Akira rocks
Dragon Ball has been the most successful and most recognized Manga and Anime series in Japanese history. Originally a story based on an old Chinese legend called "Saikyűi", Dragon Ball has became a legend itself. Japanese TVs aired new Dragon Ball episodes for over a decade. Because of this, Akira Toriyama's style is one of the most recognized Manga art in the world, and one all it's own.
[Saiyűki] [Dragon Ball] [Dragon Ball Z] [Dragon Ball GT][After Dragon Ball] [Bios]
  About Akira Toriyama

Meet Akira Toriyama

Toriyama started as an artist in his elementary school days. Him and a bunch of others would draw their favorite Manga characters and show them off to one another. This is a very common thing among children, but Mr. Toriyama found that drawing was his niche. As the years continued, he kept on drawing and started to draw portraits of friends and whatnot. However, his favorite thing to draw was Tetsuwan Atom (a.k.a. Astro Boy). When he got older, he started to find that TV show started to have a big influence on him. His favorite shows at the time consisted of 8-man and Ostamatus-kun, and he would love to imitate the beloved "shee" move from these shows. However, even later, Monster and live-action movies helped interest him in the martial arts atmosphere, which Dragon Ball would be based on.

After College, Akira Toriyama started as a graphic design artist, during which he had several one-shots. One thing lead to other and before we knew it, Dr. Slump came into our lives. That was Akira's first big success, which also became its own TV series. After he ended Dr. Slump, Akira was asked to come up with another story. While thinking about what to do, he thought about making a martial art-based comic this time around. He loved Jackie Chan movies and remembered his influences in the past., so he made a one-shot called "Dragon Boy." However, he wanted to do something that children recognize. This is where the old Chinese Legend "Saiyűki" comes in. Every child in the Asian part of the world has heard of the Monkey King legend, so he decided to do something based on that. However, he would redo it into his own style. Now, it is known as Dragon Ball. This became an even bigger success then Dr. Slump. On average, 1 out of every 10 Japanese read Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball ran a ten-year span, and ended its 536 episode ran in '96. Hey, "Simpsons" started one year later and is still running and only has 216 episodes. That means Dragon Ball ran practically non-stop.

  Saiyűki Legend
The "Saiyűki" Legend is a legend that came from China. Almost every Asian child has heard of this tale. So if you are not from Asia or have never heard of this, I'll tell you the main points of it. The Monkey King named Son Goku, who was born from a stone egg and traveled on a magical cloud, turned heaven and hell upside down with his Shenanigans before Buddha stopped him. An old Chinese monk named Sanzo needed help to retrieve the sacred sutras from India, so Buddha released Goku from his centuries of imprisonment. The monk also had a magical horse that helped them along the way. Plus, he made a lot of friend, for example, Hakkai the pig and Gojo the River Monster. After getting the Sacred Sutras, the legend pretty much ended.

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  Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball is a story about a boy named Son Goku, who meets a girl named Bulma. Bulma needed Goku's help to retrieve the seven Dragon Balls that allowed her to grant her wish of having a boyfriend. Out of all the other stories about Goku, this one is probably the funniest. However, on their little trip, Bulma and Goku make a lot of friends. For instance, Oolong the pig and Yamacha the dessert bandit. Plus, Bulma makes really good friends with Master Kame. ^_^

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  Dragon Ball Z
Unlike the previous story, Dragon Ball Z was more of a "Fight Fight" oriented story. Also, we get the see the characters grow up and have children. For example, Gohan's hairstyle changes every time he gets a year older. However, besides that the story goes away from the Saiyűki legend and goes into more of an in-depth story about Son Goku himself. This time around, Son Goku is not the mysterious Jungle Boy, but a Saiyan warrior that was sent to Earth to conquer it. However, something went wrong and the boy forgot his original intentions. Raditz, Goku's brother, comes to earth to get the planet, but since Goku never killed the people of Earth, the planet was never conquered. So Raditz tries to convince Goku to join him by taking Gohan, his son. Goku, who is suddenly joined by Piccolo, goes to save Gohan. They do save the day, but by Goku sacrificing himself. After that, the story gets more complex and I could go on for days, so I was able to provide you with a Manga Summary of it, for you the curious one.

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  Dragon Ball GT
Ok, this story line had nothing to do with Toriyama. After Dragon Ball Z ended, DBGT was made quick to follow it. Many of the hard core fans of Dragon Ball didn't really like this story because of the uninvolvement of Toriyama. However, Toriyama wasn't one to mess with the production of the DB animation show when he did write it. I really don't know if that caused the show's short coming, though. Well off to the story, the story was mainly about Goku, Trunks and Pan. However, this time all of Goku's nemesises wished for him to be a little kid, so for thw whole series, he is a little child. Not only do you see a little Goku, but you also see a Super Saiyan level 4 Goku, Gohan and Vegeta. Also the characters get older, I mean white hair older and the children grow up to the ages of were we met Bulma and Goku. The show did finally come to an end that ended the ten-year span of the DB story line. It actually ended kind of sweet, where Pan's son, Goku Jr. is fighting in the Tenka-Ichi and Son Goku is sitting in the audience unnoticed, but when the fight is all over with, Pan notices Goku walking away and she says to herself "goodbye."

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  After Dragon Ball
Meet Akira After Dragon Ball ended, Akira Toriyama didn't stop there. Dr. Slump came back onto the Tele and he went back to drawing comics. "Marusaku Gekijo" features some of Toriyama's earlier Dragon Ball and some others shorts; "Mamejiro-kun," "Soramamru-kun and his Luck," "Cashman," "Dub & Peter1," and "GO!GO! Ackman." Another comic is called Dragon Quest, but this one is not continued by Toriyama. Actually, Dragon Quest is based on a Nintendo game that Toriyama did the character design for, and the comic continued his look. That's also part of his new job, Toriyama has recently become famous to America through that. Akira had did character design for Dragon Quest VI, Chrono Trigger, and Tobal 1 and 2. That's all he has done now, but there is always the future.

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