Toyotarou (Toyotarō) is the Japanese manga artist who inherited Akira Toriyama's pen: since 2015 he has drawn the Dragon Ball Super manga in V Jump, working from Toriyama's story. Born on May 17, 1978, in Tochigi Prefecture, he is a rare case in manga: a lifelong Dragon Ball fan who has never published an original work of his own, and who is now the official keeper of the look of Goku and friends.
A fan turned professional
Toyotarou discovered Toriyama in grade school, first through Dr. Slump, then the Dragon Ball anime and finally the manga. He covered his school notebooks with the characters and dreamed up story arcs in his head. For years drawing stayed a hobby: he worked as a television director and, by his own account, assumed he could never do it professionally. He is entirely self-taught. Before his official debut he was already known among fans under the pen name Toyble, for an unofficial fan comic called Dragon Ball AF.
In 2012 he brought his artwork to Shueisha, and six months later he debuted in V Jump with Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission, a tie-in to the Dragon Ball Heroes arcade game that ran for 28 chapters until 2015.
From 'F' to Dragon Ball Super
His big break came in 2015. Toyotarou drew the three-chapter manga adaptation of the movie Resurrection 'F', written by Toriyama, for V Jump. Right after that he was handed the Dragon Ball Super manga, which launched in the issue of V Jump released on June 20, 2015, a couple of weeks before the anime.
The workflow was precise. Toriyama supplied the main plot points; Toyotarou turned them into a storyboard, filling in the details; Toriyama reviewed it, adjusted dialogue and art, and sent it back; only then did Toyotarou draw the final pages for Shueisha. During the last week before each monthly deadline, he has said, he draws around eighteen hours a day. From the Universe Survival arc onward he also designed some of the new characters, on his own or together with Toriyama.
The manga's story arcs
At first the Super manga follows the same plot as the anime, but tells it more tightly and sometimes with significant differences. When the anime ended in 2018, the comic carried on with brand-new stories.
| Arc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F' | Beerus and Frieza's return, condensed |
| Universe 6 | The tournament against the twin universe's fighters |
| Future Trunks | Goku Black and Zamasu |
| Universe Survival | The Tournament of Power |
| Galactic Patrol Prisoner | The first original arc: the sorcerer Moro |
| Granolah the Survivor | A bounty hunter, the Saiyans and Bardock's past |
| Super Hero | The manga version of the 2022 movie |
For Moro, Toyotarou wanted a truly evil villain in the spirit of King Piccolo from the original Dragon Ball, and gave him goat motifs and grim-reaper robes. Granolah is his creation: he pitched the character, while Toriyama wrote the plot and added the Heeters and the revelations about the Namekians. In the Super Hero arc, the lead-in chapters starring Goten and Trunks as would-be superheroes were his idea. You can find more in our guide to the Dragon Ball Super manga.
Style
Toyotarou says his art is most influenced by Toriyama's style around the Majin Buu arc, and that he draws inspiration more from film than from manga, naming Disney, Marvel and Pixar. Compared with his mentor he uses more panels and close-ups, and applies screentone digitally. His process mixes both worlds: a pen sketch on paper, a scan, inking with a dip pen, and coloring done entirely on the computer.
Did you know? According to Akira Toriyama himself, of everyone working on Dragon Ball, Toyotarou's art was the closest to his own. Anime News Network's reviewer went further, calling it "virtually indistinguishable".
After Toriyama
Toriyama's death in March 2024 brought the manga to a halt: Dragon Ball Super went on indefinite hiatus. In February 2025 Toyotarou published a special chapter he wrote himself, a prequel to the Super Hero arc about Trunks and Goten, and volume 24 followed in April. In July 2025 he gave a lecture at Japan Expo in Paris alongside Kazuhiko Torishima, Toriyama's original editor. As of October 2026 no return to regular serialization has been announced, but his Moro arc is about to reach a much wider audience: Toei has announced its anime adaptation, Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol.
English-speaking readers have followed him almost in real time from the start: Viz Media began posting free English translations of the chapters in June 2016, and the first print volume arrived in May 2017.