NEWS
20.10.2024
Monthly Dragon Ball Report Special Edition: A Look Back at V Jump Covers Featuring Toriyama's Art!
Welcome to the Monthly Dragon Ball Report, a monthly column series where we take a look back at pages that appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump when the Dragon Ball manga was still being serialized.
For this special edition, we’ll be exploring V Jump covers that featured some amazing Dragon Ball illustrations by Akira Toriyama himself!
Cover of the September 1993 Issue: Dragon Ball Z Side Story
First up is the September 1993 issue! V Jump got its start in July of 1993, so this awesome volume marked V Jump's third issue ever!
It was also the year that the Majin Buu arc began!
It also featured an article about Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, an upcoming Famicom game that released shortly after this issue hits shelves!
This article was a 12-page treasure trove of info about the highly anticipated game that even featured an original story!
In fact, Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans even won second place in the "Third Game Software Rankings", a poll that was decided by readers!
Cover of the December 1993 Issue: Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 2
The second Dragon Ball V Jump cover illustration by Toriyama features Gohan and Perfect Cell!
It was drawn to coincide with a featured article on the fighting game Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 2.
The Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 2 article revealed "Butōden Mode", which is set during the Cell Games.
Pictures of in-game scenes were compared to famous moments from the series!
In the same issue, there was also information on the Another World Budokai arc, an anime-original story airing at the same time!
It contained a digest of the tournament matches, from the preliminaries all the way up to the finals!
Cover of the January 1994 Issue: Dragon Ball
Following on from the previous issue, the very next one in January of 1994 also featured Gohan and Cell as drawn by Toriyama himself!
This impactful illustration shows Goku joining his son's battle against Cell!
The highlight of this issue is the announcement of "World of Akira Toriyama"! This huge-scale exhibition spent two years making its way around Japan as it showcased fabulous pieces of Toriyama artwork!
As for game info, the Dragon Ball Z arcade game was introduced!
The high-quality graphics earned high praise at the time, and even now you can see how accurate the character designs are to the series!
The pages on the Dragon Ball Z anime went into great detail on the opening and ending themes of the High School arc.
There was even a corner where Goten and Trunks talk about all the secrets in them!
Cover of the February 1994 Issue: Dragon Ball Z
The February 1994 issue also featured Gohan on the cover!
From December of 1993 onwards, the young half-Saiyan hero appeared on the covers of three consecutive issues!
This issue continues on from the previous issue in talking about the "World of Akira Toriyama" exhibition!
It contained details about pamphlets that were on-sale for the event, info on how to participate in a related campaign, and more!
This February issue also talked about the secret characters Goku and Broly in Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 2!
Entering the sequence "Up-X-Down-B-L-Y-R-A" during the opening was the only way to cause these hidden characters to appear!
The anime info page was all about the Great Saiyaman!
It introduced three important points for becoming a hero as thought up by the Great Saiyaman himself!!
Last but not least, this caped crusader made sure to include a lengthy section about how to perform some stunningly cool poses!
And just like it felt to wait for the next Weekly Shonen Jump issue, we're sure that you'll have fun waiting for the next column!
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