The Dragon Ball Super manga by Toyotaro will soon return in 2025. However, a former prolific editor of Shonen Jump magazine had some interesting things to say about the last published chapter.
Kazuhiko Torishima, former Shonen Jump editor and current outside director at Bushiroad, shared his thoughts on Toyotaro's artwork for Dragon Ball Super on X (formerly Twitter). The posts, translated by Todd Blankenship (@/Herms98), offer a comically blunt critique of Toyotaro's paneling for Dragon Ball Super Chapter 103. "I want to tell the artist himself: it's missing the most important cut. Such a shame," Torishima said.
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The scene Torishima is critiquing depicts Goku fighting Gohan Beast in Chapter 103 of Dragon Ball Super, the final chapter of the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero adaptation and the last chapter Akira Toriyama worked on with Toyotaro as a writer before passing away in early 2024. According to Torishima, this is the first time he's taken a look at the Dragon Ball Super manga. Although he didn't clarify what he meant by "cut," fans online are speculating a wide-shot panel to clarify the characters' positions. Toyotaro's paneling in the two pages shared by Torishima is mostly intense closeups of Goku and Gohan fighting with no zoom-out shots to establish the characters' relations to the environment they're fighting in, which is Lord Beerus' planet.
Although Torishima has an infamous reputation for his blunt comments during his tenure at Shonen Jump, Dragon Ball fans on X understand where he's coming from regarding Toyotaro's artwork. While some comments are harsher than others, there is a general agreement that Toyotaro's paneling for Chapter 103 is too claustrophobic, relies too much on zoom-in shots of blows without depicting the wound-up, and too reliant on speed lines at the cost of showcasing the environment. Of course, this doesn't make Toyotaro a terrible artist, but it highlights the limitations of his skills. Toriyama faced harsher criticism from Torishima when the two worked together at Shonen Jump.
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Torishima was the editor who convinced Toriyama to drop Android 19 and Android 20 as the main villains for the "Android" saga of Dragon Ball Z because they were just a "geezer and a fatso." This led to Android 17 and Android 18, which Torishima also didn't like because they were just "some brats." Toriyama introduced Cell to the storyline as their replacements-who became less ugly over time due to Yū Kondō's criticism of the character's prior forms. Torishima is also credited with giving Kid Goku a tail in the original Dragon Ball manga and wanted him to end up with Bulma. Amusingly, Toriyama used his work to express his frustration with Torishima, such as making him the main villain of the Dr. Slump comics. Torishima is "Mashirito" when spelled backward in Japanese. Dr. Mashirito is the evil scientist in Dr. Slump.
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Source: X (Formerly Twitter)