmen or Dan Dan   noodles, spicy, with ground pork, bean  sprouts, and nira, or garlic chives  -A little hot, and very delicious -the bowls of ramen are small here,  

But they’re cheap – and don’t be disappointed  by the smaller serving size – most people get   something else too – it isn’t a ramen only  spot – they have a bunch of good side dishes:  

Gyoza, fried rice, mapo tofu, and many many more -It also has a kind of showa era vibe to it, which   if you know me, is exactly what I’m looking for -there are a few different locations, but I’ll   just post one in the description  if you want to check out Misen 

-I’ll send you to the original near  Imaike Station, but there’s also one   in Nagoya Station if you’re just passing  through. That one gets pretty busy though  -Next we have Pizzeria Braceria Cesari  in the Osu neighbourhood of Nagoya  -this is a really cool neighbourhood  with lots of international flair,  

And again, big time Showa atmosphere  -I spent a lot of time in Osu when I lived in  Nagoya, and I still go back whenever I visit  -it’s super natsukashii for me -Which basically means nostalgic  -Anyway, braceria cesari was recently ranked  8th best pizza in the Asia pacific region,  

One of three spots in Japan to make the top 10 -now Japan probably doesn’t have the best New   York style slices, but they do Neapolitan  pizza just about as good as anyone  -Not much to really saw about Braceria Cesari  – if you like pizza, you’re going to enjoy it 

-Nice charred dough, a little chewy  with just the right about of bite to it  -They just use really high quality ingredients -So get yourself a pizza, maybe a little   plate of prosciutto, some tiramisu and  maybe an espresso to finish it all off 

-All right guys, that about does it  for this episode of Japan Media Tour  -I hope you enjoyed this little walk down  memory lane, and we’ll go deeper into some   of Toriyama’s works in future episodes -I actually had something else planned  

For this week, but put it aside in  order to pay my respects to Toriyama  -So next week we’ll get back on track  and talk about City Pop – the original   explosion of Japanese pop music in the late  70s and 80s, and the revival that’s taken  

Place online through the 2010s and 2020s -It’s another broad topic with a lot of   different lanes we can go down, so  I’m really looking forward to it  -But until then, this is Stephen T. M., signing  off, and I’ll see you next time for City Pop

Episode 13 is a tribute to Akira Toriyama, the man who introduced the world to shonen manga and anime. People always say that they miss 80s and 90s manga and that it just looked so much better. Well, a lot of the nostalgic style we love and miss was created by Toriyama, from Dr. Slump, to Dragon Ball. We also talk about Shonen Jump magazine, Nagoya’s cuisine, and kaiju.

Chapters:
0:00 Akira Toriyama
27:32 Weekly Shonen Jump
30:24 Nagoya Cuisine

Misen Ramen Imaike:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/XAgCz6at5gvbNL8j7

Pizzeria Braceria Cesari:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9LzPKP8SSi6m49yt9

My Twitter:

Spotify:

Write A Comment