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Akira Toriyama Creator - Dragon Ball

Akira Toriyama is an award-winning Japanese manga and character artist. He made his debut with the hit manga Dr. Slump, serialized in Shonen Jump magazine from 1980 to 1984. His most famous (and still ongoing) work is with the manga Dragon Ball . In addition, Toriyama has worked on character designs for games such as Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon.

Born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1955, Toriyama and his friends drew anime and manga characters at school. Toriyama became increasingly adept at drawing and began to view art as something enjoyable and fun. This eventually led to him winning an award at a local art studio, further solidifying his budding interest in art.

First works

Toriyama began working at an advertising agency, where he designed posters for three years before leaving to pursue a career in the manga industry. He first entered an amateur competition organized by Shonen Jump magazine. His work, unfortunately, was not nominated for the award, but it caught the attention of Kazuhiko Torishima, who would become Toryiama's editor-in-chief. Toriyama's first work, Wonder Island, was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1978 and ran for about a year. Despite its originality and creativity, the manga was not successful, ranking last in popularity polls. Unscathed by this initial lack of popularity, Toriyama returned with a vengeance with the comic manga Dr. Slump in 1980, which went on to top popularity polls and, in 1981, won the annual Shogakukan Manga Award for Best Shonen or Shojo Manga. Dr. Slump has sold over 35 million copies in Japan. Thanks to the manga's incredible success, two anime adaptations were produced, both equally successful. The first ran from 1981 to 1986, and the second from 1997 to 1999.

Dragon Ball

Toriyama, after conquering the Japanese manga industry, achieved international fame with his next series, Dragon Ball . Launched in Shonen Jump magazine in 1984, the comedy-adventure story was an instant hit, reaching the top of popularity polls and evolving into a more serious martial arts fighting series before ending its run in 1995. Despite the astronomical success of what is considered by many to be the most influential shonen manga, Toriyama decided to end Dragon Ball in order to pursue new avenues in life. With over 300 million copies sold worldwide, Dragon Ball is one of the best-selling manga of all time. Dragon Ball helped pave the way for the massive popularity of Japanese manga and anime abroad. However, as successful as it was, Dragon Ball found more popularity in its animated form and helped boost interest in Japanese anime in the mid-1990s. Toriyama was even awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government during a ceremony held at the French Embassy in Tokyo in 2019.

During the serialization of Dragon Ball, Toriyama was approached by publisher Torishima to work on the 1986 adventure role-playing game Dragon Quest as a character designer. The end result was extremely positive, and Toriyama was invited to provide character designs for all subsequent Dragon Quest games and others, including Square's Tobal series and Chrono Trigger.

In 2006, he created a crossover with One Piece's Eichiro Oda as part of a special issue for Shōnen Jump magazine as well as the Xbox 360 exclusive role-playing game Mistwalker's Blue Dragon, which also gave him the opportunity to direct and animate an adaptation of the game. In 2011, he also collaborated with Weekly Shōnen Jump to raise awareness and support for areas affected by the tragic events following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Dragon Ball Super

After a hiatus of nearly 18 years, Akira Toriyama returned to the Dragon Ball franchise in 2013 with the film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods . This was to be the beginning of a Dragon Ball revival that has so far spanned three theatrically released films, an anime and manga series, and a video game series with Toriyama at the helm once again. For Shonen Jump's 45th anniversary, Toriyama created a new series titled Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, set before the events of the original Dragon Ball series and based on the character Jaco, who debuted in the film Battle of Gods alongside God of Destruction Beer and his angelic servant Whis None.

Following the success and hype of the recent Battle of Gods film, the mysteriously titled Resurrection of 'F' hit theaters in 2015. With an original script written by Toriyama, the vague title and marketing created worldwide hype and anticipation. A huge success both domestically and internationally, it helped revive the Dragon Ball series by prompting the creation of Dragon Ball Super , a sequel story following the events of the Majin Buu saga. While Toriyama still provides the story and character designs, the art itself is handled by the highly talented and skilled Toyotaro, whose work is, to the average reader, indistinguishable from Toriyama's and, according to Toriyama, the closest he has ever seen to his own. The subsequent Dragon Ball Super anime concluded in 2018, leading to the release of the next film, Dragon Ball Super: Broly . Toyotaro continues to write the Dragon Ball Super manga under Toriyama's supervision.