"Akira Toriyama"

Akira Toriyama. You’ve heard the name, but who is this guy!? Well, he’s the creator of the Dragonball and Dragonball Z mangas, as well as Dr. Slump and various other works.

Akira Toriyama was born in Aichi Prefecture on April 5th, 1955. Akira graduated from the Prefecture Industrial High School and began his career as a Graphic Designer. He started drawing manga at the age of 30. Akira’s time was basically full with this job. Akira spends almost 14 hours a day working.

Akira considers himself to be one of the weaker mangakas (someone who draws manga) since he hates the cold. To get around this, Akira draws many settings in the topics or summer time.

Akira’s work was published in the Weekly Shonen Jump. Some of his early works were Wonder Island, Wonder Island 2, Today’s Highlight Island, and Tomato, Girl Detective. It wasn’t until 1980 that he began drawing Dr. Slump. Dr. Slump was an instant hit. Several volumes of Dr. Slump were published before it became a show. The Dr. Slump T.V. series began airing in 1981. Somewhere around 17 or 18 volumes of Dr. Slump were released total. The Dr. Slump T.V. Series ended in 1986, and the manga ended somewhere around there also.

Akira wanted to start a new manga. He was interested in Jackie Chan movies and decided to do a kung-fu type of manga. This was supposed to be a very short manga. Akira ended Dr. Slump to spend more time with this new manga. Akira based this manga on the Chinese story of Journey to the West. Akira was going to have the manga run until Goku and his friends got all seven dragonballs, then he was going to end it. The Dragonball T.V. Series began it’s run in 1986. The Dragonball T.V. Series ran until 1989, which then The Dragonball Z T.V. Series began. Akira still worked on his manga and the name remained the same, Dragonball.

The Dragonball manga continued for 42 volumes. Dragonball was one of the most popular mangas of all time. The Dragonball manga went until 1995, then ended. The T.V. Series is continued to this day. During the Frieza Saga, Akira was getting bored with the manga. He was originally going to have the manga end after the fight with Frieza, but was urged to continue it. When DBZ ended, the money machine was continued with Dragonball Grand Tour (DBGT). Akira had no part in this new series, and was only involved with the character design. They had all new animators and the whole nine yards for this series.

Besides doing the Dr. Slump and Dragonball manga, Akira worked on other projects.

The video games that he’s worked on over the years are as follows: Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest III, and Dragon Quest IV. Akira Toriyama was the character designer for all of these games. Dragon Quest later became a T.V. Series in 1989, and the Dragon Quest II T.V. Series began in 1991. Akira was the character designer for the Dragon Quest II series. After the second series, more video games of Dragon Quest were released, along with other games, with Akira as the character designer. These include Dragon Quest V, Torneco's Great Adventure, and the Dragon Quest I and II SNES remake.

The success of Dragonball can be indicated through it’s numerous video games. I’m not sure if Akira had a part in these games or not, but the games are as follows: Dragonball - Return of the Demon King, Dragonball 3 - The History of Goku, Dragonball - Mystery of Shenlon, Dragonball Z - Attack! Saiya-jin, Dragon Ball Z II - Lord Furiza's Furry, Dragonball Z - Super Legend of the Saiya, Dragon Ball Z III - Violent Battle Against the Androids, Dragon Ball Z - World's Best Martial Arts Tournament, Dragon Ball Z - Super Battle History, Dragonball Z Chronicles - Plan to Eliminate the Saiya-jin, Dragonball Z - Brave Fighter Story, Dragonball Z - Legend of Great Son Goku, Dragonball Z - DBZ Chronicles: The Plan to Eliminate the Saiya-jins, Earth Story, Dragonball Z - Super Battle History 3, Dragonball Z - Legend: Breaking out of Goku, Dragonball Z - DBZ Chronicles: The Plan to Eliminate the Saiya-jins, Space Story, and Dragonball Z - Dragon Ball Z Super History of Goku.