This black and white photo taken in May 1982 shows Japanese manga artist Akira Toriyama, whose death was announced on March 8, 2024.
Alex Wroblewski/For the Sun-Times
Akira Toriyama, the creator of the best-selling Dragon Ball series and other popular anime who influenced Japanese comics, has died, his studio said Friday. He was 68.
Toriyama’s Dragon Ball manga series, which started in 1984, has sold millions of copies globally and was adapted into hugely popular animated TV shows, video games and films.
Toriyama died March 1 of a blood clot in his brain, Bird Studio said in a statement.
“He was working enthusiastically on many projects, and there was still much he was looking forward to accomplishing,” the studio wrote.
Bird Studio thanked fans for more than 40 years of support. “We hope that Akira Toriyama’s unique world of creation continues to be loved by everyone for a long time to come.”
Terry Gant, 53, owner of Third Coast Comics in Rogers Park, 6443 North Sheridan Rd, said fans and creators are “in mourning.”
“People kind of feel it because it’s not just that you grew up with the creator, it is also that you’re currently enjoying works inspired by that creator,” he said. “This just kind of grounds you more to the art form when somebody passes like this.”
Gant said he grew up before Dragon Ball was airing in the United States, but that series he loved as a kid, like the sci-fi series Ultraman, influenced Toriyama’s work. He added that Toriyama’s own influence can be felt in popular series like One Piece, about “a very small person who has to overcome immense odds.”
One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda said Toriyama’s presence was like a “big tree” to younger artists.
“He showed us all these things manga can do, a dream of going to another world,” Oda said in a statement. His death leaves “a hole too big to fill,” Oda added.
Chuck Huber, 52, a Texas-based voice actor who got his start in Chicago, played roles like Garlic Jr. and Android 17 for English-speaking fans of the series. He said Toriyama’s work “introduced anime to the rest of the world.”
“I would be pleased as punch to have Dragon Ball Z be the lasting legacy that comes from my acting career,” Huber said. “It’s a great honor to be associated with his characters.”
Growing up with anime himself, he said he’s now met fans from across the world telling him how impactful these shows have been to them.
“We have a very emotional fan base, the anime fandom,” Huber said. “Everybody is feeling their feels this morning, this afternoon as they should when a great artist passes away.”
Mike Davis, 38, co-owner of Blerds Underground in La Grange, recalled growing up with Dragon Ball and relating to the main character, Son Goku, who was also a kid. When Dragon Ball Z came out, Davis and his friends would try to find dubbed or subtitled versions online to stay up to date.
He said the news was “devastating.”
“It felt almost like losing a close friend, someone that followed you throughout your life because he created work that we watched and we celebrated as kids and as adults,” Davis said. “It’s just been a very tough loss to process.”
He said many people in the anime and manga community are now grieving, and many are looking toward their personal collections.
“Some of us have the old DVDs of our favorite Dragon Ball movies that he’s created,” Davis said. “We’re all holding them a little tighter and wanting to keep them in our collection now because it was such an important part of our lives.”
Born in central Japan in 1955, Toriyama made his manga debut in 1978 with the adventure comic Wonder Island, published in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. His Dr. Slump series, which started in 1980, was his first major hit.
It made him a celebrity, but Toriyama avoided the spotlight. In 1982, he told Japanese public broadcast NHK: “I just want to keep writing manga.”
Dylan Massie, 35, assistant manager of Comix Revolution Evanston, said Toriyama’s work has been a “touchstone” for his generation, and that few other people in the field have been as prolific across so many mediums.
“I don’t know how many more people are really going to have the kind of varied background that he had,” Massie said. “It definitely feels kind of like the end of an era with him going.”