Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama Japanese 鳥山 明 Hepburn Toriyama Akira April 5 1955 March 1 2024 was a Japanese manga artist and character designer He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating his highly successful manga series Dr Slump before going on to create Dragon Ball his most famous work and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon Toriyama is regarded as one of the authors who changed the history of manga as his works are highly influential and popular particularly Dragon Ball which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen manga with Dr Slump and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan It was adapted into a successful anime series with a second anime created in 1997 13 years after the manga ended His next series Dragon Ball would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world Having sold 260 million copies worldwide it is one of the bestselling manga series of all time and is considered to be one of the main reasons for the period when manga circulation was at its highest in the mid1980s and mid1990s Overseas Dragon Balls anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting animes popularity in the Western world In 2019 Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts