Akira Toriyama

He debuted in 1979 with the story Wonder Islandhttps://anilist.co/manga/112596/WonderIsland/ published in Weekly Shounen Jump and first gained popularity for the anime and manga series Dr. Slumphttps://anilist.co/manga/30796/DrSlump/ originally serialized weekly in Shounen Jump from 1980 to 1984. In 1982 he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for Dr. Slump for best shounen or shoujo manga series of the year. In 1984 Toriyama was responsible for developing Dragon Ballhttps://anilist.co/manga/30042/DragonBall/ which was initially serialized in Weekly Shnen Jump. It became an instant accomplishmentprimarily selling over 35000000 copies in Japan Dragon Ball eventually became a recordbreaking best seller with over 120000000 copies sold. Aside from the Japanese fame the series was equally successful internationally as well including in Europe 1988 Canada 1996 and Latin America. Its success encouraged Toriyama to continue working on Dragon Ball from 1984 to 1995. During that elevenyear period he produced 519 chapters collected into 42 volumes. Each volume has an average of 200 pages. Moreover the benefit of the manga led to three anime adaptations numerous featurelength animated movies several video games and megamerchandising. Toriyamas studio is called Bird Studio which is a play on his name tori meaning bird. Toriyama married his wife Yoshimi Katohttps://anilist.co/staff/311142/NachiMikami on May 2 1982. She is a former manga artist from Nagoya under the pen name Nachi Mikami and occasionally helped Toriyama and his assistant on Dr. Slump when they were short on time. Together with his wife he had two children: a son born in 1987 and a daughter born in 1990. He was a wellknown recluse who avoided appearing in public or media. On March 8 2024 it was announced that Toriyama passed away at the age of 68 from acute subdural hematoma.