Rest in Peace to Akira Toriyama
You will always be remembered
Hello manga fans. Today, I will be discussing the monumental and life-changing legacy of Akira Toriyama, from a very personal perspective. Toriyama-sensei sadly passed away recently, and it is a loss that has painfully rippled through the community, in incalculable ways. There are no words to truly encapsulate how much Toriyama-sensei enlivened us with his art, and how much his work changed us on micro and macro levels. His wildly vibrant imagination, and his unique, groundbreaking artistic style influenced manga, anime, and games in ways we won’t fully comprehend/appreciate for decades to come. No single person could ever uniformly sum up the treasure and legacy of Toriyama-sensei, but I will do my best to at least describe his impact on my personal life, in hopes it will resonate with many of you. Here we go~~
I was homeschooled from elementary through the entirety of high school. I don’t need to go into exquisite detail but, I definitely felt lonely and estranged from other kids my age. I didn’t go outside much. I didn’t have the luxury of public school to make friends, or access to sports programs with other kids to enhance my social life. I probably only had 1-3 hours of social contact every week. I had very few avenues available that offered me any external contact. So I indulged in what was available to me, which happened to be media and art. Most importantly, anime and manga played a major role in my formative years, a positive and life-defining element.
I took a trip to the Philippines with my mom and sister to the country’s southern area when I was about 6 years old, to both Manila and also a region called Zamboanga.
This was my first time traveling abroad and I was absolutely ecstatic to visit relatives and experience a completely new landscape. In terms of food, I remember eating mangoes as often as possible. There was at least one occasion where I had both mango pancakes AND regular raw mangoes for breakfast. 🥭😋 In Zamboanga, I remember cruising through dusty dirt roads, traveling with my cousins to a crusty, semi-crumbling concrete building where they all lived (or maybe it was just a spot they’d hang out at). When we arrived, I distinctly remember how they played the live action Taiwanese Dragon Ball film called Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins. That was probably my first exposure to Toriyama-sensei’s work, but it wasn’t until later that I truly felt acquainted with his oeuvre.
I first encountered Dragon Ball Z while watching the International Channel around 4th or 5th grade, which my mom purchased to keep track of news in the Philippines. I’m grateful that because of her choice I was exposed to such an incredible anime so young. Morbidly but humorously, I remember the first Dragon Ball Z episode I watched was when Freeza ruthlessly impales Kuririn FOR AN ENTIRE EPISODE. Blood spraying everywhere! Needless to say this absolutely blew my mind as a 4th/5th grader.
Like many kids my age at the time, I also watched Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network during the weekday Toonami run. This was an absolute treasure to experience. Dragon Ball Z had such an epic scale (Namek helllooooo), the art was so unique and dynamic, every arc featured such brilliant antagonists (Freeza, Cell, Majin Buu….), and I loved the themes of perseverance and strength embodied by well, pretty much most characters in the series?
I also remember diligently drawing Dragon Ball Z characters in my spare time. I remember my brothers and I crudely sketching characters like Vegeta and Piccolo any chance we got, striving to recreate Toriyama-sensei’s same artistic glory. Obviously we didn’t match his creative mastery, but we had that drive and desire to do our best. And not just within artistic dabbling. Dragon Ball Z inspired me beyond hobbies, into daily life as well. Perhaps in the same way Goku, Piccolo, Gohan and co. always strived to never give up and do their best in the face of impossible adversity.
As a kid, my dad took me and my siblings to the local library every Wednesday since that was his weekly day off. He also took us to the local comic book store as well. Those were two things I always eagerly anticipated, since I rarely ventured outside the house, and I loved getting a chance to check out books and tapes about manga and anime in particular. It was at both places that I first encountered VIZ Media. On the anime side of things, the local library had Ranma ½ VHS dub tapes to rent, and the comic book store sold single-issue copies of Dragon Ball Z (wild!) published by VIZ. I remember genuinely thinking, ‘wow it sure would be amazing to work for a company like VIZ someday.’ That remained a hazy dream for me, and in the year 2020, it finally came true: I scored a job working for the same company that endowed my childhood with so much joy and comfort.
It has been a privilege working for VIZ, and I’m immensely grateful to be able to have first-hand contact and connection to the very media that I loved. Everything has come full circle – from childhood admiration, to adult working life within the same beloved field. I’m so happy to be so individually connected to Dragon Ball and its subsequent series in a professional way, and to be a part of the very industry that I continue to adore, now and probably always.
Toriyama-sensei, we honor and respect you. And you will always be remembered as an incredible mangaka who touched the lives of countless people around the globe. May you rest in peace.