What we know about Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball, man of mystery

Akira Toriyama is notoriously press-shy. In the few interviews he has done, he has explained that he prefers rural towns, and staying out of the media.

“From out in the back of my house, you can see farmers’ fields and such.” — Toriyama in Starlog Magazine¹

He only ever did one public appearance in the USA, the rest of them have been in Japan.

Even if you don’t follow anime, you surely know of Dragon Ball. But Toriyama also did the art for Chrono Trigger and the Dragon Quest series. You can kind of just tell by looking at them. Chrono looks like Trunks, and there’s just a certain way that Toriyama draws faces.

But did you know that Toriyama has wrote many other manga than just Dragon Ball? Or that there was a published manga that was a prototype of Dragon Ball, called Dragon Boy?

After leaving his previous job, 23-year old Toriyama entered the manga industry by sending his work to a Weekly Shonen Jump magazine contest, hoping to win the prize money.² He didn’t win, but employee…