Sketches of the original designs of Akira Toriyama for the iconic villain of Majin Buu in the final saga of Dragon Ball Z have been revealed to give us an unmissable glimpse into the creative process of this legendary mangaka.
Dragon Ball Z had an epic and monumental close with the Majin Boo arc and for many years represented the definitive end of a story that even by that time had already spanned many years.
Over time, both the Cell Saga and this Majin Boo Saga have acquired a special place for manga and anime fans.
The perfect example of this is found in that enormous gallery of tributes, fan art and cosplay sessions that recreate some moments of the plot in that period.
But rarely do we have the opportunity to fully understand the creative process that gave rise to the franchise’s characters, at that historical moment. Until now.
This is how Majin Buu originally looked in Dragon Ball Z and Salvamakoto takes it to the next level
It happens that the magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump (via IGN) has published at the time a series of sketches made by Akira Toriyama in the 1990s illustrating the creative route he followed to design the character of Majin Boo.
The starting point, from what can be seen in the low-resolution image that has gone viral on the web, would be this villain in his initial fat form.
So at first the character was a somewhat amorphous and graceless figure devoid of the distinctive elements of his wardrobe. But little by little the details that we know today emerged:
Majin Buu’s body and face went through extreme changes before landing it in the design that ended up sticking with it, looking even more menacing in its fat version.
Toriyama’s lines are very preliminary and not very clear, but the brilliant Chilean artist salvamakoto He decided to take advantage of this half work to generate a spectacular series of illustrations where he shows us what the villains would look like if the mangaka had finished the whole process:
The gallery recreates all the versions of those original strokes and gives them new life to give us a more robust idea of what this saga would have been like if Toriyama had gone with any variant.
In the end he chose the artist well, but these illustrations are admirable.
