Anime fans around the world wasted no time in paying respect to Akira Toriyama, the prolific mangaka of Dragon Ball, who passed away in the past week due to a blood clot in the brain. With modern anime and games so heavily influenced by the prolific series, Final Fantasy 14 fans were no exception.
Across many servers, players lined up in Ul’dah’s Steps of Nald along the main concourse with “fireplace” minions, the most common FFXIV style of memorial, with many opting to cosplay various characters from Dragon Ball and other Toriyama designs. In Balmung, a multi-piece Bard “troupe” played songs from the series he worked on, and fans paid their respect in the often-chaotic shout-and-yell chats. The last the community saw a memorial so massive was for Kentaro Miura, mangaka of Berserk, who was said to be a direct influence on the Dark Knight class.
To say Dragon Ball was one of the biggest influences on art and media worldwide in the past two decades is still an understatement. The values of Dragon Ball–hard work, friendship, innate kindness, perseverance, joy, and rest, none of which compromise each other–seep into modern anime and manga, with its aesthetics and characters slowly emerging into the mainstream until the very series itself became a unifying, universal symbol and language. Dragon Ball especially drew heavy influences from the dramatics and theatre of pro wrestling scenes in America and Japan at the time, which have graciously been reciprocated back into those scenes.
Easily recognizable from that same DNA is the Final Fantasy series, which upholds lessons of cooperation, empathy, and an always-forward attitude. Final Fantasy 14 has much of that and more, all the way to an opponent or few joining the good guys over time.
There are more directly recognizable influences in FFXIV, too, as two items from the Optional Shop are all but direct references to the series. Power Up almost directly resembles the infamous Dragon Ball power-ups, and the Sunspun Cumulus cloud mount’s influence is frankly obvious down to referencing a “wise hermit” high in its “Far Eastern” mountains.
Toriyama was also responsible for what’s possibly Dragon Quest’s most famous icon, the Slime. The story goes that someone sent a far less “cute” version, and Toriyama returned this slime in return. FFXIV has added it as part of its collaboration quests in the goofiest manner possible: a King Slime Crown, which arguably has the most outstanding jiggle physics in the game.
The upcoming RPG Sand Land, based off Toriyama’s manga of the same name and drawing heavy influence from Mad Max–yet with the delightful small-car/big-power vibes he brings–is still slated for an April release.
