Dragon Quest Illustrations

by Akira Toriyama

Celebrate the imaginative art of 30 years of the Dragon Quest video games, as designed and illustrated by Akira Toriyama, legendary creator of Dragon Ball.

Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball) brought the world of the renowned Dragon Quest video games to life through his creative, fun and inventive design work. Thirty years of genius are on display in this stunning comprehensive hardcover collection of over 500 illustrations from the Dragon Quest video games, from Dragon Quest (originally released as Dragon Warrior in English) to Dragon Quest Heroes II. Includes fold-out poster of the Dragon Quest timeline. 

Genres: Art, Fantasy, Video Games, Manga

240 pages, Hardcover

Published December 11, 2018

About the author

Akira Toriyama (鳥山明) was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball (his most famous work) and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.
He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen/shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended.
His next series, Dragon Ball, would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. Having sold 260 million copies worldwide, it is one of the best-selling manga series of all time and is considered a key work in increasing manga circulation to its peak in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Overseas, Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting anime's popularity in the Western world. In 2019, Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts.
In October 2024, Toriyama was inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of Asian kids (well, half Asian, but whatever), I grew up watching Dragon Ball Z, and then later reading the manga. We didn’t have a Super Man, we had Goku. Ever since then, Akira Toriyama has been one of my favorite artists. His designs are always a natural balance of simplistic and whimsical. It’s also immediately recognizable, which is how I got into the Dragon Quest games as a kid; I didn’t even buy the games the first couple of times I saw them, I would just stare at the box art. In my opinion, the best test for good art is when you stare at it for a concerningly long time, and I’ll admit, doing that within this art-book is much better.

[Artemy · Rating 5 out of 5]

RIP Toriyama-san. This loss really hurts.
To anyone who loves his art, I highly recommend this awesome book full of illustrations for the Dragon Quest game series. His monster designs especially are so creative and charming, but the character work, the covers and all the other illustrations are also phenomenal. He was one of the greatest, and we owe so much to him.

[John Wiswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful guide through one of the great art styles that defined my childhood.

[Gosila]

Ganz viel Liebe für die Kunst von Akira Toriyama <3

[Persy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much fun to have this walk down the DQ memory lane. The character and monster designs have always been my favorite part and having them in abundance here is sublime!

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collects some of Toriyama's drawings from the ten DQ games that were out at the time it was released, as well as the spin-offs. The main focus is on character designs, both of playable heroes and of monsters. There's a very distinctive look to the work, generally with a lot of humor and weird details. Some of the monster designs ended up unused, or weren't used until later games. The DQ2 pictures include some rendered in pixelated style, although this seems not to have continued with other titles. As the book notes, the human characters start looking more realistic with DQ4. I'm still not sure why in DQ3, a male gadabout/goof-off is a clown, while the female is a Playboy bunny. All of the DQ6 heroes seem to have angry eyes for some reason. There's an unused second form for Zoma from DQ3 where he's become a bunch of ghostly floating shapes. Other interesting monsters that never actually appeared include the Tower of Eyes, a gas dragon emitting gas from holes in its back, a minotaur with one breast exposed (basically the same as the troll design, but with a bull's head), and a tree with a bunch of hands. The Imp from 3 is tentatively labeled as "Small Satan," while a larger monster from the same page is "King Satan." The book also notes how the original first form for Nimzo in 5 became Murdaw in 6, and an early concept for the hero of 6 evolved into Terry.

[wbforeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically multiple pages showing every piece of artwork Akira Toriyama has done for the Dragon Quest franchise from the beginning up to Dragon Quest 11. You get every character design and all the cover box art which I love Akira Toriyama has a very whimsical cartoony art style that I is so iconic and it has not really changed over the years. My only point with his art is when they try and do more darker shading of the characters, as I think that takes away from the cartoony nature of the designs. I would’ve also like to bit more insight from Akira Toriyama but if your dragon quest fan, this book is well worth it

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of illustrations from one of my favourite video game franchises. The book includes art from box art, promotional posters, character designs, and other sources for the DQ1 game through to games (including spin-offs) released prior to DQ11. It would have been nice to see a bit more text on the thought process or just some notes on the illustrations, but overall a great book to peruse.

[Giancarlo Marquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pues, estuvo bueno, pero me hubiera gustado ver más comentarios al respecto como en otros libros de este tipo. Pero fuera de eso, es un excelente material para ver lo que ha sido del arte de Dragon Quest.

[Tyler Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely lovely book. Brought back some fond memories and the quality of the pages is really great. Got to see all my DQ7 homies again. I only wish it had DQXI, but the book came out prior to its release. Can’t wait to play some of these other ones.

[Gabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of very cool art from the series.

[Rowan]

Look for my review of this on noflyingnotights.com coming soon!

[Sam Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much nostalgia in these pages :)

[Michael Homem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rest in peace, Toriyama, you were a legend to us all and you’ll never be forgotten. 🐉

[Cris Díaz Pastor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una maravilla de ilustraciones del maestro Toriyama con ilustraciones con su estilo más clásico y el más moderno. Un paseo por el arte de Dragon Quest.

[Nerd_Pilgrim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful art book perfect for any coffee table. I loved the series and seeing all the beautiful little designs represented here in somewhat of an artistic manner made me smile and how far video games have come in pop culture.

My only disappointment is that there aren't more notes here - and now that Akira Toriyama has passed on, we may never know the creation process or the thoughts on some of his more iconic designs.

A wonderful little book though, especially for Dragon Quest fans.