Quotes from Akira Toriyama

Come to think of it, even though I've received tons of fan letters and presents from everyone, I've never written anyone back. How rude of me!

I was one of the more talented ones at the design firm I joined, so I conducted my work pretty shrewdly. Except I wasn't a morning person, so I was quite frequently late for work. On top of that, it was a fairly big company, they were fussy about the dress code, and I got chewed out quite often.

Actually, I have a lot of hobbies, but I've kept up with model-building the longest. In particular, I love military models.

When I draw something, the incredibly annoying thing is that it doesn't come out like I pictured.

Maybe I'm just like a child. I'm full of curiosity about things, and it's fine as long as it's fun at that time, yet at the same time, I hate things that are tough.

I'm always going to the toy store; I even have a room full of plastic models.

Rather than deliberately trying to draw something, use something you yourself like and want to draw, and I think the characters that come out of that will really have their own individuality.

I probably have the most fun thinking up original vehicles. I usually consider details such as how to get into them and where their engines are. When you draw a real-world car, you have to obtain some references. I'd hate to have someone point out that I'm wrong. But if it's something I invented, I can have it my way.

A number of years ago, when I had an exhibition of my work, the people in charge who came to pick up my manuscripts saw them piled up haphazardly in the garage and were shocked. 'What? They'll grow mold like this!' they said. People who do things properly apparently make a dedicated manuscript room, where they can control humidity.

If you want to depict something exactly the way it is, it takes a tremendous amount of time. If you don't get the details right, the inaccuracies will accumulate somewhere.

Most Saiyans are born with a talent for battle, but they still need to be taught the trick behind flying and stuff like that.

With things like 'Dragon Ball,' in the case of fight scenes, I'd take the panel layout across two pages when the book is opened and alter it by angling them, and making them bigger or smaller, to give movement to the panels themselves.

When I look at it, I don't really like people, and socializing is really awful. Outside of my family, friends, and those connected to my job, I don't think I actively want to meet anyone. I've always lived in the country, after all.

I'm entirely of the mindset that when it comes to books, they've got to be paper.

I say that I've never been late with a manuscript, but I don't mean to be arrogant; it's that I simply want to get it done as soon as possible so I can be set free.

In spite of being so absorbed in comics when I was in primary school, for whatever reason, I stopped reading them that much once I started junior high. I think it's probably because I got caught up in movies and TV.

I'm always impressed with the work of animators. You have to be able to draw the scenes in between movements. I'm impressed with the way they can do that - I don't think I could.

I'm good at - or, rather, I like - giving names to characters.

I liked how 'Star Wars' felt both old and new. I even built a model of R2-D2, taking about two months mixing two kits to make one that looked just like the real thing. I'm the kind of person who gets really into it when I do something like that.

I don't remember the very first animation I saw, but the one that stays deepest in my memory is definitely 'Astro Boy.'

I usually live an extremely normal life, since I live in the countryside. Even when people call me 'famous' and such, I can't really fathom it, even now.

It's been a habit of mine since childhood to always be looking around. When I go shopping, I have more fun observing the town than shopping.

So many, many people have helped me out with 'Dragon Ball' through the years. Obviously, there are the fans from all over the world who've cheered me on.

Inside me, 'Dragon Ball' became a thing of the past, but later, I got upset at the live-action film, revised the script for the anime film, and complained about the quality of the TV anime. I guess, at some point, it became a work that I like so much that I can't leave it alone.