Akira Toriyama is a very familiar name to anime fans and it’s that’s no surprise. He is the person behind one of the most popular and most successful manga and anime series ever produced, non other than the Dragon Ball series. Many manga-anime artists are influenced my Mr. Toriyama and that includes the creator of the current anime hit series, Naruto.

Akira Toriyama is a Japanese manga artist, animator, and game character designer. He was born on April 5, 1955 in Kiyosu, a town located in Nishikasugai District, Aichi, Japan. He founded his own comic studio, Bird Studios, which was involved in the production of various mangas and anime series including the three animated Dragon Ball series.

His first ever manga, “Wonder Island” was published on 1978 by Shuiesha in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. It wasn’t a big success but his next manga series entitled “Dr. Slump” brought him fame. “Dr. Slump” was published in the same magazine from 1980 to 1984. 1984 was the same year that the “Dragon Ball” manga series came out and became a record-breaking best seller. The Dragon Ball series was animated on February 1986 and became a world-wide hit. Following Dragon Ball was another hit series that was just as successful (probably even more successful) as the first series, “Dragon Ball Z”. There are a lot of talks about Mr. Toriyama wanted to end the Dragon Ball series there but the success was so great that a third part had to happen and then came “Dragon Ball GT”. Akira Toriyama’s participation in this third part is limited and “Dragon Ball GT” wasn’t as successful as the first two.

He didn’t limit himself to anime and manga. He also did some character designs for games like “Dragon Quest” (RPG that came out in 1986), “Chrono Trigger” (1995), and the fighting games “Tobal No. 1″ and “Tobal 2″ that both came out on 1997.

Akira Toriyama is one of the most successful Japanese artists and some anime fans consider him to be a living legend, especially Dragon Ball fans around the globe (including me).

For more information about Akira Toriyama and his works, here are some links you can visit.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Toriyama
• http://www.myfavoritegames.com/dragonball-z/info/AkiraToriyama.htm
• http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/company.php?id=2299
• http://www.dbzgtlegacy.com/features/akira_toriyama.shtml

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Category: The Artists

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