How much has the dragon ball franchise made?

[Doctor.]

Say the name Homer

Most people will think of the poet, not the cartoon character.

[ABED]

Say the name Homer

Most people will think of the poet, not the cartoon character.

I'm willing to put money on that not being the case. I didn't know that until either middle school or high school. I can't remember when I read The Odyssey.

[Doctor.]

Say the name Homer

Most people will think of the poet, not the cartoon character.

I'm willing to put money on that not being the case. I didn't know that until either middle school or high school. I can't remember when I read The Odyssey.

Depends on the environment. I'm sure most college students and adults will think of the poet first.

[ABED]

Depends on the environment. I'm sure most college students and adults will think of the poet first.

I'm still willing to bet that you are wrong. Even college kids who likely know who Homer is will first think Homer Simpson, especially from my generation.

[Doctor.]

Depends on the environment. I'm sure most college students and adults will think of the poet first.

I'm still willing to bet that you are wrong. Even college kids who likely know who Homer is will first think Homer Simpson, especially from my generation.

I think you're overestimating how popular The Simpsons is nowadays.

[ABED]

Sadly, I think you are overestimating how well known classic literature is. People may not watch The Simpsons like they used to, but it's still ingrained in people's pop culture consciousness. Everyone knows who Homer Simpsons is without even having watched a single episode. I don't think the same can be said of the writer of The Iliad and The Odyssey. It's certainly true that everyone knows the basics of Superman and Batman, and have seen at least 1 movie or episode.

[Doctor.]

That may be true, I was equating Homer to Shakespeare in status and fame, whilst forgetting that Shakespeare's name is known, whilst it's Homer's works that are well-known, not Homer himself.

[GigaDrill]

The discussions on this thread remind me of this gem: viewtopic.php?t=29799
where someone made a rather poor argument suggesting that Goku was more popular than Superman

[SaiyanGod117]

The discussions on this thread remind me of this gem: viewtopic.php?t=29799
where someone made a rather poor argument suggesting that Goku was more popular than Superman

I would like to say that both Goku and Superman are just as equally famous worldwide. It's almost like comparing Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings was out for a long time, but when Harry Potter came out in 1997, it eventually caught up to the same popularity Lord of the Rings has had. It's the same case with Superman and Goku. Superman and Lord of the Rings were the most famous things back in the day by the older generation, but now Dragonball and Harry Potter are just as famous and they will be for many more generations to come.

Even some of the older generation Is getting Into it, which really says something. You might as well add Pikachu or Mario in that list, because they're just as globally famous as Goku and Superman, or Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.
All of these things are "household names". Mickey Mouse, is, of course, more famous than all of them, but the other things are still very famous. Anyone in this day and age who don't know any of these things must have lived a sheltered life, because these things are talked about or shown everywhere, if not anymore. Though I would say Superman's more popular with the older generation, due to him being a much older character.

Other than that people really just overestimate Superman's popularity and mistake cultural impact for popularity. Sure he's very well known, but he isn't exactly popular, what really tells you about popularity is merchandising, apparel, etc. How much money a character actually makes, if someone asked you who's more popular Batman or Superman. There would be no definitive way to really answer, unless you use profit as a measuring stick, to see the demand behind a character. Being famously recognizable doesn't equate popularity.

[ABED]

Superman is a very popular character. His merchandise and comics sell well.

[nickzambuto]

I agree that people might be underestimating Dragon Ball and Goku. Superman might be more culturally known than Goku (although surprisingly it's a slim lead) but that's only in the sense of, how many middle aged moms can recognize a picture of the character. As far as actual popularity goes, Superman's popularity continues to dwindle (which is a shame) while Goku continues to rise. Superman has a lot of people who outright don't like him, say he isn't interesting, call him boring. I think it's reasonable to say that in this day and age, Goku and Dragon Ball have more actual fans than Superman does.

Merchandise sales are a fair way to look at things most of the time, but when it comes to anime, which is a niche and somewhat looked down upon medium, I don't think it's the right way to go. I would own hundreds of bits of Dragon Ball merchandise if he wasn't embarrassed. I only recently built up the courage to start wearing my Goku shirt out in public, but when I do, I kid you not, people stop me and acknowledge it almost every time. There's also a lack of Dragon Ball merchandise compared to superheroes. You can only really find anime merchandise in very specific stores like Hot Topic, because again, it's too niche, but Superman is literally everywhere. All things considered, I think Dragon Ball has done remarkably well financially speaking.

[nickzambuto]

I've seen people (on this forum, mind you), seriously argue that Dragon Ball is more popular than Christianity. People are stupid.

C'mon, you know better than this. Start finding nicer ways to phrase your statements, or the free warnings are going transition to account strikes.

I apologize. Long day. No excuse, but your point is taken.

As a more polite rebuttal to some of the stuff mentioned in this thread, and as a method of providing some perspective at how Dragon Ball sales measure up to mega-franchises like Star Wars and Marvel, here's a very helpful post from MarcFBR that was in a recently necrobumped thread on this page:

Just to further point out.

Like multiple people have clarified from actually reading the Funimation sales catalogs, the numbers given are apparently lifetime merchandise sales from the entire world for Dragon Ball Z (which for the sake of argument we will assume are accurate.) This number is roughly $5 billion as of late last year (for the lifetime of the franchise.)

Based on various bits over the years we know that while Marvel did quite well once Iron Man came out that Marvel as a true unstoppable juggernaut began the year Avengers came out in theaters (2012.)

According to Advertising Age, in 2011 alone Marvel's merchandise did $6 billion in retail merchandise sales.

Dragon Ball is like a nice shiny (if a bit aged) horse that you trot around to show off to important guests. Stuff like Star Wars and Marvel? That's like busting in on your dinner party riding a fucking T-Rex. There's no comparison.

If that statistic is from FUNimation, how do we know it's speaking of global profits and not simply what FUNimation alone has reaped from the property?

[Kamiccolo9]

If that statistic is from FUNimation, how do we know it's speaking of global profits and not simply what FUNimation alone has reaped from the property?

Because the source referred to in the post says "sales worldwide."

https://www.thecnl.com/FunimationDec2014Catalog.pdf
https://www.thecnl.com/FunimationNov2014Catalog.pdf

[nickzambuto]

Superman is a very popular character. His merchandise and comics sell well.

I wouldn't say that. Superman is still the best selling comic book character of all time, but only because of sheer exposure. Comic Vine has catalogued Superman appearing in 12,779 comic book issues since the 30s, but Dragon Ball has certainly less than 600. Superman has an astronomical advantage in time and quantity of material, yet Dragon Ball has sold 200 million copies worldwide while Superman has sold 600 million, a comparatively small difference. To be honest, in my subjective opinion, I would say Dragon Ball has vastly outperformed Superman going by these numbers, and by extension, Batman as well. So has One Piece, but to an even larger extent.

[GigaDrill]

The discussions on this thread remind me of this gem: viewtopic.php?t=29799
where someone made a rather poor argument suggesting that Goku was more popular than Superman

I would like to say that both Goku and Superman are just as equally famous worldwide. It's almost like comparing Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings was out for a long time, but when Harry Potter came out in 1997, it eventually caught up to the same popularity Lord of the Rings has had. It's the same case with Superman and Goku. Superman and Lord of the Rings were the most famous things back in the day by the older generation, but now Dragonball and Harry Potter are just as famous and they will be for many more generations to come.

I always felt that LotR was more of a niche franchise from the beginning, with Harry Potter and Superman having become far more mainstream since their movies came out. Dragon Ball is kind of in that area in between since it isn't being marketed everywhere outside of Japan but is still widely recognized.
I don't feel too comfortable with predicting future success, however, since a franchise can wander into "Deader than Disco" territory or make some other blunder that destroys the consumer base.

Even some of the older generation Is getting Into it, which really says something. You might as well add Pikachu or Mario in that list, because they're just as globally famous as Goku and Superman, or Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

That might be because people age and the teens who grew up watching DBZ should be around 30+ years old at this point. University students and young adults would be older.

All of these things are "household names". Mickey Mouse, is, of course, more famous than all of them, but the other things are still very famous. Anyone in this day and age who don't know any of these things must have lived a sheltered life, because these things are talked about or shown everywhere, if not anymore. Though I would say Superman's more popular with the older generation, due to him being a much older character.

Off topic, but I remember reading a case study where more kids could recognize Mario than Mickey Mouse.
So that does lend some support towards the new overtaking the old

Other than that people really just overestimate Superman's popularity and mistake cultural impact for popularity. Sure he's very well known, but he isn't exactly popular, what really tells you about popularity is merchandising, apparel, etc. How much money a character actually makes, if someone asked you who's more popular Batman or Superman. There would be no definitive way to really answer, unless you use profit as a measuring stick, to see the demand behind a character. Being famously recognizable doesn't equate popularity.

Batman and Superman have similar amounts of popularity, but comic sales still have Superman above Batman as the bestselling comics.
"Popular" is generally defined as "suitable to the majority" by Merriam-Webster, " intended for or suited to the taste, understanding, or means of the general public rather than specialists or intellectuals" by Google, or "Liked or admired by many people or by a particular person or group" by the Oxford Dictionary. Gross profits are a way to measure popularity, but far from the exclusive way. The very thread that I linked in fact had a user who utilized Google Analytics to debunk the original support that would have provided proof for Dragon Ball or Goku being more popular than Superman the franchise or the character.

[ABED]

Superman is a very popular character. His merchandise and comics sell well.

I wouldn't say that. Superman is still the best selling comic book character of all time, but only because of sheer exposure. Comic Vine has catalogued Superman appearing in 12,779 comic book issues since the 30s, but Dragon Ball has certainly less than 600. Superman has an astronomical advantage in time and quantity of material, yet Dragon Ball has sold 200 million copies worldwide while Superman has sold 600 million, a comparatively small difference. To be honest, in my subjective opinion, I would say Dragon Ball has vastly outperformed Superman going by these numbers, and by extension, Batman as well. So has One Piece, but to an even larger extent.

400 Million is not a small difference.

[nickzambuto]

Superman is a very popular character. His merchandise and comics sell well.

I wouldn't say that. Superman is still the best selling comic book character of all time, but only because of sheer exposure. Comic Vine has catalogued Superman appearing in 12,779 comic book issues since the 30s, but Dragon Ball has certainly less than 600. Superman has an astronomical advantage in time and quantity of material, yet Dragon Ball has sold 200 million copies worldwide while Superman has sold 600 million, a comparatively small difference. To be honest, in my subjective opinion, I would say Dragon Ball has vastly outperformed Superman going by these numbers, and by extension, Batman as well. So has One Piece, but to an even larger extent.

400 Million is not a small difference.

But take into account the astronomical advantage to Superman. At 12,779 comics with 79 years, versus 520 comics with 33 years.

[ABED]

I wouldn't say that. Superman is still the best selling comic book character of all time, but only because of sheer exposure. Comic Vine has catalogued Superman appearing in 12,779 comic book issues since the 30s, but Dragon Ball has certainly less than 600. Superman has an astronomical advantage in time and quantity of material, yet Dragon Ball has sold 200 million copies worldwide while Superman has sold 600 million, a comparatively small difference. To be honest, in my subjective opinion, I would say Dragon Ball has vastly outperformed Superman going by these numbers, and by extension, Batman as well. So has One Piece, but to an even larger extent.

400 Million is not a small difference.

But take into account the astronomical advantage to Superman. At 12,779 comics with 79 years, versus 520 comics with 33 years.

He got to that number because he was popular. You make it seem like nearly any comic that had that many issues would've sold well.

[nickzambuto]

400 Million is not a small difference.

But take into account the astronomical advantage to Superman. At 12,779 comics with 79 years, versus 520 comics with 33 years.

He got to that number because he was popular. You make it seem like nearly any comic that had that many issues would've sold well.

The point is that Dragon Ball has obviously sold much more per-issue than Superman has. At 12,779 appearances, in order to reach 600 million, each issue sold an average of 46,952 copies. For Dragon Ball to reach 200 million, each issue had to sell an average of 384,615 copies. That's not taking into account Superman's massive advantage in time. Superman might be more recognized, but are you really telling me that he's more popular based on those numbers?

[SaiyanGod117]

I always felt that LotR was more of a niche franchise from the beginning, with Harry Potter and Superman having become far more mainstream since their movies came out. Dragon Ball is kind of in that area in between since it isn't being marketed everywhere outside of Japan but is still widely recognized.
I don't feel too comfortable with predicting future success, however, since a franchise can wander into "Deader than Disco" territory or make some other blunder that destroys the consumer base.

Lord of the Rings isn't a niche franchise, each of the first three movies made close to a billion dollars. Along with the Hobbit(prequel trilogy to LOTR)to do the same.

Off topic, but I remember reading a case study where more kids could recognize Mario than Mickey Mouse.
So that does lend some support towards the new overtaking the old

Understandable, Mario is the top selling gaming franchise.

Batman and Superman have similar amounts of popularity, but comic sales still have Superman above Batman as the bestselling comics.

The comic market adheres to niche audience, to gauge the popularity of these two characters your going have to look at things that grab a bigger market. DC's most marketable Superhero is Batman, the overwhelming portion of DC's multi-media outreach is Batman-centric: comics, movies, TV shows, games, toys, etc. Even if comics were the judge of that, it would still be Batman.

"Popular" is generally defined as "suitable to the majority" by Merriam-Webster, " intended for or suited to the taste, understanding, or means of the general public rather than specialists or intellectuals" by Google, or "Liked or admired by many people or by a particular person or group" by the Oxford Dictionary. Gross profits are a way to measure popularity, but far from the exclusive way. The very thread that I linked in fact had a user who utilized Google Analytics to debunk the original support that would have provided proof for Dragon Ball or Goku being more popular than Superman the franchise or the character.

Still, the only method you can use to quantify the popularity of something is with numbers. I agree though, there're are other methods to measure popularity, I'm just saying just because something is more recognizable doesn't mean it's more popular.