On March 1, Akira Toriyama, the legendary mangaka behind titles like “Dr. Slump” and “Dragon Ball,” passed away from acute subdural hematoma at the age of 68, according to a statement published by his production companies.
Toriyama’s titanic impact was made apparent by the international response to his passing. He was memorialized by the foreign ministries of El Salvador and the People’s Republic of China. French President Emmanuel Macron commemorated Toriyama by sharing a signed piece of artwork in his collection on X, writing (in French), “To Akira Toriyama and his millions of fans who grew up with him.”
His hallmark series, “Dragon Ball Z,” is immensely popular in Latin America. As JP Brammer writes for the Los Angeles Times, the franchise protagonist Son Goku is a “Latino icon.” Thousands of Argentine fans gathered in Buenos Aires to honor the mangaka, and a slightly off-color joke circulated on social media claiming that Mexican cartels agreed to a temporary ceasefire in mourning.
The extensive body of work cementing Toriyama’s legacy spans over four decades and includes 10 manga titles and two Japanese role-playing games (JRPG), the cult classics “Dragon Quest” (1986) and “Chrono Trigger” (1995). At every stage in his career, Toriyama blessed readers with a vast imagination that would shape global perceptions of anime, manga and Japanese art in general.
His breakout work, “Dr. Slump,” is widely credited with launching his career in shōnen manga, a genre primarily marketed to Japanese boys. “Slump,” a self-contained procedural comedy, saw enough commercial success during its six-year run to amass 236 chapters across 18 volumes. Though the outward appearance of “Slump” is a far-cry from the strobing colors, exploding planets and excessive — but nonetheless chivalrous — violence, associated with Toriyama’s most popular series, it hits many of the same stylistic beats that make him such an iconic artist and storyteller. The series’ stocky character designs with exaggerated features; huge, fantastical creatures; radiant ensemble cast; naive but playful protagonist in Arale Norimaki and, of course, androids draw striking similarities to early “Dragon Ball,” which debuted just a few months after “Slump” ended.
In the latter, Toriyama established his mastery at treating readers to sprawling, chaotic adventure rife with comedic gags. Based on the 16th century Chinese novel “Journey to the West” for its first saga, “Dragon Ball” follows a young Son Goku and his growing entourage of friends who augment the manga’s effortless — but sometimes lewd — humor through their distinct and discordant personalities. Though it doesn’t shy away from fantasy and science fiction tropes in the iconic franchise’s first installment, “Dragon Ball” is surprisingly grounded. Even as the series introduces demons, androids and giant apes, these elements still feel cohesive within the story because it is charmingly weird from the outset (one of Goku’s first battles is with a talking pterodactyl). The series’ fights, which paradoxically become more elegant and explosive as Toriyama’s style becomes more refined, are packed with markedly less world- and universe- ending stakes compared to its high-octane sequels.
“Dragon Ball” highlights the brilliant rhythm of its fights in its numerous tournament arcs, starting with the Budokai Tenkaichi — the “Strongest Under the Heavens Martial Arts Tournament.” Although tournaments of hot-headed fighters are certainly not new to manga as a medium, Toriyama canonized the practice of dedicating entire story arcs to watching characters duke it out in raucous, sometimes comically unequal displays of power and skill. This story template carries over into “Dragon Ball Z” and “Dragon Ball Super” without managing to get stale. Toriyama’s ability to elevate the stakes of these battles, as well as the bizarreness and destructive capacities of their combatants, doesn’t fade throughout his decades-long career.
Toriyama’s vivid imagination is his greatest strength. The cast of “Dragon Ball Z” and “Super” characters is incredibly visual, composed of a menagerie of humanoid aliens differing in shape, color and apparel (but unfortunately not gender) which make the story a universe-trotting romp. Characters are frequently cloaked in colorful auras to visualize their growth in strength. Every kind of laser and explosion is expended as characters pummel each other through time and space. Protagonists and antagonists alike will undergo sometimes awesome, sometimes grotesque physical transformations to heighten the tension of fights. All these elements, though absurd, are enough to make kids obsess over watching the “Toonami” channel before school.
Of course, an imagination with so much weight runs the risk of collapsing in on itself at times. An attentive “Dragon Ball Z” viewer will likely notice a myriad of holes — or at least threadbare areas — in the plot. Don’t bother asking a fan what a power level is, how characters can die and be resurrected so often or why the titular Dragon Balls took eight months to grant wishes again instead of the previously established year. But the beauty of Toriyama’s story is that it’s completely beside the point to ask those questions. The breakneck speed of developments in “Z” — unless you’re watching the anime, a mistake a lot of us made — make it almost blasphemous to hang back and contemplate the inconsistencies. Panaceas like healing “Senzu beans,” extra sets of wish-granting Dragon Balls and — I’m not kidding — the physical dimensions of Heaven and Hell are Toriyama’s invitation to the reader to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Toriyama, the super-powered scribe and engineer of excitement he was, made an indelible impact on the childhoods of anime and manga fans around the world. His legacy being crystallized in the medium through evergreen tropes and iconic shōnen archetypes, there is no conceivable future in which the fruits of Toriyama’s 45-year career will not be enjoyed.