Claim: Akira Toriyama achieved mainstream recognition.

is a Japanese manga and game artist . He first achieved mainstream recognition for his highly successful manga Dr. Slump , before going on to create Dragon Ball -- his best-known work -- and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series , Blue Dragon and Chrono Trigger . 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 240 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 period when manga circulation was at its highest in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s . Overseas , Dragon Balls anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting anime 's popularity in the Western world .