The genius who created Dragon Ball

The Genius Akira Toriyama

Akira Toryama in Japanese

This is how Toriyama's name is written in Japanese : TORI-YAMA AKIRA. Toriyama means "Bird Mountain", That's why his studio is named Bird Studio.

Akira Toriyama is my idol. Since I'm very young, I love to draw and has been inspired by many european cartoonist until I saw Dragon Ball. I fell in love with his brillant, unique and fabulous style of drawing. His style is unbelivable. He is completely different than most japanese Manga artists, and his style is easily recognisable.

His drawing style evolved a lot since the days of Dr.Slump to now. I like both of the styles, but I have a preference for his more detailled style of the mid-Dragon Ball era (from book 17 to 35, it's fabulous). I love his "thin-line" drawings, his genius to create incredible battle scenes. Dragon Ball is an incredible graphic work of art!

Akira Toriyama was born on April 5, 1955, in the Aichi District, Japan. He graduated from the "Prefectural Industrial High School" as a graphic designer, and was working in th industry when he published is first manga in Shonen, in 1978. It was "Wonder Island", the scene of a strange and absurb world, where creature such a fish swimming in air with water bottle on his back, skateboarding monkeys and Tarzan were common (Later in Dr.Slump, Senbei and Arale visited Wonder Island). Later in 1979, came "Today's Highlight Island", the adventures of Kanta, a young boy who loves the food at his school, but can't eat because of dental problems. Then came "Tomato Girl Detective", who placed a girl as a hero like "Dr.Slump" would do, in 1980. "Dr.Slump" was his first great success, and the serie lasted since 1985. A TV serie of 243 episodes took air after the manga had been published only 5 weeks, something which had never happened before in Japan.

At the same time, Toriyama also published short stories, like "Pola & Roid", the winner of a Shonen Jump artist contest, in 1981. Other short stories will follow, such as "Escape" in 1982, "Chobit" and "Pink" in 1983 which were published in "Fresh Jump". Then, near the end of 1983, Toriyama begin a serie in two chapter, which will be unfinished : "Dragon Boy"; the story of a young boy who learnmartial art and become really strong (hum?). Finally, in november 1984, begin "Dragon Ball", in the pages of Shonen Jump - immediate success. Other short stories were published at the same time as Dragon Ball, and most of them can be found in the 2 Akira Toriyama Sakugekijou books. Other ones were aimed at a more adult public like "Mamejirokun" and "Lady Red" After the end of DB, Toriyama decided to take a year off, to relax before beginning anew. All his fans all over the world cannot wait to see his next manga!
(Biography from Joypad Magazine N.31 - Dragon Ball Special May 1994)

It seems that I'm not alone to worship Toriyama, as he his known and loved world-wide. Here is an except from a Protoculture Addicts magazine, who shows the high status Toriyama-sensei has reached as an artist in Japan :
«Akira Toriyama is often referred to as the successor of Osamu Tezuka (AstroBoy, Kimba the White Lion) who is credited with popularizing manga in Japan and the one artist who best represents the world of manga. Toriyama followed his great success Dr.Slump, which sold 28,110,000 copies and spawned a 243-episode animated series which was rated number one in Japan, with an even greater phenomenon - Dragon Ball - which has sold over 109,300,000 copies (as of 7/95)!! [...]

Dragon Ball has not only spawned almost 500 episodes of animated shows, but has created a merchandising frenzy with sales of 2.95$ billion in Dragon Ball-related merchandise!

Akira Toriyama has reached a status few artists can hope for. An Akira Troyama exhibition has recently toured nine public art galleries and other venues, drawing over 3.3 million people. This is the second time in history that a Manga artist has acheived this level of notoriety (the first beign Osamu Tezuka and the exhibit was after his death). The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo has made an unprecendented move by exhibiting a manga artist's work. The workds of Akira Toriyama can be seen displayed with those of artists such as Monet and Miro.»

Toriyama portray himself as a small wind-up robot, a man with a mask or a bird smoking cigarettes. He makes numerous appearances in Dr.Slump and a few (2) in Dragon Ball as a robot.

Akira Toriyama Sakugekijou 1-2
These 2 manga books published by Shuiesha (Jump Comics) collect all the short stories Toriyama wrote before Dr.Slump, between Dr.Slump and Dragon Ball and at the same time they were published. Book 1 includes early works like : Wonder Island, Wonder Island 2, Gyaru Deka Tomato (Tomato Girl Detective), Pola & Roid, Mad Matic, Chobit and Chobit 2.
Book 2 includes : Honjitsu no hairai tou (Today's Highlight Island), Escape, Pink (from which an anime was made), Dragon Boy (Very Dragon Ball-like story and drawings!), The adventure of Tongpoo (Dragon Ball-esque, GREAT drawings), Mister Ho, Kennosuke-sama and Sonchoh.

Akira Toriyama Manga Laboratory
Co written with Akira Sakuma. Toriyama in his robot from teach how to draw manga, with example taken from Dr.Slump.

Dr.Slump 1- 18
Toriyama first success, it tell the story of Arale, a little robot girl in a very funny and absurd world, the Penguin village. Highly recommended!

Dragon Ball 1-42
The masterpiece of Toriyama-sensei, one of the most popular manga of all time! See the Dragon Ball - The Manga page!

Dabu and Peter 1
Color story about racing cars in V-Jump, a montly magazine about video games. Was stopped because it was pretty bad (from what I heard). V-Jump stories are mostly done by Toriyama assistants at Bird Studio.

Go Go Ackman!
Color story of a young demon boy with a sword, in monthly V-Jump (He looks like Trunks without nose and shorter!) This series seem to be popular enough to inspire some videogames!

Dragon Quest
The most popular RPG serie in Japan, known as Dragon Warrior in the US. The success of Dragon quest is assured by the team of Yujii Horii (Story writer), Kouji Sugiyama (Music) and Toriyama (Character desings). Toriyama did the character and monster design for each of the 6 games, but unfortunately his drawing were not kept in the american version of the games. 2 TV Animation were inspired from the 3rd game, and Toriyama did the character design for the anime too.

Torneko Big Adventure
Adventure game based on Torneko, a character of Dragon Quest IV (Torneko is a fat merchant with a mustache). In the US Dragon Warrior IV, he is named Taloon.

Chrono Trigger
Excellent RPG from Squaresoft, with story from Yujii Horii and character/monster designs by Toriyama. Squaresoft kept all the original designs of Toriyama when the game was brought here, so you have 2 fabulous poster drawn by Toriyama if you buy the game!

Notice : Many of the Dragon Ball pictures you can find on the web are not directly from the hand of Toriyama, but from the animation studio of Dragon Ball Z, Toei Animation. Most of them are very faithful to the original drawings, but nothing beats the real thing. The most important items for any Toriyama-freak are the Dragon Ball coffee table books. See the Dragon Ball - The Manga section for more.

Toriyama portray himself as a small wind-up robot, a man with a mask or a bird smoking cigarettes. He makes numerous appearances in Dr.Slump and a few (2) in Dragon Ball as a robot.

Akira Toriyama Info