Mangaka Akira Toriyama Passes at 68

Seen a lot of (young, mostly comic related) peoples posts on social media about how significant Toriyama was to them on his passing. My take is a little different...

The Dragon Ball Anime was on TV when our oldest son was growing up in the 90s and I thought it was just violet rubbish. The Dr. Slump I saw was of course kids stuff.

A few years ago, the owner of a model shop I visited told me about Toriyama's FINEMOLDS Caricatured military figures and that was the first time I noticed his name, and connection to Dragon Ball and other stuff.

The School Holidays early last year had the SANDLAND movie at the cinema, and I noticed as it, as it seemed to have come out of nowhere. I looked into why that was. Did a one page comic on it.

After that and finding out about his history, I decided to track down a few cheap second hand books of his in Japan here. Did not look down the DRAGON QUEST game artwork rabbit hole though, just his comic work. So many books, but I just got the first couple of collected issues to see what they were all about.

So I ended up reading his one volume SANDLAND, his earlier Dr. Slump and the first 2 books, a complete story, of Dragon Ball, that wasn't anything like the Anime I remember. I appreciate his big head little body style, as that has been a significant style in caricature since the 17 century in Europe or so, and something I also do. Dragon Ball was much better than I imaged it could be, even if for 14 year old boys.

Dr. Slump with its gags may have been his best work, and he had an amazing way with vehicles and machines. He looks like he influenced my work without even knowing directly about him for the longest time. 

68 is way too young. Did he work far too hard in his popular years? Just a day after the voice actress of Chiba Marako-chan died at 63. And with the death of the neighbor in the last weeks really gives this 65 year old something to contemplate. 

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