Japanese mangaka Akira Toriyama, renowned for creating the Dragon Ball franchise, has died.

The official Dragon Ball website confirmed that he died at 68, due to a subdural hematoma (a blood clot in the brain).

“It’s our deep regret that he still had several works in the middle of creation with great enthusiasm,” the studio said in a statement posted on the official Dragon Ball website. “We hope that Akira Toriyama’s unique world of creation continues to be loved by everyone for a long time to come.”

Dragon Ball was first serialised in the Japanese comic magazine, Weekly Shonen Jump in 1984 and is largely responsible for the explosion of the anime genre of film and television spreading to the international market and into popular culture. The manga was later adapted into multiple TV series, movies, and video games distributed in more than 80 countries.

His most recent work included supervision, and character designs of the Dragon Ball Super manga and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero film.

Toriyama was also known as a character and monster designer of the blockbuster role-playing game series Dragon Quest and was said to be involved with several other projects at the time of his passing.