Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama dies at 68; Naruto and One Piece artists mourn the loss of “a hero, a carefree man”

The news of Akira Toriyama’s death was confirmed by Bird Studio, the manga company that Toriyama founded in 1983.

“We deeply regret that he still had several jobs in the midst of creating with great enthusiasm,” the studio wrote in a statement. “Besides, I would have a lot more things to accomplish.”

The studio recalled its “unique world of creation.”

“He has left many manga titles and works of art to this world,” the statement reads. “Thanks to the support of so many people around the world, she has been able to continue her creative activities for more than 45 years.”

The creators of Naruto and One Piece react

Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, and Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, issued heartfelt statements mourning the loss of Akira Toriyama.

One Piece creator Oda credited Toriyama with revolutionizing the manga industry. “Toriyama proved to an incredulous public that “manga can be fun for both children and adults,” wrote One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda. “He proved that manga could travel the world.”

Naruto author Masashi Kishimoto said he read Toriyama’s stories every week from elementary school to college and that the characters inspired him to become a manga artist. “He wanted to make manga like yours! “I wanted to be like you!” he said.

Who was the creator of Dragon Ball Z, Akira Toriyama?

Toriyama was born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1955. After drawing throughout his childhood, he decided to abandon tertiary education and, after high school, began working at an advertising agency where he designed posters.

In 1978, Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine published Toriyama’s first published work, titled Wonder Island. Both Wonder Island and its sequel, Wonder Island 2, which referenced the film culture of the time, including Dirty Harry and the science fiction Ultraman franchise, were unpopular with readers.

Undeterred, she continued to draw and in 1980 produced a smash hit: Dr. Slump, a comedy about a girl robot and her trials and tribulations as she interacts with the world around her.

Serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump until 1984, it ended up earning him one of Japan’s highest manga honors: a Shogakukan manga award.

In 1982 she married fellow manga artist Yoshimi Katō, with whom she would have two children. He kept his personal life mostly private and often used a cyborg avatar named Robotoriyama to represent himself.

Robotoriyama creates Dragon Ball

In 1984, Akira Toriyama created Dragon Ball, the property that would bring him international recognition and make him one of Japan’s best-selling manga authors.

Based on a previous work titled Dragon Boy, Dragon Ball was serialized in 519 chapters in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995 and gave rise to a successful franchise that includes an English-language comic series and five different television adaptations, with Dragon Ball Z being the more familiar. for Western audiences, and spin-offs, more than 20 different films and a wide range of video games.

The series, a kung fu version of the shōnen (or young adult) manga genre, was based on Chinese and Hong Kong action films as well as Japanese folklore. It introduced audiences to the now-familiar Son Goku, a young martial arts apprentice searching for seven magical orbs that will summon a mystical dragon, as well as his motley crew of allies and enemies.

Akira Toriyama returned to the Dragon Ball franchise, after a brief break, working on several film adaptations, including Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super: Broly and 2022’s Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.

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Posted: Mar 8, 2024, 2:10 PM IST