Akira Toriyama

Infobox person
name = Akira Toriyama
residence = Aichi Prefecture, Japan
nationality = Japanese
other_names =
birthname = Toriyama Akira
nihongo2|鳥山 明
birth_date = birth date and age|1955|4|5
birth_place = Kiyosu, Aichi, Japan
occupation = Manga artist, game artist
spouse = Yoshimi [Spouse listed as "Yoshimi" in "Dr. Slump" manga, volume 18]
children = 2 (son and daughter)
website =
footnotes =
known for =
employer = Shueisha, Bird Studio
height =
weight = nihongo|Akira Toriyama|鳥山 明|Toriyama Akira born on April 5, 1955, in Kiyosu, Aichi, Japan, [http://www.anime3000.com/information/creators/toriyama.html Anime 3000 Biography] ] is a widely known and acclaimed Japanese manga artist known mostly for his creation of "Dragon Ball" in 1984. Toriyama's artwork is influenced by Osamu Tezuka's "Astro Boy" and Walt Disney's "One Hundred and One Dalmatians".

Biography

He debuted in 1979 with the story "Wonder Island", published in "Weekly Shonen Jump", and first gained popularity for the anime and manga series "Dr. Slump", originally serialized weekly in "Shonen Jump" from 1980 to 1984. In 1982, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for "Dr. Slump" for best "shōnen" or "shōjo manga" series of the year.cite web | url=http://comics.shogakukan.co.jp/mangasho/rist.html | title=小学館漫画賞：歴代受賞者 | publisher=Shogakukan | language=Japanese | accessdate=2007-08-19]

In 1984, Toriyama was responsible for developing "Dragon Ball" which was initially serialized in "Weekly Shonen Jump". It became an instant accomplishment—primarily selling over 35,000,000 copies in Japan, "Dragon Ball" eventually became a record-breaking best seller with over 120,000,000 copies sold. [http://www.shonenjump.com/whatisjump/jumpartist/jumpart_toriyama.php "Shonen Jump"] ] Aside from the Japanese fame, the series was equally successful internationally as well, including in the United States and Latin America.

Toriyama is mostly acknowledged for his major hit "Dragon Ball". This work was one of the linchpins for what is accepted as the Golden Age of "Jump". Its success "forced" Toriyama to continue working on "Dragon Ball" from 1984 to 1995. During that eleven-year period, he produced 519 chapters, collected into 42 volumes. Each volume has an average of 200 pages. Moreover, the benefit of the manga led to three anime adaptations, numerous feature-length animated movies, several video games, and mega-merchandising. Though Toriyama had been planning to end "Dragon Ball" for a long time, his editors agreed to let him end the manga so he could "take some new steps in life," as he put it.Referenced in "Dragon Ball" manga, volume 26, page 244 — ISBN 1-4215-0636-X] The third anime adaptation, "Dragon Ball GT", was not based on his manga; however, Toriyama was still involved in the project by supervising its production, although in a limited way. [ [http://www.myfavoritegames.com/dragonball-z/info/AkiraToriyama.htm Akira Toriyama] at http://www.myfavoritegames.com/] The "Dragon Ball" anime, including installments that followed, spawned over 500 episodes made in Japan, and are produced and licensed for North America and Australia by FUNimation.

Toriyama's clean line and design sense led to jobs designing characters for the phenomenally popular "Dragon Quest" series of role-playing games (formerly called "Dragon Warrior" in North America). Toriyama has also served as the character designer for the Super Famicom RPG "Chrono Trigger", the fighting game "Tobal No. 1" for the PlayStation (as well as its sequel, "Tobal 2", released only in Japan), and the Mistwalker Xbox 360 exclusive RPG "Blue Dragon".

His works after "Dragon Ball" tend to be short (100-200 page) stories, including "Cowa!", "Kajika", and "Sand Land", as well as one-shots, like "Neko Majin".

Toriyama worked on a one-shot called "Cross Epoch", in cooperation with "One Piece" creator Eiichiro Oda. The story is a short crossover that presents characters from both "One Piece" and "Dragon Ball" respectively.

Recently, Toriyama and his studio have begun developing "Dragon Ball Online", an MMORPG follow-up to the Dragon Ball manga, with Bandai Namco Games and NTL for release in South Korea and Japan. The game will act as a direct sequel to the manga, and Toriyama will be supervising all aspects of the game, from storyline and setting to character and location designs. [ [http://watch.impress.co.jp/game%2Fdocs/20070320/dbonline.htm nihongo|Bandai Namco Games, "Dragon Ball Online" Officialy Announced, Akira Toriyama to Supervise All Aspects, Service to Start in South Korea in Summer of 2007, Japan in 2008|バンダイナムコゲームス、「ドラゴンボールオンライン」を正式発表鳥山明氏全面監修、韓国で2007年夏、日本で2008年サービス開始予定] ] In a press conference in South Korea on February 14, 2008, Kazuhiko Torishima, the director of Shueisha (and Toriyama's original editor), stated that Toriyama had immersed himself in creating character designs and providing editorial supervision for the game for the past five years. [ [http://www.ntl-kk.com/dboreport.html Dragon Ball Online South Korean Press Conferance Report, nihongo|"It was announced that for five years Akira Toriyama had immersed himself in making character designs and providing editorial supervision for the game, and the author himself revealed that he was concentrating his effort on Dragon Ball Online!"|この5年間、本作のキャラクターデザインや監修ワークに没頭していた鳥山氏のエピソードも披露され、原作者自らがこのドラゴンボールオンラインに力を注いでいることが明らかに！] ]

The name of Toriyama's studio is Bird Studio, which is a play on his name, meaning "Bird Mountain". 鳥 "tori" means "bird" and 山 "yama" means "mountain". 明 "akira" means "intelligent" or "brightness". Toriyama does almost all of the work in "Bird Studio"; his assistant does mostly backgrounds. The studio has not been very active over the last few years and has only done occasional one-shots.

In an interview with "Shonen Jump", Toriyama revealed that he does not consider what is to occur in proceeding chapters of his stories. ["Shonen Jump": Oct. 2007 issue, page 360]

Selected bibliography

Manga

Video games (character design)

*"Dragon Quest series:" Role-playing game (RPG) series published by Enix (now Square Enix). Appeared on Nintendo's Famicom/NES, Super Famicom/Super NES, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Sony's PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Wii.
*"Dragon Quest Monsters series:" Role-playing game (RPG) series published by Enix (now Square Enix). Appeared on Nintendo's Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Sony's PlayStation.
*"Chrono Trigger:" Role-playing game (RPG) developed by SquareSoft (now Square Enix) for Nintendo's Super NES. It was relaunched with a few additions for Sony's PlayStation. Toriyama appeared in an alternate ending to the game along with all the other developers; The game is now being relaunched for the Nintendo DS by the end of 2008 for Japan, North America, and Europe.
*"Tobal No. 1" and "Tobal 2": Fighting games for Sony's PlayStation developed by SquareSoft (now Square Enix).
*"Blue Dragon": Role-playing game (RPG) for Microsoft's Xbox 360 developed by Mistwalker studio for Artoon based on a design by "Final Fantasy" originator Hironobu Sakaguchi.

Children's books

*"Toccio the Angel"

"Blue Dragon"

Toriyama announced that his help with the making of the "Blue Dragon" anime may very well be his final assistance in anime. In his own words, he said: cquote|The offer to direct an animated version of "Blue Dragon" came in February of last year. Studio Pierrot approached me regarding it. I knew that Sakaguchi had been working on assembling staff to produce a game, although at the time "Blue Dragon" hadn't yet been formally announced. According to the materials, it was to be a fantasy world like "Lord of the Rings", with a detailed world view and story.This may be my final anime, I'm a little worried (about it). There's incredible pressure, but at the same time, there's a sense of accomplishment — that it's worth doing. "Blue Dragon" will be a masterpiece, not simply because I'm working hard on it, but because the staff is expecting nothing less. [ [http://kotaku.com/gaming/blue-dragon/blue-dragon-toriyamas-final-anime-247955.php Blue Dragon, Toriyama's Final Anime?] at http://kotaku.com/] |30px|30px|

"Blue Dragon" began airing on TV Tokyo on April 7, 2007, featuring a different vocal cast than that used for the game. It is scheduled for 51 episodes. [cite web|url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=7478|title=Anime News Network: Blue Dragon (anime)|accessdate=2008-03-26] On April 16, 2007, Viz Media secured the license for the anime adaptation [cite web|url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-04-16/viz-media-acquires-blue-dragon-anime|title=Anime News Network: Viz Media Acquires Blue Dragon Anime|accessdate=2008-03-26] and was originally set be released in both North America and Europe later on in the year, but that did not happen. [cite web|url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/press-release/2007-04-16/viz-media-licensor-for-blue-dragon-anime|title=Anime News Network: Viz Media Named Master Licensor for Blue Dragon Anime|accessdate=2008-03-26] The anime premiered in the United States, on Cartoon Network, on March 28, 2008. [cite web|url=http://schedule.cartoonnetwork.com/xmlServices/ScheduleServices?methodName=mainSchedule|title=Cartoon Network's Schedule|accessdate=2008-03-26]

Notes and references

External links

*
* [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,62994/ "Akira Toriyama"] profile on MobyGames
* [http://www.dbzgtlegacy.com/features/akira_toriyama.shtml/"Akira Toriyama"] information at http://www.dbzgtlegacy.com/
* [http://www.square-haven.com/people/Akira-Toriyama/ "Akira Toriyama"] short bio, interviews, and photo gallery at the Square Haven People Database

Persondata
NAME=Toriyama, Akira
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=manga artist and video game character designer, famous for "Dr. Slump", "Dragon Ball", "Dragon Quest", "Chrono Trigger", and other works.
DATE OF BIRTH=5 April 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH=Kiyosu, Aichi, Japan
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=