Akira Toriyama (born April 5, 1955) is a Japanese manga artist and game artist. He is best known for his manga series Dr. Slump (1980–1984) and Dragon Ball (1984–1995), as well as for being the character designer for the Dragon Quest series of video games. Toriyama is regarded as one of the artists that changed the history of manga, as his works are highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.

He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen or shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended. His next series, Dragon Ball, would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. Having sold more than 230 million copies worldwide, it is the second best-selling manga of all time and is considered to be one of the main reasons for the "Golden Age of Jump," the period between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s when manga circulation was at its highest. Overseas, Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting Japanese animation's popularity in the Western world.