Kazuhiko Torishima

is a Japanese publishing executive and former manga magazine editor, who is currently serving as an outside director at Bushiroad. He formerly worked at Shueisha, where he began as an editor in 1976, before becoming a senior managing director (CEO), and later a Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions director. When he moved to Hakusensha in 2015, he first served as president, then representative director, before taking on the role of advisor. He began working for Bushiroad at the end of 2022.

Torishima has been called one of the most important figures in the history of manga, and has been credited with pioneering the media mix business strategy. He is often associated with works from the manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump, for which he was editor-in-chief from 1996 to 2001. Torishima discovered Akira Toriyama and was his editor throughout the run of Dr. Slump (1980–1984) and during the first half of Dragon Ball (1984–1995). He received a Special Achievement Award at the 2022 Japan Media Arts Festival for his work in manga.

Early life Kazuhiko Torishima was born in the small community of Ojiya, Niigata on October 19, 1952. He described his mother as very positive, but said he did not have a good relationship with his father. Torishima has repeatedly spoken of his dislike for his hometown, which he described as a "stifling" place where nothing changes, and its residents, who he feels are "incredibly complicated" to deal with. In middle school, he tried to read one book a day by going to multiple libraries every day, reading anything that caught his interest. Torishima wanted to work at Bungeishunjū, but they were one of many publishing companies not hiring due to the recession from the 1973 oil crisis. The two began working together after Torishima read a work Toriyama submitted for Weekly Shōnen Jumps Newcomer Award. He thought it was beautiful and funny, but it was ineligible to compete because it was a parody, so Torishima sent the artist a telegram and encouraged him to keep drawing and sending him manga. This resulted in Wonder Island, which became Toriyama's first published work when it appeared in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1978. and became Shueisha's second best-selling manga series of all time.

Ryuji Kayama of Bunshun Online and Taro Kawashima of AERA dot. both wrote that the now-commonplace media mix production method was triggered by the success of the Dr. Slump anime adaptation. However, Torishima felt the anime was unsuccessful because it greatly deviated from the original manga. He has also said that a lot of "terrible" merchandise was released under the Dr. Slump name without prior consultation. He cited Makoto Isshiki as the most difficult manga artist he has worked worth, explaining that she wanted to end Hanattare Boogie (1986) as soon as he told her it had been approved for serialization.

Video games and V Jump (1982–1996) Torishima became a fan of video games around 1977, and prefers them over manga. Sakuma eventually introduced him to fellow writer Yuji Horii, who joined their gaming group. Also in 1982, Weekly Shōnen Jump was approached by Yukinobu Chida of Enix to sponsor their "Game Hobby Program Contest", which offered a cash prize for video game prototypes. Torishima agreed as long as Jump was the exclusive magazine sponsor, and assigned Horii to cover the event. He then received permission to re-launch the magazine with the new goal of containing manga, anime, and video game content all in one medium. He also changed the meaning of the "V" in its title from "Victory", derived from the V sign, to "Virtual". He cited the 1995 end of Dragon Ball as the biggest reason for the rapid fall, explaining that, when a long-running hit series ends, the regular readers tend to leave. "The readers knew that no new manga had been coming out for several years, but only the editorial department and Shueisha did not." Additionally, The Prince of Tennis and Hikaru no Go created social phenomena by popularizing tennis and Go amongst children. Torishima became a managing director (CEO) at Shueisha in August 2009 and promoted to Senior Managing Director in August 2010. In December 2010, he spoke at the New Manga Creators Awards in response to the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths's controversial passing of the industry opposed Bill 156. There he challenged new manga artists to "produce manga that would blow away [Tokyo Governor] Shintaro Ishihara." In an interview with Ollie Barder of Forbes, Torishima explained his opposition. Firstly, he did not like that a political body was trying to decide creative expression. Secondly, because the restrictions would only apply to manga and anime, he viewed the bill as discriminating against those specific mediums while ignoring content from films or novels; noting how Ishihara was formerly a novelist himself. The first thing he did was personally meet with every single employee for at least half an hour. The panel decided to allow children a hand in the selection of the mascot for the first time at an Olympic Games. Torishima said, "Kids' minds work differently from adults'. As a member of the panel, I like to think my job is to help bridge that gap." In November 2018, Torishima was promoted to Representative Director at Hakusensha. In 2021, Torishima began in Saikyō Jump. It teaches how to become a manga artist, including practical techniques, how to submit manuscripts to publishers, and how to work with editors. It was collected into a book published by Shueisha on July 21, 2023, that includes interviews with Toriyama, Katsura and Inada. It was published in English by Viz Media on May 13, 2025. From 2021 to 2022, Torishima was an advisor to Hakusensha. On December 31, 2022, Torishima was approved as an outside director at Bushiroad. Torishima has co-hosted the segment of the Tokyo M.A.A.D Spin radio program on J-Wave with Horii since July 31, 2023. , Torishima's book recounting stories about notable titles he worked on in his career, was published on May 22, 2025. Torishima gave three lectures at the 2025 Japan Expo in Paris; two with animator Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru and one with manga artist Toyotarou, both of whom worked on the Dragon Ball franchise.

Philosophy

Manga is basically about starting a new series with a new author, ending it if it doesn't work, and repeating this cycle as quickly as possible to look for the seeds of a hit. That's all there is to it. — Kazuhiko Torishima, 2019 The second is to act as a "manager" and manage the artist's health, handle tax procedures, arrange assistants and housing, etc. "The people who produce results on the front lines are the most important." Torishima stated that editors do not need to be liked and are not friends with the manga artists.

Torishima said he could only deal with up to five manga artists at one time.

Torishima said every new artist has something they desperately want to depict, but these often end up as copies of series that they like and you can not make a hit out of an imitation. "In the West, manga is something that adults give to children, but in Japan it is something that children choose for themselves. And the manga that you read when you are young stays in your mind even when you grow up." A person's level of interest will be completely different depending on who the story is about. "If it's about someone you like, even the most trivial thing will be an important story." Toriyama stated that Torishima enjoys romance and that the relationships of Arale and Obotchaman, Akane and Tsukutsun, and Taro and Tsururin in Dr. Slump were all his ideas.

Torishima said he was disappointed when Masakazu Katsura told him he wanted to draw a transforming superhero manga. It was Torishima who brought Tetsuo Hara the offer from Capcom to create the character designs for the video game Saturday Night Slam Masters.

Torishima has been parodied often in many manga series serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump. The most notable being the character Dr. Mashirito in Toriyama's Dr. Slump, who serves as the series' most prominent antagonist and has the same name as the editor but with the syllables reversed. Torishiman in Tottemo! Luckyman, and Doctor Mashirito in I Become a Gedoh-Man. by Shinji Hiramatsu. A direct parody of Torishima appears in Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. When asked for his opinion on why he has been parodied so much, Torishima suggested it might be because his frankness and exuberance makes him easy to turn into a character, or, that some people were afraid to argue with him at work and used the parodies to get revenge and vent frustration.