This is the man whom we owe the greatest thanx. The one whom the greatest anime would have never been, Akira Toriyama. If you have no idea what the other sentence meant, it meant that if it weren't for him, there would have never been Dragon Ball Z. Ok, his career as an artist started in 1977, the same year that my older sister was born!;) Anyway, his first manga, "Wonder Island", debut in the "Shonen Jump" magazine. Akira's first hit was "Dr. Slump" that came out in 1985. After only a couple months, it was made into a tv series that ended 4 years later. It's successor, Dragon Ball Z (duh), came out the same year Dragon Ball ended. DBZ ended in 1996. Mr. Toriyama is currently married to Mrs. Yoshimi Toriyama and has a son and daughter. He hates the cold and loves Disneyland, he's been there over 7 times??? You could say that he's retired, but only temporarily.