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Toyotarou (previously known as Toyble) is a Japanese mangaka, well known for his fan-manga Dragon Ball AF (which he wrote and illustrated) as well as the manga adaptations of the Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection "F" and the Dragon Ball Super manga which he illustrates and writes in cooperation with Akira Toriyama, the original author of the Dragon Ball Franchise (2015-present).

Childhood
Toyotarou’s childhood is mysterious, as information on his personal life is unknown, from his name to his birthdate. Nevertheless, his inspiration for mangas started very early in his life, in grade school. An avid manga reader, he followed stories such as Nobuhiro Watsuki’s Rurouni Kenshin. However, the stories that truly captivated him were Akira Toriyama’s. He was introduced to this mangaka through Dr.Slump mangas, which then transition to the Dragon Ball anime which started in 1986 that then evolved to the manga itself.

Style
Having immense admiration for Toriyama’s art style, he started drawing Dragon Ball characters himself from his childhood to his teenage years. Without realizing it, his own drawing style became practically identical to Toriyama’s. Nevertheless, despite having a passion for mangas as well as the talent, he never felt as if he would or should be a mangaka, as it was never considered the most prestigious or stable career one could have, amongst his family members.

Experimentation with manga: Dragon Ball AF
At an unknown point in his life, Toyotarou became a television director. In 1999, Spanish magazine Hobby Consoles released a drawing sent in by a fan of the name of David Montiel (also known as Tablos), who had just created a design of the Dragon Ball franchise’s protagonist, Son Goku, with a new transformation known as Super Saiyan 5 as well a logo named Dragon Ball AF. Due to the faithfulness of the drawing to Toriyama’s style, the drawing caused mass hysteria online, as fans believed it was an official drawing and a sequel to Dragon Ball was to come. Yet, it was merely a fan drawing, and AF truly stood for April Fools.

Nevertheless, this drawing inspired many fans into creating their own fan versions of transformations of the Dragon Ball world as well as their own interpretations of the Dragon Ball World. In 2006, Toyotarou (at the time drawing under the nickname Toyble) decides to have his own take on the future of the franchise by creating his own version of Dragon Ball AF (this time standing for After the Future).

The manga would be a direct sequel of the Dragon Ball GT anime, occurring severel years after Son Goku disappears with the Dragon Balls, presumed dead. As Goku has defeated any threats coming not only to Planet Earth but also the universe as a whole, Earthlings lived in peace. Son Gohan has retired as Earth’s protector, Great Saiyaman, and his younger brother, Son Goten has taken the mantle. Goten, however, does not work alone, as Uub, under the name of Papayaman works with Goten as a crime fighting duo. Son Gohan on the other hand became a college teacher, as it was always his dream.

This seemingly perfect time of peace is suddenly broken upon the arrival of two mysterious individuals: The West Supreme Kai, who was presumed dead in Toriyama’s manga, and Xicor, a Dragon Ball AF original character. It is revealed that the West Supreme Kai not only is alive but also evil. Wanting to create a strong warrior capable of exacting her will, she extracted Son Goku’s DNA without his knowledge and combined it with her own, creating the perfect soldier, Xicor.

The story would revolve around Xicor fighting the main characters and being above their power and wanting to portray himself as the rightful successor of Son Goku’s legacy. On the other hand, Son Goku, stuck on another dimension would try to find a way of going back to Earth to defend it from this new dangerous threat.

A great deal of admiration was surrounded in the creation of Xicor’s character for his personality as well as the design, which seems to be a mixture of the West Supreme Kai’s features (such as the white hair) and Son Goku’s own body features.

Despite not being official, the story itself was praised for its creativity, protagonism given to character which were underused in Toriyama’s past work as well as character interactions that were the dreams of many fans. To add to it, Toyotarou’s mastery of Toriyama’s style was considered phenomenal, to the point it was indistinguishable from the original author’s. This led Toyotarou to be known worldwide, despite not being in the industry himself. As the series was not official, it was not released in a monthly basis, as he not only produced alone, but in his free time. Chapters were released throughout several years in accordance to his own availability.

Shueisha
Around 2011/12, Shueisha was producing a Dragon Ball spin-off card game called Dragon Ball Heroes and, wishing to advertise it to a broader audience decided on producing a spin-off manga series in the universe of the game, and for that started looking for new artists. Toyotarou saw that as a good chance of getting in the manga market and submitted his own request. Having won the contest, he was then hired to work on the short manga series. At this moment, he releases his last Dragon Ball AF comic, announcing he will not be able to finish it as he is to begin working officially for Shueisha. This is the moment he transitions from Toyble to Toyotarou.

In 2015, Toyotarou is once again called to adapt the Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection “F” movie into a manga. Given the rise in the success of the franchise around this time, Shueisha decided into starting a true sequel to the Dragon Ball manga and Toyotarou submitted demonstration drawings to the original author, Toriyama. The latter, having been impressed by the former’s mastery of his work, decided to take him in as his official successor.

Dragon Ball Super
The Dragon Ball Super anime is released in June 2015, while the manga led by Akira Toriyama and Toyotarou comes out in August 2015’s issue of the V Jump magazine. Unlike the original Dragon Ball production in which the show was based off the books, taking slight liberties to make it longer, the production was slightly different. Toriyama creates a basic outline of a story, which he then sends to both Toyotarou and Toei Animation (who produces the anime version of Dragon Ball Super) and both entities produce their own take on the story, which very often diverges. Toyotarou writes his own draft, inspired by Toriyama’s ideas, which he then sends to the latter for corrections, and upon receiving the corrections, composes the final version that is eventually published in V Jump’s magazine. The manga was released to critical acclaim and is still in production. As of December 2019, 55 chapters have been released.

Controversies
Toyotarou is often criticized for the way he draws certain scenes. The Dragon Ball Super manga is filled with moments in which characters call back to the previous series, either through repetitive plot decisions or the positioning of characters during fights, often identical to previous fights. Yet, 2018 was the controversial year for him, once he was assigned to draw the cover to one of the V-Jump magazines. Fans have come to notice that the poses of the two characters were very similar to a Captain Marvel comic scene, and after transposing them, it became quite obvious that Toyotarou traced over the art of the Captain Marvel artist Dexter Soy, who acknowledged the suspicions himself.