Personally, I consider the two Dragon Ball series (Dragon Ball, and Dragon Ball Z) to be the greatest anime series ever produced. Many people, including modern anime fans, would disagree but we can all agree that the success and popularity of these two anime series has got to be at the top. The man behind this pheonomenal success is a manga artist and animator named Akira Toriyama. He's very popular to anime fans especially his fellow manga artists and some of them are influenced by his works. He was born on April 5, 1955 in Kiyosu, Nishikasugai District, Aichi, Japan. He is also the founder of Bird Studios, the production company that was involved in the production of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.

His first release was entitled "Wonder Island" which was published by Shuiesha in their popular weekly magazine, Shonen Jump. The manga wasn't a huge success but his next work, "Dr. Slump" became successful and made Akira Toriyama popular in the manga industry. It was published in the same magazine between 1980 to 1984. Also in 1984, Mr. Toriyama released his record-breaking best seller, the "Dragon Ball". Two years after it's release, in February 1986, Dragon Ball was animated and became a hit not only in Japan but accross the globe. It became so popular that when it ended in 1989, a sequel had to happen. Dragon Ball Z is the anime series following Dragon Ball. It became a huge success as well and probably became even more popular than the first anime series.

The following series, "Dragon Ball GT" wasn't as successful as the first two. Akira Toriyama did limited work on that one and it was rumored that he wanted to end the series after Dragon Ball Z.

Aside from being a manga artist and animator, Akira Toriyama also contributed in the development various video games. He did character designs for "Dragon Quest", an RPG (Role-Playing Game) that came out in 1986, the popular "Chrono Trigger" in 1995, and the fighting games Tobal no. 1 and Tobal 2 that were both released in 1997.