Glory to Akira Toriyama, precursor of the spirit of our time

Akira Toriyama's untimely death leaves many orphans.

On the one hand, of course, the manga and

industry is crying , which in the last two decades has managed to spread throughout the world and become one of the most important phenomena of global

, surfing the wave inaugurated by Japanese comics. and its adaptations to series of drawings.

But on the other hand, and almost more importantly, an entire generation cries, not only influenced by the aesthetics (and ethics) of their Superwarriors, but also raised in a transmedia environment in which franchises are accessible from paper and screens.

For those under 40 years of age, the

experience has come to them in the form of a manga, a movie, a series, a video game, a toy, a physical aspiration;

of everything.

It has been an omnipresent constant, almost like the background scenario of the vital development of an entire generation.

That transmedia path, of which Toriyama was the main pilgrim, is the one that franchises such as

,

,

, and the entire long string of

that aspire to sit on the throne of Goku,

to

.

And yet, it is in video games where

found a perfect continent to house the content proposed by the work of the Japanese master, especially in its fighting version.

“You can fight with all your heart with a quality and speed that were unthinkable even a moment ago,” he said, fascinated by the new digital vessel in which his creatures now moved.

To date, more than 100 video games have been published based on the Dragon Balls saga, with the

and

series leading the way.

But Toriyama's good work in the digital world was not limited to the adventures of Goku and company: that absolute 16-bit masterpiece that is

(1995), the gargantuanly famous, especially in Japan,

saga ( 1996 onwards), or that underrated work that reimagined monster combat that was

(2006) grew from the unmistakable aesthetic seal of Toriyama, who always knew how to make the works in which he participated endearing and imbue them with his very characteristic, and very Japanese, sense of humor.

Promotional image of the video game 'Dragon Quest'.

All of their works shared an aesthetic packaging that mixed Japanese tradition and European influence and a way of working focused on expressing in their protagonists - the Goku, Gohan, Crono - the figure of the archetype of goodness and that with their antagonists - with the Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, Boo, Magus—allowed himself greater pirouettes and reached his greatest narrative heights.

All of them were the best ambassadors of a phenomenon viewed with suspicion two decades ago but that today seems ubiquitous and that still has many years of expansion and growth left.

Almost in time with the death of the

, we get proof of how well the figure of Toriyama exemplified the transmedia assembly so present in today's popular culture.

The film adaptation of the manga

(published in 2000) arrives in Spanish theaters on the 20th, the same day that the

series from the same universe arrives on Disney +.

And next month the video game that adapts the story will hit stores, which by the way promises.

style desert epic

,

stars a pink demon prince, his assistant and a military veteran who travel across an immense desert in search of water.

Note that the concomitance with certain real problems, although underlying, always helped the works of the Japanese.

Because in that, too, Toriyama was a pioneer.

We said that he was the main pilgrim of the Tansmedia route.

Courage,

of

, now that in the other world you have to pilgrimage the million kilometers that make up the Path of the Serpent.

Image of 'Sand Land'.

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