https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/arts/akira-toriyama-dead.html

Akira Toriyama, Creator of ‘Dragon Ball,’ Dies at 68

His popular manga inspired numerous television, film and video game
adaptations, reaching fans far beyond Japan’s borders.

By John Yoon and Kiuko Notoya
March 8, 2024
Updated 7:48 p.m. ET
Akira Toriyama, one of Japan’s leading comics authors, whose manga and
anime franchise “Dragon Ball” achieved worldwide success with its mix of
comedic characters and rousing martial arts battles, died on March 1. He
was 68.

His death was confirmed on Friday in a statement by his manga and design
production company, Bird Studio, and Capsule Corporation Tokyo. The
statement said the cause was acute subdural hematoma, a condition in which
blood collects between the skull and brain. It did not say where Mr.
Toriyama died.

Mr. Toriyama’s body of work, which also includes “Dr. Slump” and “Sand
Land,” is recognizable far beyond Japan’s borders, having influenced
generations of manga artists and cartoonists. The studio said he had
several projects in the works at his death.

His best-known work, “Dragon Ball,” follows a young boy named Son Goku who
embarks on a journey to collect the seven magical orbs that summon a wish-
granting dragon. Since its creation in the 1980s, it has spanned 42
volumes, sold millions of copies worldwide and become one of the most
famous manga, inspiring television, film and video game adaptations.

Throughout his career, Mr. Toriyama said in a 2013 interview with the
Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun, he did not care if his work did
anything besides entertaining its readers. He was, he suggested, unlike
“other manga artists concerned about conveying didactic messages.”

“The role of my manga,” he said, “is to be a work of entertainment through
and through.”

Akira Toriyama was born on April 5, 1955, in Kiyosu, Japan, according to
local news media. He studied design at a technology and engineering high
school in Aichi Prefecture. After graduating, he worked as a designer for
an advertising company in Nagoya.

He left his job after a few years and started drawing manga at 23. His
first manga, an action and adventure comic called “Wonder Island,” was
published in 1978.

He gained popularity with the serialization of “Dr. Slump” from 1980 to
1984, a science-fiction manga about an android girl known for her
childlike personality and superhuman strength. It was adapted for
television as an anime series.

Mr. Toriyama’s absurd concepts and sense of caricature “sparked a real
joyful hysteria” in Japan, Matthieu Pinon and Laurent Lefebvre wrote in “A
History of Modern Manga” (2023).

In 1982, Mr. Toriyama married a former manga artist who published under
the pen name Nachi Mikami, Mainichi Shimbun reported. Complete information
on survivors was not immediately available, but local news media reports
say he is survived by his wife and children.

When “Dragon Ball” was first published in 1984, it was an immediate hit,
becoming one of the best-selling manga series of all time. It sold more
than 260 million copies worldwide, according to Toei Animation, the studio
that produced the anime adaptation.

“Dragon Ball” was serialized in the Japanese magazine Weekly Shonen Jump
until 1995. In the year after the series ended, the magazine lost about
one million of its six million readers, according to “A History of Modern
Manga.” The story lived on through anime like “Dragon Ball Z” and through
video games. Mr. Toriyama also designed the characters for the Dragon
Quest video game series.

A prolific manga artist, Mr. Toriyama did not necessarily have an appetite
for the genre as a reader. “I have always had a hard time reading manga,
including my own work,” he said in a 2018 interview with Kiyosu City
Public Library.

He led a private life and gave few interviews. In a 2013 interview with
the Japanese singer and actress Shoko Nakagawa, he said that he did not
even share all his work with his family.

“To tell you the truth, no one in my family has ever seen ‘Dragon Ball,’”
he said, laughing. “I am also a hikikomori,” he added, using the Japanese
word for a recluse.

But his stories continued to reach fans around the world years after their
creation.

After “Dragon Ball,” Mr. Toriyama wrote single-volume manga, including
“Cowa!,” “Kajika” and “Jaco the Galactic Patrolman.” “Sand Land,”
published in 2000, was made into a movie in 2023. Its anime version is
scheduled to be released in the spring on Disney+, along with a video
game.

Huge loss. The man was a genius.