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Because I just get to report on the death of all the icons of my teen years this week;

Akira Toriyama, author of Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball and a major contributor to art and character design for numerous games including Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger, has passed away at the age of 68. He apparently passed on the first of the month but as was customary in Japan the news wasn't made public until family was notified and arrangements made.

This one actually hurts cause I still liked Dragon Ball and Toriyama as a creator. Even if Dragon Ball Super has been a bit of a mess. We'll probably be losing a lot of beloved manga and anime creatives from the 80s and 90s in the coming years but I don't know that most of them will make me as sad as the passing of Toriyama who held the distinction of seemingly like a genuinely good guy overall who just loved sharing art with the world. There are few creators who can be said to have reached the global scope of Toriyama, especially for manga, anime, and video games.

Dang, hearing that is really rough since I know for a lot of people like me back who were born during the 90's, Dragon Ball was one of the first major anime and manga back then that made it mainstream in the West at least amongst kids before later stuff like Naruto and Bleach. We already lost Berserk's mangaka, so hearing Akira Toriyama kicking the bucket really puts a damper to the start of this year. Definitely leaves a big legacy behind him as one of the greats in anime and manga.

Some very touching responses from Eiichiro Oda (One Piece) and Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto);

Doing comparisons would be rude, but this might be the most significant celebrity death that I've been old enough to appreciate.

Oh man...

I am old enough to remember watching Dr. Slump every summer in Alicante, on the local TV, and later on Dragon Ball on my high school years.

I already was a fan of other anime series of the time (here in Spain Telecinco and Antena 3 started it, with series like Saint Seiya, Kimagure Orange Road, Robotech...)... but Dragon Ball wasn't just "an anime series", but a whole raging phenomenon.

EVERYONE watched Dragon Ball, everyone talked about it.

I remember an afternoon, with friends at an arcade, when the TV aired the episode where Goku died... or mostly, I remember the silence after. It was really weird.

So... yeah, this news are gonna hit hard, here. Rest in Peace :(

Rest in peace...

R.I.P.

Wow, absolutely shocking. The man is absolutely foundational to a whole era of games and anime and media in general. Dragon Quest defined the NES as much as Mario and nearly every popular Shonen has in some way been walking in the footsteps of Dragon Ball. The man created something so foundational that bits of it echo into so many works. So sad to hear he's gone.

trexmeyer wrote:
Doing comparisons would be rude, but this might be the most significant celebrity death that I've been old enough to appreciate.

Same.

This the the first major death of an artist that really hurts for me. As a 90s kid Dragon Ball was a huge part of my adolescence. Toriyama is the first storytelling I probably fell in love with in a meaningful way and its surreal to know the guy who made that show I watched every day five days a week for years is gone.

Miura's death in 2021 was one I recognized because I knew the significance of his work, and I also watched Yu-Gi-Oh! as a kid but when Kazuki Takahashi died he died trying to save people so we could at least be proud of how he went out.

Toriyama is the first that feels like a personal tragedy.

Sigh. I hate that everybody i once knew that was famous or just personally are growing old or dying only to be replaced by younger stars and people i know little about in comparison.

Growing old sucks.

Well this is sad. And pretty young, too.

I never once ventured into Dragon Ball, but I've always been in the company of younger anime fans who absolutely adore this man's work. Akira has certainly left his mark on the world...