Akira Toriyama just died who was most famous for Dragon Quest and Dragon Ball's character design...well Dragon Ball was his as well. There was also Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon.
This may be one of the biggest cases for AI use EVER in commercial work besides the use of James Earl Jones' voice as Vader. I am hoping against hope that they will NOT try using an AI copy to continue on with Dragon Quest or Dragon Ball. I would like them to handle it however it would be handled without AI. Sadly I worry that EnixSquare will continue with this foolishness.

You're blatantly disregarding the legacy of 30 years of art, in the light of a death of one of the greatest mangaka following Tezuka himself and Takao Saito.

I know you didn't intend that, but you buried the lede pretty hard and the title was a disaster too.

I imagine his studio will continue in his image for a while yet.

I think the first sentence in my second paragraph highlights this. I wanted to make it short. I KNOW how huge it is, I remember watching DBZ as a kid as well as fewer DB. I remember how much bs it was they censored DBZ and esp. DB and how perverted it was with all the toilet humor.
DB and DBZ are huge but I just was listening to some people talk yesterday about how hand drawn animation is harder to copy for AI hence why I highlighted DQ over the Dragon Ball series.
I will admit I am unfamiliar with Saito though. I never mentioned Matsumoto passing away in February of last year even though that was quite big as he hadn't worked on much near the end.

Shueisha, the manga publisher, owns Dragonball. I speculate they'll probably continue the series with Toriyana's Bird Studio with whomever succeeds the company. Just like Studio Gaga continuing Berserk under Miura's best friend, Mori, with a similar artistic direction. Or Shueisha can contract future work with another studio, whatever their contract allows.

Dragon Quest is owned by Horii/Armor Project and presumably Square Enix. Again, it'll be based on contracts and where they want to go, but they'll likely still stick with Bird Studio if it'll continue.

Now if Bird Studio will use AI, they'd have every right to if they got permission from the owners to feed it Toriyama's artwork. Not that they'd need to because Toriyana's art style can be simulated by dozens of different manga artists and thousands of artists all over the world. It'd be easier for the next successor to logistically hire a head artist than using AI.

Yeah well considering the greed of some companies at times regarding AI you have to wonder. I would prefer it be used for matters that are fairly logistically impossible or just highly impossible for humans to do that only AI can legit do...case in point, preserving Endangered languages. As it stands Ainu use to have two dialects but the last speaker of one died in 1992 or 1996 so one is left but imagine if you had AI then, you would be able to preserve it. There are other examples I can give but that is the easiest.

AI is just another tool creators can use. I see the same arguments used against AI now, that was used against for example Photoshop and even Gutenberg's printing press.


For the question in the OP - the right holeders will just get another lead designer. it is not like it is the first time a person that was a lead designer of a franchise has passed away. I think the question is rather silly.

It is sad news indeed.

But the good news is that Japanese people control the Dragonball IP which means they will dare not bastardize the dragonball story with LGBTQ agenda or some female superhero replacing the male characters like how you see in American entertainment.

Actually, your supposed "good news":
* Is wrong. There's plenty of Japanese games with female protagonists (Metroid series, Phantasy Star 1, Final Fantasy 6/13), and even some with LGBTQ characters (see SaGa Frontier (Asellus's scenario) for an example, and even Saviors of Sapphire Wings gets a little queer if you make Xeth female). A few DQ games (3, 4, and 9) allow you to select the main character's gender. (Also, apparently DQ11 has a gay character.)
* If it were true, the news would be bad, not good. We need more games with female and/or LGBTQ main characters, not fewer.

Fixed that for you. There was a Gay Black character in the ABC show "Greek" that I really liked. Why? Because he was written well and an interesting character. Same with Captain Jack Harkness(I would have bought a Romance movie with Eccleston and Barrowman as the two leads in fact). I think we have backslid in this representation and they are presenting too many GLBT stereotypes. Always having the token Gay male effeminate or the Lesbian Butch does not make me happy as these are stereotypes and too often the diversity of the character is the forefront NOT the quality of the character.
As the saying goes "Don't put the cart before the horse."

Amok. Gutenberg just added more access written literature. There are HORROR stories written about AI and the most innocuous though no less terrifying are those of the Nanny State where humans become DUMB by being complacent and having AI do everything for them. I think AI work will end up becoming like making a copy of a copy of a copy of a VHS tape. The problem is will people get bored out of their skull and tune out like the Hallmark Channel but will it be soon enough? It will end up getting to the point of being derivative trash like Hollywood product can be but so much worse.

Only on GOG forums will you have someone bring up the woke LGBTQ+ agenda grandstandingly on Toriyama's death announcement.

Does the American woke agenda bother you people so much that you have to find a way to rope it in every discussion - including one as irrelevant as the passing of a legendary Japanese artist that had almost no ties to it at all? You do realize the best way to not care about it is to completely ignore it, right?

Some people are seriously clownpilled. Earlier today, one of the associated chatrooms I participate in, and ride the ragged edge of disaster in, had to ban someone due to them bringing up that ever colorful "great replacement theory".

Guess everyone cared so much, to ignore the legion of artists and writers around him.

Every major artist has a team of people that can mimic the the art and writing. This is because most major artists actually do have these people create the official content. The idea is to lift the burden off the primary artist. Since we already know, game artists copy his art style to craft the game. Anime as well. We know for a fact the art can continue. Writing as well. The guy died. That sucks, but the magic he created lives on.

Computer generated content is probable. But there really are many living people, that will pick the torch. That and whether we like it or nor, the company executives, will keep everything going anyway.

Look at Disney. Walt has been dead for years and, what could go wrong....rut ro raggy!! 0_o
lol