Akira Toriyama Judy Totoya Honors Akira Toriyama With Sonic and Tails Dragon Ball Artwork

[Dreadknux]

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 designer Yasushi Yamaguchi (aka Judy Totoya) has celebrated the life of the late Akira Toriyama, with some new artwork of Sonic the Hedgehog donning Dragon Ball costumes.

News of Toriyama's sad passing was announced last night in a post on the Dragon Ball official social media channel. He passed away on March 1, due to acute subdural dematoma at 68 years of age. While best known as the creator of iconic series Dragon Ball, the Japanese manga and anime legend has also been a source of inspiration for many artists around the world. Yamaguchi shared that Toriyama's influences stretched to Sonic the Hedgehog.

"If it weren't for the great figure of Toriyama-sensei, Sonic's influence would never have come to life," Yamaguchi wrote today, sharing an artwork of Super Sonic he originally posted in 2022. "The relationship between [Sonic and Tails] in Sonic 2 was created based on the image of Piccolo and Gohan," he added.

"Therefore, without the work Dragon Ball, the relationship between these two would not exist today. Thank you very much, Mr. Toriyama."

The world has been shaken by the sad news of Akira Toriyama's passing. The Sonic Stadium community has an open discussion topic in the forums for members to celebrate his life and creations, which you can contribute to here.

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[TAILSGONETOOFAST]

Rip Akira Toriyama you will always be missed

[Aroon]

Really going miss Akira Toriyama Dragon Ball creator years he’d made DB franchise great stand it healthy without Sonic Series left out possibly fall with few Sonic games made tried least copy Dragon Ball formula, bringing ideas from shows towards Sonic main character cool like Goku Before.
Then apparently after people love developers brought Sonic Series comparison good and special at the same time bring anybody best thing’s they enjoy like Seven gem Chaos Emeralds Super forms connect to the emeralds even Modern Sonic damn color green eyes even more discover! :]

Rest in Pease

Arkira Toriyama great Dragon Ball guy being remember

[Maple Syrup]

I never even watched DBZ but I can say that he has been a great influence in the history of manga, and probably our favorite blue rat. Rest in peace, my friend.

Rest in peace.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Sonic as Piccolo and Tails as Gohan is absolutely fitting…

Ironic because Sonic has a lot more associations with Goku.

[castell-neath]

What acool and fitting bit of art. Tails looks hard as

[Ratchet25tx]

Man, RIP my guy.

[TheKarmaCollector1994]

The news of Akira Toriyama’s passing has come as a shock to me - I still can’t get over the fact that he’s no longer with us. Given that there were so many influences from Dragon Ball implemented into Sonic’s design and lore, it’s no surprise that this tribute really got to me when I first saw it a few days ago on the forum. Yamaguchi’s (Totoya) words of tribute show how much of an inspiration Toriyama was to so many people, especially as a fan of anime/manga myself. He will be greatly missed but his legacy will live on.

Arigato, Toriyama-san. RIP.

[Stasis]

It’s sad to hear he has passed but in his time on earth was able to so change the lives of so many people with his wonderful artistic visions. He’ll never be forgotten.