Akira Toriyama was born on fifth April 1955, and he is a prominent character designer and manga artist from Japan. He received widespread recognition as a designer and also from Dr. Slump, his highly successful manga series. He then started working on Dragon Ball, his best recognizable work, and did character designing and performing for Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama is recognized as one of the manga artists that changed the world of Japanese art. His works are prevalent and can also serve as a source of inspiration for many people.
He received the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981 for his work on Dr. Slump, a shonen and shojo manga, and it has solved over thirty-five million books inside Japan itself. This Manga was adapted into an anime, and it was released in 1997. His next series was Dragon Ball, and it became prominent all over the world and sold over three hundred million copies on a global scale. This Manga is the all-time third-best-selling, and it is also in considerations as one of the main reasons Manga became so popular in 1980 and 1990s.
Early Life
Akira Toriyama is originally from Japan, and he often thought of anime as his schoolmates were obsessed with withdrawing it. He believed that he began to become better than everyone else, and so he started capturing his friends in his Manga and won a local art studio prize for being an artist in One Hundred and One Dalmatians. He was also obsessed with martial arts movies from Hong Kong, and he loved to Enter the Dragon and Drunken Master. These movies were his work’s most considerable influence, and one of his other inspirations came from Alien, a science fiction movie.
Career Beginning
Before he became an artist of Manga, he worked in Nagoya at an advertising agency where he designed posters for three years. He soon quit his job and entered the industry of Manga by submitting amateur contest work in a magazine named Jump, where he aimed to win the prize money. He failed in securing the money but his future editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, personally contacted him to get his spirits up. His breakout came with a story named Wonder Island in 1978, which he posted in Weekly Shonen Jump. Toriyama then rose in popularity with Dr. Slump, which became its own Manga in Weekly Shonen Jump till 1984. The Manga follows the adventures of a pervert professor and Arale, his small and super powerful robot. He commenced his work at the age of 25, and he was living with his parents.
Personal Life
Toriyama is married to Yoshimi Kato, and she used to be a manga artist who operated under the alias of Nachi Mikami. She also occasionally helped his assistant Toriyama on the work for Dr. Slump. They have two progenies, a son, and a daughter, and they live in a home studio named Kiyosu. He avoids being in media and public and identifies as a hermit.
Net Worth
The current average and approximate net worth of Akira Toriyama is about 45 million dollars, and he has earned this wealth from creating Manga. He is the known creator of Dragon Ball, the current generation’s most famous anime and Manga.