Gone but not forgotten: Akira Toriyama.

 

It's been a really tough time as of late. My original plan for this week's blog post was thrown out of the window as soon as I heard the news of the passing of a legend. I couldn't concentrate on anything as it felt like I'd taken a devastating punch to the gut. I stared blankly at my laptop, unable to write at all. Akira Toriyama passed away too soon and nothing I ever say or type could ever do justice to the man and his legacy. 

Akira Toriyama was first inspired to create and draw manga by Osamu Tezuka's legendary Astro Boy. After spending some time working as a poster designer for an advertising agency, he found himself ill suited for the corporate lifestyle. Once at a coffee shop, he found himself reading through Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine. Being desperate for money at the time, he thought that he could perhaps earn money through submitting an entry in their open-entry submission contest, which the magazine no longer does unfortunately.

Sadly for Toriyama, his entry was too late to meet the deadline, but he soon after discovered that Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump held their own contest. Shueisha was a competitor of Kodansha. His first entry, a Star Wars parody, was rejected for not being an original work. Despite this setback, his future editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, encouraged Toriyama to continue practicing and of course, Toriyama did just that. This led to the creation of Wonder Island and it becoming his first officially published manga approved by Shueisha. It also managed to gain a sequel manga, Wonder Island 2. Despite the official publication, the manga unfortunately struggled with readership. 

Not being deterred by the setbacks, Toriyama continued grinding away in pursuit of his dreams and eventually found success in 1980 with Dr. Slump. Unfortunately, despite Toriyama's intentions to end the manga after six months, the higher ups at Shueisha and Weekly Shonen Jump ordered him to continue it until he brought them a new manga. This resulted in the project lasting 4 years!

Thanks to a suggestion from editor Torishima, Toriyama combined his love of Kung-fu movies and manga to create something that would become a global phenomenon, Dragon Ball. It initially started out as a Journey to the West parody, but became so much more than that over the course of its eleven year run. It also started out as Dragon Boy in a two part manga, that was well received and paved the way for it's future. 

Whilst Dragon Ball was in serialisation, Toriyama continued to produce various other one-shot manga, although none gained the same level of popularity as the aforementioned Dragon Ball. In 1986, Torishima approached Toriyama and recruited him to become the character designer for what would become the classic RPG, Dragon Quest. Toriyama apparently worked on designing characters for the project without knowing what an RPG even was, but did enjoy the finished game and was happy to have been a part of it. His enjoyment of working on the first game led to him working on every single subsequent entry into the popular franchise as an art director. 

He also worked with Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii and Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, on the game Chrono Trigger as a character designer. Chrono Trigger would go on to be a cult classic and is looked upon as  one of the greatest video games ever made. 

Dragon Ball became such a massive success that even after the end of the original manga's run in 1995, several anime adaptations were made. Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were by in large quite faithful to the manga, but Dragon Ball GT was an original story featuring the characters with Toriyama only involved in some overarching elements. In time, Toriyama has stated that GT is not canon. 

He continued producing various one-shots and short manga, including Cowa! Kajika and Sand Land. Sand Land would later go on to receive an anime adaptation courtesy of anime studio, Sunrise, in 2023 and an RPG that released after Toriyama's death in 2024. 

In 2005, Toriyama designed an electric car that was sold by CQ Motors. It took Toriyama over a year to finalise his design and only 9 were produced for sale. Still, it's pretty cool and a good showcase for just how large an impact that he made that he was approached for designing a car! 

In 2006, he would once again work in the video game industry by teaming up with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu to create the underrated Blue Dragon RPG. Sadly, it was an exclusive title for the Xbox 360 which hurt it's overall sales. It did receive an anime adaptation the following year and at the time, Toriyama felt like that might be his final foray into animation. 

What brought Toriyama back into the realm of animation? Hollyweird. After acquiring the rights to produce a live-action feature film adaptation of the Dragon Ball franchise, 20th Century Fox, approached Toriyama with the possibility of him being a creative consultant on the project. Despite this, the producers of the movie did not heed his advice, cautions or suggestions and instead bastardised his franchise and put out a movie that did not capture the essence or any characteristics of Dragon Ball at all. The only saving grace of the movie was Chow Yun-fat's performance as the Master Roshi of the movie. In a surprise to absolutely no one, the movie bombed hard, a commercial and critical failure. Toriyama disavowed the movie, stating that he cannot call it Dragon Ball. 

Toriyama did not want the abysmal failure of a live-action adaptation to be the defining image of the Dragon Ball franchise and so, he immediately began to work on producing several animated movies including Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods, Resurrection: F, Super: Broly and Super Hero. His involvement with the animated projects was extensive with him involved as early as the screenwriting process, something which he had not been involved with previously. He also produced the manga, Dragon Ball: Super, which focused on the events during the ten year time skip following the defeat of Majin Buu. 

Toriyama's legacy cannot be overstated. My first introduction to his work occurred during school. A classmate of mine had brought in some cool looking action figures. I inquired as to who the characters were and what they were from and thus, this classmate informed me of the existence of Dragon Ball, Goku, Vegeta and more. I went home and immediately was hooked. Goku's vigorous training and enthusiasm rubbed off on me and inspired me to be the best that I could possibly be. My work outs were inspired by him as was my perseverance in the face of uncertainty. Bear in mind that during this time period whilst I was a school, one would face harassment and be bullied for being into anime and cartoons. Goku helped me to step up for classmates and friends, standing up for what's right and just be a better person. I also have to admit that, as I was very young at the time, when I first saw Cell and the way in which he absorbed the Androids in order to transform himself to power up and become his 'Prefect' form. It was rather creepy as I quite liked Android 16 and 18.

In addition to global success, Toriyama has influenced several fellow mangaka, cartoonists and comic book creators. Perhaps the most famous of the bunch being Bleach creator Tite Kubo, Fairy Tail and Rave creator, Hiro Mashima, Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto and One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda. Even game developers have paid tribute to the man upon his death, including the creator of Tekken, Katsuhiro Harada and the creator of Kirby and Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai.

Before I end this blog post, I have to mention the disgusting actions of Sweet Baby Inc writer Chris Kindred. Mere hours following the announcement of Toriyama's death, Kindred took the opportunity to virtue signal and take a shot at the dead man. Using race as a justification for his attack, he claimed that Akira Toriyama had the best and worst black characters in the Dragon Ball series. He failed to specify the characters that he was referring to, but it more than likely is Mr. Poppo. Mr. Popo is not meant to be a black person, but rather a god-like being and was inspired by the Buddhist and Hindu deity Mahakala. Ironically, this Western-centric mindset shown by Kindred and those of his ilk is inherently racist itself as it showcases a lack of knowledge and lack of respect for Asian culture.

He will be sincerely missed by fans around the world, but his work and his legacy will live on forever. RIP Akira Toriyama, thank you for sharing your work with the world, we are all sincerely and utterly grateful for the chance to have got to see it.