On March 8, the sad news of the death of Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball and character artist for Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger, was announced. Multiple sources, including the Dragon Ball official website, said that Toriyama died on March 1 of an acute subdural hematoma. He was 68.
Struck by the news of Toriyama’s death, the Final Fantasy XIV community was spurred into an act of mourning, with many players gathering in Ul’dah to pay their respects to the beloved mangaka. Hundreds of players gathered in silent vigil across the worlds of Balmung, Leviathan, Hyperion, Cerberus, and dozens of others across many Data Centers.
Many players stood with the Wanderer’s Campfire lit before them in tribute. Others donned the King Slime Crown from FFXIV’s Dragon Quest X collaboration event. Toriyama was famously the character designer for the Dragon Quest games, and came up with the design for the iconic Dragon Quest Slime for the first game in the series.
Other players cosplayed as characters from the Dragon Ball series, donning orange gi’s to look like Goku, or blue jackets, to look like Trunks. Many adopted emotes and poses from the Monk job, which takes some of its inspiration from the tropes introduced in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. Some bards even took to playing songs from the Dragon Ball series and Chrono Trigger.
The vigils for Toriyama across FFXIV bear more than a passing resemblance to the memorials held after the death of Kentaro Miura, the creator of Berserk. The Berserk series influenced the Dark Knight job in FFXIV, and many players, fans of the Berserk series and the Dark Knight, paid tribute after the mangaka’s death in 2021.
Toriyama, creator of some of the most iconic designs in both gaming and anime, has his influences run deep in both FFXIV and hundreds of other games, especially those within Square Enix’s greater library. In the statement released by the Dragon Ball official site, Toriyama’s family requested peace during this time, and announced they wouldn’t be accepting gifts. A plan for a public memorial gathering has not been decided. In light of this, a solemn in-game memorial seems fitting and respectful.
