It was recently announced that Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, the character and monster artist for Dragon Quest, and artist for Chrono Trigger, among many other creations, has passed away. I've played a lot of games and watched a lot of shows in my life, but I don't think any individual piece of media has had anywhere close to the impact on my life that Dragon Ball has.

When I was a kid, my cousin lived next door to me. We were close in age and had similar interests - both of us loved video games and cartoons. We also both loved Dragon Ball Z. He would come over every single day and we'd watch whatever episode aired on Cartoon Network, acting out the moves and screaming like the characters in the show did. I had all of the video games, and we spent hours upon hours playing them to death, unlocking all the characters, setting up tournaments, and getting every drop of content out of them. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.

I'll always respect Dragon Ball as my gateway into anime and manga. For a couple years I had a subscription to Monthly Shonen jump, which was another gateway into anime, manga, and Japanese culture in general. That magazine exposed me to tons of different manga, One Piece, Naruto, Shaman King, Bleach. It was such a different world to me, with my previous exposure only being the Dragon Ball anime, and it was so cool to have a whole new world of media opened up to me.

Later on, as an adult, I played Dragon Quest 11 and Chrono Trigger, and Toriyama's influence on those games is unmistakable. The characters and monsters have such a distinct charm and style that is so uniquely Toriyama's, and I'm planning to dive deeper into Dragon Quest.

It's such a shame that Toriyama has passed so young. His impact on hundreds of millions of kids can never be overstated, and I'll always credit him for being my introduction into the world of Japanese media that has influenced me in so many ways.