Toriyama, Akira, 1955-2024

Akira Toriyama (Japanese: 鳥山明, Hepburn: Toriyama Akira; April 5, 1955 – March 1, 2024) was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors in the history of manga and created numerous highly influential and popular series, with his most famous and successful project being the Dragon Ball franchise. Toriyama first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the manga series Dr. Slump, which was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen series. Dr. Slump went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into an anime, with a second series created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended. Toriyama wrote and illustrated the Dragon Ball manga from 1984 to 1995. It became one of the best-selling manga series of all time, with 260 million copies sold worldwide, and is considered a key work in increasing manga circulation to its peak in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Overseas, Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been credited with boosting anime's international popularity. Beside his manga works, Toriyama acted as a character designer for numerous video games such as Square Enix's Dragon Quest series and Chrono Trigger, in addition to Blue Dragon. In 2019, Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts. In October 2024, Toriyama was posthumously inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.