Finished up my tribute to the late Akira Toriyama. Took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it was worth it to honor one of the two most influential people in my life and who had an even bigger impact on the world. Anyone from my generation knows that statement is not an exaggeration. Dragonball Z was so popular, even the most ghetto hoodrat who never watched any anime, would proudly brag about how much DBZ trivia they knew. Anime may have been introduced in the west before, but Dragonball is when it really started to gain traction.
More so than that, a lot of the worldwide hits that people enjoy today can all be traced back to the creators being inspired by Akira Toriyama’s works. One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, the list goes on. And in every one of them, you can see hints and references of Toriyama-sensei’s works, whether it’s energy blasts, attacking from a distance with air pressure, moving as fast as teleportation, and especially transformations and power-ups.
It really wouldn’t be a stretch to say that if Dragonball didn’t exist, anime culture would’ve never made its way to the west, which for me is huge, cause it’s what I live and breathe on a daily basis. Forget becoming an artist, my entire life and the lives of many others would be unimaginably different if I was never introduced to anime. It’s for that reason that, as crazy as it’s sounds, losing Toriyama-sensei has me feeling as bad as if I lost a close friend. Never met the man in my life, but he had that much of an impact on it and many others.
With that, I wanted to offer this picture, featuring references of all of Toriyama’s works that I’ve experienced. Dragonball is self-explanatory, but I’ve also enjoyed the Dragon Quest series. I was reminded by my best friend of how, when booting up DQ8 for the first time, we were laughing at the monster designs, even more so when the Bunnicorns wiped the floor with us! I’ve played four DQ games, but I have the most fond memories of DQ8, having replayed it at least four or five times. It actually makes me want to play DQ11 again at some point. And then there’s Blue Dragon, a game that’s particularly niche, but was a lot of fun, to the point that I played it twice! For me, it was the first JRPGs of the time that had an open map, but didn’t do random battles, which was such a breathe of fresh air. And the boss theme, despite being used to death, was the most hyped BGM out of any game I played. And the super shadow moves when they became corporeal? Look them up, they were freakin’ amazing!
It’s nostalgic paragraphs like that which really shaped me and a lot of people growing up, to which I’m exceedingly grateful. So with that, farewell, Akira Toriyama. You weren’t just a good mangaka, you were the greatest. Thank you for changing my life and the world for the better.
Sincerely,
Onyx Azor, aka, Oxdarock
Your average, everyday Squishrock.
