Akira Toriyama

|lead=yes}} was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series ''Dr. Slump'', before going on to create ''Dragon Ball'' (his most famous work) and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the ''Dragon Quest'' series, ''Chrono Trigger'', and ''Blue Dragon''. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly ''Dragon Ball'', which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.

He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best ''shōnen''/''shōjo'' manga with ''Dr. Slump'', and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended.

His next series, ''Dragon Ball'', would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. Having sold 260 million copies worldwide,million copies. See '''' for worldwide sales breakdown.}}billion copies in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' magazine.''}}}} it is one of the best-selling manga series of all time and is considered a key work in increasing manga circulation to its peak in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Overseas, ''Dragon Ball''s anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting anime's popularity in the Western world. In 2019, Toriyama was decorated a ''Chevalier'' of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts. Provided by Wikipedia