My Time with Toriyama

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On March 8, Bird Studio announced the death of Akira Toriyama, the award-winning, world-conquering author of the manga “Dragon Ball Z,” on social media. If you followed other manga artists or fans, that was the only topic that week. 

It would be easy to boil down the impact of this announcement to social media metrics – on X, formerly known as Twitter, alone, there were 114 million views, 650,000 reposts, and 11,000 comments on a post in Japanese. 

However, the impact goes far beyond social media. 

It's taken me months to write this article. After hearing the news, I spent hours crying, going down internet rabbit holes, and connecting with others who felt the weight of this loss.

If I’m going through hard times – and lately, times have been rough – “Dragon Ball” is always there. When I dropped out of college after going on academic probation in 2016, I retreated into the comforts of childhood, especially “Dragon Ball.” When the pandemic hit and the world had to stay inside, rereading “Dragon Ball” made me feel less lonely. When I went to rehab at the start of 2023, one of the first things I was able to connect with the other patients inside about was a shared love of this silly manga.

My love for Toriyama began when I was seven. I went over to my best friend’s house, and he had Lego models, baseball cards, and a PlayStation 2 – everything that was cool at the turn of the millennium. But what captured my attention instead were two comic books: “Dragon Ball Volume 3,” and “Dragon Ball Z Volume 24.”

A dozen questions came to mind, but one stood out amongst them all: 

Why was this so… Awesome?

After reading the volumes, I would drag my mom down to Barnes & Noble, and she would sit with me for hours as I read “Dragon Ball” off the shelves. We didn’t have enough money at the time to buy all 42 volumes, but I was going to read it all one way or another.

I was obsessed.

It’s a comfortable, reliable series. The good guys will always win, and at the end of the day, everyone has a smile on their face. Life isn’t always easy, but in comics, it can be. 

“Dragon Ball” is, at its core, a series about people seeking self-improvement and finding it through mutual cooperation, usually through training together. There can only be one strongest, and it’s usually the main character, Goku, despite what us long-suffering Vegeta fans hope every time a new episode comes out – but the only way you get there is by making friends and growing alongside them.

The series addressed universal themes, and corny ones to boot, but I’d be lying to myself if that simple honesty didn’t hit. It’s easy to look around and complain that the world is growing cynical, but “Dragon Ball” is all sincerity, even as it rounds its 40th anniversary, just as popular as ever and still coming out with new content. “Dragon Ball” never went away, even as trends rage around it, it’s always here for us.

It’s also… Everywhere. I wasn’t the only kid reading “Dragon Ball.” Kids weren’t even the only ones reading the series. Industry professionals and legitimate tastemakers were into it as far back as 1984 when the series began, because Akira Toriyama was already considered an all-time, hall of fame level artist in Japan before “Dragon Ball” ever hit shelves. His first serialized work, “Dr. Slump,” sold 35 million copies in Japan alone.

His work on “Dr. Slump” gave him the opportunity to work as the main character and monster designer on the role-playing game series “Dragon Quest,” which has sold 88 million copies in its lifetime – a $5 billion franchise on its own. His work on “Dragon Quest” was a primary influence on another video game series that swept through America the same time “Dragon Ball” did – Pokemon.

For a section of the population, the name Akira Toriyama won’t mean anything, but he meant the world to me. His work was always there for me. Even if it wasn’t something he made, it was something he influenced, and I would not be who I am today – I might not even be here today – if not for his prolific, generation-defining work.

Toriyama will be mourned for years, but honoring him doesn’t mean visiting his grave. When you pass a row of comics, be they Japanese or Western or somewhere in between, you will see his influence. When you see a group of kids throwing laser beams at each other on the playground, Toriyama is there. For the millions of us who grew up with his art, anytime we look in the mirror, he will be there.

A cold comfort for me as I grieve a man I never met, never will meet, is that his work will still be there.

So long, Toriyama. I never met you, but it was sure nice to get to know you, even if just a little.