EDIT: gah, I've been crying on and off about this. It's silly, but there's something about Dragon Ball and Goku especially that always spoke to a deep part of myself. I think it's the combination of positivity, humor, child-like naivety, happiness, strength, and pursuit of growth.
I'm not sure any other work of fiction has every quite captured the amalgamation of those themes in quite the same way.
So many laughs, smiles, tears, and chills over the decades. Thank you Toriyama-san.