Akira Toriyama (Japanese: 鳥山 明 Hepburn: Toriyama Akira?, born April 5, 1955) is a Japanese manga artist and game artist. He is best known for his manga series Dr. Slump (1980–1984) and Dragon Ball (1984–1995), as well as for being the character designer for the Dragon Quest series of video games. Toriyama is regarded as one of the artists that 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. He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen or shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended. His next series, Dragon Ball, would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. Having sold more than 230 million copies worldwide, it is the second best-selling manga of all time and is considered to be one of the main reasons for the "Golden Age of Jump," the period between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s when manga circulation was at its highest. Overseas, Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting Japanese animation's popularity in the Western world
Akira Toriyama recalls that when he was in elementary school all of his classmates drew, imitating anime and manga, as a result of not having many forms of entertainment.[3] He believes that he began to advance above everyone else when he started drawing pictures of his friends, and after winning a prize at the local art studio for a picture of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, began to think "art was fun."[3] Toriyama has a love of cars and motorcycles, something he inherited from his father who used to race motorbikes and operated an auto repair business for a brief time.[
Early work and success 1978–2000 Before becoming a manga artist, he worked at an advertising agency in Nagoya designing posters for three years.[5] After quitting his previous job, Toriyama entered the manga industry by submitting a work to an amateur contest in a Jump magazine in order to win the prize money.[1] While it did not win, Kazuhiko Torishima, who would later become his editor, contacted him and gave him encouragement.[6] His debut came later in 1978 with the story Wonder Island, which was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump. However, he did not rise to popularity until the comedy series Dr. Slump, which was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1980 to 1984. It follows the adventures of a perverted professor and his small but super-strong robot Arale.[7] He began the series at age 25 while living at home with his parents, but when the series ended in 1984 he was a "manga superstar".[7] In 1981, Dr. Slump earned him the Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen or shōjo manga series of the year.[8] A very successful anime adaptation aired on TV from 1981 to 1986, with a remake series airing from 1997 to 1999. By 2008, the manga had sold over 35 million copies in Japan.[9] In 1984, Weekly Shōnen Jump began serializing Toriyama's Dragon Ball, which became an instant hit. To date it has sold over 156 million copies in Japan alone, making it Shueisha's second best-selling manga of all time.[10] It began as an adventure/gag manga but later turned into a martial arts fighting series, considered by many to be the "most influential shōnen manga".[7] Dragon Ball was one of the main reasons for the "Golden Age of Jump," when the magazine's circulation was at a record high of 6.53 million copies (1995).[11][12] The series' success encouraged Toriyama to continue working on it from 1984 to 1995. At the series' end, Toriyama said that he asked everyone involved to let him end the manga, so he could "take some new steps in life".[13] During that 11-year period, he produced 519 chapters that were collected into 42 volumes. Moreover, the success of the manga led to three anime adaptations, several animated movies, numerous video games, and mega-merchandising. The third anime adaptation, Dragon Ball GT, was not based on his manga; however, Toriyama was still involved in coming up with the name and designing the main cast.[14] Aside from its popularity in Japan, Dragon Ball was successful internationally as well, including in Europe and North America, with a total of 230 million copies of the manga sold worldwide.[15]