I felt it appropriate to make a post on this page, because, well, everything this account ever was is a direct result of Akira Toriyama's work.
Dragonball Z was a pivotal pillar of my childhood. From rushing home to watch the latest Cell Saga episode on Toonami, to buying the Dragon Ball manga and falling in love with it, to trying to figure out how I can watch DBGT, to enjoying DBS as an adult in my own home, Akira Toriyama's work has been with me my entire life.
I was inspired by the incredible spectacle that was transforming into a Super Saiyan, so much so that it prompted me to want to start drawing. At a very young age, I drew and drew and drew until I could come close to replicating some of the master's work. People in my classes would gather around my table and watch me draw the same frontal poses of Goku, Trunks, and Majin Vegeta over and over again. I had a best friend who I would draw DBZ characters for, and he hung them up in his room as a sort of bootleg set of mini-posters.
As I got a little older and became a teenager, I searched around for tutorials on how to get into digital art. I had no idea what I was doing but I had a family computer and a dream to create something as cool and amazing as what Dragon Ball had showed me was possible. That led me here!
I was thrust into a community of creatives that Newgrounds, early on before the BBS rework/migration away from whatever it was (phpBB?) to the new system with new features, like larger community threads and... SIGNATURES! I watched in awe as my peers on this site got more and more crazy with signature design, which brought me into the world of Photoshop. Watching DBZ also got me at the same time into video editing, and once I got the bug with Photoshop, I started making AMVs to Future Trunks mourning Gohan over and over again. Now, I shoot and edit music videos in real life!
Being here also provided me with some really influential indie artists (and electronic artists) that showed me the same thing Akira Toriyama showed me: you can create a beautiful world, if you only will it to exist. I got into creating short, by-the-numbers electronic songs and got a guitar for Christmas shortly after.
Now my life is full of visual art, designing and creating beautiful experiences for people, shooting cool cinematography for other artists, and I'm a musician in multiple bands. I definitely would not have arrived there had Dragon Ball and Akira Toriyama's writing, drawing style, and passion for delivering such a wide range of narratives to his manga readers not been there for me as a child. In many ways, I can pull at every thread that led me here and I'll end up in a lonely living room with no parents around, face pressed up against the screen, watching Goku rise to the occasion time and time again.
As Newground's resident Trunks, I needed to say something.
Rest in peace Akira Toriyama. I hope that whatever lies on the other side is full of the wonder, magic, and whimsy that Dragon Ball instilled in millions of people. I hope you are in paradise. Thank you for everything.
