Slump also received a popular anime adaptation - Toriyama’s first tryst with anime television - which ran for a very impressive 243 episodes. It was then collected and bound into eighteen volumes of tankobon manga. Slump was a serialised manga aimed at a younger audience, which appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump for five years, from 1980 to 1984. This is where it all began for Akira Toriyama. And it is these manga that best define his style and his legacy.

While Toriyama has his fingers in several pies across the full spectrum of Japanese media entertainment, from TV, through movies, to video games, he is - first and foremost - a manga artist and a storyteller.

If you’re interested in the darker side of manga, take a look at our articles on Kentaro Miura and horror king Junji Ito! Manga lovers should check out the 10 Best Female Manga Artists You Need to Know. There are lessons to be learned from Toriyama’s characters, making them both timeless works of art and the perfect form of action entertainment for young kids to enjoy. In both Dragon Ball and its sequel, this boy-turned-man travels more than one world, exploring and adventuring with wide eyes, but he also grows internally, becoming more considered, good, and kind. This discovery, best personified by his most famous character, Son Goku, is both internal and external. Toriyama has a knack for creating positive protagonists with good hearts and a healthy hunger for adventure and discovery. It’s also his characters and the stories they live in. It’s not just Akira Toriyama’s art that makes him such a beloved mangaka.

Dragon ball akira toriyama