In 1978, a manga artist began his career, becoming famous with two manga: Dr. Slump and the second, the renowned Dragon Ball. Yes, you may have guessed it: it’s the great Akira Toriyama. We will recount his story to pay tribute to him, as it has sadly been two years since his passing.

Akira Toriyama was born on April 5, 1955, in Nagoya (more precisely, in Kiyosu), Japan. From a very young age, he was passionate about drawing. He was captivated by the 1961 film 101 Dalmatians, which further fueled his desire to draw. During his elementary school years, the young boy was fascinated by the manga collection of the older brother of one of his classmates, and again by watching Astro Boy on television at his neighbor’s house. Surprisingly, in middle school, he moved away from manga to focus on films and television series. In high school, he enrolled in an art school, but he no longer wanted to pursue higher education and wanted to enter the workforce, ready to launch his career as an illustrator. Despite his parents’ objections, he worked for a time as an illustrator in an advertising agency, but he quickly resigned, disgusted by the environment.

At 23, he was unemployed and penniless. His parents gave him money so he could buy cigarettes and drinks at a café. One day, in one of his regular cafés, he entered a manga competition, creating a humorous story. He didn’t win a prize several times, but he remained motivated to continue. After numerous setbacks, he published a manga called Dr. Slump, which became a success, selling 35 million copies. Six months after the success of Dr. Slump, he was tired of the pace, so he decided to take a break from that manga. He then created, inspired by Jackie Chan and Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the West, which initially resulted in Dragon Boy (a short story with gags and martial arts fights). He would eventually go on to write the famous Dragon Ball series, which ran from 1984 to 1995 (a total of 42 volumes). In total, it sold between 250 and 300 million copies, an even greater success than Dr. Slump.

He would continue to work for a very long time, especially for character design or as a proofreader (Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super, Dragon Ball Daima and for video games), and unfortunately on March 1, 2024, he would succumb to a subdural hematoma. Despite the death of this great man, his work continues to endure in the best and the worst, and what is even more beautiful is that he was able to transmit his message with Dragon Ball, which is empathy, surpassing oneself every day, and protecting what one loves.

Loïc Printemps

Sources:
Akira Toriyama — Wikipédia 
🐵 Dragon Ball : les œuvres qui ont inspiré Akira Toriyama  
Les enfants qui ont grandi avec Dragon Ball partagent ce trait de caractère