Akira Toriyama

At 68 years old, Akira Toriyama has this physical status:

Akira Toriyama (born April 5, 1955) is a Japanese manga artist and character designer.

Dr. Yena first gained mainstream success for his highly popular manga series Dr. X.

Slump, the slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball—his best-known game—and as a character designer for several popular video games, including Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon.

Toriyama is regarded as one of the manga artists of the past, especially Dragon Ball, which many manga artists use as a source of inspiration. With Dr. Robert Lee, he was awarded the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shonen or shojo manga.

Slump and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan.

In 1997, it was turned into a hit anime film, 13 years after the manga ended, it was adapted into a successful anime series.

Dragon Ball, his forthcoming series, will be one of the world's most popular and lucrative manga.

It has sold 250–300 million copies around the world, and it is regarded as one of the key reasons for the period of high manga sales in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.

Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been more popular than the manga, and have been credited with increasing anime's fame in the Western world.

Toriyama was named a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Lettres in 2019 for his contributions to the arts.

Early life

Akira Toriyama was born in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. He drew photos from a young age, mainly of the animals and cars that he was also fond of. He related being blown away after seeing One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and said he was drawn deeper into illustration by trying to draw pictures that were good. He was stunned again in elementary school when he discovered the manga collection of a classmate's older brother, as well as again when he saw a television set at a neighbor's house for the first time. He cited Astro Boy (1952–1968) as the first source of his interest in manga. Toriyama has mentioned that many of his classmates drew imitating anime and manga as a result of a lack of many forms of entertainment. He claims he began to rise above everybody else after drawing pictures of his friends. Despite being enthralled in manga in elementary school, Toriyama said he took a break from it in middle school, owing to his growing interest in films and TV shows. When asked if he had any formative experiences with tokusatsu animation, Toriyama said he loved the Ultraman TV show and Gamera collection of kaiju films.

Toriyama said it was a "no brainer" that he would enroll in a high school focusing on creative design, but he admitted to being more interested in having fun with friends. Although he didn't read much manga, he'd still draw one himself every once in a while. Despite his parents' skepticism against it, Toriyama was able to enter the work force upon graduation rather than continuing his education. For three years, he worked at an advertising company in Nagoya that was designing posters. Despite Toriyama's that he adjusted to the role quickly, he confessed to being late because he is not a morning person and was often reprimanded for dressing casually before he became sick of the environment and quit.

Personal life

On May 2, 1982, Toriyama married Yoshimi Kato (). She is a former manga artist from Nagoya under the pen name "Nachi Mikami" (), and she has occasionally assisted Toriyama and his assistant in completing Dr. Slump when they were short of time. They have two children, Sasuke () born on March 23, 1987, and a daughter born in October 1990. Toriyama lives in Kiyosu's home studio. He is a well-known recluse who prefers not to be seen in public or media.

Toriyama has a love for cars and motorcycles, something he inherited from his father, who raced motorcycles and ran an auto repair shop for a brief period of time, although he doesn't fully understand the mechanics. The author is an animal lover, having owned many species of birds, dogs, cats, fish, lizards, and bugs as pets since childhood. Any of the characters he created, such as Karin and Beerus, were used as models for characters. Toriyama has had a lifelong passion for plastic models and has created several for the Fine Molds brand. He also collected autographs of well-known manga artists, including Yudetamago and Hisashi Echichi, a hobby he developed for the character Peasuke Soramame.

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Career

Toriyama, who had quit his career at the age of 23, entered the manga business by submitting a work to an amateur competition in Kodansha's Weekly Shnen Magazine, which he had randomly picked up in a coffee shop. The timing wasn't right for the contest, but Weekly Shnen magazine, Weekly Shnen Jump, accepted submissions for their Newcomer Award every month. Kazuhiko Torishima, who would be his editor, read and loved Toriyama's manga, but it was not eligible to participate because it was a parody of Star Wars rather than an original creation. Torishima sent the artist a telegram and encouraged him to keep drawing and sending manga. This resulted in the publication of Wonder Island, Toriyama's first published work when it was first published in Weekly Shnen Jump in 1978. However, it came in last place in the readers' poll. Toriyama later revealed that he had intended to quit manga after being paid but that his stubbornness would not allow him to let him down, and that he continued to write failed stories for a year, including the one that appeared in Today's Highlight Island (1979). During this year, he learned a lot and had a lot of fun, according to him. Toriyama reluctantly created 1979's Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe, which had some success when Torishima told him to draw a female lead figure. He wanted to create Dr. Slump, feeling encouraged.

Dr. Slump, a serialized cartoon in Weekly Shouten Jump from 1980 to 1984, was a huge success, making Toriyama a household name. It follows a perverse professor and his tiny but robust robot Arale, who are both perplexed and awesome. Dr. Slump received the Shogakukan Manga Award for the best sh—nen or shjo manga collection of the year in 1981. An anime adaptation debuted on Fuji TV in the prime time on Wednesday 19:00 slot. Toriyama's adaptations would last for 18 years, from Dr. Slump's debut, Dragon Ball, and two sequels, to finally a rebooted Dr. Slump, which concluded in 1999. The Dr. Slump manga had already sold over 35 million copies in Japan by 2008.

Despite the fact that Dr. Slump was a hit, Toriyama wanted to end the series in about six months, but Shueisha would only encourage him to do so if they agreed to start another series shortly after. So he shot for weekly Shnen Jump and the monthly Fresh Jump. Toriyama was one of ten artists selected to produce a 45-page work for Weekly Shoutout's Reader's Choice contest in 1981. Pola & Roid, his manga collection, took first place. Toriyama was selected to participate in the competition again in 1982 and submitted Mad Matic. In the December issue of Fresh Jump, Pink's one-shot was published. Toriyama had the unlucky of winning the first slot in Weekly Shout's Reader's Choice contest for the third time, and had to work over the Chobit's New Year's Chobit on 1983. Angry that it had been out of favour, he decided to try again and created Chobit 2 (1983).

Akira Toriyama Hozonkai (, "Akira Toriyama Preservation Society"), a registered Toriyama fan club, was established in 1982. The Bird Land Press newsletters were sent to members before the club closed in 1987. Toriyama's Bird Studio was established in the early 1980s, which is a play on his name; "tori" () denotes "bird." He started employing an assistant, mainly to work on backgrounds.

Torishima suggested that, as Toriyama adored kung fu films, he should develop a kung fu shnen manga. This resulted in the release of Dragon Boy in the Fresh Jump's August and October 1983 issues. It follows a boy who is an expert at martial arts who leads a princess on a journey back to her homeland country. In 1984, Dragon Boy was well-received and developed to become the serial Dragon Ball. But before that, The Adventure of Tongpoo was published in Weekly Shnen Jump's 52nd issue of 1983, which also contained elements that would be included in Dragon Ball's.

Dragon Ball is Shueisha's second best-selling manga of all time, from 1984 to 1995, and having sold 159.5 million tank-bon copies in Japan alone. It started as an adventure/gag manga but later evolved into a martial arts fighting collection, often described as the "most influential shnen manga" by some. Dragon Ball was one of the magazine's most popular reasons for the magazine's sales, which were a record high of 6.53 million copies (1995). Toriyama said at the end of the manga that he begged everybody involved to let him end the story so he could "take some new steps in life." He wrote 519 chapters that were collected into 42 volumes during his nearly 11-year career. In addition, the manga's success resulted in five anime adaptations, several animated films, numerous video games, and mega-merchandising. Dragon Ball was also popular in Japan, including Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with 250-300 million copies of the manga sold worldwide.

Toriyama was serializing Dragon Ball every week, but he continued to create the occasional one-shot manga. Mr. Ho appeared in the 49th issue of Weekly Shnen Jump in 1986. Young Master Ken'nosuke, a Japanese jidaigeki setting, was published in the following year. In 1988, Toriyama shot two Weekly Shnen Jump one-shots; The Elder and Little Mamejiro. In issue #3 of 1989, Karamaru and the Perfect Day were included.

Torishima recruited him to work as a character designer for the 1986 role-playing video game Dragon Quest, which was also during Dragon Ball's serialization. The artist confessed to being pulled into it without even knowing what an RPG was and that it made his already packed schedule even more hectic, but the artist was determined to have been involved after enjoying the finished game. Toriyama has continued to work on every installment of the Dragon Quest series. He has also worked as the character designer for the Super Famicom RPG Chrono Trigger (1995) and Tobal No. 1 combat games. For the PlayStation, Tobal 1 (1996) and Tobal 2 (1997).

The Dragon of Konap Island, 1988, is the first time Toriyama made significant contributions to an animation. He came up with the original story idea, co-wrote the screenplay with its director Toyoo Ashida, and created the characters.

Dragon Ball GT, a third anime adaptation based on Dragon Ball, debuted in 1996, but this wasn't based on Toriyama's manga directly. Toriyama was also involved in some overarching elements, including the name of the series and artwork for the main cast. Toriyama continued to draw manga in this period, with mainly one-shots and short (100-200-page) pages, including Cowa! (1997–1998), Kajika (1998), and Sand Land (2000). Toriyama made his only promotional appearance in the United States at the unveiling of Weekly Shnen Jump's North American counterpart, Shonen Jump, in New York City on December 6, 2002. In the first issue of Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Sand Land, as well as an in-depth interview with him, were published in the magazine.

CQ Motors introduced an electric car made by Toriyama on March 27, 2005. The one-person QVOLT is the first of the company's Choro-Q series of small electric cars, with only 9 being built. It cost 1,990,000 yen (about $19,000 US) and was available in 5 colors, with a top speed of 30 km/h (19 mph). Toriyama said that the car took over a year to make, "but I did arrive at the end of what was a difficult journey" because of my incredible mini-model building skills."

He participated in Cross Epoch, a 2006 one-shot film in collaboration with One Piece designer Eichiro Oda. The story is a short crossover starring characters from both Dragon Ball and One Piece. Toriyama was the character designer and artist on the 2006 Mistwalker Xbox 360 exclusive RPG Blue Dragon, with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, both of whom had previously worked with Chrono Trigger. Toriyama was concerned that the 2007 Blue Dragon anime would be his last work in animation at the time.

For the Jump SQ one-shot Sachie-chan Good!!! In 2008, he collaborated with Masakazu Katsura, his loyal friend and designer of I"s and Zetman. In 2013, it was published in North America in the free SJ Alpha Yearbook 2013, which was sent out to annual subscribers of Shonen Jump Alpha in December 2012. In a Weekly Young Jump, the two teams worked together again in 2009 for a three-chapter one-shot Jiya.

Toriyama was hired by 20th Century Fox as a creative consultant on Dragonball Evolution, an American live-action film version of Dragon Ball. He is also credited as an executive producer on the 2009 film, which failed both critically and financially. Toriyama later stated in 2013 that he had not "capture the world or the characteristics" of his film and that the script was "bland" and not interesting, so he warned them and made suggestions for changes. "But the Hollywood producers ignored his advice." "And, as I suspected, the result was a film that I would not recognize as Dragon Ball." Toriyama was hired by Avex Trax to draw a portrait of pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki, which was included on her 2009 album "Rule," which was used as the film's theme song.

Mr. U. U. U for Anj's Rural Society Project, a non-profit environmental group that teaches the benefits of agriculture and nature to young children, was a 2009 manga titled Delicious Island's Mr. U for Anj. They had requested him to draw the illustrations for a pamphlet, but Toriyama loved the idea and decided to turn it into a book. It is included in a booklet on environmental awareness that is distributed by the Anj city government. Toriyama created Kintoki for its November 15, 2010 issue as part of Weekly Shnen Jump's "Top of the Legend" project. On March 11, 2011, he collaborated with Weekly Shoutout to produce a video to raise hopes and help for those affected by the 2011 Thoku earthquake and tsunami.

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods was announced to be in production in 2012, with Toriyama as a participant. The film was the first theatrical film in 17 years, and it was the first time Toriyama had been involved in one as early as the screenwriting process began. On March 30, 2013, the film was released. Both Battle of Gods and One Piece Film: Z was created with new art by Toriyama and Eichiro Oda.

The "Akira Toriyama: The World of Dragon Ball" exhibit opened at the Takashimaya department store in Nihonbashi on March 27, attracting 72,000 people in the first nineteen days. The exhibit was divided into seven zones. The first gave an insight into the series's history, the second showcased Toriyama's manga manuscripts from memorable scenes, the third showcased rare Dragon Ball-related artwork, the sixth included design sketches and animation cels from the anime, and the seventh screened Dragon Ball-related videos featured rare Dragon Ball-related content, the fourth showcased rare Dragon Ball-related content, and the seventh featured Dragon Ball-related videos. It existed in Osaka from April 17 to September 1, and then stopped in Toriyama's hometown Nagoya from July 27 to September 1.

In its July 13, 2013 issue, Toriyama launched Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, to commemorate Weekly Shnen Jump's 45th anniversary. In their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, Viz Media began serializing it in English, just two days later. The final chapter reveals that the story is told before the Dragon Ball events and includes several of the story's characters.

Also more contributions from Toriyama, who wrote the original script, are included in the sequel to Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', which was released on April 18, 2015. Toriyama provides a basic story arc and some character sketches for Dragon Ball Super, which began serialization in V Jump in June 2015 and later in July. Despite the fact that the anime ended in 2018, he still has story suggestions for the manga, while Toyotarou illustrates it. Dragon Ball Super: Broly, published in theaters on December 14, 2018, and Dragon Ball Super Hero: Dragon Ball Super Heroes, released on June 11, 2022, continued Toriyama's deep involvement with the films.

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