K. Sreeman Reddy

Toriyama Akira

Non-physics Anime Manga 28 mins read

Toriyama Akira (1955-2024) is not just the most GOATed mangaka but arguably one of the most GOATed fictional authors of all time. Today, Dragon Ball DAIMA, his last work, started airing. This post is a tribute to Toriyama.

Intro

Dragon Ball is the most influential manga of all time. Osamu Tezuka (“the Godfather of Manga”) is arguably the most influential mangaka, but individually, none of his mangas were as influential as Dragon Ball. Tezuka wrote more than 700 manga series. His most influential works are Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion (probably copied by Disney as The Lion King), Black Jack, Phoenix and Buddha. Tezuka considered Phoenix (not Astro Boy) as his “life’s work”. Osamu Tezuka called Toriyama “almost too good,” and his “heir apparent”.

Some people claim that Neon Genesis Evangelion is more influential than Dragon Ball. First of all, it is an anime original series not adapted from a source manga. But even if we do include it, I don’t think it’s anywhere as influential as Dragon Ball. Though Evangelion’s music is one of the best, especially Cruel Angel’s Thesis (also this) and Come Sweet Death, the story is mediocre, and it is arguably the most overrated story in all of fiction, excluding religions. The infamous Gainax Ending made the story even worse. People hyping Evangelion reminds me of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Scamboli, in this video, honestly explains how Evangelion just keeps introducing some random cool worlds, which might make us believe there is a lot of lore in this series, but the series never bothers to explain any of that.

If you take any modern battle shōnen manga or anime, it will be highly influenced by Dragon Ball. Goku is the Trope Codifier for the Stock Shōnen Hero and Vegeta for the Stock Shōnen Rival. Even nonbattle shōnen manga are very influenced by Dragon Ball. For example, in Slam Dunk, Hanamichi Sakuragi is the Goku-like goofy protagonist and Kaede Rukawa is the Vegeta-like serious, selfish, introverted rival. Super Eyepatch Wolf has made this great video about the impact of Dragon Ball Z.

There is no series that gives me more nostalgia than Dragon Ball. So, obviously, I am probably biased and think it is a greater story than it is. See the below ad for a dose of nostalgia.

By age 7, I was already a big fan of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I probably started watching it a year or 2 before. When I was randomly changing TV channels, I once saw the below “Rock the Dragon” opening and got immediately hooked on the show.

The Americans changed it from the original Cha-La Head-Cha-La. Actually, I watched the Telugu Dub of Rock the Dragon. Luckily, unlike the Americans who removed the Shunsuke Kikuchi’s original soundtrack and made their own background music, the Telugu Dub followed the original background music, which is far superior. See my playlist and the below video. The epicness in music peaked with Dragon Ball Z - Prologue & Subtitle.

This immediately looked like it was much more serious than the cartoons that I used to watch at that time, like Ben 10, Scooby-Doo, Richie Rich, etc. The scenes in this opening are mostly from non-canon DBZ movies. I was just excited to see beings who can easily destroy planets fight. Even in the early Dragon Ball, before Piccolo arrives, Kid Goku and Master Roshi are powerful enough to destroy the moon. Everything looked so epic. I have watched many epic series now, like The Big 3, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Gurren Lagann, etc, but I still think Dragon Ball is the most epic fiction. Everything is grandiose in DB. We see Goku as a kid, as a father, and then as a grandfather. We even see him interacting with his long descendent Goku Jr..

Goku’s story, from a low-class Saiyan baby with a low power level to becoming the most impressive and accomplished martial artist in the universe, is one of the most epic stories of all time.

Toriyama is the main reason shōnen became popular outside of Japan. Harry Potter and Star Wars becoming popular worldwide is not that impressive because these American series had the military might of the USA and dollar strength, etc, supporting the propagation of American culture. But Dragon Ball became popular worldwide without those things. Just before Dragon Ball, Children’s anime and manga (kodomo-muke) succeeded in the international market. Even though Akira (a movie based on a seinen manga) came after the Dragon Ball anime, it was released before DB in the international market and its success paved the way for Dragon Ball to enter the international market. I watched Akira and wasn’t impressed by it. Also, its impact is not as big as Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball’s success paved the way for later generations like The Big 3.

Dragon Ball was the only shōnen anime that was airing in Telugu in my childhood. There were many kodomo-muke anime like Pokémon, Doraemon, Digimon, Beyblade, etc, that were dubbed in Telugu. But it’s impressive that Dragon Ball has become popular across the continents. In Latin America and France, it’s as popular as it is in Japan. There are many memes about the Mexican Cartel’s relation to DB, like they stop activities every time any Dragon Ball content is dropped, etc. In fact, the way I found out about Toriyama’s death was because a Colombian friend messaged me within minutes after the announcement. For Kentaro Miura, I didn’t feel sad for the person but only for the fact that the series might not continue because I didn’t have any childhood nostalgia for Berserk, as you can see from my below post within hours after the announcement that Kentaro Miura died.


But for Toriyama, I was genuinely sad because Dragon Ball was a big thing in my childhood, and I wanted to meet him one day. I wanted to write this post on that day itself, but I had other problems, so I forgot. Toriyama’s death moved many people. On Twitter, it was more popular than Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. The French President, French Prime Minister, and foreign ministries of China and El Salvador have posted about him. In Argentina, thousands of fans gathered.


Predecessors

If you directly compare Dragon Ball with either the Big 3 or new generation anime like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, etc, of course, they will look better. But that is an unfair comparison; an average high-energy theorist today works with much more complicated theories than Newton. But Newton is still the GOAT. We need to see not the final product but how much improvement Toriyama made compared to what he learnt from his predecessors.

We can go much further back than Tezuka. Hanuman, the monkey god, is my favorite Indian fictional1 character, and he himself was based on the earlier Vedic fictional character called Vrisakapi. Several historians think Sun Wukong from Journey to the West (published in 1592) was based on Hanuman. It seems my favorite Indian fictional character influenced my favorite Chinese character, who influenced my favorite Japanese character. Journey to the West was one of the most influential stories of all time, and it has given rise to the modern genre of xianxia (immortal heroes). In this genre they pretend like achiveing immortality is barely an inconvenience. Check out the xianxia donghua Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation), which is one of the best series I ever watched. Sun Wukong is immortal in 7 different ways.




The first few episodes of Dragon Ball are heavily inspired by Journey to the West. It starts as a Journey to the West set in a sci-fi universe but soon diverges from it.

As Super Eyepatch Wolf explained in the above video, the previous generation shōnen series before Dragon Ball were episodic in nature and followed the repetitive villain of the week story like in the Fist of the North Star. Dragon Ball started out as an adventure comedy story. But slowly, it became more serious, and we got great villains like Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, and Majin Buu. Each of these villains looked like an undefeatable god. They were so powerful like Frieza killed entire planets with a single finger. It looked like the protagonists had no chance. But yet, Goku never gave up and kept defeating and forgiving these villains. Even the most powerful god of the universe Supreme Kai was constantly surprised how weak he is compared to Goku. I mean, Dragon Ball Super did retcon this and introduced a multiverse, gods of destruction, etc. But it was not created by Toriyama.

These days, it has become common to say Dragon Ball, and especially Goku, lacks depth and creativity compared to modern shōnen. This is mostly due to people not understanding DB properly.

Big 3

When Dragon Ball manga ended in 1995, the sales of Weekly Shōnen Jump dropped significantly. That was the end of an era.


The Big 3 series are the spiritual children of Dragon Ball that carried Weekly Shōnen Jump in the next generation. Each of these 3 have taken Dragon Ball as an inspiration and have improved on it in some aspects, but they did fall short of Dragon Ball in some aspects. I am a big fan of all these 3 series.

1) One Piece: This is the most original series of the Big 3. It is the most successful manga in history surpassing Dragon Ball sales though per volume Dragon Ball still sold higher. But 4kids messed up the anime dub making the anime less successful than Naruto until recently. Oda himself said that he took many things from Dragon Ball as an inspiration. Oda was once an assistant for the Rurouni Kenshin manga and he took several things from that. He also probably took inspiration from an unpopular anime called “The Mysterious Cities of Gold”. Dragon Ball already had good worldbuilding with many alien planets, etc. One Piece improved it a lot and has the best worldbuilding. One Piece also takes side characters a lot more seriously than Dragon Ball. Even minor characters like Senor Pink get character development. Another aspect in which it differs from Dragon Ball is that Oda decides something 100s of chapters before it is shown to us, which is the safer approach. But Toriyama doesn’t take his job too seriously and writes it as he goes along, and he often forgot characters like Launch. The fact that despite this, he wrote such a great story means that for Toriyama, writing manga is as natural as breathing

The next 2 series are also heavily inspired by Dragon Ball. Apart from that Naruto took inspiration from Hunter X Hunter and Bleach took inspiration from YuYu Hakusho. Both of these were written by Yoshihiro Togashi, who was the bridge between Toriyama and the mangakas of Big 3.

2) Naruto: Naruto has the best looking fight scenes among Big 3, and in this aspect, it became the successor of Dragon Ball. In One Piece, the story itself is great, but the fight scenes don’t look that great, and at the end, Luffy just ends it with a big punch. Naruto also has the best villain backstories. Most villains of Naruto were once very good people. One Piece is the best for backstories of side characters. Naruto has the best OSTs among the Big 3, but I don’t think it reached the level of Dragon Ball Z OST by Shunsuke Kikuchi. Naruto also has best villain back stories.

3) Bleach: Arguably, the biggest flaw of Dragon Ball is that the protagonist is oftentimes an idiot. The other 2 series followed this for comedic purposes, but Bleach instead made Ichigo Kurosaki as an intelligent guy. For comedic purposes, Kubo introduced Kon etc. But in my opinion in DBZ, Goku wasn’t an idiot, he was just naive. But in Dragon Ball Super, they made him dumb. See the below embedded videos. Dragon Ball Super is written by Toyotarou. He was once writing DB fan fiction. For Dragon Ball Super, Toriyama did some character design, etc, but Toyotarou was largely the guy behind it. Like Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super did not live up to the great series that Toriyama created. I consider neither of these 2 as canon.

Bleach has the most OP villains among Big 3. Yhwach (based on the Abrahamic God Yahweh and Adolf Hitler) and Aizen are one of most powerful villains. Bleach is also the spiritual successor of the drip in Dragon Ball and YuYu Hakusho. Jujutsu Kaisen is arguably the current successor for the drip. All these 4 series have stylish character designs.

Like Dragon Ball, Bleach explored a unique concept of God. Religions always explore the concept of God by thinking that humans are slaves of God. Many anime have better and unique god concepts like Truth from FMAB. I already mentioned that the most powerful god of the universe in Dragon Ball, Supreme Kai was constantly surprised how weak he is compared to Goku. In Bleach, Soul King is the god but he is tortured, sealed and mutilated for the balance of the Three Worlds. He is a good guy, and a god who evokes pity. I never saw this trope in any other series.


Also, all Big 3 made several references to Dragon Ball in their manga. Apart from mnaga, their anime also has several connections. Toei created both Dragon Ball and One Piece anime, and because Krillin and Luffy’s voice actors are the same, they kept the One Piece We Are ringtone for Krillin in DBS. Bleach spin off Burn the Witch shows that the protaganist’s ringtone is “DBZ Prologue & Subtitle by Shunsuke Kikuchi” which is also my own ringtone, LoL.

If we compare the Big 3, I think the ranking will be: One Piece > Naruto > Bleach. Ironically, if you just watch the first 50 episodes, the ranking will be the exact opposite. But both Naruto and Bleach fell off as they went, whereas One Piece continued to get better. Dragon Ball also starts off slowly as a comedy series like One Piece, with no serious villains, and gradually gets better and more serious. Naruto peaked at the Pain Arc and then fell off. In the final arc, if Madara was kept as the final villain, it would have been fine, but Kishimoto introduced Kaguya Ōtsutsuki and messed up the story. I used to be a power scaler long ago before I understood that how good a series doesn’t depend on how powerful the characters are. In this aspect, Bleach > Naruto > One Piece. But these 3 series pale in comparison to the power of Dragon Ball characters.



Recaps

1) By Carthus Dojo

2) Dragon Ball Z: The Ultimate Review by Totally Not Mark

He also reviewed the original DB.

I especially recommend his Buu Saga (Pt. 2). He talks about Goku teaching Goten & Trunks about Fusion. This scene explains how well Toriyama understood the character compared to what we see in Toyotaro in Dragon Ball Super.

3) Every Dragon Ball Summary by Justin’s Den

This one recaps the manga.

4) Also see these scenes

Tributes from other people

See this for a list of tributes by famous people.

Eiichiro Oda (One Piece mangaka) wrote the below tribute. In the last line, he is talking about the afterlife in Dragon Ball, which is a very fun place, and sometimes you can temporarily go back and also permanently go back to the living world using Dragon Balls.

“It all still feels too sudden.
I feel like a massive hole tore through my heart.
The thought of never seeing you again fills me with so much sadness. I’ve admired you so much since I was a child.
I distinctly remember the day you called me by name for the first time.
I remember that day walking home, hanging out with Kishimoto-san,
when you called us “friends” for the first time.
And I remember the last conversation we had.
Picking up the relay from an age when reading manga was considered a stupid waste of time, you are among those that forged an era where both adults and children alike could read and enjoy this medium. Showing me that manga could achieve such things… you made me dream that I could reach the whole world. I felt as if I was witnessing a real superhero pushing forward.
Your impact wasn’t limited to the manga industry alone.
The childhoods of so many creators from several industries
were no doubt rooted in the excitement of reading Dragon Ball weekly.
Your existence is like a great tree whose branches spread into the sky.
To mangaka of our generation like us, standing on the same stage as he did and the closer we got to Toriyama’s work, the more I feel we realized just how much of a presence it had on this industry. It was almost frightening to witness.
And yet at the same time, the man behind it was such an easygoing person. That made me so happy to see. I feel that, on a genetic level, we all love Toriyama-sensei for who he was. I would like to offer my deepest respect and gratitude for the vibrant creative world that Toriyama-sensei left behind, and pray from the bottom of my heart that he may rest in peace.

I hope that heaven is just as pleasant as you envisioned it in your manga, sensei.”

― Eiichiro Oda

Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto mangaka) considered Toriyama like a God. Even Oda in the past called Toriyama a God.

“Honestly, I don’t know what to write or how to write about something so sudden.
However, for now, I would like to express my thoughts and feelings to Toriyama-sensei, something I wish he would have asked me someday.
I grew up with Dr. Slump in the lower grades of elementary school and Dragon Ball in the upper grades, and it was natural for me to have his manga next to me as part of my life.
Even if I had a bad experience, watching Dragon Ball every week made me forget about it. It was a relief for me, a country boy who had nothing. Because Dragon Ball was really fun!
It was when I was a university student. Suddenly, the Dragon Ball that had been a part of my life for so many years ended.
I felt an incredible sense of loss and didn’t know what to look forward to. But at the same time, it was also an opportunity for me to truly understand the greatness of the sensei who created Dragon Ball.
I also want to create works like yours!
I want to be like my sensei!
As I followed in my teacher’s footsteps and aspired to become a manga artist, that feeling of loss began to disappear.
Because making comics was fun.
I was able to find new fun by following my teacher.
My teacher has always been my guide.
I admired it.
I apologize for the inconvenience, but I would like to express my gratitude to the sensei.
For me, he was the god of salvation and the god of manga.
When we met for the first time, I was so nervous that I couldn’t say a word. However, after meeting him many times at the Tezuka Prize screening committee, we became able to talk.
As Dragon Ball Children, I and Mr. Oda went back to being children again, and when we talked excitedly about how much Dragon Ball was fun, as if we were competing with each other, I forgot how he looked a little embarrassed and smiled at me. I can’t.
I have just received the news of the death of my sensei.
I feel an even greater sense of loss than when Dragon Ball ended…
I still don’t know how to deal with this hole in my heart.
Now I can’t even read my favorite Dragon Ball.
I don’t feel like I’ve been able to properly write this sentence that I want to convey to my teacher. Everyone around the world was still looking forward to seeing your work. If Dragon Ball’s one wish really comes true…I’m sorry…
Maybe that’s selfish, but it’s sad, sensei.
Thank you, Akira Toriyama-sensei, for all of your enjoyable works over the past 45 years.
And thank you very much for your hard work.”

― Masashi Kishimoto

“It would be strange to write a diary without mentioning this, so I’ll just talk about something serious.
Personally, I don’t feel any loneliness or pain. I’m not saying there aren’t any at all, but there aren’t as many as I thought.
It’s the death of someone I’ve read since I was a child, someone who works in the same magazine as me, and someone I’m deeply influenced by, so it feels different than when I deal with death in general, but that’s why I feel like it doesn’t exist.
I’ve never really talked about this to anyone, but I’ve always believed that creating things means expanding your sensibilities and expanding your life. This is because I believe that as long as the work exists, the author is not dead.
And I believe that being able to properly get used to this feeling is proof of the magnitude of the work’s existence that remains in my heart.
That’s all.
From the next post, I will continue with my usual enthusiasm.”

― Tite Kubo (Bleach mangaka)

“DragonBall, Dragon Quest, Crono Trigger. The worlds that I forsaked my homework for and became so engrossed in that I didn’t sleep properly were all born from your pen, weren’t they, sensei? And it’s because I admired your pen, your drawings, I tried to imitate you. Not well, as the pile of eraser shavings prove, but I’ve somehow spawned from the wastebin as an kneeded eraser mangaka artist.
Toriyama-sensei, thank you for introducing me to so many worlds including the world of manga.
It’s because of this that I’ve incomprehensibly become a guy who’s made more of a living from DragonBall than you and even Toyotaro-sensei.
Now there’s a hole in my heart that no matter how many senzu beans I eat will never be filled, but I will continue to follow his dazzling Goku-like figure, from a great height, covered with eraser dust, carrying one of the Genki-dama that he scattered all over the world in my heart.
Toriyama-sensei, thank you for everything. I’ll always love you.”

― Hideaki Sorachi (Gintama mangaka)


“I can’t quite accept it.
Thank you, Toriyama-sensei.”

― Takehiko Inoue (Slam Dunk and Vagabond mangaka)

Mother’s Basement made a tribute by focusing on Toriyama’s things other than Dragon Ball. Even before Dragon Ball, he was a big name in the manga industry due to Dr. Slump. He talks about Toriyama’s huge impact on the gaming industry, emojis, etc.

Carthus Dojo got many people from the Dragon Ball YouTube community to talk about the history of Dragon Ball.

Here is one from Internet Pitstop, his videos always have the highest dose of nostalgia.

Tekking101 always makes very lengthy videos, but this time, he thankfully didn’t.

By Geekdom101.

By NinjaScale.

If you are wondering why mangakas die early, see below.

Past Dragon Ball anime

In the manga, Toriyama didn’t divide the story into Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. It was just a continuous story called Dragon Ball. In the anime, chapters 195–519 were aired under the separate title “Dragon Ball Z” because the story was an adventure comedy series before that, but it has now become an action series. Of course, even towards the end of Dragon Ball anime, you can already see the seriousness increasing when Tao Pai Pai and Piccolo show up. Tao Pai Pai throwing a pillar and traveling on it is one of the memorable Dragon Ball things from my childhood.

Both Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT are very bad compared to the original 2 animes based on the manga. Dragon Ball GT is the worst of all 4 anime. But it does have great music, like Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku.

Also, the Super Saiyan 4 transformation looks cool even though it’s not by Toriyama. The last episode of Dragon Ball GT was also great, and that is exactly how a Dragon Ball anime should end. But the fights in DBGT were not great. Dragon Ball GT reminds me of the original Dragon Ball anime. Dragon Ball Super, on the other hand, reminds me of Dragon Ball Z. Apart from Toyotarou dumbifying, Goku Super doesn’t have any big problems. Back when I was a power scaler, I liked Dragon Ball Super a lot.

All in all, I would say Dragon Ball Z> Dragon Ball » Dragon Ball Super > Dragon Ball GT.

Dragon Ball DAIMA

Like Dragon Ball Super, I am afraid they might again dumb Goku down. But this time, Toriyama is heavily involved. Also, like in GT, they turned Goku into a child again, so even if he is made into a dumb guy, it doesn’t look bad if he looks like a kid.

I watched the first episode and liked the Majin Buu Saga recap in the first 10 minutes. There was also a lot of lore.

So far, it seems Goku wasn’t made dumb like in Dragon Ball Super.

Apart from Toriyama, many original people came back for this anime.

At the age of 87, Masako Nozawa is again voicing Goku, probably for the last time, as she might retire soon. Also unrelated: today it was announced that Doraemon voice actress died at age 90.

Conclusion

In my opinion, the take-home message of Dragon Ball is that: There should be no limit to your ambition. In One Piece, Luffy dreams of becoming the King of the Pirates. In Naruto, Naruto’s dream was to become a Hokage. But in Dragon Ball, Goku wants to improve forever. When he becomes the strongest on planet Earth, he is not satisfied. When he becomes the strongest in the universe, he is not satisfied. Goku’s dream is to become stronger and stronger forever with no limit to his ambition, and he is always eagerly waiting for new challenges. This is what we should learn from Goku.






  1. As a child, I believed he was real, not fictional. In fact, one of the main reasons why I left Hinduism around 2012 was because I was thinking, since Hanuman is a ciranjīvi, why isn’t he doing anything to stop all the injustice in the world if he is still alive? ↩

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