Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama (April 5, 1955 – March 1, 2024) was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He is considered one of the most important and influential creators in manga history, responsible for several highly popular series, most famously the *Dragon Ball* franchise.

Toriyama first gained wide recognition with the manga *Dr. Slump*, which ran in Shueisha's *Weekly Shōnen Jump*. It won the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen series and sold over 35 million copies in Japan. The series was adapted into an anime, with a second series premiering in 1997, thirteen years after the manga concluded. From 1984 to 1995, Toriyama wrote and illustrated *Dragon Ball*, which became one of the best-selling manga ever, with 260 million copies sold worldwide. It is credited with helping boost manga circulation to its peak in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, and its anime adaptations are recognized for increasing the global popularity of anime.

Beyond manga, Toriyama designed characters for video games, including Square Enix's *Dragon Quest* series, *Chrono Trigger*, and *Blue Dragon*. In 2019, he was made a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He was posthumously inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame in October 2024.

Toriyama was born in Kiyosu, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, and had a younger sister. He drew from a young age, focusing on animals and vehicles. He was inspired by *One Hundred and One Dalmatians* (1961) and later by a classmate's older brother's manga collection, as well as seeing a television for the first time. He cited Osamu Tezuka's *Astro Boy* as the original source of his interest in manga. In elementary school, he drew imitations of anime and manga, and felt he advanced by drawing pictures of his friends. He took a break from manga in middle school, becoming more interested in films and TV shows, and enjoyed *Ultraman* and the *Gamera* films. He attended a high school focused on creative design but prioritized socializing. Despite his parents' opposition, he entered the workforce after graduation, working for three years at an advertising agency in Nagoya designing posters. He adapted quickly but struggled with punctuality and dress code, eventually quitting due to the routine.

At age 23, unemployed and asking his mother for money, Toriyama submitted a work to a contest in Kodansha's *Weekly Shōnen Magazine*. The timing was wrong, but Shueisha's *Weekly Shōnen Jump* accepted monthly submissions. Editor Kazuhiko Torishima liked his manga, but it was ineligible as a *Star Wars* parody. Torishima encouraged him to keep drawing, leading to *Wonder Island*, Toriyama's first published work in 1978, which placed last in reader surveys. He planned to quit after being paid, but *Wonder Island 2* (1978) also failed, and his stubbornness kept him drawing for another year, producing about 500 pages, including *Today's Highlight Island* (1979). Torishima suggested a female lead, leading to *Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe* (1979), which had some success. Encouraged, Toriyama created *Dr. Slump*.

*Dr. Slump* ran from 1980 to 1984 and made Toriyama a household name. It follows a perverted professor and his small, super-strong robot Arale. The series won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981, and an anime adaptation began that year in the Wednesday 19:00 slot on Fuji TV. Adaptations of Toriyama's work held that time slot for 18 years, through *Dr. Slump*, *Dragon Ball* and its sequels, and a *Dr. Slump* reboot ending in 1999. By 2008, the manga had sold over 35 million copies in Japan. Toriyama wanted to end *Dr. Slump* after about six months, but Shueisha only allowed it if he agreed to start another series soon after. He then worked with Torishima on his next project.