Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru
Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru (中鶴勝祥, May 22, 1962) is a an employee of Toei animation who has worked on several projects related to Akira Toriyama throughout his career. Nakatsuru possesses a keen understanding of the intricacies of Toriyama's artstyle, allowing him to replicate his distinctive look more than any other artist; this skill resulted in him becoming the chief character designer for Toei's anime adaptation of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, as well as creating the super saiyan 4 form for Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Daima.
Pertinent to the Dragon Quest series, Nakatsuru has drawn several illustrations for the covers and interior art of V Jump magazine throughout the 90's and as such has depicted the casts of Dragon Quest VI and the SFC remake of Dragon Quest III many times. For English-speaking fans Nakatsuru's largest contribution was illustrating the North American box art for the GameBoy Color release of Dragon Quest III, providing exclusive art not widely seen in Japan until the ubiquity of the internet[1].
The Brief Return of Dr. Slump[edit]
Nakatsuru was contracted to illustrate the sequel to Toriyama's celebrated Dr. Slump manga alongside screenwriter Takao Koyama, which ran in V Jump from 1993 through September of 1996. The third chapter depicts the eponymous Dr. Senbei's game of Dragon Quest V being interrupted by his creations Arale and the Gatchans.
Gallery[edit]
Dragon Warrior III GBC box art
References[edit]
- ↑ RPGFan: Have you taken a lot of fan input onto the release of Dragon Warrior VII? Like comments, suggestions? John: Absolutely. For VII we're using the same boxart that was used in the Japanese version, which is by Akira Toriyama. For III we went for more of an anime look, and that's because of a lot of people on our message boards. So many people were like "We want more of an anime-style look, rather than a rendered background." RPGFan: It's nice. It looks true to Toriyama's style. John: Exactly, course it was done by the lead animator for Dragon Ball Z. Besides that, there are a number of other things we took from our fans on the message boards. https://web.archive.org/web/20080518094453/http://www.rpgfan.com/features/e32k1-enix/index2.html