Well, some of the commentary are low quality and more akin to Reddit, but that’s a trend of HN in general.

When we have RIP threads for people in Computer Scientists, atleast that’s within industry and people are 1-2 degrees of separation with personal anecdotes. Most of the commentary Akira Toriyama are merely as fans.

This said, there’s been other examples of people who aren’t actually related to Computer Science, but was still trended, such as Ted Kaczynski. This could be the academia / academic bias of HN. On the hand, HN is a forum for entrepreneurship and business. The Dragon Ball franchise is one of the greatest economic exports of Japan.