Originally announced back in December, Akira Toriyama was selected for a Lifetime Achievement Award in conjunction with the 2024 Tokyo Anime Award Festival. Toriyama was honored with the award at the event held in Tokyo over the weekend, where volumes of his various manga as well as character designs were on display.

Though he unfortunately passed earlier this month and prior to the event, Toriyama had prepared a comment reflecting on the award, which has since been shared posthumously:

To give my honest thoughts about receiving this award, I had never had an especially great interest in animation, and even when my own work was animated — with apologies to the people on the staff — I didn’t watch it that much out of embarrassment.

About 10 years ago, I was unexpectedly asked to make revisions to an animated Dragon Ball film, and I suppose it was after doing some simple designs for characters and backgrounds that I found, to my surprise, that this work might actually be pretty fun and worthwhile — being able to leave the hard parts to the staff, of course (laughs).

For me, of all people, to be receiving a Lifetime Achievement award at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival is frankly embarrassing. Thank you so much.

What I remember most of my work in animation — and I doubt most people will know about it — is having met the late animator Toyo’o Ashida-san through the Shōnen Jump original animated production Kosuke & Rikimaru. This work wasn’t based on a comic, so it required consultation. He was quite an amiable guy, and we hit it off immediately. And every time I saw Ashida-san‘s art style, my heart was moved at his artistic touch, which was careful yet had a sense of speed.

“I see. If I use that kind of touch, I could give a sense of speed to Dragon Ball, and it’ll also increase the speed of my drawing.” And as things would have it, my pursuit of this art style was a huge success! The time it took me to draw was reduced to about two-thirds of what it had been, I suppose. I believe that time truly enriched my understanding. May Ashida-san rest in peace.

Apparently, Dragon Ball Daima, which will unfold starting in 2024, was originally supposed to be made as an anime-original series without my input, but as I gave advice here and there, I ended up getting majorly-involved. This time, I’ve created not only the story, but the world, the characters, the mechs, all sorts of things. It will be a smorgasbord of different things, and not just intense action, so I’ll be pleased if you can enjoy watching it.

Finally, thank you so much to all you fans who have supported me up until now!

Perhaps because of my lifestyle when I was younger, I have no real confidence in my health, and I don’t know how much more I’ll be able to do. But I’ll do my best aiming to make even more enjoyable work, so please keep supporting me from here on out!

— AKIRA TORIYAMA

The English translation of this comment from Akira Toriyama has been formally archived within our “Translations” section, as well.