14 ms·

Akira Toriyama has died

1065 points by gaoryrt 3y ago

givinguflac 3y ago
Shouldn’t this be the link instead of X? https://en.dragon-ball-official.com/news/01_2499.html https://en.dragon-ball-official.com/news/01_2499.html
- stn_za 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - croes 3y ago
    Preferring primary source
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
Oh damn, sad day and sad surprise. In Italy, where it's very widespread, I grew up with Dragonball at lunch time, all the way into my twenties. RIP
- giorgioz 3y ago
  Dragonball and Simpson/Family Guy after lunch. Those were good times!
haunter 3y ago
RIP ;( Thank your for Dragon Quest, forever changing our lives. https://youtu.be/7Dn61KjXlao https://youtu.be/7Dn61KjXlao
stonecharioteer 3y ago
I owe the man my career. I was only interested in HTML because I wanted to make my own version of dragonballz.com. I learnt how to use Limewire because we didn't get the rest of the episodes after the Goku vs Nappa episode, and I also went on to make great friends just because we had some of the episodes that the other didn't have. I learnt to use torrents, scrape links off websites and eventually got my career in programming, which allowed me to buy the entire collection of his works. Toriyama-sensei, thank you for everything. I am sorry to see you go so soon. If Shenron existed, I'd have wished you back.
lloeki 3y ago
There was a distinct style to Toriyama's art that was instantly recognizable. My memory of manga history is a bit fuzzy... Astroboy (1955) was a big influence and has many of the key elements of Toriyama's distinct style, yet is also strikingly not Toriyama, while Dr Slump (1980) already has all that makes the Toriyama style so unique. To this day, a huge portion of manga and anime retains this clear, simple, and approachable style. In terms of impact I would equate it to the contemporary Hergé's "Ligne Claire" (1977). Both are a huge reason as to why I was into drawing in my youngster days. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire
NeutralForest 3y ago
Truly a staple of my childhood, I think many people can remember trying to do a Kamehameha or cheering for Goku during the first tournament or going crazy when Krillin died and Goku turned Super Saiyan for the first time. Good times, thanks Akira
g3z 3y ago
I discovered the existence of manga, anime and Japan in general thanks to him. Thank you!
cwales95 3y ago
Like many others, this guy was a *huge* part of my childhood. Rest in Peace Akira Toriyama.
manast95 3y ago
The Lessons from Dragon Ball and the pursuit of growth shall always be a part of me until the day I die. Thanks for giving me hope and strength as a child (and still as an adult). Thanks for everything really, Toriyama-sensei ご冥福をお祈りします
otikik 3y ago
I am sad to hear this. Good bye, master. I will show your drawings to my son.
pid-1 3y ago
Rest in peace. For anyone feeling like revisiting DBZ as an adult, I recommend watching "Dragon Ball Z: Abridged" on YouTube. Starts slow / amateurish, but oh boy it gets brilliant eventually.
- acuozzo 3y ago
  > For anyone feeling like revisiting DBZ as an adult I watched DBZ as a child/teen, but now that I'm an adult I find that I'm much more entertained by DB than DBZ.
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    We use this term a lot in apps/services, but really DBZ is the perfect example of enshitification.
    - acuozzo 3y ago
      Perhaps, but it seems more like Toriyama changed the target demographic as his set of "original readers" aged; similar to what Rowling did with Harry Potter. And as an adult I find media targeted at pre-teens and teenagers to often be cringey, but I sometimes find media targeted at children to be charming.
      - prmoustache 3y ago
        Born in 1980 I still think I was during the DB-->early DBZ in the target demographic. I can't speak of the manga but on the anime I saw on TV it felt to me that they went from an original traditional storytelling manga to an industrial thing where a pattern of a generic story was repeated and dragging into tons of empty episodes[1] whose sole purpose was to sell child and preteens brain time for advertisers. Even I as a preteen I felt robed and insulted in my intelligence at the time and I don't consider myself a genius. [1] most of them were just several minutes of generic blabla without any action nor story development
anthk 3y ago
RIP. It was THE anime show in the 90's in the Europe. By 1999-2000 everyone finished DBGT.
Netcob 3y ago
I watched some Dragon Ball on TV as a kid, wasn't a fan at first, until I randomly saw the first or second episode. The beginning is very charming and has such a sense of adventure! I didn't know about Manga at the time, and you couldn't just "binge" TV shows back then. So now I tried to catch every single episode. I think this was the first TV show I saw where time actually passes - unless you were following some soap opera for decades, that wasn't really a thing! At some point there's a gap in time where the characters all go their own ways and then meet again for a big tournament, and the main character actually got a major growth spurt. As far as I remember, that was basically unthinkable in an animated show in the 90s, and to be honest that's still very rare today. And that's when it felt like I was growing along with the characters in the show. After the next fast-forward, the main character is grown up, has a wife and a kid who looks a bit like he did when we first saw him. From then on, the manga/anime sheds pretty much anything outside its core formula (they fight some monster, lose, train really hard, then crush it) and it's mostly superheroes and monsters flexing and yelling. But teenage me ate it up. "Dragon Ball Z" was quite delayed in my country, and it's difficult to explain why a kid like me got very excited about some anime characters changing their hair colors, and would then download RealPlayer clips of that over ISDN. If you were a teenager at that time, you definitely had a whole bunch of cryptically named DBZ characters in your MSN or ICQ friends list. On a completely different note, Akira Toriyama just completely redefined action in manga. I know he was pushed to do more martial arts because of the success of things like "Fist of the North Star", but I doubt you got this sense of motion and intensity on a piece of paper before Dragon Ball. Some of that got through in the anime as well, and it was the other main reason I was fascinated by it as a kid.
glandium 3y ago
There's a weird urban legend that the Aichi prefecture built a road for him between his house in Nagoya and the airport. Wrong, of course, but he was big enough that many people believed it was possible.
mgdev 3y ago
Time to gather the dragon balls.
ardcom 3y ago
Dragon Ball Z wasn't the first anime I was exposed to but it was my first exposure to anime culture.
CHB0403085482 3y ago
RIP at 68; too soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gttNFh4vEA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gttNFh4vEA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDLpihQUI64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDLpihQUI64
bovermyer 3y ago
Akira Toriyama is responsible for two things that were formative for me as a teenager - Dragon Ball Z, and Chrono Trigger. Dragon Ball Z formally introduced me to anime, something that would push me towards going to art school, finding my (first) wife, and encouraging me to learn Japanese. Chrono Trigger was the first video game I truly loved. The art style was no small part of that. This, in part, made me enter the games industry as a level designer. Rest in peace, Mr. Toriyama. Your life was well-lived.
humanlity 3y ago
RIP
awestley 3y ago
Wow, this hit me. RIP
willcipriano 3y ago
Watched DBZ everyday when I came home from school. Goku was the dad I wished I had. Ill admit, I use this to get pumped for the gym: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4vPDqoOmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4vPDqoOmQ Still inspires me after all these years and I don't like 99% of anime.
jjice 3y ago
An incredible and very identifiable art style. Doesn't matter what you're playing or watching, if Akira Toriyama was there, you'll see it. Chronic Trigger being my favorite example. An industry legend. His influence will remain for a long, long time.
gainda 3y ago
seeing dragon ball z on toonami in the early 2000's changed my life. it was so much cooler than anything i had ever seen up to that point. my life revolved around coming home to watch a new episode. my brother would tape episodes on vhs so we could pause it and i could try to draw the scene. i almost ended up with an art degree in college after it sparked my artistic side. i don't think i would have ever been so interested in japanese culture had dragon ball not been that gateway
bitwize 3y ago
Somebody needs to find the dragon balls, stat, so we can wish him back to life with Shenron. This is pretty hard to take. I mean, Dragon Ball was a big part of anime and manga, and it was always there, always being updated because the creator loved making it.
decafninja 3y ago
To be perfectly honest, I am not a big fan of his art style nor the Dragonball series. But I don’t deny what a huge cultural icon he and his work are. RIP.
ankaAr 3y ago
Not the hero of my childhood, but the hero of my friends and chrono trigger and dragon quest designer. I will share this Bandai/Namco spot that shows something you can see around the world: https://youtu.be/QQKWSfupJZU?feature=shared https://youtu.be/QQKWSfupJZU?feature=shared
prmoustache 3y ago
If only he had been wise enough to stop the DragonBall franchise before DBZ and do something else. Dr Slump was an enjoyable one.
lightedman 3y ago
How coincidental I learn of this while watching Dragon Ball Super. Without Akira Toriyama, Japan might not have had such an economic recovery after their half-collapse in the 1980s. He is what made Japan an accessible and marketable things to the western countries, and they ate it up like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. RIP Toriyama-san. I hope the nation honors you with a holiday.
barlog 3y ago
I read the series in real time. Everyone around me subscribed to Weekly Jump every week just to read only DB. If this were modern times, Jump would have been distributed weekly worldwide. Perhaps it'll change the world of tech even more. It must have also put a damper on pirated copies.
stopyellingatme 3y ago
Here to say RIP. His influence cannot be overstated.
humansareok1 3y ago
Maybe Super can actually break new ground now. We've been waiting for Goku and Vegeta to retire for 20 years. Reset the power scaling so the next generation can take over and we can get away from multi-multi-verse one punch breaks dimensions silliniess.
- jeegsy 3y ago
  Thats highly inappropriate I think
- deleted 3y ago
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- someuser2345 3y ago
  That's exactly what happened in the latest movie, where Goku and Vegeta missed a phone call so Gohan had to take care of the bad guys.
  - humansareok1 3y ago
    Nevertheless they both now are supposedly at SSJ God tier or above which just continues the nonsense.
tromp 3y ago
Nice to see the main Dutch evening TV news spend several minutes covering his legacy...
tromp 3y ago
Nice to see the main Dutch evening TV news spend several minutes covering his death and legacy...
flobosg 3y ago
He was truly a master of panelling and composition, as this video about the Dragon Ball manga explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFru4q_4H8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFru4q_4H8
gaoryrt 3y ago
For those who don't know his name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Toriyama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Toriyama
- d--b 3y ago
  I’ll save you the click. He’s most famous for writing the Dragon Ball sagas, and drawing the characters for the Chrono Trigger game. Slightly less known outside Japan is Dr.Slump, a funny manga/anime about a crazy scientist and his no-less-crazy robot-daughter Arale
  - latexr 3y ago
    Those who watched the original series or Super may recognise Arale, as she made appearances in both.
  - tiltowait 3y ago
    Not to mention the Dragon Quest series! I've never been an anime fan, but Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z will always hold a place in my heart. Last year, I decided to read the series manga—the first and probably only I will ever read. In the forward of each volume, Toriyama talks about random little details of his life, like talking about his pets, a painful dentist visit, etc. This is probably common practice in manga, but as a westerner who has never seen such things, it was absolutely charming, and I enjoyed those glimpses more than I ever would have expected. Rest in peace.
    - bhtru 3y ago
      And the character design not just for Dragon Quest, but Blue Dragon and more notably Chrono Trigger! Chrono Trigger is one game I'd love to see remade.
    - deleted 3y ago
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  - deleted 3y ago
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fendy3002 3y ago
what, RIP for dragon ball creator
CompYOUT 3y ago
AKIRA: IVE BEEN A SUPER SAIYAN FOR YEARS, NOW I TOO HAVE THE POWER OF A GOD.
Thaxll 3y ago
ENG translation: https://www-shonenjump-com.translate.goog/j/2024/03/08/240308_oshirase.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-shonenjump-com.translate.goog/j/2024/03/08/24030...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
leosanchez 3y ago
Dragon Ball Z was my favourite cartoon growing up. Rest in peace
causality0 3y ago
It's truly a tragedy that lagging interest in Dragon Ball deprived us of twenty years of his output. I'm thankful we got to appreciate his stunning return for the last nine.
altdataseller 3y ago
Why is this being buried even though it’s being upvoted a lot?
- rightbyte 3y ago
  There is some "flame war" downranking which works on the (points/h)/(comment/h) ratio I think. Too many "rip":s?
- echelon 3y ago
  I noticed the same. This is purposely being down-weighted. What gives? 117 votes, 30 minutes old, currently at #10.
Apreche 3y ago
RIP to another legend gone too soon. Thank you forever for designing the Dragon Quest Slime. Just a blue Hershey's kiss with a face, but it brings so much joy.
echelon 3y ago
70+ upvotes in 20 minutes, and it's rapidly slipping off the front page. Dang: Are the mods nuking this story? If so, is this not a big deal for much of the HN readership? Akira Toriyama was an icon for me during my adolescent years. I'm guessing most millennials here were similarly exposed to his work, and that it meant a lot to many amongst the readership here. Toonami, Adult Swim, early Internet culture... The early web was highly topical place (personal webpages, forums), and one of those common topics was Dragonball. It was everywhere, and by percentage at a volume that can't be matched today by anything. Edit: The ISS story at #1 is an hour old and has half the upvotes this article does. This story briefly topped, then rapidly started sinking (currently #13). What gives?
- probably_wrong 3y ago
  It could be the flamewar detector - stories that gather too many comments too quickly are sometimes buried for that reason, I believe. Related: how about an HN black bar?
- anthk 3y ago
  One of the most infamous Linux User Group in Spain was called "BulmaLUG", because of the obvious geekery. The impact of Dragon Ball working as a gateway to different hobbies it's inmense: manga, scifi, computers...
- ThrowawayR2 3y ago
  If I had to guess, a lot of mundanes don't understand how much anime was a part of early hacker / net culture and are probably flagging it for being offtopic.
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    "mundanes"? Really?
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago
  it's not a conspiracy. It's the later in the evening in the US. Not on a major news url. Which also got changed from a foreign language one. Give it some time. Also your weight on the impact as far as the web is maybe too much. Define "early". It's nothing more than some ascii art and maybe some gifs to me. And I'm talking the actual early web, 90s. I do respect the cultural significance tho. That's easy to see. The title could be "...creator of Dragon Ball" to get more recognition/attention.
HermitX 3y ago
Oh my, the Dragon Ball series of comics are wonderful memories from my childhood! I even want my kids to read these comics now! I hope Akira can rest in peace.
pierat 3y ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KZrVNlGuhRM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KZrVNlGuhRM Still leaving a mark in my life, with Dragon Quest!
AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
> It's a shame because he had a lot of work to do, and there were still things he wanted to accomplish. Man, I hope that sounds less cold in the original Japanese than it comes across in English. "It's such an inconvenience that our manga-ka died when he still had so much work left to turn in!"
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I believe it's meant to emphasize that despite being 68, he was still working hard for his fans. In Japan that's very much the way that these things are often portrayed, it's essentially eulogizing in a low-key way.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    68 is definitely too young. Especially in Japan where advanced age is more common.
- sdrothrock 3y ago
  The Japanese is more like "he probably had many more things he wanted to do", no nuance of "there were tasks for us that were left unhandled by his passing".
- bigstrat2003 3y ago
  It didn't come across as cold to me in English. I took it to mean that he loved his work, and kept at it right up until the end. i.e. a statement of admiration and praise for his passion.
  - jogu 3y ago
    Yeah, this is more of the nuance, my rough translation would be: “He had many projects he was passionately working on and many more things he wanted to accomplish, it’s unfortunate (that he won’t be able to complete them)”.
- deleted 3y ago
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seam_carver 3y ago
Alright, I really need to read Dr. Slump now.
vivzkestrel 3y ago
you know what to do bois? time to gather those dragonballs but on a serious note, holy hell I did not except the guy to leave so soon. Nobody can ever fill that void now
johnchristopher 3y ago
Damn... Dragon Ball and Dr Slump were huge in France back in the days. There will be a lot of deeply saddened people tomorrow when it lands on front pages.
givinguflac 3y ago
I will forever cherish memories of watching Dragon Ball and DBZ with siblings and friends.
CSMastermind 3y ago
Dragon Ball transcends cultures, languages, and generations like few creative works I can think of do. In that story he managed to capture the simple, profound truths of the human experience. Courage, friendship, resilience, the pursuit of one's dreams. A sense of a deeper purpose and meaning to life. A world full of new things to discover. I am very sad to hear of his passing, but take solice in knowing that his works will outlive him.
- hiepph 3y ago
  He also captured so true the process and meaning behind training to get stronger. Respect.
- jajko 3y ago
  DB/DBZ was my introduction to anime. What an introduction. As somebody coming out of russian/soviet oppression anime was absolutely unknown behind iron curtain. The whole concept that cartoons are not for small children only was quite a reveal. I watched it with french voice over, which were then voiced over by a single polish male dubber with maybe 1-2s delay, so you could hear both languages. Needless to say I didn't speak neither of those, but understood a slight bit polish, and had an absolute blast. DBZ has special place in my heart. Not so much stuff afterwards, DB itself a bit less, but DBZ hit a proverbial nail on the head (in my head) I didn't even know existed, and it hit it perfectly.
  - lloeki 3y ago
    DB Super has a "pretend that DBGT did not exist" reset trope and goes back to a more DBZ inspiration and even has some DB pre-Z vibes. Give it a shot (if you didn't already), worst case you wasted your time with a few EPs.
    - jajko 3y ago
      thank you for this, will check
- alephnan 3y ago
tetrisgm 3y ago
Thank you for Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super, and Dr Slump. As a young child, your work made me laugh, gave me guidance on hard work and determination, and was just so damn charming. It was always a mix of silly vs serious, slice of life vs a potentially hopeless battle. But it was always filled with hope. May you rest in heaven, together with Hiromi Tsuru (the voice actress for Bulma). If I could wish you back, I would.
koolba 3y ago
A true legend in the field and someone who brought joy to millions. If this post somehow manages to get 9000 upvotes, some of us will smile quite a bit.
renewiltord 3y ago
Subdural hematoma. So, falling. Hmm, a common cause in aged people. I wonder how many more life years we could add by helping deal with falling. Like many others, DBZ was the first anime I watched. What an experience trying to get the pirated copies and watch them on RealPlayer. And we'd share fan AMVs like they were secret religious texts at school.
maxglute 3y ago
Rip, is there a media franchise more globally popular among gen y bros? I feel like I've seen db memes from everywhere.
spike021 3y ago
Dragonball was my first experience watching an anime dubbed in a language other than English. Surprisingly not in Japanese. It aired on local TV Telemundo 22 (I think? in Spanish) for Southern California. Before that my only exposure in the 90's to Japanese animation was Pokemon. Good times were had.
lemoncookiechip 3y ago
The man help inspire a whole generation of children to become artists, some of which have gone to become even more famous than him (Eiichiro Oda and so many more...), who then went to inspire yet more children who are breaking out now. This same man was inspired by Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, to express his talent to the world. The man was a legend, from Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Dr. Slump and so much more. He help popularize and normalize anime outside of Japan for so many of us. RIP
- kiliancs 3y ago
  Speaking of which, he made a statement about Toriyama's passing: https://www.cbr.com/one-piece-eiichiro-oda-dragon-ball-akira-toriyama-death-response/ https://www.cbr.com/one-piece-eiichiro-oda-dragon-ball-akira...
farmer5 3y ago
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_19/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_19/
- omoikane 3y ago
  Looks like it has been revised to add more details, updated link is https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_20/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_20/
alephnan 3y ago
[flagged]
- hawngyeedun 3y ago
  It's largely due to the Dragon Ball anime broadcast overseas. The series has an incredibly large following in LATAM and South/Southeast Asian countries in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball#Cultural_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball#Cultural_impact
- gryson 3y ago
  What an odd comment. Dragon Ball, which is absolutely huge in Japan, is an original creation of Akira Toriyama. I mean, the top-earning Japanese film of 2018 was Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which sold 3 million+ tickets in Japan. Dragon Ball became the basis for how Jump structured all of its shonen manga. Its impact on the industry is incalculable. You'll be hard-pressed to find a Japanese person under 50 who isn't familiar with Dragon Ball. Dragon Quest, a video game series that was very popular in Japan in the 1980s, featured character art by Toriyama. I wouldn't exactly call Dragon Quest "Toriyama's work". And while Dragon Quest is very popular among a certain audience, it doesn't have nearly the reach and broad appeal of Dragon Ball.
  - xandrius 3y ago
    Exactly, if you go around Japan, you'd stumble upon so many events with Dragonball characters and Dragonball Super is way more popular than it is overseas right now.
    - deleted 3y ago
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  - alephnan 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - Jensson 3y ago
IanKerr 3y ago
Absolutely loved everything Dragon Ball growing up. I still get excited hearing about new Dragon Ball movies and series. He'll be sorely missed and his influence on anime will last generations. Far too soon, RIP Akira.
rationalfaith 3y ago
[dead]
haebom 3y ago
RIP
fabiensanglard 3y ago
You legend. I spent my childhood riveted to TF1, watching DragonBall in the late 80s. Thank you for bringing so much joy to my life Akira.
JaDogg 3y ago
Rest in peace.
gigasus 3y ago
RIP. Dragon Ball was a formative part of my childhood, and I still read the mangas and watch the animes every now and then.
agumonkey 3y ago
I'm having a partial headache reading that title. I was internally hoping he would enjoy Japan longer lifespan.. not expecting this in the slightest. Such confusion ... As kids many did travel quite far just to get a glimpse of coming DBZ coming volumes. We'd learn to program VCRs to be sure to tape episodes when we couldn't be there. That series in itself was a deep deep source of wonder. And it was a pillar and gateway into Japanese culture, from drawing style to language... Kinda dumbfounded right now. Tiny personal mental black bar..
- ripdog 3y ago
  Tragically, a large proportion of manga artists die early. The lifestyle of spending 12 hours a day bent over a desk, frantically drawing, stressing about deadlines, all contributes to a variety of causes of early death. Treasure your mangaka while they're alive, as theirs is an industry fuelled by passion - often far too much. (And greedy/demanding publishers, but we'll leave that discussion for another time.)
  - agumonkey 3y ago
    Yeah, and current generation is struggling to make even decent money it seems.
NalNezumi 3y ago
In a more HN esque theme. Dragon ball was definitely the show that popularized Japanese animation in the west. But since there wasn't many anime shows aired on TV, one had to reach for the internet to get to download other shows. I remember begging my mom for broadband internet rather than dialup, just to be able to download more shows that I would then share with my friends. Being able to download anime/share translations was definitely a part of the early nerd/internet culture. And DragonBall was the gateway for many to that. RIP Toriyama-san
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > Dragon ball was definitely the show that popularized Japanese animation in the west In Italy, Dragon Ball was first aired in 1989. I watched it because it was from the "Dr. Slump guy" that had been aired in 1983, and I had fallen madly in love with it. I've bought and read both manga later on, in the 90s. Over the years Dragon Ball has become immensely more popular than Dr. Slump, but I'm fond of the first two chapters (Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z), I didn't actually enjoy much anything past Cell.
  - anthk 3y ago
    DItto in Spain, the regional TV's got DB in Basque/Galician/Catalan as early as 1989/1990.
    - glandium 3y ago
      I was watching DBZ and Dr Slump, switching between Catalan and Japanese in the 90s on TV3! (yes, they had multilingual broadcast)
    - pier25 3y ago
      Maybe my memory fails but I seem to remember watching Dr Slump in the mid 80s on TV3.
  - wibblewobble125 3y ago
    YouTube commenters insists that Akira wanted to end Goku’s arc at Cell, but fanserviced beyond that. If true, explains a lot. I also felt that there was a lot of maturity and build up to the climax of the cell saga and everything afterwards felt like it undid that growth and just went on and on.
throw_m239339 3y ago
RIP.
Trasmatta 3y ago
You can't overstate Toriyama's cross cultural influence. Manga, anime, video games, pop culture. A legend. Just look at his influence on Central and Southern America alone. He was a genius, and he died too soon. Just like Miura. RIP to a legend. EDIT: gah, I've been crying on and off about this. It's silly, but there's something about Dragon Ball and Goku especially that always spoke to a deep part of myself. I think it's the combination of positivity, humor, child-like naivety, happiness, strength, and pursuit of growth. I'm not sure any other work of fiction has every quite captured the amalgamation of those themes in quite the same way. So many laughs, smiles, tears, and chills over the decades. Thank you Toriyama-san.
- cxrlosfx 3y ago
  Son Goku, is one of the faces of the hero with thousand faces, IMO one of the greatest of all personification of the myth, from the perspective of someone from Latin America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
  - deathemperor 3y ago
    from my perspective of someone from Southeast Asia, Son Goku is definitely Sun Wukong the Monkey King from Journey To The West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King
    - nindalf 3y ago
      How?? The Monkey King is a trickster and quite frankly, mean to a lot of people. Goku is the exact opposite. The only thing they have in common is the extending rod that Goku would fight with as a child.
      - Jensson 3y ago
        Watch the original episodes, he is very much like a trickster monkey. Then he matured into what people remember him as and became very different, but he didn't start that way.
throwaway17_17 3y ago
For a generation of western would-become-anime-fans Toriyama-san was the hand that guided us. Dragonball Z, especially in US, served to introduce an audience who otherwise would have never had an interest in animation to a form of entertainment we love. His sense of character design is iconic, to the point that video games and manga he was involved in are immediately recognized as his work. The worlds of Dragon Quest are every bit as culturally formative for rpg fans. His work will continue to be treasured and he will be missed. I will spend some time watching Dragonball Z with my kids this weekend and enjoy every minute of it.
JL-Akrasia 3y ago
Goku was my first hero. Thank you Toriyama
birracerveza 3y ago
The whole world is mourning his death. Every child with a TV was familiar with his work. THE most influential mangaka, and definitely one of the most influential artists out there. RIP
baby 3y ago
Hero of my childhood. RIP. Also, if you've never read the Dragon Ball series, I URGE you to buy the first two books to get an idea of how amazing, cute, charming, funny, creative, the story was: https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Ball-Vol-Akira-Toriyama/dp/1569319200/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3VLB0WGC8P4YC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.KI1DzmmCFQr2_JJmiQRezEwCIJhHhaNRVHWEWrR9MBpPvmbEPWaRRLAlrzEw9ic9ex625U1G2nkRjNrHB_Noft31QWtukNVELNQiu02YkrQOhARR1JXOmjopJC0ztMKsVf4w2fRItrhjkKh1FxgGviIL0nDDOo1vvDuTjc4KDBC8l7NSnsipT0qeU4Jdhpb9rPPf0Pxyc4w1QpHa2oowf1Q4Aipm44ZyILaSBzbJ4IA.4vIAjTSRorjhpL-LYm7jK9Woykc64ZlK5Chqsve6XlE&dib_tag=se&keywords=dragon+ball+1&qid=1709881863&sprefix=dragon+ball+1%2Caps%2C202&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Ball-Vol-Akira-Toriyama/dp/156... You can also read the first chapters for free here, I mean just look at this drawing, they don't draw mangas like this anymore: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/dragon-ball-chapter-1/chapter/12022 https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/dragon-ball-chapter-1/chapter...
- vlz 3y ago
  Thank you! I was aware of the phenomenon, but never actually read any Dragon Ball. Here is a more direct link to the first three chapters (reached from your link): https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/titles/100011 https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/titles/100011
  - thunfischtoast 3y ago
    You really have to read is as a piece of its time. I guess Bulmas casual exposition wouldn't result in a succesful youth book today.
    - baby 3y ago
      I think the more sexual parts of the manga are just not really compatible with American prude christian culture, not yesterday, not today
  - diggan 3y ago
    Where could I read the original 42 Dragon Ball mangas online in English? It seems like Manga Plus is just available on the mobile apps, and I'd like to read it on my computer, but not finding anything that looks legitimate.
yallpendantools 3y ago
Rest in Power. I always said DBZ has single-handedly saved thousands of nerds from early-onset diabetes/arthritis, obesity, an unhealthy lifestyle in general. I count myself among them. That's not to mention the other benefits that just go with working out and staying healthy. We'll raise our hands for the Spirit Ball, Toriyama-sensei.
rmdashrfv 3y ago
I have to pay my respects to such an amazing artist, responsible for some of the most inspiring and motivating stories during my childhood. One of the parts of the series that stands out to me is when Android 16's broken body (head) is on the ground, and with the last of his life he pleads with Gohan to: "Please! Drop your restraints!"
- gbrindisi 3y ago
  yes! still feeling it since when I first read it 20 years ago
- bpiche 3y ago
  The song unmei no hi in that scene is so amazing. It's so inspiring. https://youtu.be/dCzlaI5zWmk https://youtu.be/dCzlaI5zWmk

1065 points by gaoryrt 3y ago

Shouldn’t this be the link instead of X? https://en.dragon-ball-official.com/news/01_2499.html https://en.dragon-ball-official.com/news/01_2499.html

stn_za 3y ago
[flagged]
- croes 3y ago
  Preferring primary source

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago

Oh damn, sad day and sad surprise. In Italy, where it's very widespread, I grew up with Dragonball at lunch time, all the way into my twenties. RIP

giorgioz 3y ago
Dragonball and Simpson/Family Guy after lunch. Those were good times!

haunter 3y ago

RIP ;( Thank your for Dragon Quest, forever changing our lives. https://youtu.be/7Dn61KjXlao https://youtu.be/7Dn61KjXlao

stonecharioteer 3y ago

I owe the man my career. I was only interested in HTML because I wanted to make my own version of dragonballz.com. I learnt how to use Limewire because we didn't get the rest of the episodes after the Goku vs Nappa episode, and I also went on to make great friends just because we had some of the episodes that the other didn't have. I learnt to use torrents, scrape links off websites and eventually got my career in programming, which allowed me to buy the entire collection of his works. Toriyama-sensei, thank you for everything. I am sorry to see you go so soon. If Shenron existed, I'd have wished you back.

lloeki 3y ago

There was a distinct style to Toriyama's art that was instantly recognizable. My memory of manga history is a bit fuzzy... Astroboy (1955) was a big influence and has many of the key elements of Toriyama's distinct style, yet is also strikingly not Toriyama, while Dr Slump (1980) already has all that makes the Toriyama style so unique. To this day, a huge portion of manga and anime retains this clear, simple, and approachable style. In terms of impact I would equate it to the contemporary Hergé's "Ligne Claire" (1977). Both are a huge reason as to why I was into drawing in my youngster days. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire

NeutralForest 3y ago

Truly a staple of my childhood, I think many people can remember trying to do a Kamehameha or cheering for Goku during the first tournament or going crazy when Krillin died and Goku turned Super Saiyan for the first time. Good times, thanks Akira

g3z 3y ago

I discovered the existence of manga, anime and Japan in general thanks to him. Thank you!

cwales95 3y ago

Like many others, this guy was a *huge* part of my childhood. Rest in Peace Akira Toriyama.

manast95 3y ago

The Lessons from Dragon Ball and the pursuit of growth shall always be a part of me until the day I die. Thanks for giving me hope and strength as a child (and still as an adult). Thanks for everything really, Toriyama-sensei ご冥福をお祈りします

otikik 3y ago

I am sad to hear this. Good bye, master. I will show your drawings to my son.

pid-1 3y ago

Rest in peace. For anyone feeling like revisiting DBZ as an adult, I recommend watching "Dragon Ball Z: Abridged" on YouTube. Starts slow / amateurish, but oh boy it gets brilliant eventually.

acuozzo 3y ago
> For anyone feeling like revisiting DBZ as an adult I watched DBZ as a child/teen, but now that I'm an adult I find that I'm much more entertained by DB than DBZ.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  We use this term a lot in apps/services, but really DBZ is the perfect example of enshitification.
  - acuozzo 3y ago
    Perhaps, but it seems more like Toriyama changed the target demographic as his set of "original readers" aged; similar to what Rowling did with Harry Potter. And as an adult I find media targeted at pre-teens and teenagers to often be cringey, but I sometimes find media targeted at children to be charming.
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      Born in 1980 I still think I was during the DB-->early DBZ in the target demographic. I can't speak of the manga but on the anime I saw on TV it felt to me that they went from an original traditional storytelling manga to an industrial thing where a pattern of a generic story was repeated and dragging into tons of empty episodes[1] whose sole purpose was to sell child and preteens brain time for advertisers. Even I as a preteen I felt robed and insulted in my intelligence at the time and I don't consider myself a genius. [1] most of them were just several minutes of generic blabla without any action nor story development

anthk 3y ago

RIP. It was THE anime show in the 90's in the Europe. By 1999-2000 everyone finished DBGT.

Netcob 3y ago

I watched some Dragon Ball on TV as a kid, wasn't a fan at first, until I randomly saw the first or second episode. The beginning is very charming and has such a sense of adventure! I didn't know about Manga at the time, and you couldn't just "binge" TV shows back then. So now I tried to catch every single episode. I think this was the first TV show I saw where time actually passes - unless you were following some soap opera for decades, that wasn't really a thing! At some point there's a gap in time where the characters all go their own ways and then meet again for a big tournament, and the main character actually got a major growth spurt. As far as I remember, that was basically unthinkable in an animated show in the 90s, and to be honest that's still very rare today. And that's when it felt like I was growing along with the characters in the show. After the next fast-forward, the main character is grown up, has a wife and a kid who looks a bit like he did when we first saw him. From then on, the manga/anime sheds pretty much anything outside its core formula (they fight some monster, lose, train really hard, then crush it) and it's mostly superheroes and monsters flexing and yelling. But teenage me ate it up. "Dragon Ball Z" was quite delayed in my country, and it's difficult to explain why a kid like me got very excited about some anime characters changing their hair colors, and would then download RealPlayer clips of that over ISDN. If you were a teenager at that time, you definitely had a whole bunch of cryptically named DBZ characters in your MSN or ICQ friends list. On a completely different note, Akira Toriyama just completely redefined action in manga. I know he was pushed to do more martial arts because of the success of things like "Fist of the North Star", but I doubt you got this sense of motion and intensity on a piece of paper before Dragon Ball. Some of that got through in the anime as well, and it was the other main reason I was fascinated by it as a kid.

glandium 3y ago

There's a weird urban legend that the Aichi prefecture built a road for him between his house in Nagoya and the airport. Wrong, of course, but he was big enough that many people believed it was possible.

mgdev 3y ago

Time to gather the dragon balls.

ardcom 3y ago

Dragon Ball Z wasn't the first anime I was exposed to but it was my first exposure to anime culture.

CHB0403085482 3y ago

RIP at 68; too soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gttNFh4vEA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gttNFh4vEA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDLpihQUI64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDLpihQUI64

bovermyer 3y ago

Akira Toriyama is responsible for two things that were formative for me as a teenager - Dragon Ball Z, and Chrono Trigger. Dragon Ball Z formally introduced me to anime, something that would push me towards going to art school, finding my (first) wife, and encouraging me to learn Japanese. Chrono Trigger was the first video game I truly loved. The art style was no small part of that. This, in part, made me enter the games industry as a level designer. Rest in peace, Mr. Toriyama. Your life was well-lived.

humanlity 3y ago

RIP

awestley 3y ago

Wow, this hit me. RIP

willcipriano 3y ago

Watched DBZ everyday when I came home from school. Goku was the dad I wished I had. Ill admit, I use this to get pumped for the gym: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4vPDqoOmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4vPDqoOmQ Still inspires me after all these years and I don't like 99% of anime.

jjice 3y ago

An incredible and very identifiable art style. Doesn't matter what you're playing or watching, if Akira Toriyama was there, you'll see it. Chronic Trigger being my favorite example. An industry legend. His influence will remain for a long, long time.

gainda 3y ago

seeing dragon ball z on toonami in the early 2000's changed my life. it was so much cooler than anything i had ever seen up to that point. my life revolved around coming home to watch a new episode. my brother would tape episodes on vhs so we could pause it and i could try to draw the scene. i almost ended up with an art degree in college after it sparked my artistic side. i don't think i would have ever been so interested in japanese culture had dragon ball not been that gateway

bitwize 3y ago

Somebody needs to find the dragon balls, stat, so we can wish him back to life with Shenron. This is pretty hard to take. I mean, Dragon Ball was a big part of anime and manga, and it was always there, always being updated because the creator loved making it.

decafninja 3y ago

To be perfectly honest, I am not a big fan of his art style nor the Dragonball series. But I don’t deny what a huge cultural icon he and his work are. RIP.

ankaAr 3y ago

Not the hero of my childhood, but the hero of my friends and chrono trigger and dragon quest designer. I will share this Bandai/Namco spot that shows something you can see around the world: https://youtu.be/QQKWSfupJZU?feature=shared https://youtu.be/QQKWSfupJZU?feature=shared

prmoustache 3y ago

If only he had been wise enough to stop the DragonBall franchise before DBZ and do something else. Dr Slump was an enjoyable one.

lightedman 3y ago

How coincidental I learn of this while watching Dragon Ball Super. Without Akira Toriyama, Japan might not have had such an economic recovery after their half-collapse in the 1980s. He is what made Japan an accessible and marketable things to the western countries, and they ate it up like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. RIP Toriyama-san. I hope the nation honors you with a holiday.

barlog 3y ago

I read the series in real time. Everyone around me subscribed to Weekly Jump every week just to read only DB. If this were modern times, Jump would have been distributed weekly worldwide. Perhaps it'll change the world of tech even more. It must have also put a damper on pirated copies.

stopyellingatme 3y ago

Here to say RIP. His influence cannot be overstated.

humansareok1 3y ago

Maybe Super can actually break new ground now. We've been waiting for Goku and Vegeta to retire for 20 years. Reset the power scaling so the next generation can take over and we can get away from multi-multi-verse one punch breaks dimensions silliniess.

jeegsy 3y ago
Thats highly inappropriate I think
deleted 3y ago
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someuser2345 3y ago
That's exactly what happened in the latest movie, where Goku and Vegeta missed a phone call so Gohan had to take care of the bad guys.
- humansareok1 3y ago
  Nevertheless they both now are supposedly at SSJ God tier or above which just continues the nonsense.

tromp 3y ago

Nice to see the main Dutch evening TV news spend several minutes covering his legacy...

tromp 3y ago

Nice to see the main Dutch evening TV news spend several minutes covering his death and legacy...

flobosg 3y ago

He was truly a master of panelling and composition, as this video about the Dragon Ball manga explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFru4q_4H8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFru4q_4H8

gaoryrt 3y ago

For those who don't know his name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Toriyama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Toriyama

d--b 3y ago
I’ll save you the click. He’s most famous for writing the Dragon Ball sagas, and drawing the characters for the Chrono Trigger game. Slightly less known outside Japan is Dr.Slump, a funny manga/anime about a crazy scientist and his no-less-crazy robot-daughter Arale
- latexr 3y ago
  Those who watched the original series or Super may recognise Arale, as she made appearances in both.
- tiltowait 3y ago
  Not to mention the Dragon Quest series! I've never been an anime fan, but Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z will always hold a place in my heart. Last year, I decided to read the series manga—the first and probably only I will ever read. In the forward of each volume, Toriyama talks about random little details of his life, like talking about his pets, a painful dentist visit, etc. This is probably common practice in manga, but as a westerner who has never seen such things, it was absolutely charming, and I enjoyed those glimpses more than I ever would have expected. Rest in peace.
  - bhtru 3y ago
    And the character design not just for Dragon Quest, but Blue Dragon and more notably Chrono Trigger! Chrono Trigger is one game I'd love to see remade.
  - deleted 3y ago
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fendy3002 3y ago

what, RIP for dragon ball creator

CompYOUT 3y ago

AKIRA: IVE BEEN A SUPER SAIYAN FOR YEARS, NOW I TOO HAVE THE POWER OF A GOD.

Thaxll 3y ago

ENG translation: https://www-shonenjump-com.translate.goog/j/2024/03/08/240308_oshirase.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-shonenjump-com.translate.goog/j/2024/03/08/24030...

deleted 3y ago

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leosanchez 3y ago

Dragon Ball Z was my favourite cartoon growing up. Rest in peace

causality0 3y ago

It's truly a tragedy that lagging interest in Dragon Ball deprived us of twenty years of his output. I'm thankful we got to appreciate his stunning return for the last nine.

altdataseller 3y ago

Why is this being buried even though it’s being upvoted a lot?

rightbyte 3y ago
There is some "flame war" downranking which works on the (points/h)/(comment/h) ratio I think. Too many "rip":s?
echelon 3y ago
I noticed the same. This is purposely being down-weighted. What gives? 117 votes, 30 minutes old, currently at #10.

Apreche 3y ago

RIP to another legend gone too soon. Thank you forever for designing the Dragon Quest Slime. Just a blue Hershey's kiss with a face, but it brings so much joy.

echelon 3y ago

70+ upvotes in 20 minutes, and it's rapidly slipping off the front page. Dang: Are the mods nuking this story? If so, is this not a big deal for much of the HN readership? Akira Toriyama was an icon for me during my adolescent years. I'm guessing most millennials here were similarly exposed to his work, and that it meant a lot to many amongst the readership here. Toonami, Adult Swim, early Internet culture... The early web was highly topical place (personal webpages, forums), and one of those common topics was Dragonball. It was everywhere, and by percentage at a volume that can't be matched today by anything. Edit: The ISS story at #1 is an hour old and has half the upvotes this article does. This story briefly topped, then rapidly started sinking (currently #13). What gives?

probably_wrong 3y ago
It could be the flamewar detector - stories that gather too many comments too quickly are sometimes buried for that reason, I believe. Related: how about an HN black bar?
anthk 3y ago
One of the most infamous Linux User Group in Spain was called "BulmaLUG", because of the obvious geekery. The impact of Dragon Ball working as a gateway to different hobbies it's inmense: manga, scifi, computers...
ThrowawayR2 3y ago
If I had to guess, a lot of mundanes don't understand how much anime was a part of early hacker / net culture and are probably flagging it for being offtopic.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  "mundanes"? Really?
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
it's not a conspiracy. It's the later in the evening in the US. Not on a major news url. Which also got changed from a foreign language one. Give it some time. Also your weight on the impact as far as the web is maybe too much. Define "early". It's nothing more than some ascii art and maybe some gifs to me. And I'm talking the actual early web, 90s. I do respect the cultural significance tho. That's easy to see. The title could be "...creator of Dragon Ball" to get more recognition/attention.

HermitX 3y ago

Oh my, the Dragon Ball series of comics are wonderful memories from my childhood! I even want my kids to read these comics now! I hope Akira can rest in peace.

pierat 3y ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KZrVNlGuhRM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KZrVNlGuhRM Still leaving a mark in my life, with Dragon Quest!

AdmiralAsshat 3y ago

> It's a shame because he had a lot of work to do, and there were still things he wanted to accomplish. Man, I hope that sounds less cold in the original Japanese than it comes across in English. "It's such an inconvenience that our manga-ka died when he still had so much work left to turn in!"

EA-3167 3y ago
I believe it's meant to emphasize that despite being 68, he was still working hard for his fans. In Japan that's very much the way that these things are often portrayed, it's essentially eulogizing in a low-key way.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  68 is definitely too young. Especially in Japan where advanced age is more common.
sdrothrock 3y ago
The Japanese is more like "he probably had many more things he wanted to do", no nuance of "there were tasks for us that were left unhandled by his passing".
bigstrat2003 3y ago
It didn't come across as cold to me in English. I took it to mean that he loved his work, and kept at it right up until the end. i.e. a statement of admiration and praise for his passion.
- jogu 3y ago
  Yeah, this is more of the nuance, my rough translation would be: “He had many projects he was passionately working on and many more things he wanted to accomplish, it’s unfortunate (that he won’t be able to complete them)”.
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seam_carver 3y ago

Alright, I really need to read Dr. Slump now.

vivzkestrel 3y ago

you know what to do bois? time to gather those dragonballs but on a serious note, holy hell I did not except the guy to leave so soon. Nobody can ever fill that void now

johnchristopher 3y ago

Damn... Dragon Ball and Dr Slump were huge in France back in the days. There will be a lot of deeply saddened people tomorrow when it lands on front pages.

givinguflac 3y ago

I will forever cherish memories of watching Dragon Ball and DBZ with siblings and friends.

CSMastermind 3y ago

Dragon Ball transcends cultures, languages, and generations like few creative works I can think of do. In that story he managed to capture the simple, profound truths of the human experience. Courage, friendship, resilience, the pursuit of one's dreams. A sense of a deeper purpose and meaning to life. A world full of new things to discover. I am very sad to hear of his passing, but take solice in knowing that his works will outlive him.

hiepph 3y ago
He also captured so true the process and meaning behind training to get stronger. Respect.
jajko 3y ago
DB/DBZ was my introduction to anime. What an introduction. As somebody coming out of russian/soviet oppression anime was absolutely unknown behind iron curtain. The whole concept that cartoons are not for small children only was quite a reveal. I watched it with french voice over, which were then voiced over by a single polish male dubber with maybe 1-2s delay, so you could hear both languages. Needless to say I didn't speak neither of those, but understood a slight bit polish, and had an absolute blast. DBZ has special place in my heart. Not so much stuff afterwards, DB itself a bit less, but DBZ hit a proverbial nail on the head (in my head) I didn't even know existed, and it hit it perfectly.
- lloeki 3y ago
  DB Super has a "pretend that DBGT did not exist" reset trope and goes back to a more DBZ inspiration and even has some DB pre-Z vibes. Give it a shot (if you didn't already), worst case you wasted your time with a few EPs.
  - jajko 3y ago
    thank you for this, will check
alephnan 3y ago

tetrisgm 3y ago

Thank you for Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super, and Dr Slump. As a young child, your work made me laugh, gave me guidance on hard work and determination, and was just so damn charming. It was always a mix of silly vs serious, slice of life vs a potentially hopeless battle. But it was always filled with hope. May you rest in heaven, together with Hiromi Tsuru (the voice actress for Bulma). If I could wish you back, I would.

koolba 3y ago

A true legend in the field and someone who brought joy to millions. If this post somehow manages to get 9000 upvotes, some of us will smile quite a bit.

renewiltord 3y ago

Subdural hematoma. So, falling. Hmm, a common cause in aged people. I wonder how many more life years we could add by helping deal with falling. Like many others, DBZ was the first anime I watched. What an experience trying to get the pirated copies and watch them on RealPlayer. And we'd share fan AMVs like they were secret religious texts at school.

maxglute 3y ago

Rip, is there a media franchise more globally popular among gen y bros? I feel like I've seen db memes from everywhere.

spike021 3y ago

Dragonball was my first experience watching an anime dubbed in a language other than English. Surprisingly not in Japanese. It aired on local TV Telemundo 22 (I think? in Spanish) for Southern California. Before that my only exposure in the 90's to Japanese animation was Pokemon. Good times were had.

lemoncookiechip 3y ago

The man help inspire a whole generation of children to become artists, some of which have gone to become even more famous than him (Eiichiro Oda and so many more...), who then went to inspire yet more children who are breaking out now. This same man was inspired by Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, to express his talent to the world. The man was a legend, from Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Dr. Slump and so much more. He help popularize and normalize anime outside of Japan for so many of us. RIP

kiliancs 3y ago
Speaking of which, he made a statement about Toriyama's passing: https://www.cbr.com/one-piece-eiichiro-oda-dragon-ball-akira-toriyama-death-response/ https://www.cbr.com/one-piece-eiichiro-oda-dragon-ball-akira...

farmer5 3y ago

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_19/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_19/

omoikane 3y ago
Looks like it has been revised to add more details, updated link is https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_20/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240308_20/

alephnan 3y ago

[flagged]

hawngyeedun 3y ago
It's largely due to the Dragon Ball anime broadcast overseas. The series has an incredibly large following in LATAM and South/Southeast Asian countries in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball#Cultural_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball#Cultural_impact
gryson 3y ago
What an odd comment. Dragon Ball, which is absolutely huge in Japan, is an original creation of Akira Toriyama. I mean, the top-earning Japanese film of 2018 was Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which sold 3 million+ tickets in Japan. Dragon Ball became the basis for how Jump structured all of its shonen manga. Its impact on the industry is incalculable. You'll be hard-pressed to find a Japanese person under 50 who isn't familiar with Dragon Ball. Dragon Quest, a video game series that was very popular in Japan in the 1980s, featured character art by Toriyama. I wouldn't exactly call Dragon Quest "Toriyama's work". And while Dragon Quest is very popular among a certain audience, it doesn't have nearly the reach and broad appeal of Dragon Ball.
- xandrius 3y ago
  Exactly, if you go around Japan, you'd stumble upon so many events with Dragonball characters and Dragonball Super is way more popular than it is overseas right now.
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- alephnan 3y ago
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IanKerr 3y ago

Absolutely loved everything Dragon Ball growing up. I still get excited hearing about new Dragon Ball movies and series. He'll be sorely missed and his influence on anime will last generations. Far too soon, RIP Akira.

rationalfaith 3y ago

[dead]

haebom 3y ago

RIP

fabiensanglard 3y ago

You legend. I spent my childhood riveted to TF1, watching DragonBall in the late 80s. Thank you for bringing so much joy to my life Akira.

JaDogg 3y ago

Rest in peace.

gigasus 3y ago

RIP. Dragon Ball was a formative part of my childhood, and I still read the mangas and watch the animes every now and then.

agumonkey 3y ago

I'm having a partial headache reading that title. I was internally hoping he would enjoy Japan longer lifespan.. not expecting this in the slightest. Such confusion ... As kids many did travel quite far just to get a glimpse of coming DBZ coming volumes. We'd learn to program VCRs to be sure to tape episodes when we couldn't be there. That series in itself was a deep deep source of wonder. And it was a pillar and gateway into Japanese culture, from drawing style to language... Kinda dumbfounded right now. Tiny personal mental black bar..

ripdog 3y ago
Tragically, a large proportion of manga artists die early. The lifestyle of spending 12 hours a day bent over a desk, frantically drawing, stressing about deadlines, all contributes to a variety of causes of early death. Treasure your mangaka while they're alive, as theirs is an industry fuelled by passion - often far too much. (And greedy/demanding publishers, but we'll leave that discussion for another time.)
- agumonkey 3y ago
  Yeah, and current generation is struggling to make even decent money it seems.

NalNezumi 3y ago

In a more HN esque theme. Dragon ball was definitely the show that popularized Japanese animation in the west. But since there wasn't many anime shows aired on TV, one had to reach for the internet to get to download other shows. I remember begging my mom for broadband internet rather than dialup, just to be able to download more shows that I would then share with my friends. Being able to download anime/share translations was definitely a part of the early nerd/internet culture. And DragonBall was the gateway for many to that. RIP Toriyama-san

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> Dragon ball was definitely the show that popularized Japanese animation in the west In Italy, Dragon Ball was first aired in 1989. I watched it because it was from the "Dr. Slump guy" that had been aired in 1983, and I had fallen madly in love with it. I've bought and read both manga later on, in the 90s. Over the years Dragon Ball has become immensely more popular than Dr. Slump, but I'm fond of the first two chapters (Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z), I didn't actually enjoy much anything past Cell.
- anthk 3y ago
  DItto in Spain, the regional TV's got DB in Basque/Galician/Catalan as early as 1989/1990.
  - glandium 3y ago
    I was watching DBZ and Dr Slump, switching between Catalan and Japanese in the 90s on TV3! (yes, they had multilingual broadcast)
  - pier25 3y ago
    Maybe my memory fails but I seem to remember watching Dr Slump in the mid 80s on TV3.
- wibblewobble125 3y ago
  YouTube commenters insists that Akira wanted to end Goku’s arc at Cell, but fanserviced beyond that. If true, explains a lot. I also felt that there was a lot of maturity and build up to the climax of the cell saga and everything afterwards felt like it undid that growth and just went on and on.

throw_m239339 3y ago

RIP.

Trasmatta 3y ago

You can't overstate Toriyama's cross cultural influence. Manga, anime, video games, pop culture. A legend. Just look at his influence on Central and Southern America alone. He was a genius, and he died too soon. Just like Miura. RIP to a legend. EDIT: gah, I've been crying on and off about this. It's silly, but there's something about Dragon Ball and Goku especially that always spoke to a deep part of myself. I think it's the combination of positivity, humor, child-like naivety, happiness, strength, and pursuit of growth. I'm not sure any other work of fiction has every quite captured the amalgamation of those themes in quite the same way. So many laughs, smiles, tears, and chills over the decades. Thank you Toriyama-san.

cxrlosfx 3y ago
Son Goku, is one of the faces of the hero with thousand faces, IMO one of the greatest of all personification of the myth, from the perspective of someone from Latin America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
- deathemperor 3y ago
  from my perspective of someone from Southeast Asia, Son Goku is definitely Sun Wukong the Monkey King from Journey To The West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King
  - nindalf 3y ago
    How?? The Monkey King is a trickster and quite frankly, mean to a lot of people. Goku is the exact opposite. The only thing they have in common is the extending rod that Goku would fight with as a child.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Watch the original episodes, he is very much like a trickster monkey. Then he matured into what people remember him as and became very different, but he didn't start that way.

throwaway17_17 3y ago

For a generation of western would-become-anime-fans Toriyama-san was the hand that guided us. Dragonball Z, especially in US, served to introduce an audience who otherwise would have never had an interest in animation to a form of entertainment we love. His sense of character design is iconic, to the point that video games and manga he was involved in are immediately recognized as his work. The worlds of Dragon Quest are every bit as culturally formative for rpg fans. His work will continue to be treasured and he will be missed. I will spend some time watching Dragonball Z with my kids this weekend and enjoy every minute of it.

JL-Akrasia 3y ago

Goku was my first hero. Thank you Toriyama

birracerveza 3y ago

The whole world is mourning his death. Every child with a TV was familiar with his work. THE most influential mangaka, and definitely one of the most influential artists out there. RIP

baby 3y ago

Hero of my childhood. RIP. Also, if you've never read the Dragon Ball series, I URGE you to buy the first two books to get an idea of how amazing, cute, charming, funny, creative, the story was: https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Ball-Vol-Akira-Toriyama/dp/1569319200/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3VLB0WGC8P4YC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.KI1DzmmCFQr2_JJmiQRezEwCIJhHhaNRVHWEWrR9MBpPvmbEPWaRRLAlrzEw9ic9ex625U1G2nkRjNrHB_Noft31QWtukNVELNQiu02YkrQOhARR1JXOmjopJC0ztMKsVf4w2fRItrhjkKh1FxgGviIL0nDDOo1vvDuTjc4KDBC8l7NSnsipT0qeU4Jdhpb9rPPf0Pxyc4w1QpHa2oowf1Q4Aipm44ZyILaSBzbJ4IA.4vIAjTSRorjhpL-LYm7jK9Woykc64ZlK5Chqsve6XlE&dib_tag=se&keywords=dragon+ball+1&qid=1709881863&sprefix=dragon+ball+1%2Caps%2C202&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Ball-Vol-Akira-Toriyama/dp/156... You can also read the first chapters for free here, I mean just look at this drawing, they don't draw mangas like this anymore: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/dragon-ball-chapter-1/chapter/12022 https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/dragon-ball-chapter-1/chapter...

vlz 3y ago
Thank you! I was aware of the phenomenon, but never actually read any Dragon Ball. Here is a more direct link to the first three chapters (reached from your link): https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/titles/100011 https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/titles/100011
- thunfischtoast 3y ago
  You really have to read is as a piece of its time. I guess Bulmas casual exposition wouldn't result in a succesful youth book today.
  - baby 3y ago
    I think the more sexual parts of the manga are just not really compatible with American prude christian culture, not yesterday, not today
- diggan 3y ago
  Where could I read the original 42 Dragon Ball mangas online in English? It seems like Manga Plus is just available on the mobile apps, and I'd like to read it on my computer, but not finding anything that looks legitimate.

yallpendantools 3y ago

Rest in Power. I always said DBZ has single-handedly saved thousands of nerds from early-onset diabetes/arthritis, obesity, an unhealthy lifestyle in general. I count myself among them. That's not to mention the other benefits that just go with working out and staying healthy. We'll raise our hands for the Spirit Ball, Toriyama-sensei.

rmdashrfv 3y ago

I have to pay my respects to such an amazing artist, responsible for some of the most inspiring and motivating stories during my childhood. One of the parts of the series that stands out to me is when Android 16's broken body (head) is on the ground, and with the last of his life he pleads with Gohan to: "Please! Drop your restraints!"

gbrindisi 3y ago
yes! still feeling it since when I first read it 20 years ago
bpiche 3y ago
The song unmei no hi in that scene is so amazing. It's so inspiring. https://youtu.be/dCzlaI5zWmk https://youtu.be/dCzlaI5zWmk