Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama has died at the age of 68

TOKYO:

The creator of Japan’s extremely popular and influential Dragon Ball Comics and anime creator Akira Toriyama has died at the age of 68, his production team announced Friday. First released in 1984, Dragon Ball is one of the best-selling manga franchises of all time and has spawned countless anime series, movies, and video games.

Toriyama died on March 1 of an “acute subdural hematoma” — a blood clot in the brain — a statement published in the official Dragon Ball account on X, formerly Twitter, said. “We deeply regret that he still had many projects in the middle of creation,” said the statement attributed to Toriyama’s Bird Studio, which praised the artist’s “great enthusiasm.”

“He would have a lot more things to achieve. However, he has left many manga titles and works of art in this world,” the statement added. “We hope that the unique world of Akira Toriyama’s creation will continue to be loved by everyone for a long time to come.”

Dragon Ball features a boy named Son Goku who collects magical balls containing dragons to help him and his allies in a fight to protect Earth from evil enemies. Toriyama was already famous for his comic manga Dr Slump in the early 1980s when he created Dragon Ballwhich he said was inspired by Chinese-style kung fu movies.

The 1990s saw the beloved cartoon Dragon Ball Zand Toriyama was also part of the design team for the huge Dragon Quest Games. Not all spinoffs were successful with the live-action film, however Dragonball Evolution (2009) flops at the box office and attracts withering reviews.

The Shueisha publishing house, whose Shonen Jump magazine launched the Dragon Ball comics, said in a statement that it was “deeply saddened by the sudden news of his death.” Eiichiro Oda, creator of Major Japan One piece manga franchise, said in a statement that Toriyama’s death was “too soon” and left “very big shoes to fill.” “To think I’ll never see him again… I’m overwhelmed with grief,” Oda said.

In an interview with Japan’s Asahi newspaper in 2013, Toriyama said his comics were “dedicated to entertainment”. “I just hope that readers will have fun reading my works. I don’t want them to achieve anything else,” he said, adding that he was “never concerned with passing a message through my manga.”

Toriyama described himself as a “difficult” person in the interview. He added, “‘Dragon Ball it’s like a miracle, given how it helped someone like me who has twisted, difficult personalities to do a decent job and be accepted by society.”

He also said he had “no idea” why Dragon Ball it had become such a big hit worldwide. “When I was planning the series, all I wanted to achieve was to please the boys in Japan,” he told Asahi.

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