Dragon Ball Creator And Piccolo’s Voice Actor Honored With TAAF’s Lifetime Achievement Award
There cannot be better people more deserving than these two because Toriyama changed the landscape of Shonen and Furukawa is a veteran VA.
The official website of the Tokyo Anime Award Festival (TAAF) announced the winners of their prestigious Lifetime Achievement awards of 2024 on Dec 14, 2023 and among them, Dragon Ball author Akira Toriyama and Piccolo‘s VA Toshio Furukawa have been honored with the award.
There cannot be better people more deserving than these two. Akira Toriyama has changed the landscape of Shonen manga by giving us two back-to-back hits: Dr. Slump and of course, Dragon Ball.
Furukawa is a veteran voice actor in the industry who has played characters in legendary series such as Fist of the North Star, Urusei Yatsura, apart from Dragon Ball.
Here’s the entire list of winners of TAAF’s Lifetime Achievement Awards 2024!
1. Shunzo Kato
Shunzo Kato is a producer of numerous masterpieces at TMS Entertainment, and a prominent producer behind the works of Tadashi Izaki and Telecom Animation.
Notable works: “Soreike! Anpanman”, “Ashita no Joe 2”, “Space Cobra”, Akira.
2. Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama is renowned for his magnum opus, “Dragon Ball,” but he’s also the author of Dr. Slump and other short works like SANDLAND, Dragon Boy, etc.
3. Sukehiro Tomita
His work ranges from robot animation such as Ideon and Macross to the blockbuster hit Bikkuriman. He’s also a scriptwriter who has led various genres of works to hits, valuing the appeal of the characters.
Notable works: ‘Densetsu Kyojin Ideon’, ‘Bicryman’, ‘The Super Dimension Fortress Macross’.
4. Ryōsuke Takahashi
From original works such as Cyborg 009 and Firebird to Dougram and Votoms. He’s a rare ‘creator’ who has always developed his own unique world in a wide range of genres.
Notable works: Armored Trooper Votoms, Fang of the Sun Dougram, Flag
5. Shuichi Seki
He’s adorned for creating characters that move elongatedly, with attention to form and texture. An animator who is well known for his work in Persona 3.
Notable works: ‘The Little Viking Bikke’, ‘The Tale of Perrine’, ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’.
6. Yuji Ohno
He’s the composer of one of Japan’s most famous anime music, Lupin the Third. His style, underpinned by the jazz idiom, has brought a new style to anime music.
Notable works: “Lupin the Third Part 2”, “Space Cobra”, “Captain Future”.
7. Toshio Furukawa
He became famous for his roles in his career as Kagege (Sgt. Frog), Kai Shiden (Mobile Suit Gundam), Shin (Fist of the North Star), Asuma Shinohara (Mobile Police Patlabor), Piccolo (Dragon Ball), Ataru Moroboshi (Urusei Yatsura), Portgas D. Ace (One Piece), Jann Lee (Dead or Alive) and Misao Yamamura (Detective Conan).
8. Tsutomu Yamamoto (Duplo System Representative Director)
He had made the Tres Machine, a revolutionary machine that made mass production of animation possible. Its design and production was the result of a series of coincidences that can only be described as miracles of the times.
About Dragon Ball:
Dragon Ball is a manga series by Akira Toriyama. It first began its serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1984.
The manga was later adapted into a multitude of animated series, movies, and games.
The franchise consists of five different anime series, about 21 animated movies, and around 10 games spanning various platforms, from Famicon to Playstation and Xbox.
Synopsis of the Dragon Ball anime:
The story of Dragon Ball follows the life of Son Goku, a monkey-tailed boy loosely based on the traditional Chinese folk tale Journey to the West, from his life and adventures as a child all the way up to being a grandfather.
During his life, he fights many battles and eventually becomes (arguably) the strongest martial artist in the universe. He is not without help, however: the comic boasts a large ensemble cast of martial artist heroes and villains which provide the conflict that drives the story.
Source: TAAF website, Comic Natalie
