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Remembering Akira Toriyama: The Man Who Created The Dragon Ball

by Kevyn Gohu
March 8, 2024

The studio of late mangaka artist Akira Toriyama confirmed that he had passed away last March 1, 2024.

Families mourn for another loss of a creative mind as the original writer of Akira Toriyama, the man who created the timeless and beloved Dragon Ball series, passes away. According to the studio’s X (formerly Twitter) account, the writer had died of an acute subdural hematoma—a bleed that happens between the layers that protect the brain. He was 68 years old and had a son, 36-year-old Sasuke Toriyama.

The studio requested “tranquility” and “privacy” for the family and respectfully revealed that they wouldn’t be accepting flowers, condolences, gifts, and the like.

The father of a distinct art style

His creations have endeared themselves to many families. Besides creating the Dragon Ball series, he also contributed to the creation of many characters for video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Tobal 1 and 2. Akira Toriyama’s unique art style had also gained international acclaim which led to the translation and dubbing of his works in various languages including English and Tagalog.

For those who grew up with Hero Channel (Channel 44), Dragon Ball was a series we, as kids, often watched while having snacks or dinner. We would laugh and wonder why it took seven 30-minute episodes for a battle to even start, or how the main character somehow managed to pull off a lot of impossible things.

He was the awkward kid in us who eventually figured out how the world works.

Akira Toriyama may have passed on, but Dragon Ball will live forever

“We hope that Akira Toriyama’s unique world of creation continues to be loved by everyone for a long time to come,” adds the studio in their official statement.

So far, it has! Akira Toriyama’s flagship series also became a source of meme material for many content creators as they created YouTube shorts and practiced their animation skills. It’s why the kids of today still know the words “kame-kameha“—that’s from Dragon Ball! Akira made martial arts more “digestible” and fun for kids, with his work becoming iconic alongside his muses: Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon and Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master.

Dragon Ball allowed Akira to fulfill every artist’s biggest dream: to initiate change and to make the world a little better in some places. Today and moving forward, his work continues to inspire other writers and artists including Eiichiro Oda—the original creator of one of Netflix’s newest shows, One Piece.