Creator of the legendary Dragon Ball that would inspire late 90s and 2000s generation of Shonen mangaka.
He was working as graphic designer at a small advertising firm in Nagoya for two and a half years before participated in a contest by Shonen Jump in 1977. He submitted a gag manga because the prize money was the same while had fewer pages. He initially wanted to submit his work to Shonen Magazine but didn’t meet the deadline.
Married shoujo mangaka MIKAMI Nachi in 1982.
Close friends with fellow mangaka KATSURA Masakazu. TANAZONO Shoichi once went to his house and meet him.
He only employed one assistant on every serialization, which usually assisting on drawing backgrounds. His assistants were TANAKA Hisashi & MATSUYAMA Takashi. Tanaka was his assistant on first half of Dr. Slump, while Matsuyama was on the second half and during entire Dragon Ball. From the 2010s his main collaborators on Dragon Ball manga are Toyotarou & OOISHI Naho.
Animator NAKATSURU Katsuyoshi & screenwriter KOYAMA Takao are some of the key names that brought Toriyama's works into anime form.
Along with TORISHIMA Kazuhiko, Toriyama's first editor & Enix's HORII Yuji, they were the key figures to the creation of Dragon Quest game franchise.
Toriyama once had a meeting with SAKUMA Akira and TAKAHASHI Rumiko about a collaboration, but it seems ended up with Takahashi not participated in the joint project.
-Received the 27th Shogakukan Manga Award in Shounen and Shoujo Category for Dr. Slump in 1981.
-Received the 4th Japan Media Arts Festival Interactive Category Grand Prize for Dragon Quest VII Warriors of Eden in 2000.
-Dragon Ball placed 3rd in 100 selections of Japanese Media Art in 2006.
-French government’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres knighted Toriyama & Nagai Go for their contributions to the arts in 2019.
Passed away on March 1, 2024 of an acute subdural hematoma, at the age of 68.
