When I was a kid, my aunt was studying at the local university. In their rec room, they had these huge TVs spread across a bowling alley on the back wall. One those screens one day was something I had never seen before in my entire 6 years of being alive. There was a kid with a monkey tail flying on a literal cloud. He then proceeded to punch out a pterodactyl and then cook and eat said dinosaur. It was animated, sure, but it didn’t look, sound or even really feel like the Looney Tunes animation I was used to.
What I saw then was Dragon Ball and from that exact moment, I knew that my soul belonged to anime.
Akira Toriyama, the famous mangaka behind the Dragon Ball franchise and Dr. Slump and countless other manga franchises passed away at 68.
Immediately, my social media feeds and group chats were flooded with lamentations and nostalgia and while I don’t doubt any of the sincerity, I was surprised by the volume of people coming out and discussing especially Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. Creators I didn’t even associate with anime and manga were quick to point out Toriyama’s influence on them, their work and more.
And it reminded me of that little girl who saw Dragon Ball as a kid and felt alone in a brave new world only to find later in my teen years that my experience wasn’t entirely so unique. Dragon Ball was special. It was always special. It had this infectious nature to it that just drew people in. That’s the magic of Toriyama’s work. It’s charming, full of characters with struggles that despite being larger than life feel relatable to you regardless of what stage of life you’re in. I may not have ever had to defeat Garlic Jr. to protect the known world from evil but whatever I was going through as a kid certainly felt comparable.
I have to give Toriyama credit for the fan that I am today. If it wasn’t for that magical moment where I saw Goku as a kid, I don’t think I’d be the fan, critic, writer or person I am today.
Rest in Peace, Sensei. We’ll keep your message and your hope alive.
