Anime/Manga Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama has passed away

Even as someone who's never been into Dragon Ball or a lot of stuff Toriyama has been involved in, it's been amazing seeing just how much he and the things he's created have meant to people over his life. I've been seeing so many posts constantly about how important Dragon Ball is to someone or what Toriyama meant to them and I've rarely seen such a huge wave of positivity for someone's legacy. I'm sad to hear he's gone but it's inspiring even just hearing what he's done.
 
If I may post in this thread a second time:

I just found out that the government of El Salvador issued an official statement on the passing of Mr. Akira Toriyama. This isn't a private statement made by the head of state. It's an official declaration from the government. I knew Dragon Ball was huge in Latin America, but I didn't know it was so big, that multiple world leaders (past and present) would comment on it. I can't think of any figure who would elicit this response after passing away. Pokémon was made by an team rather than one person (as opposed to Mr. Toriyama writing and drawing the entire manga over 11 years). George Lucas (who is alive) wasn't responsible for all of Star Wars even at the time when it was just the original trilogy. Maybe if Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto passed away, it'd be a huge deal like this, but I don't think even that is a fair comparison since Super Mario has been managed by various teams over the years.

I want to re-iterate that even though Dragon Ball has many different teams working on anime series and video games and the like, Toriyama made the original 42-volume manga, which is a huge deal! I don't know how to explain how much creative energy that took. It's amazing!

Rest in peace, Akira Toriyama. Thank you!
 
Toriyama had at least one assistant over the years, which isn't uncommon in manga creation. And honestly I wish mangaka had more assistance (and esp for Jump artists, a non-weekly schedule) because someone did the math recently and discovered mangaka on average tend to live ~20 years fewer than the standard Japanese person.

It's kind of insane to think about the sheer reach that Toriyama has had not only worldwide but into so many forms of media as well. Manga, anime, and games would not be what they are today without him. Ultimately I think few people ever will have had as much breadth and depth of influence on pop culture as he has. He will be greatly missed and certainly not forgotten when nearly everything out there has some of his artistic DNA in it.
 
I'm aware he had an assistant, but I don't know the extent other than the assistant inking in Goku's black hair. I wanted to bring up his editors like Mr. Torishima, but I wanted to keep the emphasis on Mr. Toriyama.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top