Anonymous
8/16/2025, 2:54:35 AM
No.281495315
>Question 7: Mr. Nakatsuru, you became character designer for Dragon Ball Z by succeeding Minoru Maeda during the Majin Buu arc. Did that challenge cause you any difficulties at the time?
>Nakatsuru: My first impression was wondering whether I could live up to expectations. But well, before doing the Majin Buu arc, I had already created some guest characters in a few episodes, so I had already worked a bit as Minoru Maeda’s assistant, and I understood the workload. It’s just that it wasn’t easy taking on that level of responsibility. It wasn’t simple, but it had a challenge to it and when the opportunity came, I couldn’t refuse.
>Torishima: It’s worth remembering that Nakatsuru had already worked on Toriyama’s projects since Dr. Slump. He was someone very skilled, but an animator is someone who has to pick up another person’s drawing style and adapt it to animation. From my editorial point of view, Maeda’s reproduction rate of Toriyama’s style was 80%. It was very good, but something was missing.
>By contrast, Nakatsuru’s reproduction rate is 95%. There are even scenes where people say: “Wait, wasn’t this drawn by Toriyama himself?” It’s even happened that Akira Toriyama saw some of Nakatsuru’s drawings and said, “But I never drew that!” So the only animator that Toriyama ever truly recognized was Nakatsuru.
>Nakatsuru: Thank you. I’m really honored by that comment. But I should say that during the Majin Buu arc, we had a whole army of animators who were already veterans in Toriyama’s world.
Anonymous
8/3/2025, 11:34:15 PM
No.281175999
>Question 7: Mr. Nakatsuru, you became character designer for Dragon Ball Z by succeeding Minoru Maeda during the Majin Buu arc. Did that challenge cause you any difficulties at the time?
>Nakatsuru: My first impression was wondering whether I could live up to expectations. But well, before doing the Majin Buu arc, I had already created some guest characters in a few episodes, so I had already worked a bit as Minoru Maeda’s assistant, and I understood the workload. It’s just that it wasn’t easy taking on that level of responsibility. It wasn’t simple, but it had a challenge to it and when the opportunity came, I couldn’t refuse.
>Torishima: It’s worth remembering that Nakatsuru had already worked on Toriyama’s projects since Dr. Slump. He was someone very skilled, but an animator is someone who has to pick up another person’s drawing style and adapt it to animation. From my editorial point of view, Maeda’s reproduction rate of Toriyama’s style was 80%. It was very good, but something was missing.
>By contrast, Nakatsuru’s reproduction rate is 95%. There are even scenes where people say: “Wait, wasn’t this drawn by Toriyama himself?” It’s even happened that Akira Toriyama saw some of Nakatsuru’s drawings and said, “But I never drew that!” So the only animator that Toriyama ever truly recognized was Nakatsuru.
>Nakatsuru: Thank you. I’m really honored by that comment. But I should say that during the Majin Buu arc, we had a whole army of animators who were already veterans in Toriyama’s world.
