How to Draw Manga like Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball

this is a page taken from the Dragon Ball Manga and I'm willing to wager that despite my cropping out of the backgrounds and filling in each individual character completely black you can not only still tell what's happening but you might also be able to pick up mine how the characters are feeling and more than that if you're a fan of Dragon Ball you know exactly what scene this is too this is due to clever character design philosophy in part but if I told you that there were dozens of other techniques being implemented simultaneously before your eyes that you weren't aware of would you believe me because what it seems the masses accept that Dragon Ball's artistic and visual approach rules if you ask someone why Dragon Ball's art is so good that's when you get awkward answers like it looks cool or the action is sick or damn Android 16 hella thick and no matter how true those statements might be they don't really answer the aforementioned question why is Dragon Ball's paneling composition structure the artwork so appealing to such a wide audience why is it that when I look at this highly edited page with no text or context clues I can still tell what the characters are feeling and generally what's happening on the page at a glance well the answers may surprise you and give you a whole new appreciation for Akira Toriyama because while one piece is second to none when it comes to story writing when it comes to Shonen visuals Dragon Ball owns that finish line I'm toy not Mark and welcome to the anatomy of manga how Dragon Ball and Akira Toriyama mastered visual storytelling I'm gonna be referencing books for this video lots and lots of books so if you're not too familiar with the fundamentals of comic book design I recommend checking these out if you're interested but don't worry I've written this video so that even my mother can understand and she thinks Vegeta is a type of soup so when you open up a manga you'll see pictures yeah no [ __ ] Sherlock now mind-blowing Insider side it's how a mangaka chooses to present their images that dictates how successful their stories ultimately become and so the question is how do they decide what pictures to draw where to put them and why well believe it or not there's a whole long list of principles and psychological techniques that have been tested over many decades passed down from generation to generation techniques that I a Layman have carefully broken down into four beefy sections for your viewing pleasure so let's kick things off with one of the easier Concepts it's a tiny piece flavor okay that's all it is part one Clarity Clarity is the name of the game in this first section and as famed author illustrator and all-around chick magnet Scott McLeod puts it storytellers want two things from their audiences we want them to understand what we have to tell them and we want them to care enough to stick around till we're done to achieve that first goal you need to learn the principles of communication with Clarity communication with Clarity means making reader comprehension your ultimate goal due to their sequential and Abstract nature a manga is massively dependent on its visuals because of this you might think that since books don't have a visual component to their presentation that a manga has a clear Advantage wrong because bad visuals can actually make a great story worse if the page is confusing the artist risks the reader making a mistake missing out on a key piece of information potentially resulting in them having a lesser experience or at worst dropping the comic entirely not good right so while basic without Clarity taken into consideration when composing your pages your Comics visuals might be actively working against your story rather than just simply doing nothing however as you saw at the beginning of this video Akira Toriyama had no such issues in fact even if we removed practically every secondary detail including the narrative itself we can still on some level understand what exactly is going on how did Toriyama the perverted boob drawing tax evading whiz kid managed to make his pages so clear well in order to understand that we have to ditch these nerdy books for a second and look at the manga once again and pray to the fair use God's while doing so for educational purposes let's use Reddit as an example one last time this is raditz's first encounter with Piccolo these two pages represent the beginning and climax of their meeting as you can see I've decided to print off the original Japanese version of this manga and I've done so because I want you not to focus on what's being said but instead to focus on what's being shown to you but first I want to try to get across to a relatively simple concept and to do that I'm going to use these images what do you think these are anyone how about now yeah right much clearer and you can feel that immediate understanding in comparison to the first where you had to stop and think right well that moment of pause should not happen if the Monger you're reading has Clarity of form at the very least in our day-to-day lives we have the ability to adjust our points of view to get more information however not so for our little comic writer friend here careful and intentional choices must be made when constructing your panels on the page so that much like these two images a potential reader could understand with just a quick glance in order for Akira Toriyama to achieve this desired effect his characters seldom share page space with those that look identical to them unless it's on purpose and that's the joke I mean if you really think about it all the different Duos and groups he's presented in the past Vegeta and Napa Frieza flanked by Zara and dadoria Android 19 and 20 Deborah and babade boss rabbit all of those characters offer vastly different designs to those that they stand alongside Toriyama does this to emphasize his character's defining features in the case of Piccolo on this page his silhouette is defined by his ears and today clothing and even his hand in some cases each of those aspects often helped to serve his character's unique shape but what about Namek I hear you belching from afire he looks the same as them first of all racist secondly don't ever interrupt me again and thirdly Toriyama made sure that all of them were either dead horizontal or somewhere else in the various scenes that Piccolo was present in the only Duo that really looks similar in shape are Android 17 and 18 and they were his rushed fallback plan when his editor moaned about the awesome looking 19 and 20 not being enough but that's enough of my correct opinion shared for now back to the cartoons on these Pages the person Piccolo shares space with Raditz is set apart through his spiky all-encompassing hair however purposeful character design isn't the only way he can visually communicate to us in fact we're just tipping the iceberg here and on the topic of tipping Let's Talk balance but first let me knock you off balance with rage Shadow Legends very own creepy guy oh how dare you do you want to maybe introduce yourself uh I think you're kind of scaring the class here Professor death knight here from Talaria University who legally not a school with a math problem if you create a hit mobile game in 2019 how many champions will you have now over 700 not only does raid have hundreds of rad Champions it also has 15 amazing factions faction Pop Quiz can you name the latest faction if you said The elusive Sylvan Watchers you're right okay class any questions I mean uh I maybe didn't say it out loud but I definitely thought it do not worry that with all these way Kuro new Champions you're gonna be like replaced replace me well if anybody replaces me then I get to give them advice about everything I brought to the table you know that's just more opportunity to teach my new passion all right name literally one you're actually friends with then well I'm friends with literally every champion but my favorite new friend is for sure python you ever been friends with a lizard man dude makes a killer quiche um right anyway rain's sick new animated series called The Avatar is out now and to celebrate this the team are adding some of the new characters into the game as Champions maybe you've already seen it and no Art Attack this Mighty orc warlord is making its way to the game entirely for free just log into raid for seven days between now and July 24th and he's yours and hey if you haven't started playing at all yet use my link in the description or scan my QR code to get yourself some awesome bonuses like this sick Champion Talia it's a whole bunch of fun and you can find me in game as toy nutmarch so once again click the link in our description and I will see you on the battlefield have you ever wondered why oftentimes anime characters look as though they're struggling with vertigo well tilting one way or falling over completely at the behest of a poorly timed gag it seems that this is a practice that while not rooted fully in the real world has taken a hold of this industry as a staple of its production but there is a reason for that what is great your reader can identify the character at a glance now that alone doesn't tell a story what can however is emotion and action two things dragon ball is not in short supply of thankfully and so I introduced to you triangles okay I sent you might be a bit confused so allow me to explain you see while ogres are like onions characters are like triangles this was a principle first positive as far as I know by American illustrator Harold Von Schmidt pictured here dressed like Indiana Jones 64 years before Indiana Jones that's right this picture's 103 years old he explains with diagrams drawn on what I can only assume were cave walls at the time that typically speaking as humans we are conditioned to feel a certain way when looking at these three triangles in different positions with the first firmly planted on the ground we feel a sense of stability with the second there's a sense of unease created an unstable and tenuous Line Stands between its current state and a violent end through said instability in other words it creates a bit of anticipation and tension and finally with the third triangulum we see something is off balance and so understand there's a chance it might fall leading to a sense of action and danger created this is all of it abstract and frankly too nerdy even for me which is saying something so let's go back and look at the pretty pictures of the weird alien men throwing lights at each other if we treat these characters like the triangles from the old man's cave drawings we very quickly begin to understand the principles at play here and how they serve the visual story of this confrontation the first panel is Piccolo's establishing shot within which we see his normal grumpy but confident self plotting no doubt to do more naughty things to Goku and look he's standing upright in a stable position just like the triangle good job Dr Jones continuing down the page we see this principle holds true throughout the engagement to reflect the various characters mental States Piccolo stance however is compromised and set off balance immediately after sensing around its approach suggesting Piccolo can't handle the big spiky alien man probably the most interesting application of this technique in this short section comes from Piccolo attempting to subvert this reaction he's had by composing himself once again through false bravado standing upright but we all know reading this that Piccolo's bluffing because of the way he was standing prior before bringing the conflict to a roaring conclusion with a big blast from Piccolo to Raditz and so if you direct your attention to the final panel does raditz's stance shift even slightly off balance not one bit not a bad introduction through body language in my opinion and just because I'm exhausted from looking at rabbit's stupid face let's look at other examples of all the technique discussed thus far on a page I like to call Goku's first of many long naps every single character on this page looks distinct you have Roshi's character outline differentiated by the similarly bald Krillin and Piccolo thanks to the staff he always carries around with him Piccolo's ears once again helped to distinguish his character outline and characters like Goku Krillin Gohan and indeed Bulma are all assuming poses that inform the other and grant us plenty of visual information Jump Ahead further and you'll see Goku's initial attempt to catch bubbles bubbles clearly walting around as if floating on air is almost reclined in his upward stance while Goku heavy footedly Stomps his slanty self towards the hairy elf ape monster until he has an idea that is with new conviction Goku stands as straight up as he can struggles to get his kid off until finally we see a lighter version of him that while still standing off to one side and slightly precarious on his tippy toes is clearly more stable than he once was towards the beginning of this encounter this is all to say carefully and intentionally designing the civil the wets of your characters to remain distinct from one another is important selecting the more easily readable angles to convey their unique shapes is very important and finally illustrating their poses in such a manner that it conveys the emotions of the characters and the rhythm of the story at hand which unfortunately is a principle so seldom spoken about I consider it a hate crime against books these fundamentals and basic principles of illustration serve to increase overall Clarity which is always a good thing but also gives each manga a chance at survival many of you in my audience would have no reason to know this but it's worth keeping in mind that the paper quality these chapters are initially released with are about as enduring as Gohan's main character run in the series that is to say not at all you'd make better paper trying to duct tape sawdust together as thin and brittle as half-play toilet paper that was left out in the sun to dry this means in addition to my old weekly Shonen jumps all looking like they have book leprosy for an artist particularly a mangaka in Japan understanding these fundamentals is not just good practice it's vital for survival arrival in a format produced on terrible quality paper for audiences with very short attention spans alright so now that we know the most foundational Concepts let's start building our understanding up with different concepts let's start looking at the exciting stuff [Music] part two sequence now that we're after moving on to the really big boy material it's time for me to crush your enthusiasm and interest by showing you this graph and these visual aids how awful and crew the teacher I am only kidding graphs are for nerds I'm a 31 year old YouTuber talking about comic book design I have no room to complain anyway the image I shared just now that looked like a bunch of scary ink Swatch monsters is in fact an assortment of object placement schemes 4 Shots or panels and that's a fancy way of saying a sheet of potential page compositions composition as a term is basically what makes a picture look right or as a nerd would put it composition means the distribution and placement of form shapes colors and values to produce a unified and harmonious hole but I would never say that because I am not a robot or a Google a common way to describe or Define manga and comics in shorthand might look something like this sequential art coined by comic artist will Eisner pictured here dressed like your grandpa after getting lost at Comic-Con he describes Comics as an art form that uses images deployed in a specific order for the purposes of graphic storytelling or tldr don't those lovely pictures tell a lovely story and our friends Scott McLeod's book making Comics storytelling secrets of comics manga and graphic novels try saying that 10 times fast he outlines a host of different practices and rules one might abide by when sequencing a comic strip and I'll be discussing two of those practices right here today choice of moment and choice of flow otherwise known as what I want to show and how I want to show it let's do the moment one first because it happens in the book first and it feels weird for me to write a video about this technique where I don't follow exactly what the book says so yeah where was I choice of moment speaks to the idea that when laying out your images that tell a specific story these moments should be like connect the dot puzzle pieces remove one dot of that sequence and you end up changing the shape of the story being told effectively choice of moment is how one organizes and chooses to illustrate their particular sequence each moment requires a different approach highlighting or placing focus on a small Moment In Time requires a different structure and philosophical approach to each sequence or specific action what does this mean and or look like well let's start from the most subtle and work our way up from there the first and most subtle type of sequence is called moment to moment and while not the most common approach it's certainly pervasive in Dragon Ball and my God doesn't know how to leave an impact typically moment to moment is used to heighten the drama with a more cinematic motion to the page notice the way Goku goads Frieza into shooting a beam directly at his face only to just slowly raise his head afterwards like a badass and that thing right there that slow and gradual movement that helps make Goku look like a badass that's moment-to-moment paneling these are snapshots in time captured by the panels to highlight one or more of the following to heighten the drama the Cinematic nature of the scene and to Duncan Frieza because he's a psychotic slumpy dildo racist as I mentioned sequencing like this isn't used everywhere but instead sparingly to create a specific effect whether that be for dramatic purposes like with Frieza just now to emphasize a subtle aspect of the story like Gohan curling up into a ball and falling asleep or as Toriyama loves to do plays great emphasis on a particular joke moving on to the opening page of chapter 212 we are given our first glimpse of what will soon become one of Goku's most iconic techniques the Genki Dima or Spirit Bomb as it's referred to by people who hate it when I call it the Genki dhama as you can see on this page we have a collection of subtle movements because of this you might be led to believe or assume that this is our good old friend moment to moment but you'd be wrong this is a different Beast entirely this my friends is called action to action the composition of Batman to moment to moments Robin this guy does all the heavy lifting in most manga's action sequences instead of focusing on a specific movement in detail action to action contends with displaying a single subject in this case Goku moving through a series of actions and yes while the movements are small like the Frieza chin beam God wasn't that cool altogether they tell a more complicated story here with Goku a clear example of action to action can be seen with this save Piccolo makes on Gohan with the Cybermen in chapter 216. from the thwarted surprise attack to the counter-attack throw and subsequent final attack result being the Cyberman is dead and Gohan is safe once again thanks to to his big green daddy pickles and in the same way Piccolo might cut off an attack counter and eventually destroy his opponent this sequence introducing the Genki Dharma is constructed in a very similar fashion for in the same way if you remove one or more of those panels from the sequence with Piccolo making the save on Gohan you lose information that changes how the scene or story plays out with this slow and subtle dance Goku does with his arms on this page as readers we are all receiving a vital sequence of actions we must understand if we are to grasp the essence of this technique as it exists within the story and you thought it was just as simple as drawing cool pictures how wrong you were with moment-to-moment transitions like I demonstrated earlier through the likes of Frieza while they offer oftentimes special emphasis for drama a gag or catching small changes pieces of them can be removed that while compromising the atmosphere of the page and the punchline of a joke usually doesn't result in the destruction or shape change of the story as a whole I can remove one of these panels of Goku looking cool in that scene with Frieza and while the drama is lessened thanks to the sense of motion created being compromised there aren't consequences for the greater narrative no vital piece of information is necessarily lost and just like the piccolo sequence the same however cannot be said for this Genki dama sequence each individual panel on this page is pivotal to our understanding of this technique's shortcoming a shortcoming that is pivotal for readers to understand as the story progresses against the naughty spiky boy later on and yet interestingly for a sequence that's so important say for a word or two there's virtually no meaningful dialogue so what exactly is being communicated then if not verbally well let's take a look panel 1 is an establishing shot of Goku Gathering energy panel 2 Goku realizes he has enough energy for the bomb panel 3 he holds it panel 4 focuses it and finally panel 5 controls it this page quite literally dedicates each panel to an individual step in creating a Spirit Bomb assume this pose to gather energy register when you have enough hold it focus it and finally control it remove any one of these panels and the message here is lost take away panel 4 and you'd innocently assume that this technique can be used as easily as a Kamehameha remove panel 2 and you justifiably conclude that this technique doesn't require concentration or time to charge the Genki dama is a slow charge attack that places the wielder in a vulnerable position and each one of these panels outlines a specific aspect of the attack for us to consider without words and now that we understand that let's talk choice of flow or flow for short in other words now that you have a story that you want to tell in pictures how should you draw these pictures or panel them on a page to create an interesting flow that helps the pictures communicate the story to the reader and this believe it or not is the hard part but as I found out while researching this video Akira Toriyama had a lot of experience in this specific area before ever becoming a mangaka it turns out he actually began his career as an illustrator designing ad advertisements which meant in order to be effective at his job he needed to be well-versed in directing a viewer or reader's attention in a very controlled and intentional fashion this trick Toriyama is trying to play her is to guide you from panel to panel tell you information and not make it feel like work not make it feel like reading and that last part it's hard but he does it and to show you how we need to take an even closer look at this Genki Dharma page the first panel is a downward wide shot with emphasis being placed on the hands a wide shot is one that encompasses the whole body but the emphasis quite clearly here in this panel is placed on Goku's hands this is what we are being told to pay attention to this is what Goku is using to control this technique using the ink line surrounding Goku and panel 1 our eyes are guided to the second in the sequence unconsciously this is the only panel Goku's hand or hands are out of the shot or more specifically pushed out of the shot this is done intentionally to draw attention momentarily away from Goku's hands and onto Goku's face the Keen Focus that's required to register when enough energy has been gathered our eyes are drawn to a sudden spark signaling to us Goku is ready to proceed and using the lines in this panel Toriyama once again guides our eyes downward the hands are now lowered in panel 3 back into frame energy emitting from all around his body Goku's right hand are left is positioned higher than the other hand in the panel and again this is a measured decision like I said with panel one Toriyama has told us that Goku's hands are indeed the focus and so this is what our eye Trail looks like see how when we go from panel to panel we follow the hands until suddenly in panel 4 our attention is thrown downwards just like Goku's hands to the lower left corner this along with the medium upshot that Toriyama chose is working to create this sense that between panels three and four Goku threw his hands down in an effort to concentrate this massive surge of energy to one fixed point the energy is no longer emanating from his body but instead dead his arm and more specifically his hand and finally because our eyes are drawn to this hand this limb of Goku's guides our eyes to the next and final panel on the page right onto yep you guessed it Goku's hand one last time now a closed fist indicating he has control of the energy from there our eyes glance over Goku's expression as he offers a reassuring smirk before saying okay I'm all set creating anticipation for what's to come on the next page all of that all of it is communicated in just five panels and look I understand I just spent a couple of minutes going over this but I want to reiterate that all of this is communicated in just five panels something that would otherwise take me an afternoon to fully realize and compose myself came flowing out of Toriyama like blood from Roshi's nose haha reference so you thought that all there was to manga was pretty pictures and fun writing absolutely not more than a director in a director's chair Toriyama needs to be his own producer cinematographer writer character designer fight choreographer illustrator Etc the idea that he not only did this for every page unconsciously but did so for over 10 years while releasing a new chapter every week is honestly mind-blowing to me in the most humbling of ways and hilariously to this day he's still the same toyotaro has even gone on the record describing how pernickety Toriyama still is about how a gag is paneled in Dragon Ball super and I can see why and while impressive when I break this down in an academic sense if Toriyama does it right the readers won't have time to notice because they will be caught up in the story everything I described should be understood or covered by the eye and quite literally a few seconds all of that information that would have otherwise taken pages of boring dialogue to describe were instead shown to us in a much more concise fashion and this is why great panel sequence and flow is Paramount and so now that I'm sufficiently tired of looking at this page let's see how these techniques are implemented in other parts of the story like Goku vs Vegeta is an obvious place to start if not extremely irritating on for me now this is a bad example of what I want to demonstrate here but because the fight is so blindingly brilliant in its composition execution and storytelling that focusing on just the flow of a couple of the pages alone is kind of like bringing a tiger to show and tell in order to talk about why your favorite color is orange kind of over does in the same way the prior example with Goku genkidama placed an emphasis on hands this places the focus on the positioning of Goku and Vegeta on the page vying for top spot if you will both metaphorically and quite literally notice how on that famous poser Vegeta is the one positioned highest on the panel being the only one not boxed into the page he's off the charts Goku is a known quantity but Vegeta is something else entirely that cannot be contained by the panels here there's some great flow on this page too with our eyes naturally guided back and forth between the two fighters Vegeta Goku Vegeta Goku Vegeta Goku Etc it creates this wonderful sense of timing and tension in the standoff as we wait for things to kick off furthermore nice strong stance from Vegeta 2 and by the end of this first flurry Goku is the one thrown off balance with Vegeta never looking more comfortable standing upright still and as you might have noticed still atop the rock formation looking down on Goku that is until Goku starts to push back and notice here how Vegeta is once confident and stable stance is is compromised as he looks at Goku now taking the shape of a storm and it pays off with the first meaningful hit received by Vegeta note how because of that aura Toriyama gave Goku he now has a visual toy to play with that helps guide her eyes from panel to panel and additionally within the existing panel to create a sense of movement finally Vegeta almost brought to his knees in the process and terrified to look weak jumps back to a higher position in order to regain his footing and look a little bit of moment-to-moment paneling to emphasize what this moment means to Vegeta a snapshot in time emphasized for the purpose of adding drama to the moment this one look tells us everything we need to know he is pissed and just to put a pin on this section once and for all if you go back and look at those scary ink blocked monsters you'll find that many of them correspond to toriyama's designs because he's a great visual Communicator so yeah that was sequencing time to move on to [Music] I gotta stop that part three rhythm you see this picture yeah it sucks but here's the thing when I took it I thought this view was great but when I looked at the photo I took I was massively disappointed now here's that same picture again only cropped and suddenly it sucks less why aside from the Witchcraft that is our Theory this picture I took didn't look good because our disgusting human eyes work very differently to that of a camera lens and please stay with me on this line of thought because I promise I'll bring it back to the laser alien soon the first image I took is essentially the exact view I had while standing taking the picture from my eyes perspective it was a cool view but the picture didn't translate because an image taken on a camera cannot do what our eyes can when we look towards something or feel the view is huge but our eyes and brain isolate our points of interest or Focus interestingly this exact principle explains how shutter Shades while making you look exceptionally stupid also work without obstructing our vision and so he says leaning over a comically large piece of paper containing images of Japanese cartoons as it happens manga and broadly speaking Comics tend to leverage a lot of the same principles and shots photographers and filmmakers utilize to prove my point here are a few that you may or may not be aware of the establishing shot a shot typically shared at the beginning of a scene that clearly shows the area the action is set it's all over TV shows films anime and yes even in manga pick virtually any chapter in Dragon Ball and unless we're embroiled in something rather specific Toriyama makes sure to add some sort of establishing shot next up the close-up possibly the most fundamental and foundational concept I'll touch on here but also by virtue of that the most important close-ups are exactly what they say on the tin a shot framing the subject's face or point of Interest typically to emphasize a point conviction or expression key to the story next is the over-the-shoulder shot a shot where the camera is positioned to say it with me now over the shoulder of one of the subjects in the foreground typically employed during a conversation to establish or imply a connection between the two sharing the scene or in this case page this is opposed to a single shot which implies distance deep focus Toriyama loves using this one he loves it and to be quite honest it's easy to see why as a mangaka Toriyama doesn't have the luxury of being able to move his camera in time with the actors on screen and so he employs this technique regularly by keeping the foreground middle ground and background All In Focus to create a sense of depth and life in his images next is a low angle shot otherwise known as worm eye view this shot is used to establish a sense of domineering Power Authority and or control for the subject in the frame and wonderfully whenever you look back through the series for intimidating scenes with the likes of cell Frieza or Vegeta oftentimes they can be found framed as such and finally just for the sake of this video high angle shot otherwise known as a downward shot or bird's eye view in some sense this shocks similarly but opposite to the low angle shot is a presentation technique that looks down on a character or subject often isolating them in the frame sometimes to make them appear weak small or overwhelmed the there are of course dozens of different types of shots some of which apply to Comics but many others that do not Dolly shots pan and zooms till shots Steadicam handicam tracking shots and there are many many more but you get the point all of those require a sense of motion to be experienced by the viewers in order to be effective however this isn't to suggest that Comics don't also possess the ability to do things the TV and film otherwise can't do and this is where Rhythm comes in and it's honestly kind of cool so stick with me here you see in a movie or each shot of a film it's more often than not meant to be seen or understood in its entirety as you look at it within a given frame everything we see is taking place simultaneously time Flows at the same rate as it does for us at home this is not true for Comics at least not in the same way things do not happen simultaneously on a panel let that sink in thinking about it for a few moments this should be quite obvious the very nature of speech bubbles and conversations occurring within a single panel suggests a presence or passing of time that is confined to a a single panel check out this panel taken from Goku's interaction with Berger as many of you are aware or perhaps you're not manga doesn't read left to right like Western Comics instead it reads right to left concerningly because I've now read so much manga I now open all books that I start with from the back my idiocy aside however because manga is read or interpreted right to left if more than one character or event occupies the space of a given panel that means that the character or event or object on the rightmost of the panel is seen or acting first chronologically similarly as we move our eyes leftwards and encounter the next object that is seen as acting second and so on for instance the first object in this case is barter exclaiming at the top of his lungs his befuddlement as to how someone like Goku a Saiyan could be so fast this signals to us that wahi noticed and exclaims occurs chronologically before Goku's response which wouldn't make any sense if this panel was to be understood as all occurring at the same time in other words burner says something Goku responds to it and the time that it takes for that interaction to take place is the amount of time that this panel exists within and this isn't limited to conversations but instead pieces of information whether they begin you shocked as he reads Goku's growing scouter readings or a Super Saiyan Goku raising his hand to Frieza and Frieza simply noticing in shock without a word this is all to say that unlike film which presents a frame as a passing instance in time the contents of which all happen simultaneously Comics or in this case manga demonstrate panels with chronological pieces of information that communicate a certain amount of time passing in order for the information to be delivered each panel has a focal point or a series of focal points that we move one to the next from for the sake of Simplicity let's call these sections or pieces of information beats as they make up the rhythm of these stories whether they be actions gestures expressions or speech bubbles each of these represent a single beat in the rhythm of the story being told interestingly and this brings us back to the Cinematic shot we touched on earlier since there are significant difficult differences in how both comics and films are depicted this you would think would result in certain techniques and the effects found therein not really being an optioned in the utility belt of a Savvy mangaka or comic book artist and again how wrong you are take the panning shot for example this is a shot where the camera moves continuously right to left or left to right depending on the context of the scene in this clip from Whiplash it's used to establish a connection between the tyrannical Terence Fletcher and his Protege Andrew it's a technique you would think would be impossible to use in the realm of comics but due to the concept of Beats and rhythm in your panels there are ways to mimic the effects of this shot normally found in film with them because information is segmented across a panel when the panel itself contains a number of different beats whether they be actions or different speech bubbles specifically if they're from the same person this helps to establish the passage of time for instance this panel with Vegeta pleading with Goku illustrates a comic's ability to achieve some of the same effects a panning shot offers a film notice how the speech bubbles aren't all crammed together instead they are separated across the length of the page each bubble pushing farther and farther to the left of the page signifying the passage of time and pauses between the different chunks of the conversation furthermore the shape of this panel helps to get this slow delivery across too horizontal panels that stretch across the full width of the page are seen as lasting the greatest amount of time heck even without words it can be effective in delivering this sense that we are to linger on this shot just that little bit longer than the others check this one out as Vegeta draws his final breath and delivers his last please suddenly he's gone with that panel he's presented in almost insisting upon us spending more time with than any other panel on the page there's a pause one that even the anime reflects the same effect of course can also be observed with vertically tall panels usually these are used to introduce a character or highlight something about them be it their appearance or conviction as is the case in Dragon Ball and again this can be seen as quite similar to a tilt shot from film there are of course more complicated examples but if this interests you I highly recommend you check out the books I've pointed to in this video if you want to learn more and on that note we finally arrive at the final stop of this overly descriptive and honestly pedantic look at the theory behind comic and manga design and that final stop is what the [ __ ] was that Jesus you're a [ __ ] miserable drunk part four Focus we've spent a great deal of time so far examining illustrations and the panels that contain them and by we I mean me I've done all the work you've just kind of been sitting there bit late so it's now time for some crowd participation and you will be participating in this short test or should I say study and this one is rather famous so if you've seen this before sit tight but if it's your first time I want you to try and count the number of times the players in White Pass this basketball [Music] uh [Music] how many did you count the answer is 15 but did you notice the gorilla if this was your first time seeing this visual trick there's a chance you might have missed him while focusing your attention elsewhere but why does this happen according to will store's book the science of Storytelling as people or perception of the world is a limited hallucination composed of ever-changing pieces of information information that's informed by our ability to focus and understanding why this works not only helps us structure great stories but also great surprises and effective dialogue take this scene from chapter 390 for example Goku and Gohan have made their exit from the time chamber in the manga we're not given a tremendous amount of time in the chamber itself but all the focus from the team and us as readers is placed squarely on Goku after a spirited scene where Goku states he won't be going back in because he doesn't need to Vegeta deciding to tease him about his weakness and then Goku saying that he's a lot stronger than even he we get this scene in Corin Tower where Goku reveals half of his power and after this bombastic outing nestled in the lower right corner is a panel containing Gohan's internal monologue in it he says that's funny that can't be dad's full strength with the power of hindsight being 20 20 we of course know that this is a clear hint to where the story is going but watching it for the very first time following a scene where Goku verbally Alphas the insecure and evidently weaker Vegeta all contained in a story that has up until this point being all about Goku we of course interpret Gohan's words here to mean that Goku is hiding more power than he otherwise is letting on and I mean not wrong I mean he's he is hiding power just not in himself however despite illustration and composition being the focus of this video I'd like to chat briefly about the importance of dialogue premise and the concept of show don't tell as it pertains to comics in general because a lot of people don't fully understand what show don't tell actually means in an academic sense one might think a rule like show don't tell might be as simple as what it says on the tin but if that were true then the best Disney film ever created would be something like Fantasia considering there's virtually no dialogue to speak of it's all show and no tell but this is obviously wrong because the best Disney movie is Wally apologies to both Fantasia fans out there this is all to say of course that dialogue isn't bad and expository dialogue isn't bad either and furthermore no dialogue can still be terrible panning a camera across a mantelpiece that covers the lives of two men as they go from school to boot camp to fatherhood isn't showing either that's telling but another form of it it's replacing what would otherwise be filmmaking with a home movie and famously Akira Toriyama wrote his story with little planning for the future this is to say that he never planned for the series to end up where it ultimately did or take the course It ultimately took he simply made it up as he went along so how did he navigate this potential problem well in the art of dramatic writing by and I'm going to butcher this name Legos agree agree I don't know he says that not knowing how your story is going to end is perfectly fine but what is vital to your story is a premise a brief sentence that sums up the overall message of your story things like true progression comes through struggle or deceit will lead to downfall are examples of a premise and what drives premise it's not dialogue it's your cast or more specifically character if Goku were to show up and suddenly start narrating his life story for the purpose of filling other characters in or Worse again for the purposes of filling Us in on information that would feel exceptionally strange wouldn't it because that choice of speech doesn't ring true to Goku as an established character or most characters for that matter unless you're talking about Forrest Gump and his eagerness to tell his life story is used as a framing device for the film I mean who am I to argue with six Academy Awards but the point is exposition is difficult and boring to make it feel natural for instance the conversation trunks has with Goku when he returns to earth is natural his motivations are clear and Goku's willingness to engage with a harmless strong person all checks out therefore the conversation takes place the contents of which happen to be interesting in that it pushes towards the premise of the story and sets up the coming Arc however Toriyama is faced also with a problem immediately after no one else heard that conversation in Canon besides Trunks and Goku and technically Piccolo so how does Toriyama solve that problem well he simply skips over it in one panel citing Piccolo filled everyone in on the important information but what happens when you're backed into a corner what happens when Toriyama writes Trunks versus Cell in this you have the debut of a new Super Saiyan power up but the wielder doesn't understand why it isn't working against his adversary so how did Toriyama work around this problem without trunks having to verbally diarrhea out his mouth the explanation to us as readers well needless to say he didn't do that instead he cuts away to Goku simultaneously discovering this technique informing us telling us in a way true to his character why this form doesn't work and this is natural because he's not only training himself he's training Gohan and Gohan asks why however this isn't always the case and there are of course instances where plot device characters have to expose it to Goku in order for him to help out instances like Snow's backstory that inspires Goku to fight the Red Ribbon army or Guru who serves to piece together the history of that story for the main cast or even Shin who serves to recruit the forces of Earth in the fight against Buu all of these characters tell a hell of a lot more than the otherwise show they don't even feel like characters most of the time if you're being completely honest so why is it presented to us this way well because the story of Dragon Ball isn't about any of these individuals these are glorified plot devices used to propel the story forwards and to reinforce the premise in the red ribbon Army ARC what's important with snow is not understanding the fear and pain that girl felt or the anxiety she feels about what will become of her Village what's important is seeing how the main character Goku reacts when confronted with this situation she offers him or in the case of Guru he's there to provide a path for The Supporting Cast to enhance their power through cooperation and for shin he's there similarly to Sona to present Goku and the others with yet another big bad to stop unless you're an enormous fan of the franchise it's not Beyond reproach to suggest that these characters are quite one-dimensional or unexplored and you know I think that's a good thing a character that doesn't reinforce the central premise is as good as set dressing they don't need exploration they simply exist to set up the main character to show what he's made of now this is of course a difficult balance to strike when writing your story famously one piece loves to flesh out a ton of his characters but you'll notice that every single character that is fleshed out in one piece reinforces the premise of that Arc or greater story in some shape or form you'll rarely find Oda writing about something that straight up doesn't matter to the story for very long so while keeping all of that in mind let's take a look back at Goku and Gohan during the cell Saga as they first enter the chamber only this time armed with the hindsight that Gohan is the main character and how a competent writer uses Exposition and dialogue to express information to the audience and in a fashion that helps to communicate that very main character shift chapter 377 for all intents and purposes despite Vegeta and Trunks having gone into the chamber before them and interestingly Goku is a supporting character used to expose it information about the chamber to Gohan and by proxy us unlike Goku this is both Gohan and our first time in the chamber proper Goku explains where everything is what the challenges are it even tells us that he wasn't able to last longer than a month here as a kid and this is just another thing for Gohan to surpass this scene places Us in the same shoes as Gohan on we are learning here from Goku we aren't experiencing this for the first time through Goku's eyes we're experiencing it for the first time through Gohan's and this is all telling and not showing in a literal sense but as Robert McKee writes in his book story show don't tell isn't about telling or showing ironically enough but instead it's about the characters behaving in a truthful way does it make sense for Goku to reveal this information to his son he's about to train with of course he's his father and Gohan is obviously confused and so I ask would it have been better if Toriyama Drew this information instead of telling us this information in short no but if you don't want to take my word for it pick up any of the books I referenced in this video and they might explain what I've asserted in Greater detail oh also before I sign off I'd like to extend a special thank you to my friend Manuela who helped me with this video she's written a great blog on this very topic and I've linked her socials in the description down below she helped with this video so send her some love next week I begin my review of Dragon Ball Z so subscribe if you want to see that but as for this video it's been long enough and my legs are tired from standing so goodbye that's it for today class your homework is to download raid just kidding I know you've already done that so no homework except there will be a test of Valor so study up but you can use your phones because it's a mobile game alright class dismissed [Music] thank you

Channel: Totally Not Mark

Views: 275,751

Keywords: dragon ball, akira toriyama, dragon ball super, dragon ball z, dragon ball gt, dragon ball explained, dragon ball theory, dragon ball manga, totally not mark dragon ball

Id: MgJPsj2P-kQ

Length: 45min 56sec (2756 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023