Always Someone Stronger: Reflections on Akira Toriyama

The stillness of the quiet Friday morning hit me hard on March 9. My head was a fog of unmedicated ADHD and shock from processing the past 12 hours of news pumped in by the endless social media feeds. And I was, and still am, in a state of disbelief.

Akira Toriyama, legendary manga author and illustrator: dead. I always knew I’d see that news eventually, but not this soon. Not at the height of what felt like another wave in his work’s popularity and relevance. A new Dragon Ball anime set for autumn, his old one-shot Sand Land is suddenly getting not just an animated adaptation, but a new story arc for that anime with designs and plot points contributed by him. Dragon Quest XII is still in the works with his iconic monsters and heroes no doubt already in the mix.

And yet he was gone. And this hurt so, so much.

I never met the man, a legendary recluse who barely showed his face to the media, but his work shaped who I am and was with me for almost 30 years of my life. 

Growing up as an ADHD-laden, obnoxious little kid in the late 90’s as the anime boom slowly crept on to American shores in full, I started getting into this weird show on Saturday mornings called Dragon Ball Z. I barely knew what was going on, nor who any of the very intimidating characters punchin at each other were, but the designs were so different from any other cartoon I’d seen at the time. They were sharp. They were detailed. They were cool.

I started piecing things together. About this “Goku” dude and his son, the green guy named Piccolo, those nasty jerks Vegeta and Freeza (that’s how I’ll always spell it, and I had old toy pamphlets in Power Rangers merch to back it up). By 1998 I was getting word through summer camps and playground rumblings about things not on American shores yet: Some guy with a sword named Trunks shows up? Super Saiyans? What the heck is a Majin Boo? I just kept getting more and more immersed in all this news, and started finding new images of these characters looking blonde and threatening. My first actual look at Toriyama’s art, stuff I printed out and ogled for how cool the outfits and shading were. The designs were simple to remember, angular, but full of personality and life. And often rife with huge hair.

By 1999 I started trying to draw them. Tracing printouts from the internet, trying to regularly chisel in amateur 10-year-old scrawlings of Son Goku and Vegeta charging up from a front view, hair bigger and bigger along with several original characters from fictional sequels (never mind that I hadn’t even seen Dragon Ball GT, while vaguely being aware of it). I went through a plethora of metallic gold gel pens making massive ki auras and bright Super Saiyan 3 hairstyles. My autism must have awakened at that point: I was obsessed with Dragon Ball despite still not knowing much. I’d watch the Z dub on television, glued to the action and waiting impatiently for more episodes as Cartoon Network endlessly looped that 50 episode syndication block that Saban had originally picked up (along with the first three movies, wondering why two of those had very impressive orchestral soundtracks that the rest of the show lacked). I’d scour the internet for postage stamp sized Real Video clips of the anime, soon being exposed to the original Japanese version and noticing how much more different and impactful it all was (and at first being shocked by how high pitched a grown adult like Goku was). Dragon Ball Z was my life.

And in the midst of all that, I picked up something called a “manga” at the Chesapeake Square Mall bookstore one weekend. A Dragon Ball manga.

I kept flipping through it: It was so much more violent than what was on TV. Middle of the Saiyan arc. The volume where Chaozu, Tenshinhan (who is, was, and forever will be The Strongest Human) and Mr. Piccolo were done in by Nappa. Where Goku made his triumphant return, and stood against Vegeta in one of the most iconic two-panel shots in comic history.

And the art hit me even more.

This guy, this Akira Toriyama guy, was able to do so much with just some clean linework and putting black ink where it was needed. It was so easy to follow and look at. It was intense, full of weight and power to the blows, the characters rife with so much expression and personality.

It was just cool. It was so, so, so cool. 

His sharp lines, clear motion and action, those gorgeous watercolor pieces that I kept seeing pop up. It was amazing. He knew how to jump between hilarious expressions and silly jokes to deadly serious drama and peril. And behind it all was storytelling which would swerve and hit me with ever-escalating stakes in the tale of Goku becoming the strongest man in the universe, all while touching the lives of his dearest friends and fiercest rivals (many of whom end up being part of that same friend circle), with some immature toilet humor and grade-school level boob and penis jokes thrown in every time the tension got a bit too heavy. Goku didn’t even always win. He would lose! He died at the part of the story I’d first seen! And there was always someone even stronger than the last opponent to keep challenging him.

The man had made a story that I seldom got bored with, and got me to pick up a pencil and draw. Scribble away with gold gel pens to get that spiky Super Saiyan hair as big and radiant as I could when I really should have been focusing on my classes. Read every rumor or looking at every piece of character art there was. Hell, I got A’s on tests one time just because my parents promised I could get a Japanese-languaged, subtitled DBZ VHS tape at the local comic shop. I beamed at getting the 12th Z movie with Gogeta. I felt so cool, I was watching this before it hit US shores! I didn’t realize until later that it was a bootleg, and didn’t know what fansubs were at the time, but I played that tape all weekend and traded it with other kids several times for them to watch it. I loved Dragon Ball. I loved anime. I loved this ‘magna’ (as I called it) thing too.

I even saw his designs popping up on some game called Dragon Quest (or Dragon Warrior as it was known at the time here). These simple yet complex designs, but in this case in a world full of monsters and magic and fantasty. This Toriyama guy was everywhere and I was all for it! The guy made a glob of slime with two little eyes and a goofy smile one of the most recognizable and beloved gaming icons in history and it was surreal to realize.

I hadn’t even scratched the surface of this man’s talent, but it shaped my love for wanting to be strong, be cool, fight, draw tough and sharp stuff. I couldn’t harness it all, but I knew it was sparking something in my heart. 

Then high school came. I would flip through the Dragon Ball stuff here and there in the pages of Shonen Jump when it hit English magazine racks, but I felt things peter out as the franchise as a whole went into a lul. Dragon Quest caught my attention again with his art, but I lacked a PS2 to play the newest title. Instead, I just still admired his art as it popped up, but I continued to draw. Terribly. Really cringey, amatuer stuff, but his style and little quirks I absorbed from years of DBZ obsession stuck with me. I even started to see how it shaped other people’s works. DB had done it, it had become something of a cultural pillar in every corner of the globe. Even if you weren’t some weeb on the internet, you knew that one Japanese cartoon called Dragon Ball Z. 

You knew who Goku, Piccolo and Vegeta were. If you had Mexican friends, you were exposed to at least one bootleg Broly figure I bet. Toriyama’s style was parodied and homaged in ways that made his simple-yet-complex work stand out from the waves of lazy doe-eyed triangle-mouthed mockery of anime back in the day. This was leaving an impact on everything (even South Park was spoofing his designs for God’s sake!).

Hell, I was playing imported copies of Jump Super Stars and Jump Ultimate Stars on the Nintendo DS and using Goku and Vegeta in my Character Decks alongside the future Jump King Monkey D. Luffy and his One Piece co-stars. Also got exposed to something else Toriyama made, a little series called Dr. Slump. I wondered who this purple haired girl running around with poop on a stick was, and just knew I’d eventually have to find out.

I’d even rented some short-lived DBZ “Ultimate Uncut Edition” DVDs off of Netflix and tried going through the show again, but that fell through. I told myself I should go back to his work someday. 

That ‘someday’ came in my college years.

 It was 2009, hot off the heels of the mess that was Dragon Ball Evolution (the less said about that the better). I’d also just gotten a copy of Dragon Quest IX for Christmas and was feeling so comfy with that art again, like visiting with an old friend. I was tuning in on Keyhole to watch Kamen Rider and Super Sentai and found out about this new recut of Z called Dragon Ball Kai, allegedly even closer to the manga’s pacing (and I needed to read more of that manga still, I told myself). It sparked my interested in revisiting DB once again.

I started thinking of buying some new “remastered” Z DVDs. Widescreen, all the film grain removed. And then I saw how ugly they were. Figured it was a shame that I couldn’t revisit this show I used to love again. 

Until the Dragon Box sets were announced. Fully uncut? Close to the original Japanese DVDs? Apparently the best way to watch the show? After finding this website called Daizenshuu EX and listening to podcasts reviewing the set, I quickly ordered a copy. 

And kept listening to that podcast. 

They had manga reviews, rumor debunking guides, episode lists, thrilling news. They even talked about how this man whose work I idolized flew by the seat of his pants writing one of the greatest comics ever made.  Even as a busy college student, I found myself rewatching this now 20-year-old show and considering reading the manga (which was, and sadly still is, censored and rife with some wonky translation decisions even now). I found myself looking back through all of that gorgeous art. Soaking up the lore. Reading all 42 volumes of that manga and getting hyped beyond hyped at the franchise’s revival in 2013 with Battle of Gods. 

The whole way through, I was in aw once again at how a man so prone to cynicism and self-admitted laziness could craft such marvelous work. Toriyama knew how to render 3D machinery and designs, fantastical creatures and out-there monsters, in a way that was both cartoonish and lovingly rendered. He was able to spin compelling yarns with ease while only thinking two or three chapters ahead at a time, making some of the most iconic staples of manga history out of cutting corners (assistants being forced to ink black hair too much in your black-and-white manga? Make your new Super Saiyan power up blonde, so they can just leave the hair white on the paper!) and ad-libbing multi-year sagas full of tension and twists (the Androids & Cell Arc was spawned from a series of angry phone calls from his former editor Kazuhiko Torishima and then-current editor Yu Kondo having their own ongoing complaints about every villain he put forth).

He spent an entire final arc just throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck all the way through the Majin Boo arc, then surprised every reader in Japan with a sudden finale that he kept secret with most folks until the moment it hit the presses. It's the kind of shenanigans you'd see most modern manga creators get eviscerated for in the halls of Shueisha, but this man hiding behind his silly little robot avatar made it all work. And inspired generations of future creators and fans to follow his footsteps and even unit in those passions.

I made new friends, revived old passions in my life, started trying to draw again, still holding some of that spark. I told myself I wanted to see more than this man’s DB work. He was funny, he was amazing with machinery. He was dry in his wit and gave off such a tired and cranky aura to how he worked and ad-libbed everything, yet he crafted some of the funniest gags and richest worldbuilding and tense fights you could ask for. A slacker genius to me. And in revisiting all of this, I found the heart of Dragon Ball was a message from Toriyama that I wanted to hold in my life.

“There is always someone stronger.”

 Always a goal to reach. 

The Turtle Hermit espoused this to Goku and Kuririn in their training days. To motivate them. To keep them going. To never get comfortable. Hell, narratively, Toriyama deliberately had Goku lose again and again in the Tenkaichi Tournament arcs at the start for the very reason of showing there are hurdles a hero must overcome.

This alien-turned-country bumpkin. The one who went from a roadtrip with Bulma after living in the mountains all his life, to fighting to become the strongest martial artist on earth, to battling monsters, aliens, androids, demons, even gods themselves…was so prone to losing. And it was okay. Because it just meant that he had to get up again. It excited him. It gave him a reason to keep trying and keep fighting and see the good in people. He was the most powerful force imaginable, but he would lose and lose with cheer. Make friends with his opponents. And just find new ways to better himself.

And I realized, as childish as it was, I wanted to be that ready to keep going and never give up, even when I got hurt or failed. To find the good in people, to be kind and genuine, not ashamed of what excites me (also a reason why Gohan and his shy but dorky aspects, make him another favorite of mine, honestly). This old comic had really ingrained itself into my life.

I still have a ways to go with that. I still fear failure. But I still try. Toriyama’s work hit me with that. And I continued, and still continue, to draw and learn and better myself just like even his goofiest contents inspired me to do. If some guy from Nagoya who just made manga in his 20’s to make some money could become one of the most beloved and influential creators on the face of the planet, then who’s to say I can’t just find something to do that will give my life meaning? He faced rejection after rejection, had to revamp story after story, dealt with one of the most infamously fickle editors in Shueisha history with Kazuhiko Torishima, someone he even used as the basis for two of his most infamous antagonists in Slump and DB both. But he worked through it and created gold.

And then there was Dragon Quest. There was basking in 10 games (omitting 10 itself, amusingly) looking at how even the simplest designs this guy did, a slime droplet with a mouth or a silly little bat, were so full of personality and I could remember them long after the games were done. How every outfit was so rich and every character, while mute, oozed their own vibe. What’s to say I couldn’t do that to? His work kept that fire in me. 

I’d even gone through his one-shot Sand Land a year ago, and was about to go through his earlier one-shots. I was going to read Dr. Slump this year, and a Dragon Ball re-read was on the cards. I was taking note of things he did in his work to emulate and reflect on to better myself as a creator. I’d never be on his level, but, again: I could try. He was stronger than me, so many of my peers are, but that doesn’t mean I should give up! 

Work was going to hell, but I had to keep going! I can’t just quit!

This guy never knew me. I was a nobody. But his work gave me the spirit to keep going even when I was separated from it.

And then, he was gone.

I thought it was a bad joke at first.

But he was dead. A brain tumor, it sounded like. I was devastated. It felt like the last straw in a month that had brought nothing but pain and defeat. On my end, I’d just lost my job. I’d just lost any direction. My life has been falling apart in front of me, and the man whose works gave me hope was now suddenly gone too.

I couldn’t even cry. That was stupid to do. But I sat there that Thursday night and felt all hope drain away. 

But I remembered: Toriyama wouldn’t mope. He turned death into a punchline that could be undone in a snap with the Dragon Balls. He made Goku himself just accept death at one point and casually tell the rest of the cast “I’ll meet you all again when you die! See ya!” to their hilarious disbelief.

He wouldn’t be sad and sulk. So why should I? 

I ended up looking back at all that art again. All the interviews out there. Thinking back to my fond memories. And even read through his earliest work from 1979 with Wonder Island. And I laughed. I teared up a bit with joy. I realized these things will never be gone. They’re his legacy. There’s still projects of his like the rest of the Sand Land anime and Dragon Ball DAIMA on the way that have his fingerprints all over them. He’s got Toyotarou out there as his successor who I am rooting for. I’ve got Chrono Trigger that I’ve still got to play, even! I've got his entire library of work to revisit, to inspire me again with my art and with my love of his storytelling and style. I'll go back through it, I'll celebrate the legacy of a guy who would never have thought of himself a legend (even if the rest of the world did).

The man is gone. But he’ll never be forgotten. And I’m testament to that.

I’ve seen all of Latin America pay tribute to him. I’ve had friends share their stories of how his work changed their lives like me. And I will never lose that passion for creativity that he sparked in me. 

Life isn’t good right now, but I’ll always fight to be the strongest I can be in my own way. The kindest I can be. Even accept the goofy side of myself and the lazy moments. It’s what he did. And he changed the world that way. And as I look back on Mr. Toriyama’s legacy and his incredible work, I’ll remember that it’s okay that there’s always someone better than me. It just means I have more motivation to improve myself.

Thank you Toriyama-sensei. 

Bye-cha, & see ya later.