Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama is a name synonymous with manga, having created the world-famous Dragon Ball comics.

However, Dragon Ball wasn’t even his first mainstream achievement – that would do go Dr. Slump, a manga that sold more than 35 million copies in Japan and won him the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981.

Of course, it was Dragon Ball that shot him to international stardom. And with his rise to fame also came the incredible rise of popularity of manga comics in the west. Toriyama is in fact credited with much of the popularity of manga at its peak throughout the 80s and 90s.

Meet Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama was born in Japan in 1955.

From a young age, he loved drawing pictures, often working on vehicles and animals. It wasn’t until he learned about manga by chance in primary school that he became deeply interested in this style of storytelling. While all of his friends were drawing manga that copied famous styles, he started drawing his friends.

Naturally, he went on to study creative design in high school. He would continue to draw the occasional manga throughout these years, although he had lost the avid excitement for it that he once had.

After high school, he worked in advertising designing posters. He didn’t take to the routine of work however, and soon quit. It was then that he entered several amateur manga contests and applications for local magazines. After some small successes but mostly a lot of wasted paper, he eventually created Dr. Slump.

Dr. Slump was a huge hit, and was published in Weekly Shonen Jump for four years running. This success saw Toriyama become well known in Japan, earning him an award, and seeing the manga adapted for television.

Toriyama wasn’t enamoured with the series however, and wanted to end it. After several years of minor works, he eventually came up with the concept for Dragon Ball in 1983. It didn’t take long for this series to reach stratospheric popularity, both in Japan and out.