The death of Akira Toriyama, creator of the manga ‘Dragon Ball’ published in Japan in 1984 in the magazine ‘Shonen Jump’, marks the disappearance of a myth from the world of manga and anime. Although Osamu Tezuka is the father of modern manga, Toriyama is the key author in understanding it as a global phenomenon. He would like to make two analogies, one political and the other sports, to better understand its importance. Tezuka would be the Karl Marx of the manga, while Toriyama would be his Lenin. The first laid the theoretical foundations of communism, while the second developed and put them into practice, reaching all over the world. Easier, Tezuka would be Pelé, while Toriyama would play Messi.
Son Goku is the protagonist of ‘Dragon Ball’, a boy who has inherited one of the Seven Dragon Balls from his grandfather. The rest are scattered around the world and whoever manages to collect them will be able to invoke the Dragon Spirit and obtain a wish. His journey makes him live all kinds of adventures and leads him to meet various characters, allies and adversaries. One of the new features is that the protagonist, like the rest of the characters, grows older and Son Goku ends up getting married and has a son named Son Gohan. The adaptation as an animated series for Toei in 1986 allowed its international dissemination. In Japan, there is a very intense and productive relationship between manga and anime.
TV3 began broadcasting the series in 1990 in Catalonia, something that other regional television stations did shortly after. Almost immediately it became an event that engaged a young audience, in a context where comics and animation in Spain did not connect with the majority of children and young people. Bruguera had gone bankrupt years before, and only Mortadelo had survived as a bestseller; Superheroes had their specific audience and the renewal of the genre had begun with Frank Miller and other authors, but the Marvel phenomenon was still years away. Regarding animation on television, the classic Hanna-Barbera or Warner series did not capture the audience. It should be mentioned that great hits of the 70s such as the anime series ‘Heidi’, ‘Marco’ or ‘Mazinger Z’ were not associated with Japan as would happen years later. They were impressive, but without continuity. Regarding manga, only some magazines such as ‘El Víbora’ had published mangas by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, but they were adult stories focused on losing or marginal characters, without any type of epic.
The emergence of ‘Dragon Ball’ was a novelty in several ways. First the story of a boy who grows up, living great adventures, facing the challenges of maturity and fatherhood. The type of animation where the action scenes were slowed down to create more expectation and narrative tension was striking. The most curious thing is that, since there were no mangas or ‘Dragon Ball’ merchandising in 1990, an entire unofficial offer was developed created by the boys and girls who followed the series. The legendary Sant Antoni Market became a meeting point, exchange and sale of drawings made by the fans themselves on Sunday mornings. Finally, Planeta-De Agostini began publishing ‘Dragon Ball’ in 1992, in Catalan and Spanish. And from here the interest and passion for other mangas and animes spread, reaching the West. One of the novelties was the massive incorporation of female manga readers, until then a very minority audience within comics. Girls had a leading role in the mangas and there is even a very popular genre aimed at them, known as Shojo manga. I remember that, in 1994, in my first stage as director of the Barcelona International Comic Fair, I confirmed, in accordance with the opinion of the editors, that manga needed its own contest because it was a differential fact. This is how the first edition of the Barcelona Manga Fair was born in 1995, held at the Estació de França, and since then it has not stopped growing. The fact is that manga, with a wide variety of genres for different types of audiences, was an open window onto Japanese culture, gastronomy and society. There is talk of a second Japanism. If the Universal Exhibition in London in 1862 made Japanese art and culture known, the Japanese woodcuts known as ukiyo-e being a source of inspiration for impressionist and modernist painters in a context of Japan’s opening to the world, the balls of ‘ Dragon Ball’ went around the world to discover a fascinating society for a young Western audience.
