Legendary Dragon Ball’s editor calls modern manga „mid like fast-food chains”
Modern manga are „mid like fast-food chains,” according to Kazuhiko Torishima, editor of Dragon Ball, who has a lot to complain about.
The legendary editor behind Dragon Ball has decided to speak out about the modern manga industry. As a trusted partner of Akira Toriyama, Kazuhiko Torishima was crucial to the rise of the legendary shonen manga. Now he's taken a closer look at manga's current condition as an industry and shared his thoughts in his latest book (via sandman_AP on X).
Earlier this month, he made headlines for criticizing Attack on Titan, saying it "made a lot of noise, but ultimately the manga didn't do too well." This time, though, Torishima has taken a broader look at today’s manga scene as a whole, pointing out that editors are too focused on data and are not giving creativity enough room to grow. He even compared today’s manga to fast-food chains.
Editors rely too much on data analytics, telling mangaka, 'This type of story is popular with this demographic, so you should structure manga as such.' Many manga are mid like fast-food chains. Most of the currently trending manga will disappear within 3 years.
According to Torishima, it’s unlikely that today’s best sellers will go down in history like Dragon Ball or Naruto, which are still as popular as ever. Despite not being recent releases, they still spark interest and get people talking, unlike many newer series whose fandoms die out much faster.
The DB editor previously said that the success of these titles comes from their simplicity and the fact that they’re an adventure not just for the characters, but for the readers too. Apparently, he doesn’t see those same qualities in a lot of today’s manga, which he feels rely too much on data and analytics.
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Author: Edyta Jastrzebska
A graduate of journalism and social communication as well as cultural studies. She started at Gamepressure.com as one of the newspeople in the films department. Currently she oversees the Gamepressure movie&TV newsroom. She excels in the field of film and television, both in reality-based and fantasy themes. Keeps up with industry trends, but in her free time she prefers to watch less known titles. Has a complicated relationship with popular ones, which is why she only gets convinced about many of them when the hype around them subsides. Loves to spend her evenings not only watching movies, series, reading books and playing video games, but also playing text RPGs, which she has been into for several years.
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