Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Quest Slime is a perfect character design

Credit should be given to Akira Toriyama’s influence on the media of manga and anime Dr. Slump And Dragon Ball, was gigantic. In addition to his expansive fictional worlds and signature illustration style, Toriyama was a brilliant character designer – right down to the humble Dragon Quest Slime, the most perfect video game character design.

With the humble Slime, Toriyama transformed a simple idea into a powerful visual icon that has been going strong for nearly four decades. The common monster (and occasional hero)’s design has inspired fashion, furniture, food, home electronics and hundreds of other products.

The slime made its debut in the original Dragon Questreleased on Nintendo’s Famicom in 1986. The blue (or orange) blob is one of the first, if not The First, players encounter enemies in a Dragon Quest game. They’re adorable, but they were originally thought to be scary.

Yuji Horii, the creator of the Dragon Quest series, says the slime was inspired by Sir-Techs sorcery, the classic role-playing game with its own slimy monsters. “I was really excited sorcerythe PC game, and that’s where I got the inspiration for Slime,” Horii told MTV in 2010. “I scribbled the slime-like character and took it to Mr. Toriyama, who did the character design, and he turned it into the slime we see today.”

It wasn’t until recently that many Dragon Quest fans got a glimpse of what Horii originally envisioned. His loose sketch of what a slime might look like, drawn in the mid-80s, became more widespread in 2017. Here’s a good look at Horii’s original idea on the left, Toriyama’s interpretation on the right.

Horii’s description states that it is amorphous and jelly-like. According to his notes to Toriyama, it would attach itself to people’s faces and suffocate them.

“Originally, when we came up with the slime, it was a bunch of goo and we gave it to Toriyama-san to draw a picture of it and turn it into a real monster.” Horii told IGN in an interview in 2007. “We imagined it [as] a disgusting puddle of slime, but when he came back with this perfectly formed blob monster, we thought it was perfect. That’s part of Toriyama’s ability to take something like a pool of slime and use his imagination to make it a great character.”

Toriyama’s design is actually perfect. Using just a few primitive shapes and lines, he gave the slime a feeling of volume and moisture. His large, round eyes and inflexible smile give him a blank, aimless expression – an appearance that makes him ideal as low-level cannon fodder and a cheerful party companion.

The slime’s core elements, namely its easy-to-draw shapes, are based on the same simplicity that drives the design of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy and Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Because they are made up of circular design elements, they are all easy to remember and quick to draw, making them extremely adaptable.

Slime design has been thoroughly reimagined and modified by Toriyama and others over the last four decades. For Dragon Quest 2Toriyama created new variations, including the jellyfish-like healing slime and the harmful bladder slime – a variant that was closer to the creature sorcery Root. Dragon Quest 4 brought us the King Slime, another Toriyama design that introduced a hierarchy of slimes with a swollen blue goo wearing a royal crown. As the slime evolved, he became a hero in games like Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime and the CG anime Dragon Quest: Your Story.

Dragon Quest publisher Square Enix is ​​now selling all sorts of slime-inspired merchandise, including coffee tables, giant bean bags, hourglasses, and ice cube trays. In Japan, Square Enix currently sells pretty much everything you need dressing a baby, from booties to onesies to beanies, head to toe in slime designs. The Slime has even been reimagined as a game controller – Hori’s Slime controller, originally released for PlayStation 2 and later brought back for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, is simultaneously the cutest and least ergonomic gamepad in the world.

Toriyama’s creations, especially those of Dragon Ball And Dr. Slumpwill inspire fans and other artists for generations to come. The manga artist’s legacy will live on quietly in Slime, a perfectly executed character design that will forever serve as the visual shorthand and strongest icon of the Dragon Quest series he helped create.

To enjoy more of Toriyama’s work for the Dragon Quest series, check out here Dragon Quest Illustrations: 30th Anniversary Editionthe 2018 collection localized by Viz Media.