Akira Toriyama is one of the most influential names in the world of manga and anime, recognized mainly for being the creator of Dragon Ball, one of the most iconic and revolutionary series of this genre. Toriyama had been regarded as one of the authors who changed the history of manga, as his works are highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.
Born on April 5, 1955, in Nagoya, Japan, Toriyama has stood out for his unique drawing style and his ability to tell captivating stories that have captured the imagination of audiences around the world.
From a young age, Toriyama showed an interest in drawing, but it wasn't until after dropping out of college and working at different jobs that he decided to pursue a career in manga. His talent was soon recognized, and in 1978, he published his first serialized work, "Wonder Island," in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine.
Toriyama found early success in the manga industry with the creation of the popular “Dr. Slump” series in the late ’70s, winning a Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981 and supervising two subsequent anime adaptations. However, that acclaim was nothing compared to “Dragon Ball,” a continuation of his kung fu movie-influenced “Dragon Boy” one-shot. First published as a serial in 1984, “Dragon Ball” has grown to become one of the best-selling manga series ever. It’s also credited as popularizing the medium of manga across the globe, further bolstered by its various anime adaptations’ enduring audience in Western countries.
An artist who largely worked outside the public spotlight, Toriyama’s work extended beyond “Dragon Ball” throughout his life, especially after taking a smaller creative role with the property in the ’90s. His other credits include various one-shot manga runs, as well as character designs for video game classics like “Chrono Trigger” and the “Dragon Quest” series.
Toriyama returned to “Dragon Ball” in the 2010’s, with the manga artist receiving a screenplay credit on the film “Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods,” then the first “Dragon Ball” feature adaptation in nearly 20 years. He has stayed involved with the property throughout its recent run of film productions, including the most recent, 2022’s “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.”
Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama dies at 68
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Helldivers: "FOR DEMOCRACY" dies
Also helldivers: kills several things in one airstrike "How do you like the taste of liberty?"
Also helldivers: killing entire indigenous populations for their oil with airstrike after airstrike after airstrike "you'll never destroy our way of life"
Reddit: wow, this is just like Russia North Korea China Cuba Iran ...
I thought it was weird at first that there's absolutely no introspection from your character or any kind of story that encourages reflection within the game since it's supposed to be a 'satire' of fascism. But then I saw how redditors talk about it, even when they understand that they're playing the bad guys, and it made a lot more sense.
Was thinking about playing this game but realized I don't actually want to play as a genocidal fascist trashmonster
Maybe if I could play the other team
Sorry, the Cybernetic Protocol Combine and Unit XI have pretty restrictive immigration protocols.
(idk, I tried to make it work)
I think he already had the brain surgery and now they're bolting his skull closed
is gamergate back or something? why am I suddenly seeing youtube videos about it in two thousand and twenty four
How is everyone so rich? Like, yeah, I get capitalists and stuff, but if I go to the center of my city it's just like rich people walking around in the middle of the day. There can only be so many Director of Digital Marketing jobs available so where are they coming from? I'm honestly not even sure if I'm asking rhetorically at this point.
Where do you live? Because remote work has sort of created the conditions where you can get working class rich people. There aren't a million Directors of Digital Marketing, but there are quite literally millions software engineers, database admins, and salesforce cloud experts who earn low six figures. They'd be rich compared to the living standards of a lot of places in the US, and often the workload has seasonal elements (basically anyone who I know in marketing has a lot of free time after black friday up to mid January), so I could see them having idle periods where they essentially live a rich failson lifestyle.
At this point, I've forgotten what it's like to not be in survival mode
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big shoutout to @WhyEssEff@hexbear.net for the wonderful emojis and taglines for this website. audibly laughed out loud when is saw this one
Aw jeez, Lois. This is going to hurt worse than that time I joined the IDF
196 in blahaj zone makes one pro-palestine post and it gets filled by people attacking the op for criticizing biden during the election lmao
I texted 'no moral person would support the United States government' to my family first thing this morning.
I'm like 99% sure the woman behind me on the train is masturbating but honestly I got bigger things to worry about. Like posting, for example
She was kinda like moaning softly and I could feel her legs spread under my seat. I didn't look at her, because, you know, I had bigger fish to fry (posting on hexbear.net)
Bit idea: annoy film nerds by casually referring to Scorsese as a "really good content creator"
i wouldn't have guessed i'd still be crying hours later over this. didn't think he meant that much to me. i mean, i watched dragon ball as a kid but it wasn't my favorite thing even back then, and it's certainly not my favorite even within that sphere of shonen action. but seeing all the ways everyone around the world is paying tribute to him, thinking about how vast this one man's influence was. it gets to me
things that don't exist without toriyama (or are at least completely different)
- shonen action series, and by proxy american understanding of anime as we know it
- generic isekai (and similar generic fantasy anime)
- turn based rpgs (wizardry and ultima already existed, but dragon quest is so foundational. at the very least final fantasy and pokemon never exist without it)
- honestly non-turn based rpgs might be unrecognizable as well
- fighting games
- every action cartoon in the last decade, if not longer
i'm sure i'm missing some massive ones, he was just that big a deal
obviously the first thing everyone will say is dragon ball, but his influence is definitely vast. the drsgon quest designs are iconic and I didn't realize he contributed to chrono trigger as well. like what didn't this guy influence?
I forgot he did Dragon Quest's art. That's fucking huge. I just remembered chron trigger.
yeah dragon quest is genuinely maybe as important as dragon ball, the fact that he did 2 unimaginably influential genre and industry defining works is unfair. like, dragon ball alone is like if george lucas was single-handedly responsible for star wars, and then dragon quest is on the same level? who could possibly compare
Yeah, I never really thought of it but he gets credit for jrpgs looking how they typically do. Especially the monsters.
yeah, like. pokemon doesn't exist without dragon quest and his monster designs and the fact that you could tame and train monsters in dragon quest v. final fantasy doesn't exist if dragon quest isn't a massive hit, which it wouldn't be without him and his art and world and everything. every generic fantasy isekai (and the generic non-isekai fantasy stuff in that space as well) is fundamentally riffing on dragon quest and the aesthetic made by akira toriyama.
He's also responsible for my elementary school being full of kids who wanted to fight all the time cause of dbz and didn't know how fighting actually worked cause of dbz and I got in trouble a lot for winning those fights.
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Giving Cuba the Canadian controlled zone and showing up to the UN with my partition proposal
getting some light brain surgery done today.
