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In 2008, Oricon conducted a poll of people's favorite manga artists, with Toriyama coming in second, behind only Nana author Ai Yazawa. However, he was number one among male respondents and among those over 30 years of age. They held a poll on the Mangaka that Changed the History of Manga in 2010, mangaka being the Japanese word for a manga artist. Toriyama came in second, after only Osamu Tezuka, due to his works being highly influential and popular worldwide. Toriyama won the Special 40th Anniversary Festival Award at the 2013 Angoulême International Comics Festival, honoring his years in cartooning. He actually received the most votes for the festival's Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême award that year; however, the selection committee chose Willem as the recipient. Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier or "Knight" of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government on May 30, 2019 for his contributions to the arts. He was also a 2019 nominee for entry into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame. Due to his video game design work, IGN named Toriyama number 74 on their list of the Top 100 Game Creators of All Time.

The follow-up film to Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', released on April 18, 2015, features even more contributions from Toriyama, who personally wrote its original script. Toriyama provides the basic story outline and some character designs for Dragon Ball Super, which began serialization in V Jump in June 2015 with an anime counterpart following in July. Although the anime ended in 2018, he continues to provide story ideas for the manga while Toyotarou illustrates it. Dragon Ball Super: Broly, released in theaters on December 14, 2018, continued Toriyama's deep involvement with the films.

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, the series' first theatrical film in 17 years, opened on March 30, 2013 and marks the first time Toriyama has been deeply involved in an animation for the franchise, in this case as early as the screenwriting stages. A special "dual ticket" that can be used to see both Battle of Gods and One Piece Film: Z was created with new art by both Toriyama and Eiichiro Oda.

To celebrate the 45th anniversary of Weekly Shōnen Jump, Toriyama launched a new series in its July 13, 2013 issue titled Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. Viz Media began serializing it in English in their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, beginning just two days later. The final chapter reveals that the story is set before the events of Dragon Ball and features some of its characters.

He collaborated with Weekly Shōnen Jump to create a video to raise awareness and support for those affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

Thompson stated in 2011 that "Dragon Ball is by far the most influential shonen manga of the last 30 years, and today, almost every Shōnen Jump artist lists it as one of their favorites and lifts from it in various ways." David Brothers for ComicsAlliance wrote that: "Like Osamu Tezuka and Jack Kirby before him, Toriyama created a story with his own two hands that seeped deep into the hearts of his readers, creating a love for both the cast and the medium at the same time." In a rare 2013 interview, commenting on Dragon Ball's global success, Toriyama admitted, "Frankly, I don't quite understand why it happened. While the manga was being serialized, the only thing I wanted as I kept drawing was to make Japanese boys happy." Many artists have named Toriyama and Dragon Ball as influences, including One Piece author Eiichiro Oda, Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto, Fairy Tail and Rave author Hiro Mashima, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations illustrator Mikio Ikemoto, Venus Versus Virus author Atsushi Suzumi, Bleach creator Tite Kubo, Black Cat author Kentaro Yabuki, and Mr. Fullswing author Shinya Suzuki. German comic book artist Hans Steinbach was strongly influenced by Toriyama, and Thai cartoonist Wisut Ponnimit cited Toriyama as one of his favorite cartoonists. Ian Jones-Quartey, a producer of the American animated series Steven Universe, is a fan of both Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, and uses Toriyama's vehicle designs as reference for his own. He also stated that "We're all big Toriyama fans on [Steven Universe], which kind of shows a bit."

As part of Weekly Shōnen Jump' s "Top of the Super Legend" project, a series of six one-shots by famed Jump artists, Toriyama created Kintoki for its November 15, 2010 issue. It was later released in North America's online manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump on January 28, 2013.

Avex Trax commissioned Toriyama to draw a portrait of pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki; it was printed on the CD of her 2009 single "Rule/Sparkle", which was used as the theme song to the American live-action Dragonball Evolution film. Also in 2009, Toriyama drew a manga titled Delicious Island's Mr. U for Anjō's Rural Society Project, a nonprofit environmental organization that teaches the importance of agriculture and nature to young children. They originally asked him to do the illustrations for a pamphlet, but Toriyama liked the project and decided to expand it into a story. It is included in a booklet about environmental awareness that is distributed by the Anjō city government.

In 2008, he collaborated with Masakazu Katsura, his good friend and creator of I"s and Zetman, for the Jump SQ one-shot Sachie-chan Good!!. It was later published in North America in the free SJ Alpha Yearbook 2013, which was mailed out to annual subscribers of the digital manga magazine Shonen Jump Alpha in December 2012. The two worked together again in 2009, for the three-chapter one-shot Jiya in Weekly Young Jump.

He worked on a 2006 one-shot called Cross Epoch, in cooperation with One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda. The story is a short crossover that presents characters from both Dragon Ball and One Piece. Toriyama was the character designer and artist for the 2006 Mistwalker Xbox 360 exclusive RPG Blue Dragon, working with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, both of whom he had previously worked with on Chrono Trigger. He announced that his help with the making of the Blue Dragon anime might very well be his final work in anime. In his own words, he said:

The offer to direct an animated version of Blue Dragon came in February of last year [2006]. Studio Pierrot approached me regarding it. I knew that Sakaguchi had been working on assembling staff to produce a game, although at the time Blue Dragon hadn't yet been formally announced. According to the materials, it was to be a fantasy world like Lord of the Rings, with a detailed world view and story. This may be my final anime, I'm a little worried (about it). There's incredible pressure, but at the same time, there's a sense of accomplishment – that it's worth doing. Blue Dragon will be a masterpiece, not simply because I'm working hard on it, but because the staff is expecting nothing less.

On March 27, 2005, CQ Motors began selling an electric car designed by Toriyama. The one-person QVOLT is part of the company's Choro-Q series of small electric cars, with only 9 being produced. It costs 1,990,000 yen (about $19,000 US), has a top speed of 30 km/h (19 mph) and is available in 5 colors. Designed to look like an American street rod, the QVOLT has a top and a door that are both opened by pulling a cord. Toriyama stated that the car took over a year to design, "but due to my genius mini-model construction skills, I finally arrived at the end of what was a very emotional journey."

On December 6, 2002, Toriyama made his only promotional appearance in the United States at the launch of Weekly Shōnen Jump's North American counterpart, Shonen Jump, in New York City. Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Sand Land were published in the magazine in the first issue, which also included an in-depth interview with him.

Toriyama's own studio is called Bird Studio, which is a play on his name; "tori" (鳥 ) meaning "bird". Toriyama does nearly all of the work at Bird Studio himself, and even when he employed an assistant (until 1995, and only one at a time, which is itself rare for manga artists), the assistant did mostly backgrounds. The studio founded in 1983 has produced occasional one-shots, or stand-alone manga that are not serialized, and some other design work. All of Toriyama's manga after Dragon Ball tend to be short (100–200-page) stories, including Cowa!, Kajika, and Sand Land.

While Toriyama was serializing Dragon Ball weekly, Torishima recruited him to work as character designer for the 1986 role-playing video game Dragon Quest. The artist admitted he was pulled into it without even knowing what an RPG was and that it made his already busy schedule even more hectic, but he was happy to have been a part after enjoying the finished game. Toriyama has continued to work on every installment in the Dragon Quest series. He has also served as the character designer for the Super Famicom RPG Chrono Trigger and for the fighting games Tobal No. 1 and Tobal 2 for the PlayStation.

Toriyama was commissioned to illustrate the characters and monsters for the first Dragon Quest video game (1986) in order to separate it from other role-playing games of the time. He has since worked on every title in the series. For each game Yuji Horii first sends rough sketches of the characters with their background information to Toriyama, who then re-draws them. Lastly, Horii approves the finished work. Toriyama explained in 1995 that for video games, because the sprites are so small, as long as they have a distinguishing feature so people can tell which character it is, he can make complex designs without concern of having to reproduce it like he usually would in manga. Besides the character and monster designs, Toriyama also does the games' packaging art and, for Dragon Quest VIII, the boats and ships. In 2016, Toriyama revealed that because of the series' established time period and setting, his artistic options are limited, which makes every iteration harder to design for than the last. The series' Slime character, which has become a sort of mascot for the franchise, is considered to be one of the most recognizable figures in gaming.

In 1984, Weekly Shōnen Jump began serializing Toriyama's Dragon Ball, which became an instant hit. As of 2014, it had sold 159.5  million tankōbon copies in Japan alone, making it Shueisha's second best-selling manga of all time. It began as an adventure/gag manga but later turned into a martial arts fighting series, considered by many to be the "most influential shōnen manga." Dragon Ball was one of the main reasons for the magazine's circulation hitting a record high of 6.53 million copies (1995). The series' success encouraged Toriyama to continue working on it from 1984 to 1995. At the series' end, Toriyama said that he asked everyone involved to let him end the manga, so he could "take some new steps in life." During that 11-year period, he produced 519 chapters that were collected into 42 volumes. Moreover, the success of the manga led to five anime adaptations, several animated movies, numerous video games, and mega-merchandising. The third anime adaptation, Dragon Ball GT, was not based on his manga; however, Toriyama was still involved in coming up with the name and designing the main cast. Aside from its popularity in Japan, Dragon Ball was successful internationally as well, including Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with 250–300  million copies of the manga sold worldwide.

Toriyama's official fan club Akira Toriyama Hozonkai (鳥山明保存会 , "Akira Toriyama Preservation Society") was established in 1982. Its newsletters were called Bird Land Press and were sent to members until the club closed in 1987.

Toriyama married his wife Yoshimi Katō (加藤由美 ) on May 2, 1982. She is a former manga artist from Nagoya under the pen name "Nachi Mikami" (みかみなち ) , and occasionally helped Toriyama and his assistant on Dr. Slump when they were short on time. They have two children: a son named Sasuke (佐助 ) born on March 23, 1987, and a daughter born in October 1990. Toriyama lives in his home studio in Kiyosu. He is a well-known recluse, who avoids appearing in public or media.

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 250–300 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 Ball' s anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting anime's popularity in the Western world. In 2019, Toriyama was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts.

Manga critic Jason Thompson declared Toriyama's art influential, saying that his "extremely personal and recognizable style" was a reason for Dragon Ball's popularity. He points out that the popular shōnen manga of the late 1980s and early 1990s had "manly" heroes, such as City Hunter and Fist of the North Star, whereas Dragon Ball starred the cartoonish and small Goku, thus starting a trend that Thompson says continues to this day. Toriyama himself said he went against the normal convention that the strongest characters should be the largest in terms of physical size, designing many of the series' most powerful characters with small statures. Thompson concluded his analysis by saying that only Akira Toriyama drew like this at the time and that Dragon Ball is "an action manga drawn by a gag manga artist." However, James S. Yadao, author of The Rough Guide to Manga, points out that an art shift does occur in the series, as the characters gradually "lose the rounded, innocent look that [Toriyama] established in Dr. Slump and gain sharper angles that leap off the page with their energy and intensity."

Before becoming a manga artist, he worked at an advertising agency in Nagoya designing posters for three years. After quitting his previous job, Toriyama entered the manga industry by submitting a work to an amateur contest in a Jump magazine in order to win the prize money. While it did not win, Kazuhiko Torishima, who would later become his editor, contacted him and gave him encouragement. His debut came later in 1978 with the story Wonder Island, which was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump. However, he did not rise to popularity until the comedy series Dr. Slump, which was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1980 to 1984. It follows the adventures of a perverted professor and his small but super-strong robot Arale. He began the series at age 25 while living at home with his parents, but when the series ended in 1984 he was a "manga superstar". In 1981, Dr. Slump earned him the Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen or shōjo manga series of the year. A very successful anime adaptation aired on TV from 1981 to 1986, with a remake series airing from 1997 to 1999. By 2008, the manga had sold over 35 million copies in Japan.

Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明 , Toriyama Akira, born April 5, 1955) is a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for his highly successful manga series 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, Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon. 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.