Arigatou gozaimashita, Toriyama-sensei!
Your talent was truly out of this world and has brought immense joy, unity, and most of all hope! You helped tens of millions of young people learn so much about the world, about courage, friendship, laughter, love, how not to give up even if you wake up with your tail missing and to work as hard as possible to achieve our goals, and so much more.
You’ve created a community that spans cultures, languages, ages, sharing our passion for Dragon Ball with people from all over the world. We raised our hands together to lend Goku our energy. There are very few things that can achieve this sort of unity, probably only fusion. Not only that, you’ve inspired countless other universes touching even more lives.
Your characters are more than just drawings, they’re lifelong friends, mentors. They guided us and shaped part of us into what we are today, and they will keep guiding future generations as we will do all in our power to preserve your work as perfectly as humanly possible.
The sorrow felt and void opened as the result of these news cannot be expressed in words. I wish I could hope for you to rest in peace, but I know you’re up there training with King Kai on your road to become the strongest in all the universes.
It was announced on the official Dragon Ball twitter. Oda-sensei and Kishimoto-sensei also released statements about this:
He was truly a great human being. When Tite Kubo’s first draft of Bleach was rejected, Toriyama encouraged him to try again, he believed in his potential. I don’t know if he helped behind the scenes, but he was right, Bleach was amazing, Kubo-sensei’s work was incredible!
He also seems to have been a great father, just check out this message hidden in one of Chrono Trigger’s endings and him playing Dragon Quest with his son, Sasuke
I first found out from vx-underground after I woke up. Here’s some nice art too
I need to get coffee and continue working. This song already made me teary eyed for some reason, but it has a completely new context to it now.
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