Akira Toriyama

was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga, authoring highly influential and popular series, particularly ''Dragon Ball''.

Toriyama first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the manga series ''Dr. Slump'', for which he earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best ''shōnen''/''shōjo''. Dr. Slump went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into an anime, with a second series created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended.

From 1984 to 1995 he wrote and illustrated the ''Dragon Ball'' manga, serialized in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump''. It became one of the best-selling manga series of all time, with 260 million copies sold worldwide,million copies. See '''' for worldwide sales breakdown.}}billion copies in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' magazine.''}}}} and is considered a key work in increasing manga circulation to its peak in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Overseas, ''Dragon Ball''s anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and similarly boosted anime's general popularity.

Beside his manga works Toriyama acted as a character designer for several video games such as the ''Dragon Quest'' series, ''Chrono Trigger'', and ''Blue Dragon''.

In 2019, Toriyama was decorated a ''Chevalier'' of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts. In October 2024, Toriyama was posthumously inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame. Provided by Wikipedia