If Dragon Ball had not existed, then most of the current shonen would not have existed either, so without a doubt Akira Toriyama was, is and will continue to be important in the manga and anime industry.
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Technically he created a movement where he is the basis of everything, we can easily find works with clear inspirations to Dragon Ball. And those works will inspire other authors to create more works and so on, but you always have to recognise the origin of everything.