This year’s Tokyo Anime Award Festival 2024 will honor Dragon Ball manga creator Akira Toriyama with the TAAF Achievement Award for his contributions to animation culture and the industry. The full list of winners for 2024 (alongside a representative work) are:
- Akira Toriyama (creator, Dragon Ball)
- Shunzo Kato (producer, Akira)
- Sukehiro Tomita (scriptwriter, Macross)
- Ryōsuke Takahashi (director, Armored Trooper VOTOMS)
- Shuichi Seki (animator, Persona 3)
- Yuji Ohno (composer, Lupin)
- Toshio Furukawa (voice actor, Dragon Ball)
- Duplo System (developers in animation technology)
Toriyama’s Dragon Ball manga, its spin-off Dragon Ball Super, and their subsequent anime adaptations are among the most iconic in fiction. The Dragon Ball manga was serialized from November 1984 to May 1995 in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump. The series has sold over 300 million copies and has since turned into a global media franchise. With characters that transcend its story, Goku and Vegeta continue to be some of the most recognizable and marketable characters. Signed artwork of Goku recently sold for almost $100k, gaming fans flocked to the Dragon Ball Z x Fortnite collab, and initial excitement for the Dragon Ball Daima anime indicates that 40 years on the series still has more potential to explore.
The Dragon Ball anime spanned 153 episodes from 1986 to 1989 and was quickly followed by 291 episodes of Dragon Ball Z from 1989 to 1996. Dragon Ball Z received updated animation with pacing changes with Dragon Ball Z Kai in 2009, with Dragon Ball Super being the latest anime TV series. They can all be watched on Crunchyroll, with Dragon Ball described:
Goku is a strange, bushy-tailed boy who spends his days hunting and eating—until he meets Bulma, a bossy beauty with boys on the brain. Together, they set out to find the seven magic Dragon Balls and make the wish that will change their lives forever.
According to TAAF, the ‘Achievement Award was first established in 2005 as part of the Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) to celebrate significant contributions to the development of the animation culture and industry.’ The award was launched as the Special Achievement Award before being renamed to the Achievement Award in 2008. There have been over 200 winners.
Previous TAAF award winners are Kozo Morishita, a producer and director of Dragon Ball Z, and Shozo Iizuka (Ryu Jose, Mobile Suit Gundam). Toriyama will formally receive the award when TAAF 2024 is held from March 8 – 11, 2024, in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.
Source: Animation Business Journal
© BIRD STUDIO/SHUEISHA/Dragon Ball Daima Production Committee
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