Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama was born on April 5, 1955, in the town of Kiyosu, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. He had a younger sister. From a young age he drew pictures, mainly of the animals and vehicles he loved. He remembered being amazed by Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) and was drawn further into illustration by the wish to draw that well. He was struck again in elementary school when he saw the manga collection of a classmate's older brother, and he cited Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy as the original source of his interest in manga. He said he started to stand out among his classmates when he began drawing pictures of his friends. In middle school he set manga aside for films and television, and he enjoyed Ultraman and the Gamera films.

His father had raced motorbikes and briefly ran an auto repair business, and Toriyama inherited his love of cars and motorcycles.

Toriyama attended a high school focused on creative design, which he called a "no-brainer" choice, though he admitted he was more interested in having fun with friends. Despite his parents' strong opposition, he chose to go straight into the workforce rather than continue his education. He spent three years at an advertising agency in Nagoya designing posters. He said he adapted to the job quickly but was often late because he was not a "morning person", and was reprimanded for dressing casually. Tired of the routine, he quit.

After quitting his job at 23, Toriyama entered a manga contest he had spotted in a magazine in a coffee shop. Shueisha editor Kazuhiko Torishima liked a Star Wars parody he sent to Weekly Shonen Jump, which was ineligible as it was not original, and sent him a telegram encouraging him to keep drawing. His first published work, Wonder Island, appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1978 and finished last in the readers survey. He kept going through a year of what he called failures, around 500 pages, before Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe (1979) found some success.

Dr. Slump (1980 to 1984) followed the inventor Senbei Norimaki and his robot Arale. It won the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award, began a Fuji TV anime the same year, and by 2008 had sold over 35 million copies in Japan. Adaptations of Toriyama's work held Fuji TV's Wednesday 7pm slot continuously for 18 years.

Dragon Ball (1984 to 1995) grew out of the one shot Dragon Boy (1983). Loosely based on Journey to the West and inspired by Hong Kong martial arts films, it began as a comic adventure and became a martial arts fighting saga. Over almost 11 years Toriyama produced 519 chapters collected in 42 volumes. The series sold 159.5 million volumes in Japan alone and helped Weekly Shonen Jump reach a record 6.53 million copies in 1995. It led to multiple anime series, films and video games and became a global franchise.

From 1986 he was the character designer for Square Enix's Dragon Quest series, continuing on every installment until his death, and he also designed characters for Chrono Trigger (1995), Tobal No. 1 (1996), Tobal 2 (1997) and Blue Dragon (2006). He co-wrote the story for the 1988 film Kosuke and Rikimaru: The Dragon of Konpei Island.

Later short works included Go! Go! Ackman, Cowa! (1997 to 1998), Kajika (1998), Sand Land (2000) and the Neko Majin one shots (1999 to 2005). He made his only promotional appearance in the United States at the 2002 launch of Shonen Jump in New York City. In 2006 he drew Cross Epoch with One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, and in 2008 and 2009 worked with his friend Masakazu Katsura on Sachie-chan Good!! and Jiya.

From 2012 he returned to Dragon Ball. He was involved from the screenwriting stage of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (2013), wrote the original script for Resurrection 'F' (2015), provided the story outline and character designs for Dragon Ball Super, and was deeply involved in Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018) and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022). Jaco the Galactic Patrolman (2013) was the final manga he both wrote and drew. In his last months he created a new story arc for the 2024 Sand Land anime and the story and character designs for Dragon Ball Daima.

Toriyama married Yoshimi Kato on May 2, 1982. A former manga artist from Nagoya who worked under the pen name Nachi Mikami, she occasionally helped on Dr. Slump when deadlines were tight. They had a son, Sasuke (born 1987), and a daughter, Kikka (born 1990). He lived and worked in his home studio in Kiyosu.

He was a well known recluse who avoided public and media appearances, and from 1980 he used a robot avatar to represent himself in his manga and interviews. He loved cars and motorcycles, kept birds, dogs, cats, fish, lizards and bugs as pets, designed plastic models for the Fine Molds brand, and collected the autographs of more than 30 manga artists.

Toriyama saw his work as pure entertainment. In 2013 he said the role of his manga was to be a work of entertainment through and through, and that he did not mind if his works left nothing behind as long as they entertained readers. He was candid about his feelings toward his career, saying in 2010 that for a long time he had not much liked being a manga artist and had only recently realized it was a wonderful job. He was openly critical of the 2009 Hollywood film Dragonball Evolution, saying its script did not capture the world or characters of his series.

Toriyama is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential manga artists. Critics compared him to Walt Disney, Stan Lee, Osamu Tezuka and Jack Kirby, and Dragon Ball has been described as the most influential shonen manga of its era. Artists including Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto, Hiro Mashima and Tite Kubo named him as an influence. In a 2010 Oricon poll on the manga artist who changed the history of manga he placed second only to Osamu Tezuka. A beetle species, Ogyges toriyamai, was named after him in 2014. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary said his work played an extremely important role in demonstrating Japan's soft power around the world.

Shogakukan Manga Award for Dr. Slump (1981). Special 40th Anniversary Festival Award, Angouleme International Comics Festival (2013). Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (2019). Nominee for the Will Eisner Hall of Fame (2019). Lifetime Achievement Award, Tokyo Anime Awards Festival (2024). Harvey Awards Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in October 2024. IGN named him number 74 among its Top 100 Game Creators of All Time.

Manga: Wonder Island (1978), Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe (1979), Dr. Slump (1980 to 1984), Pola and Roid (1981), Pink (1982), Dragon Boy (1983), Dragon Ball (1984 to 1995), Go! Go! Ackman (1993 to 1994), Cowa! (1997 to 1998), Kajika (1998), Neko Majin (1999 to 2005), Sand Land (2000), Cross Epoch with Eiichiro Oda (2006), Jaco the Galactic Patrolman (2013). Anthology: Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater (1983 to 1997).

Games (character design): Dragon Quest series (1986 onward), Chrono Trigger (1995), Tobal No. 1 (1996), Tobal 2 (1997), Blue Dragon (2006).

Film and animation: Kosuke and Rikimaru (1988), Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (2013), Resurrection 'F' (2015), Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018), Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022), Dragon Ball Daima (2024).

Toriyama was engaged as a creative consultant on 20th Century Fox's live action Dragonball Evolution (2009), which failed critically and financially. In 2013 he said he had cautioned the producers that the script was bland and suggested changes, which were not followed, and that the result was "a movie I cannot call Dragon Ball." After his death, the film's lead actor Justin Chatwin apologized publicly for the adaptation.

Akira Toriyama died on March 1, 2024, at the age of 68, of an acute subdural hematoma. A private funeral was held with only family present. His production company Bird Studio announced his death a week later, on March 8, 2024. Sources close to him said he had planned surgery for a brain tumor in February 2024.

The news brought an outpouring of grief worldwide. Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto, Tite Kubo, Kohei Horikoshi, Yoshihiro Togashi, Masakazu Katsura and Yuji Horii paid tribute. French President Emmanuel Macron shared an autographed illustration Toriyama had given him, and the foreign ministries of China and El Salvador sent condolences. Fans gathered at the Goku statue outside Bandai's headquarters in Tokyo, in Mexico City's Zocalo, where hundreds raised their arms in the Spirit Bomb pose, and at the Obelisco in Buenos Aires, while artists in Lima painted a 110 metre mural. A moment of silence was held at the 18th Seiyu Awards.