Hellz Yeah: Toriyama!

Krillin / クリリン

From: DragonBall

Krillin is one of Goku’s oldest friends, meeting him when they train withMaster Roshi.  He is generally a comedy relief character, providing one-liners and humour during tense moments.  His weakness compared to the other main characters is made up in his ability to trick enemies to his advantage.

Little is known about Krillin’s life prior to meeting Goku but he came from a monastery to seek training to help him beat up his enemies.  Thinking of himself as Goku’s rival, the two slowly become friends during their training rituals.  Compared to characters like Gohan, Piccolo and Vegeta, Krillin represents a human outlook on the events in DragonBall, often being the only one to comment on absurd and outlandish situations.

Possibly the strongest human in existence, Krillin was given opportunities unlike any other regular human, including having his full potential unlocked by the Namekian Elder Guru.  His ability in ki attacks is surpassed by very few.  During the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament another lifelong friend, Yamcha mentions to his daughter Marron that he is the strongest human alive.

Due to his place in the story as a main human character, Krillin is killed more than anyone else in the entire series.  His “first” death at the hands of King Piccolo’s aide Tamborine, brings tears to even Blonde Lunch, a character usually perceived as hard-nosed and unable to care about people around her.

When Goku’s evil brother Raditz comes to Earth, Krillin is one of the fighters that notices his presence through detecting his ki.  Devastated by Goku’s death and the kidnapping of his son Gohan Jr, Krillin and the other fighters train with the Guardian of the Earth, Kami.  When Nappa and Vegeta arrive on Earth, he becomes enraged at Yamcha’s death.  When Goku and Vegeta are evenly matched and Vegeta attempts to escape,  Krillin attempts to finish him with a ki attack, but allows him to escape at Goku’s wishes.

Krillin is quick to offer his support to Goku and head to Namek to search for the rumoured Namekian Dragon Balls.  There, he, Gohan and Bulma try to track the Balls with Bulma’s Dragon Radar.  When Goku arrives on Namek and has his body stolen by Captain Ginyu, Krillin, despite knowing Goku for several years, can not tell him apart from the real Goku.

After reluctantly joining forces with Vegeta to fight Frieza, Krillin is impaled on Frieza’s horns but is healed by the young Namekian Dende, who later comes to Earth as its new Guardian.  Despite this assistance, Krillin is later murdered by a telekinetic attack that explodes his body.

After Goku defeats Frieza, Krillin is revived and settles into a hopefully more peaceful life on earth.  Later, he gets his first girlfriend, Marron, although this story only appears as anime filler and this Marron has no resemblance to her.

When the Androids predicted by Future Trunks are unleashed on the Earth, Krillin steps up to fight them.  However, he is not a match to their power despite his training efforts.  Bulma creates a device that will remotely shut down the Androids’ bodies and tasks Krillin with activating it within range.  Determined to follow through, but hesitating at the last minute, Krillin sees how frightened #18 is and remembers the kiss she gave him.  Deciding that it’s possible to work with the human side of her his decision to not kill her draws a parallel to Goku’s second chance given to Vegeta.

At the Cell Games, Krillin fought one of Cell’s offspring, Cell Jr.  Returning to Kami’s Lookout, with #18’s injured body, he makes a wish to Shenron to remove the bombs in the Androids’ bodies.  Hearing this act of kindness, #18 thanks him for his wish, showing that she may harbour feelings for him.  At some point during the following 3-4 years they have a daughter called Marron.  She is approximately 3 years old during her first appearance seven years after the Cell Games.

Krillin also makes small efforts to fight Majin Buu, but at this point his strength is thoroughly outclassed by enemy strengths.  He is turned into food and eaten along with the other friends and family of the earth’s fighters.

Krillin appears in DragonBall GT with an aged appearance.  He does not fight much but is killed by Super Android #17.  #18, devastated by his death, goes mad with rage and attacks him.  Shortly thereafter he is revived and during his last appearance he has a friendly sparring match with Goku.  To both of their surprise, wins.  Goku then suddenly disappears leaving Krillin confused.

Krillin’s name is similar in almost every dub of the show, with the biggest differences being his Harmony Gold dub name, Bongo, and his Arabic name, Shehab, which translates to “comet”.

Krillin does not have a nose, a fact that he forgets when fighting against Bacterian, in the World Martial Arts Tournament.  Bacterian gains the upper hand on his opponents with his terrible body odour.

Krillin and Goku are the only two characters seen in the anime to use the Spirit Bomb attack. 

Krillin is seen on the This Is album cover, released by popular group The Who.

Despite being three years younger than Yamcha, Krillin ages at a much faster rate.  At 54 years old in DragonBall GT, Krillin looks much more aged than the 57 year old Yamcha.

Akira Toriyama stated in one of the DragonBall Daizenshuu that Krillin’s favourite food is Chinese buffet.

His Japanese voice actor is Mayumi Tanaka who is now known for voicing the character Luffy in the One Piece anime.

Scans from Akira Toriyama: The World - Anime Special Booklet (鳥山明 The World アニメ・スペシャル) featuring Bulma looking sexy in her one-piece bathing suit, while Arale looks considerably less so in a bikini.

Arale’s beach ball is shaped like Tori-bot’s head (Tori-bot is Toriyama’s most common cameo character seen in his manga), making it probably the best beachball ever despite the fact it would be terribly un-aerodynamic.

This booklet was released in 1990 and sold for only 390JPY.

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Akira Toriyama: The World - Pink songs and BGM (鳥山明 ザ・ワールド ピンク SONGS & BGM)

Released: August 21, 1990

Released a few weeks after Akira Toriyama: The World, a promotional CD featuring music from three Toriyama films, Columbia released the soundtrack for the anime of 1982’s Pink: Water Bandit, Rain Bandit manga.

Containing some songs included on the earlier compilation, this album also features the background music/musical score from the film.  Being a short film, totalling approximately 30 minutes, the tracklist is fairly short at only 10 tracks including instrumental versions and image songs.

Toriyama Akira: The World (鳥山明 ザ・ワールド)

Released July 7, 1990 by Nippon Columbia Records

This promotional album featured music from three Toriyama properties, as part of the ongoing promotion of the short films, Pink: Water Bandit, Rain Bandit, and Kennosuke-sama, which were coupled with the third DragonBall Z anime film: The Tree of Might.

The DragonBall Z songs were later included on music compilations, while the tracks from Pink were re-released on an exclusive disc that also contained the film’s score.

Varying issues of BIRD LAND PRESS, Akira Toriyama’s fan magazine that was produced by BIRD STUDIO during the years of Dr. Slump and well into DragonBall’s run.  Popular features included character profiles, small bonus items and exclusive information.

The magazine is no longer printed and fetches a very high price amongst collectors!

The cinematic trailer for DragonBall Online, the new online Role-Play Game themed around the world of Dragon Ball.

Players can choose from the Human, Namekian or Majin races and interact with each other and characters from the DragonBall Universe in the year 1000 (over 200 years after the events of the main story).

It’s rumoured that Akira Toriyama has spent over 5 years developing and supervising the project through Virgin Media, Shueisha and his own BIRD STUDIO.  Creative Director Koji Takamiya has expressed an interest in releasing the project worldwide but it currently is available only in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and, soon, China.  The Japanese version was supposed to be released alongside the South Korean one but has been delayed.

There is no current release date for an English version although patches and tutorials exist to walk you through the process of registering an account through another country.

Some sketches done by Toriyama of various characters from his 1987 manga, Kennosuke-sama.

Another comparison shot between Akira Toriyama’s original manga drawings and collectable cards produced for DragonBall Z’s anime adaption.