Toriyama’s Sketch of Goku Outsells Miura’s Drawing Of Guts In An Auction
The Goku art was sold for $100,000, valuing higher than Kentaro Miura’s sketch of Guts from Berserk, which went for $43,000.
In a recent auction, presumably held in Japan, a sketch of Dragon Ball’s Son Goku drawn & signed by series creator Akira Toriyama was apparently sold for $100,000, valued higher than the $43,000 sketch of Berserk’s Guts drawn & signed by the late Kentaro Miura.
Miura’s portrait of Guts seems like it was plucked from the pages of Berserk, with its meticulous shading and attention to facial detail. In contrast, Toriyama’s work is a straightforward sketch that merely depicts a pen outline of Goku and has the artist’s signature.
Fans were confused since they had hoped Miura’s work would fetch a better price after his death in 2021 and the subsequent skyrocketing of the price of his older volumes of the ongoing manga series he left behind.
Even the dude who covered this news on Twitter couldn’t believe it.
Berserk.
The auction of a pencil drawing by Miura just ended. The winning bid was $43.000.At the same time, an autograph illustration by Toriyama Makira of Dragon Ball sold for $100.000.
unbelievable….. pic.twitter.com/1aqk3EHCys
— nagare06 (@kojion) November 7, 2023
In defense of the pricing, some fans argue that Dragon Ball and Toriyama are better known outside of anime & manga aficionados, even if both creators contributed greatly to the business. Toriyama is also known for designing characters for the Dragon Quest video games, which are also significant in the role-playing genre.
Berserk does have a large fan base, but it only had a few short-lived anime adaptations that failed to garner critical praise or financial success. Although the original Berserk anime received positive reviews, it was canceled after a few episodes due to budgetary constraints, leaving Miura’s work to be famous only in the world of manga.
About Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball is a manga series by Akira Toriyama. It first began its serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1984.
The manga was later adapted into a multitude of animated series, movies, and games.
The franchise consists of five different anime series, about 21 animated movies, and around 10 games spanning various platforms, from Famicon to Playstation and Xbox.
Synopsis of the Dragon Ball anime:
Goku Son is a young boy who lives in the woods all alone—that is, until a girl named Bulma runs into him in her search for a set of magical objects called the “Dragon Balls.”
Since the artefacts are said to grant one wish to whoever collects all seven, Bulma hopes to gather them and wish for a perfect boyfriend.
Goku happens to be in possession of a dragon ball, but unfortunately for Bulma, he refuses to part ways with it, so she makes him a deal: he can tag along on her journey if he lets her borrow the dragon ball’s power.
With that, the two set off on the journey of a lifetime.
Source: Twitter
