Dr. Slump

This review is spoiler free.

Akira Toriyama is one of the greatest mangaka to ever live. There, I said it. Depending on the type of person you are this is either incredibly obvious or it’s ludicrous. You would be surprised how often Toriyama doesn’t receive his dues from manga and anime fans. I spent a lot of time in my “Dragon Ball” review discussing its impact on pop culture, yet I feel like I only scratched the surface of that subject. I can’t picture the current state of shonen anime and manga without him, it just makes no sense if you overlook his work. Now compared to other mangaka I wouldn’t consider Toriyama the greatest writer, his manga have flaws that are easy to notice, but he makes up for all of that through his creativity and acute understanding of how to construct a manga. There are few mangaka I consider as adept at making manga as he is, he knows how to fill a page and make it fun to read. I recently read the anthology “Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater”, which contains many stories he produced throughout his career, and even looking at those earliest pieces you can see the potential for greatness. That said, those early years were ones defined by a series of rejections from his editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, and struggling to make his name known. Torishima at one point advised him to make a manga with a female character, as he himself is fond of shojo manga, and the result was none other than 1979’s “Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe”. It was not a great success, but was a pretty good manga at a time where Toriyama’s style was still developing. Its significance lies in what it led to him doing and that’s making another manga with a female lead.

Enter “Dr. Slump”, the manga that put Toriyama on the map. It ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1980 through 1984, in time receiving an anime that ran from 1981 to 1986 and would eventually see a remake in 1997. There were a series of anime films, novels, video games, health and safety PSAs, and its protagonist Arale Norimaki became a cultural icon. The legacy of “Dr. Slump” is one that I feel westerners tend to overlook in favor of its orange predecessor, but it deserves to be explored. It remains one of the comedy classics of the 80s and is one of Jump’s great works from a decade with some of their most influential and genre defining manga. Many people have cited it as a key influence including “Naruto” creator Masashi Kishimoto, who credits it with making him interested in drawing. It has been parodied in anime like “Gintama” as well as the “Monogatari” series. The manga earned Akira Toriyama the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981 for shonen and shojo and eventually grossed over 35 million copies. In Jackie Chan’s 1985 film, “My Lucky Stars”, he wears an Arale mascot costume. When creating “Super Mario 64” Shigeru Miyamoto used Arale’s iconic run as a reference for Mario’s center of gravity. And the celebrated American cartoonist Scott McCloud included an image of Arale in his acclaimed work “Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art”. “Dr. Slump” is a very special manga in between those it inspired and how it established one of manga’s greatest voices.

So, what exactly is “Dr. Slump”? “Dr. Slump” is a gag manga about Arale Norimaki, a curious and mischievous robot girl with awe inspiring strength. She was created by the Penguin Village’s hapless scientist, Senbei Norimaki, and the manga follows her in the various adventures she and the local residents find themselves in. The manga is predominantly told through a series of self-contained stories that Toriyama has admitted were often created on the fly. You do need to be someone that likes an episodic series to fully appreciate something like this. That said I have never considered this style to be inherently bad, in fact I love it. When it comes to the comedy itself I would best describe it as crude humor mixed with satire and parody. Toriyama makes many references and homages to things he loves, such as kaiju films and “Star Wars”. It has various references to Japanese culture laced within. For example, the umeboshi powered hero Suppaman. “Suppai” means “sour” in Japanese while umeboshi are pickled plums known for their sourness. There are some perverse and bodily jokes, and not all of them were my particular cup of tea, but given the childlike tone to the manga I’d still argue they work. He also would make various fourth wall jokes where various people in his life, and himself, would cameo in the story. Most hilariously he would eventually base the series’ main antagonist, Dr. Mashirito, off of Torishima. And the manga was so successful that Torishima grew tired of people pointing out the similarities so he cut his hair and forbade Toriyama from drawing his new look. The manga is ultimately a very simple and even juvenile one, but its due to that it was able to make a connection with Jump’s readership.

A key hallmark of the series is this sense of innocence, but not in the sugary way most anime and manga approach it with. Arale feels like a great representation of youthful charm and rambunctiousness. Most often we see her playing around in the Penguin Village and inadvertently causing trouble for those around her, but it is never done out of malice. Either through misunderstanding on Arale’s part or the other parties misjudging her abilities these scenes always stem from a place of naiveté. Because we know Arale isn’t trying to cause problems for her friends or Senbei it never presents itself as mean spirited. I believe that through her character Toriyama was able to really encapsulate the imagination of the kids reading Jump. According to his author’s notes, which are highly comical in their own right, he was going to have Senbei be the main character and included Arale because he knew Torishima would like her and approve the story. And he was correct as Torishima would encourage him to have Arale take the lead, a decision Toriyama ultimately believed to be for the best. Senbei’s character works for what he is, but its Arale that I believe was the key to the manga’s popularity. I just look at her, especially when she wears those cat ears, and feel a spark of joy inside me.

Despite the simplistic nature of “Dr. Slump” this is where we really start to see the strengths of Toriyama fine tune themselves. His impeccable paneling and ability to simulate movement in his art really started to become more present here. The chapters themselves are never long, yet the right level of information is seamlessly communicated through his quick pacing and sense of action. I always feel like there’s a natural flow to his manga where there’s an innate perception of how to make the eye follow along with the correct things. The scenes are never over stimulating or confusing to look at. These are all aspects of his work that would be further expanded upon in “Dragon Ball”, but it’s with “Dr. Slump” that he really began to hone this. In fact, quite a bit of “Dragon Ball” was him building off of what he did here. Most famously he had Goku visit the Penguin Village during the Red Ribbon Army saga where Arale defeats General Blue in one hit. However, he also drew inspiration from the Penguin Village Grand Prix and kick the can competitions for the Tenkaichi Budokai, an event considered to be the turning point in the evolution of “Dragon Ball”. Toriyama’s sense of humor between both manga is consistent, Arale’s childish personality feels like a precursor to Goku’s, several character designs feel comparable to what we see here, and aesthetically the rounder art he’d develop during “Dr. Slump” would carry over until eventually becoming the angular art seen near the later parts of “Dragon Ball”. That said “Dr. Slump” functions as an entertaining, well-constructed manga in its own right and isn’t merely a stepping stone towards his next project.

“Dr. Slump” is one of those success stories where none of the people involved anticipated what was coming their way. Toriyama was still living with his parents when he began working on it and prior to its debut Torishima was already asking him about his next potential manga. It took off in a way Toriyama was rather unprepared for. After about six months he was having a tough time with the episodic style of the manga because if something wasn’t working he’d have to start from scratch. Some weeks had him throwing something together for the sake of producing a new chapter. There were pretty significant moments in the manga that were spontaneously created because his deadlines were creeping up on him. And certain details I consider a key part of his art, such as his lack of screen tones, were actually because he had to work fast and skipped them. It would be easy to just take a manga for what it is without considering the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. Despite how “Dr. Slump” can appear I know more effort went into making it than any of the reviews I’ve written. That said I never got the feeling that this manga was being forced out of Toriyama. While reading it, even during the chapters I wasn’t as connected with, I still got the impression that Toriyama made a manga he enjoyed. I believe this speaks to who he is as a mangaka and did an effective job at being what he set out to make it, that being a madcap comedy about a robot girl who can break the Earth in half. Akira Toriyama in many ways feels like one of those trailblazers people take for granted. It’s easy to gloss over the people who paved the way for the things we love, but having read several of his manga there is no doubt in my mind that he more than earned his place in the annals of manga history.