Todd Blankenship

20 Nov 2024

It’s November 20th in Japan, which means Dragon Ball has officially reached its 40th anniversary. In case you weren’t paying attention and/or born at the time, here are some highlights from the first 40 years of DB history… #DragonBall40th

20 May 2025

While the DBS manga remains on hiatus, next month’s V-Jump will include a special poster by Toyotaro celebrating the 10th anniversary of the manga’s debut (plus a DB Legends 7th anniversary card). But again, no new chapter next month.

11 Apr 2025

With Daima done and Kinnikuman between seasons, I’ll be taking a social media hiatus for awhile. Take care everyone.

news.yahoo.co.jp「キン肉マン」完璧超人始祖編のイベント、8月3日に横浜武道館で開催　宮野真守ら集結（コミックナタリー） - Yahoo!ニュースゆでたまご原作によるTVアニメ「『キン肉マン』完璧超人始祖（パーフェクト・オリジン）編」のイベントが、8月3日に神奈川・横浜武道館で開催される。 3月30日にSeason2の最終話が放送された「『

Kinnikuman Perfect Origin Arc, ep.22: a great end to the Warsman/Polarman fight, and a somewhat abrupt but still good end to the season as a whole. See you again in Season 3! Whenever that is… #Kinnikuman #ep22

So far no start date has been announced for Season 3. An event at Yokohama Budokan featuring Mamoru Miyano and other cast members is scheduled for August 3rd, so hopefully there’ll be some news by then, if not earlier. news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/2a0...

Next Season: finally putting the “Perfect Origin” into the Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc!

For the Perfect Large Numbers, Nemesis and Strong the Budo are both S (the only two so far), with the rest split between A (Polarman, Grim Reaper, Peek a Boo, Max Radial, Turbo Men) and B (Marvelous, Jack Chi, Dalmatiman, Marlinman, Crushman)…

It’s a bit simplistic, but does match fight results better than Chojin power levels. So far Seigi Chojin have the most wins, followed by Perfect (with most losses by far), then Akuma in last. But what can you expect? Besides Buffalo, the top devils have yet to enter the ring…

(Besides the overall letter grade, Chojin are also scored in five subcategories: starting at the top and going clockwise, these are: power, technique, speed, trickiness, and tactics)

For the Seven Akuma Chojin, only their leader Buffaloman ranks as an A, while Springman/Blackhole/Atlantis are all Bs, and Ste-Casse King/The Mountain/Mister Khamen are Cs…

I’m not going to do individual episode ranks or grades this time around, but ep21 with its Warsman Begins adaptation is probably the overall best of the season. The early episodes had some fluctuating animation quality, but things seemed to even out by the end.

You may recall how the Chojin Enma Gradebook has character profiles assigning the Perfect Origin Arc’s major Chojin with grades of C, B, A, and S for overall wrestling chops. The main Seigi Chojin mostly rank in at A, with greenhorn Brocken (and Pentagon) at B, and Geronimo a C…

Polarman’s eyecatch profile really hypes him up. As it says, at 72 million his Chojin power level is higher than his fellow Large Numbers members, with Nemesis second at 68 million and Max Radial third with 48 million (this is ignoring one exception, but never mind that for now)

And here we leave Season 2, at kind of an odd ending place. With one more episode they could’ve reached the end of vol.45 and a much better season-ending cliffhanger (imo), but if this was the price of adapting Warsman Begins, then so be it.

Wars being unmasked in the rain harkens back to the 21st Chojin Olympics (World Cup) finals. Upon learning that Kinnikuman’s face was really a mask, Barracuda (Robin in disguise) made unmasking the penalty for defeat. Kinnikuman won, and Wars’ face was revealed in all its glory.

Prior to this fateful match, Wars made a point of shaving so he could look his best…which doesn’t seem to fit at all with the mass of machinery and nerves we eventually see. But in true Yudetamago fashion, the official lore remains that Wars can indeed grow facial hair.

(The joke behind the name OLAP is that it’s “Pallo” spelled backwards…which means it should really have two ls, but “OLAP” is the spelling used in the Nisei manga)

The Pallo Special’s inescapable nature is compared to an antlion’s funnel-shaped pit trap, a favorite metaphor in Japanese pop culture. In the west, the main pop culture point of comparison would probably be the Sarlacc pit in Star Wars.

Probably nothing sums up the overriding themes and general absurdity of Kinnikuman so well as a robot Chojin upgrading his friendship to “super friendship”

The Pallo Special is named after English wrestler Jackie Pallo (Warsman learned this technique from Robin, so it’s appropriate it would have an English origin). In Nisei, Kevin Mask uses an inverted version called OLAP, which also seems to have been used by the real-life Pallo.

As Ramenman alludes to here, he lost to Warsman during the 21st Chojin Olympics (World Cup) after Wars rather violently stabbed him in the head with his bear claw. To recover from this injury, Ramen had to wear a special mask, which was the birth of his Mongolman alter ego.

Warsman’s upgrade to Super Friendship Mode features the same friendship equation from the Scramble for the Throne arc (shown during Wars’ intro in ep20), but with the new inclusion of faith (in the sense of trusting in others, rather than religious faith)

I thought DBS vol.24’s “Toriyama’s World Forever” image looked familiar, and sure enough it’s a collage of Toyotaro’s past drawings from his monthly “Toyotaro Drew It” column, which has featured many of Toriyama’s non-DB characters. Thanks to Magnificent Ponta for pointing this out.

And then there’s these guys…but Alien Peke and Bubul and Hyowtam seem to be newly drawn. Anyway, you get the idea.

Also, for ch.102 Gohan Beast has been redrawn to have pupils in his eyes, in keeping with earlier chapters and the DBS: Super Hero movie.

That’s why Arale is specifically the version from the 90s V-Jump manga, since Toyotaro did a series of drawings on the various V-Jump series either by Toriyama or based on his work.

Toyotaro’s postscript for DBS vol.24 details the creation process of the ch.104 one-shot: originally this was a text prologue he got from Toriyama, which he revised and put into manga form. And now the Super Hero arc is really, truly done: “Look forward to future developments!”

I felt positive that Toyotaro’s “Toriyama’s World Forever” tribute image had appeared somewhere earlier in full color, but apparently not. Anyway, it’s got Goku plus the main characters from Toriyama’s numerous non-DB works.

(And finally: the table of contents shows Popo remove his turban to display his horns, clearly inspired by Daima. And just like in Daima’s last episode, as an adult his head looks way too small without the turban)

For Interval Special Vol.3, Toyotaro discusses his love of Gohan’s high school hijinks and how happy he was when Toriyama gave him the go-ahead to do the same with Trunks and Goten. He focused on the differences between Future and Present Trunks, and his clumsiness at romance.

And then there’s the image Toyotaro drew when Goku vs Jackie Chun won the DB Official Site’s poll for Goku’s best bout. He’s a fan of this fight too! It’s full of the gags and diverse techniques of DB’s early phase. He took a lot of care to get Jackie’s pose right.

(As Toyotaro explained last year, the final correction he got from Toriyama was to show Piccolo wave goodbye to the teacher, rather than simply have the gang fly off. This probably influenced his picking this moment for the inter-chapter image)

DBS vol.24 also includes the “Interval Special” images which Toyotaro did for V-Jump in the gap between DBS ch103 and 104. He finally got to draw Gero’s son Gevo in the flesh, plus Gohan Beast’s dauntless smile! www.kanzenshuu.com/translations...

Toriyama also designed the Red Pharmaceutical Company air truck for the Super Hero arc epilogue: