I keep trying to type up posts with my thoughts on Akira Toriyama's passing but I keep deleting them. Just hard to put into words I feel comfortable with, I suppose.
It feels crazy. I guess with how pervasive Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest are it always felt like it'd be a given that he'd be around forever.
I don't really get sad when famous people die, even if they're people I really like and admire. There's just a natural disconnect; even though their works may have had a big impact on me I never feel personally close to them. Toriyama's passing isn't any different, but this time I actually gasped out loud when I saw the news. It's just stunning, especially since it seems like it happened suddenly.
Anyway, I don't want to belabor the enjoyment his works have brought me over the years. One hope that I have is that more people read his non-Dragon Ball comics, not just Sand Land and Dr. Slump but his one shots as well. They really hit home how much he truly was a comedy writer who accidentally made the biggest, most genre-defining fighting comic of all time (and he was really good at it).