Akira Toriyama And Go Nagai Inducted Into Eisner Hall of Fame

Akira Toriyama and Go Nagai have been inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 2026 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, one of the highest honors in the comics industry.

The honor recognizes creators whose work has made a lasting impact on the comics industry and is widely regarded as the Academy Awards of the industry.

Toriyama earned induction after being selected from a list of 16 nominees announced in February.

He debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1978 with Wonder Island before achieving mainstream success with Dr. Slump in 1980. He later created Dragon Ball, which was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995 and became one of the best-selling manga series of all time.

The franchise remains a global phenomenon through its anime, films, games, and merchandise.

Go Nagai, meanwhile, entered the Hall of Fame as one of 19 Judges’ Choice honorees selected earlier in January.

Nagai made his manga debut in 1967 after working as an assistant to Shotaro Ishinomori. He founded Dynamic Production in 1969 and went on to create some of manga and anime’s most influential franchises, including Devilman, Mazinger Z, Cutie Honey, Dororon Enma-kun, and Violence Jack.

With this year’s inductions, the number of Japanese creators in the Eisner Hall of Fame continues to grow. Previous Japanese inductees include Osamu Tezuka (2002), Kazuo Koike (2004), Goseki Kojima (2004), Katsuhiro Otomo (2012), Rumiko Takahashi (2018), Moto Hagio (2022), Keiji Nakazawa (2024), and Shigeru Mizuki and Junji Ito (both 2025).

Source: Comic Natalie