Katsuhiro Otomo's manga Akira was titled after Akira Toriyama.
The writer was rumored to have died from heart attack after his work on Chrono Trigger in 1995. It spread quickly and masses started mourning before realizing that it's a lie.
Another popular rumor dissected by the fans is that the author hates Vegeta. In reality, he is ambivalent towards him. At first, the antagonist was supposed to just fight Goku and be done with, but as he became very popular with the fans, his pass was extended until finally he has become a permanent character. Later, Toriyama has found Vegeta instrumental in solving various plot problems.
Still, in one interview has stated that he would like for Vegeta to be the main character in a future Dragon Ball release.
The favorite Dragon Ball character of his is Piccolo. In one interview, he also says: It really is cliche when bad guys turn into good guys, but it just feels great drawing it!
Changing Goku's appearance for the second series of Dragon Ball was fought hard by the publisher. From commercial standpoint, it was a Russian roulette, and it had been losing popularity, so a drastic move like that could kill it for good. Toriyama was adamant though, as drawing a lot of fights with small character such as Goku would be problematic. In the end, the artist has made the decision without waiting for Shueisha's final say in this.
Toriyama doesn't think too hard about what's going to happen in future issues and instead concentrates on the present, letting the story develop by itself. He claims to have run into trouble many times and having to think hard to produce a solution that wouldn't mess up the story.
The writer enjoys an occasional encrypted cameo in his works. First part of his surname, 'tori' means 'bird' in Japanese and it is also the name of an anthropomorphic bird making appearances in Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball manga, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT and the Dragon Ball movies. Also sometimes named 'Tori-bot', that bird is supposed to be Akira... in some ways.
In a movie My Lucky Stars, Jackie Chan goes to a theme park and needs some disguise to get through undetected. He gets himself a neat costume... of Arale! It was a tribute to Toriyama's work, as both men met on few occasions and love each other's works (one of Toriyama's favorite films is Drunken Master 2, for example). Both also claim to be influenced by each other in their own works.
Daizenshuu 7, a classic Dragon Ball encyclopedia released in 1996, lists Toriyama as the ultimate ruler of the Dragon Ball universe. Given that he has created and maintained it, it's probably right.
Withdrawn from public life, it has always been hard to find out personal details about the artist. Sometimes, he lifted the veil by occasionally publishing a picture of himself in the manga, on occasion accompanied by his family members and his numerous animals. Other times, he included drawings of himself. Inside, the drawn Toriyama character was mostly working on some sketches.
The manga creator is known to make his characters make guest appearances in other works. For example, Dr. Slump's main setting Penguin Village appears in few Dragon Ball episodes. Dr. Slump's daughter, Arale Norimaki makes a guest appearance in Dragon Ball, and so does Goku in the late Dr. Slump.
Tired with the long-running saga, Akira was ready to end Dragon Ball after the Frieza Saga, but the publisher Shueisha has convinced him to continue working.
In 2015, the Japan Anniversary Association decided that May 9 is to be the Goku Day in Japan. The idea comes from wordplay - in Sino-Japanese, 5 is 'go' and 9 is 'ku'.
Akira's favorite pieces of music that he plays in the background while drawing are John Williams' soundtracks to the Star Wars movies.
In one interview, Toriyama said that he likes when a woman has short hair. It definitely was something he took into consideration more than one would expect from a man - in Dragon Ball, multiple characters changed haircuts often. The record-holder was Bulma, especially in the animated version where she did so 22 times!
In another interview, he probably said more than he should. If his wife wouldn't be able to find out, he would consider cheating on her.
With 230 million copies sold, Dragon Ball is the third best-selling manga in history. The top spot belongs to One Piece and the second one to Golgo 13, but when taking into consideration the ratio of copies sold to time aired, it is competitive with One Piece and outscores Golgo 13 by far (having debuted in 1969, the latter is the oldest manga still published).
Oricon, a company that does polls and charts, conducted a poll in 2008 whose subject was to determine which manga artist is the favorite among Japanese. Ai Yazawa (author of critically acclaimed Nana) was number one, with Toriyama right behind her. Still, among the male audience, Dragon Ball won - Nana is largely a female affair and Dragon Ball is mostly about fighting. Two years later, the company conducted another poll, this time focusing on the artist's influence on the history of manga. Toriyama again ended up second and in the first place sat Astro Boy's creator Osamu Tezuka.
A big Dragon Ball exhibition was held in various Japanese cities between 1993 and 1995. Its popularity was enormous, attracting north of 400,000 visitors.
More recently, Akira Toriyama: The World of Dragon Ball exhibition was opened in Nihonbashi (Tokyo) in March 2013. The management of Takashimaya (a big company owning a chain of department stores in Japan and few other Asian countries) came up with the idea to attract customers by placing the exhibit in one of their stores in a prestigious district. The concept was largely successful. Two years later, it was moved to Osaka and again soon to Nagoya.
